A suspicious Chinese spy balloon has been flying over the United States for days. Senior U.S. officials have advised U.S. President Joe Biden not to shoot it down, fearing that the debris could pose a threat to the safety of people and ground facilities, the Voice of America reports.

The United States government has located and is tracking a high-altitude reconnaissance balloon that is right now over the continental United States, Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters.

The balloon is currently flying at an altitude well above the ceiling for commercial flights and poses no military or physical threat to people on the ground, he added.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the spy balloon is alarming but not surprising.

The level of espionage directed against our country by Beijing has increased dramatically in the last 5 years, becoming more intense and brazen, Rubio wrote on Twitter.

The news came as CIA Director William Burns spoke at an event at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he called China the biggest geopolitical problem the United States currently faces.