As reports circulated that a Chinese Hot Air Balloon drifting high above the US was most recently spotted over North Carolina early Saturday, President Joe Biden assured Americans “we’ll take care of it.”

The Biden administration is now considering a new plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of spying on the US military by crashing it over the Atlantic Ocean, where the remains could potentially be found, according to four US officials. It has already been considered since the beginning of the week, but there was no attack.

Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate operation, said it was unclear whether Biden had made a final decision. Since the last sighting was over North Carolina, it is believed that the balloon will soon reach the Atlantic.

Biden was inclined to lower the balloon off the ground when he was first briefed on it Tuesday, but Pentagon officials advised against doing so, warning that the potential risk to people on the ground outweighed an assessment of potential Chinese intelligence gains.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced early on Saturday that it was grounding three airports in the Carolinas as the balloon drifted over the area, a spokesman confirmed in a statement to CNN.

The administration also restricted airspace near Myrtle Beach from 12:45 pm to 2:45 pm ET to “national defense airspace,” CNN reported.

The affected airports are in Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The Pentagon also confirmed to ABC News that a second balloon was being tracked over South America.

The hot air balloon over America, first spotted over Montana and confirmed by China as a research aircraft from there, has caused a stir among residents who first wondered what it was and are now wondering what its arrival means amid a chorus of alarms raised by elected officials.

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The balloon sparked diplomatic tension as it continued to move over the central US at 60,000 feet on Friday. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken abruptly canceled an upcoming trip to China.

Curiosity about the bobbing celestial globe the size of three school buses has swept the country and the internet with search queries such as “where is the spy balloon now?” and “tracking spy balls” on Google. There is no such tracker yet, but a couple of St. Louis TV stations offered grainy live broadcasts of the hot air balloon.

Internet users posted wobbly videos and photos of white spots in comment sections and speculative feeds. And online storm chasers, more accustomed to tracking raging systems and funnel clouds, offered updates on the balloon’s path through cloudless skies.

It entered US airspace over Alaska earlier this week, according to officials who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

In Montana, home to the Malmstrom Air Force Base and dozens of nuclear missile silos, people questioned Beijing’s claim that it was a weather balloon that had gone off course. And the governor and members of Congress put pressure on the Biden administration, why the military did not immediately bring him down from the sky.

“I doubt if we would have known about it if people hadn’t noticed it in Billings,” said Chase Doak, a resident of the southern Montana city who apparently took some of the first known video footage and photographs. balloon.

A white balloon with a solar panel hanging underneath was spotted over Billings on Wednesday afternoon, around the same time the local airport was temporarily closed and a day before the Pentagon said it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon over the state.

Initial speculations about its origins ranged from foreign to extraterrestrial.

When Todd Hewett’s 10-year-old son saw it over Billings, he thought it was a comet. Hewitt obtained some shaky footage using a cell phone to shoot video through a telescope and was skeptical of Chinese claims that it was a civilian balloon.

“Shoot,” he said. “If we could somehow break the bottom of it to release some of the gas and allow for a more controlled descent, (that) would be nice…but if we can’t do that…detonate it.”

Montana has some experience with enemy balloons: during World War II, Japan targeted the US west with incendiary “air bombs” that were fired over North America with plans to harm people and start forest fires. According to the Montana Historical Society, more than 30 bombs made from rice paper fell in Montana.

In Oregon, five children and a pregnant woman at a church picnic died in 1945 when they found one of the bombs and it exploded.

On Friday in Kansas City, Missouri, the National Weather Service said it had received reports of a large balloon in the Kansas City metro area and released two images of white balloons taken at the weather station office in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. The service confirmed that it was not a National Weather Service balloon.

A graphic created by an online tool from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was enthusiastically posted on Facebook showing the balloon’s flight path to the US South. Local offices of the National Weather Service asked on Twitter if the balloon belonged to them. No, was their answer.

Tami Hansen, 44, saw a hot air balloon overhead in Columbia, Missouri, and said she wasn’t too worried about an object flying over her city.

“I heard a variety of thoughts. Is it a spy balloon, is it a weather balloon? Who knows right now? It is what it is,” she said. “We really try not to get into politics,” she said.

Montana Sen. John Tester, who chairs the subcommittee on defense appropriations, said he would hold a hearing to get answers from the Biden administration. He called China’s actions a “clear threat”.

On Friday morning, Rep. Ryan Zinke sent out a poll to voters saying the balloon was still over the state and asking if it should be shot down. When the Pentagon said the balloon had since drifted over the central US, Zinke suggested that China had more than one balloon over the US.

“I don’t know if this is the only balloon. We asked for those answers,” he told The Associated Press. He said that the balloon should have been shot down. “The message he is giving to our allies is that we are unable to handle the balloon,” he said.

The Pentagon confirmed reports late Friday of a second balloon flying over Latin America, but officials did not specify where it was seen.

In recent years, Republicans in Montana have increasingly said China is a threat to US national security.

A bill before the state legislature would prohibit “foreign adversaries” from owning, renting or leasing critical infrastructure or farmland. The sponsor of the measure stressed that China is interested in acquiring US land and resources to “assist them in their espionage efforts.”

Strong anti-Chinese sentiment marks a shift from just a few years ago, when US Senator Steve Danes from Montana visited China, received the Chinese ambassador on a Montana ranch visit, and helped broker a deal to export more beef to China.

The beef deal later fell through, and the Republican turned into a tough critic of China.

Danes on Friday dismissed the Pentagon’s contention that it was too dangerous to drop a balloon over Montana. He told reporters there “couldn’t be a better place” than his sparsely populated home state.

“You are more likely to hit a cow or a prairie dog or an antelope than any structure or person,” he said.

Associate Political Editor John Gravoie contributed to this report, which includes contributions from The Associated Press, CNN and ABC News.