Eyes were locked on the Carolina skies Saturday as the suspected Chinese spy balloon drifted over the Atlantic Ocean and was shot down by U.S. military fighters. In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina people lined a boardwalk and cheered as a missile from an F-22 fighter struck the balloon and it plummeted into the water. Software engineer and storm chaser Brian Branch captured photographs of the balloon high above western North Carolina just hours before it was shot down. Branch could see a payload hanging from the round, white balloon, which officials said was about the size of three school buses. China said it was a weather balloon.