China's government said it originated in China, but it denied that it intentionally flew over the US for surveillance purposes: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/03/china-tells-us-to-remain-coo...

I saw an analysis by a meteorologist on Twitter that used a NOAA wind model and the publicly known position of the balloon (when it was above Montana) to backtrack a likely path, which ended up with an origin in China:

https://twitter.com/wildweatherdan/status/162132105562836582...

The same person posted a similar analysis of an object shot down over Alaska that suggested it could have been a National Weather Service balloon: (or trying hard to pretend to be one)

https://twitter.com/wildweatherdan/status/162416175081471182...

The New York Times is reporting:

>In a sign of how closely the United States had been monitoring the balloon surveillance program directed by the Chinese military recently, U.S. officials said in interviews that they began tracking the spy balloon as it lifted off from Hainan Island in southern China in late January.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/us/politics/ufo-spy-ballo...