The United States government this Monday defended the shooting down of three unidentified objects in recent days, although authorities had no indication that they were intended for espionage, unlike the Chinese balloon.
The three objects, including one shot down over Lake Huron on Sunday, were at such a low altitude that they posed a risk to civilian air traffic, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the Joe Biden administration still has no evidence that these were equipped for espionage purposes, or that they belonged to China, authorities have not ruled out these possibilities, he added.
“These were decisions that were in the sole interest of the American people,” Kirby said.
This controversy began with a giant white orb first discovered in the skies of the United States in late January, a situation that puzzled US authorities and aroused curiosity worldwide.
Although the three most recent objects differed in size, maneuverability and other characteristics from the surveillance balloon shot down on Feb. 4, authorities took action to eliminate them all from the sky.
“Since we have not been able to definitively assess what these newer objects are, we proceed with great caution,” Kirby noted.
A possibility that The US has succeeded in ruling out all ties to extraterrestrial activity, the White House said Monday, cracking down on speculation about aliens and outer space.
Other Western countries are also trying to assess the series of incidents and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday during the presentation of a security inquiry in the United Kingdom that the government will do “whatever it takes” to protect the country.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has argued that “there is some kind of pattern” on the Chinese balloon and the three other objects, although the US disagrees with these statements.
John Kirby spoke to reporters Monday following China’s allegations that more than 10 U.S. high-altitude balloons flew over its skies without his permission in the past year.
The US authorities had already vehemently denied the allegations and Kirby stressed, “We’re not flying surveillance balloons over China.”
After last week the United States shot down a Chinese balloon allegedly a spy — and which Beijing said served only meteorological purposes and deviated from its original route — Washington on Sunday ordered the downing of another flying object flying over Lake Huron , on the Canadian border.
The situation has already sparked a diplomatic crisis after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his planned visit to China.
None of the three most recent objects have been recovered, Defense Minister Lloyd Austin, in turn, stressed in statements to journalists in Brussels, where he traveled this week to take part in a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
Austin argued that the weather hampered recovery efforts in Alaska, while in Canada the object was shot down in a very remote area that also hampered operations.
In Alaska, where the object landed on sea ice, wind chill and safety issues dictated “recovery timelines,” he said.
Canada is struggling to identify objects flying over US airspace
Canadian authorities acknowledged on Monday that the size and characteristics of the unidentified devices discovered in US airspace in recent days make detection by radar difficult.
The objects’ small size allows detection by radar, both on the ground and in the air, said Major General Paul Prévost, chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Canada’s Armed Forces. “We are investigating how we can do that address these shortcomings in the future”, added.
The military claimed to suspect these objects are balloons, but emphasized that this is just an assumption at this point.
Two of the three objects dropped in North America since Friday have landed in Canada.
Washington shot down an object in Alaska on Friday and the next day a second plane was shot down in one of Canada’s most remote areas, in the Yukon, about 100 miles from the Alaskan border. On Sunday, the third object fell into Canadian waters, in Lake Huron.
The American chain CNN said on Monday that a Pentagon memo described the object shot down in Canada on Saturday as a “small metal balloon with a charge underneath”.
On Saturday, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand declined to provide details about the device, saying the object was “similar but smaller” than the Chinese balloon shot down off the coast of North Carolina on Feb. 4.
Ottawa authorities also noted that weather conditions and the locations where the devices fell make it difficult to search for and recover the remains of these objects.
Canadian Mounted Police Chief Sean McGills, who is coordinating rescue operations for the remains of the two artifacts that fell on Canadian soil, explained that the search area is huge, up to three thousand square miles, and, in the case of Yukon, it is a mountainous area.
Canadian authorities have mobilized three planes and two helicopters to locate the remains of the devices in the Yukon.
In Lake Huron, the Coast Guard leads the search for the third downed object.
Despite the intensity of the search, McGillis warned that “there are no guarantees” that what remains of the objects will be recovered.
Source: DN
