(Reuters) -The&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;spy&nbsp;balloon&nbsp;that passed over the U.S. early this year&nbsp;used&nbsp;American&nbsp;technology that helped it collect audio-visual information, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing preliminary findings from a closely held investigation.
Analysis from several&nbsp;US&nbsp;defense and intelligence agencies, found that the&nbsp;balloon&nbsp;carried commercially available U.S. gear, along with more specialized&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;sensors and other equipment to collect photographs, video and other information to transmit to China, the&nbsp;WSJ&nbsp;said, citing&nbsp;US&nbsp;officials.
The findings support a conclusion that the craft was intended for&nbsp;spying, and not for weather monitoring as China had claimed, the report said.
But the&nbsp;balloon&nbsp;did not seem to send data from its eight-day passage over Alaska, Canada and some other contiguous&nbsp;US&nbsp;states back to China,&nbsp;WSJ&nbsp;said.
The White House and the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In February, the U.S. shot down the&nbsp;balloon, which had flown over sensitive military sites, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
(Reporting by Shubhendu Deshmukh in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman &amp; Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Chinese spy balloon used US tech to spy on Americans-WSJ