The US navy shot down one other excessive altitude object over Lake Huron on Sunday afternoon, the Pentagon stated.
One other unidentified object was shot down over northern Canada on Saturday, marking the third time in per week that US fighter jets have taken down objects in North American airspace. Final Friday, an unidentified object was shot down in Alaska airspace by a US F-22. And on February 4, a Chinese language surveillance balloon was taken down by F-22s off the coast of South Carolina.
That marks the start and the top of what we all know definitively.
Right here’s every thing we nonetheless don’t know, and a few of the issues we do:
Are the most recent objects associated to China’s spy balloon? There’s no indication at this level whether or not the unidentified objects have any connection to China’s surveillance balloon.
Canadian retired Maj. Gen. Scott Clancy, former director of operations at NORAD and former deputy commander of the Alaskan NORAD Area, stated on Monday he doesn’t imagine China is behind the unidentified objects which have been shot down in latest days. He defined that it might be a “confluence of a particular exercise by our adversaries to check the methods.”
Assistant Secretary of Protection for Homeland Protection and Hemispheric Affairs, Melissa Dalton instructed reporters on Sunday they had been taken down out of an “abundance of warning.”
Dalton stated that high-altitude objects can be utilized by a variety of corporations, nations, and analysis organizations for “functions that aren’t nefarious, together with reputable analysis.”
No. They are not aliens. It’s nonetheless unclear, however we’re not coping with aliens. Throughout a noon briefing on Monday, the White Home offered one detail of certainty: the objects didn’t originate from outer house.
“I simply wished to ensure we handle this from the White Home: I do know there have been questions and considerations about this however there is no such thing as a — once more, no — indication of aliens or extraterrestrial exercise with these latest take-downs,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated.
A US official instructed CNN there was warning contained in the Biden administration on the pilot descriptions of the unidentified objects shot down over Alaska and Canada because of the circumstances during which the objects had been considered.
However no less than two high-ranking officers have made reference to balloons.
Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer instructed ABC Information that he was briefed on the item by White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan and that the item shot down over Canada was seemingly one other balloon — as was the high-altitude object downed over Alaska on Friday.
Canada’s chief of protection workers, Gen. Wayne Eyre, additionally made point out of a “balloon” when describing directions given to the workforce that labored to take down the item.
A Pentagon memo despatched to lawmakers and obtained by CNN stated the item shot down over Canada gave the impression to be a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload beneath it.”
Why are these objects being noticed now? Notably, the US intelligence neighborhood’s technique to trace China’s fleet of surveillance balloons was solely found inside the final yr, six folks accustomed to the matter instructed CNN.
The findings have allowed the US to develop a constant technical technique for the primary time, which they’ve used to trace the balloons in near-real time throughout the globe, the sources stated.
