North Korea launched an unidentified ballistic missile a short while ago, according to South Korea. The missile was headed towards the East Coast of the Korean Peninsula. They say the launch appears to have failed. We'll bring you more details about this story as soon as we get them. The balloon feud is back over the Korean Peninsula, too. South Korea's military says it detected about 350 waste balloons sent from the north Monday night into Tuesday. But new today, we're showing you an inside look at what's being called a Smart Balloon operation. It's run by a North Korean defector who lives in Seoul. And unlike the usual balloons, South Korean activists send north, which randomly drop money or leaflets often when they crash or pop. These smart balloons have their deliveries automated or controlled by a team in Seoul. These next-gen balloons are also tracked by GPS, sometimes for hundreds of kilometers. Mike Valerio is joining us live now from Seoul. Mike, I was just taking a look at you. I think you actually have one of those smart balloon components in your hands. Just explain. Wow, looks like a butterfly. Just explain exactly what we're looking at and how this works.

Okay, so Julia, this looks like our own technicolor camping lantern, but this is actually a component of the Balloon Feud. This is a speaker coming from the South Korean side. It would normally be attached to a balloon, but the balloon will be too big for us to fit in our studio here in Seoul. What happens? It's attached to a giant balloon, and then it's released. It uses this parachute right here to gracefully, more gracefully than we are now, come down to the ground, land on this cushion right here of styrofoam. It's powered by a battery pack in the middle of this little sandwich. Then this yellow part is the loudspeaker that will begin to play an anti-kim Jong Un anthem. Again, this is just one part of the Balloon Rao and one group's quest to win it calls the Information War.

In a small Seoul apartment, spitting out of what looks like a pint-size printer or an unstable ATM, this is the payload of a new South Korean smart balloon. Flyers filling the floor, but soon scattering across the skies of North Korea.

I believe North Korea can change when the deification of Kim Jong Un is cracked, and sending these smart balloons is the way to achieve that.

Cnn is identifying this man simply as Mr. Che. He's a North Korean defector, and the co founder of the group called the Committee for Reforming and Opening North Korea. Che asked for his identity to be concealed because of the ever elevating drama surrounding balloons crossing between North and South Korea. Free North Korea. For years, activists in the South have sent balloons North, filled with K-pop music, money and leaflets describing life outside North Korea. North Korea calls those deliveries trash, and for about a month now, it's sent more than a thousand trash balloons south. This is Chey's compact command center, wind direction and GPS routes of his balloons all at his fingertips.

Our smart balloons are preset to start distributing the leaflets at a specific point after calculating wind speed and direction. This way, the leaflets will be distributed within the planned area. We can cover 300 to 400 kilometers this way.

He works his day job, comes here, 3D prints parts, and assembles them for 5 to 6 hours a day.

With our system, we can control the leaflets to fall every 300 meters or every kilometer, making sure more people can see them.

As for his motivation, Che is a North Korean defector with family still trapped there. He majored in engineering at a North Korean University and watched YouTube videos to get a better idea of how to build next-generation balloons. As for his critics calling for the balloon Tiff for Tat, to But to end up, Che says these are striking a nerve.

To those who criticize our activities, it's like saying, Let's help maintain a dictatorship in South Korea.

Okay, so Julia, these are some of the flyers that come out of the, quote-unquote, flying ATM machine. Even though for people outside of the Korean Peninsula, it may seem like a light topic, this is some pretty heavy stuff for all of our Korean speakers and readers watching us who can look pretty closely at the screen. These fliers are talking the North Korean people needing to rise up against the Kim regime. It says in so many words in the first paragraph, Are you tired of starving? Are you tired of all the unnecessary deaths? This does not need to happen. This is coming from the outside world. You can rise up and overthrow the regime. When was it? Around 11 o'clock last night, we get more cell phone alerts on our phones across the Seoul Metropolitan region that more balloons are coming. We had that missile test, as you mentioned at the top of the segment. Tensions are pretty high. It is a strange moment. So watch this space. This is not over yet, Julia.

No. And you can understand why the North Korean government are upset about it if the suggestion in some of these leaflets is that ultimately people need to break free or in some way hinting at overthrowing them. Mike, very quickly, who's funding that operation, the Smart Blooms.

It's private donors. And this man is using, I believe, part of his savings to help get this off the ground.

Wow, what a fascinating story. Great to have you with us. I was going to ask you to perform the parachute drop again because you did such a good job in the introduction. Oh, there we go. Oh, fabulous. Yeah, you're certainly not missing those. That's one thing. Great to have you on. Thanks, Mike. Mike Valaria there in Seoul. Thank you.