WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday stated the U.S. will shoot down any future flying objects that threaten American security in his first remarks concerning the Chinese spy balloon and unidentified objects shot down by the U.S. navy within the skies above North America.
“Make no mistake, if any object presents a risk to the security and safety of the American folks, I’ll take it down,” Biden stated.
Biden stated that the U.S. nonetheless would not know what the three unidentified objects over North America had been that had been shot down by the navy over the weekend. However, he steered the intelligence neighborhood believes they did not have nefarious functions.
“We don’t but know precisely what these three objects had been, however nothing proper now suggests they had been associated to China’s spy balloon program, or they had been surveillance autos from different some other nation,” Biden stated in remarks from the White Home. “The intelligence neighborhood’s present evaluation is that these three objects had been more than likely balloons tied to personal corporations, recreation, or analysis establishments, learning climate or conducting different scientific analysis.”
Members of Congress, including Democrats, known as on Biden to deal with the scenario publicly. Lawmakers had been briefed by prime officers from the Division of Protection and the workplace of the director of nationwide intelligence.
“The American folks want to listen to extra concerning the nature of those objects or no matter they had been,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Sick., stated Thursday.
Nationwide Safety Council spokesman John Kirby stated at an occasion Thursday that, along with the alleged Chinese language spy balloon, the U.S. nonetheless doesn’t know what the extra three objects shot down over North America had been. One was shot down Friday over Alaska, one other was shot down Saturday over Canada, and a 3rd was shot down Sunday over Lake Huron.
“It could possibly be business, it might have been climate balloons,” Kirby stated at Georgetown College. “They could possibly be scientific analysis, we simply don’t know.”
The U.S. nonetheless hasn’t recovered particles from any of the three objects, Kirby stated.
“We haven’t discovered something simply but due to the place they landed and due to the acute winter climate in these places,” he stated.
The U.S. has been in a position to retrieve remnants of the alleged Chinese language surveillance balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, greater than every week after it first started traversing the nation.
NBC Information first reported the existence of China’s alleged spy balloon on Feb. 2.
Earlier this week, Biden directed his nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, to coordinate an interagency staff to deal with the current spate of objects in the skies.
The interagency team will lay out parameters by the top of the week, Kirby stated Tuesday, for a way the U.S. will deal with such objects sooner or later.
