Canadian authorities acknowledged Monday that the size and characteristics of the unidentified devices discovered in recent days in US airspace make detection by radar difficult.
The small dimensions of the objects make it difficult to detect by radar, both on the ground and in the air, said Maj. Gen. Paul Prévost, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces.
“We are studying how we can respond to these deficiencies in the future,” he added.
The military claimed to suspect that these objects are balloons, but stressed that, for the moment, this is only an assumption.
Two of the three objects dropped since Friday in North America landed in Canada.
Washington shot down an object in Alaska on Friday, and the next day a second aircraft 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 in Canadian waters, in Lake Huron.
CNN reported Monday that a Pentagon memo described the object shot down in Canada on Saturday as a “small metallic balloon with a payload underneath.”
On Saturday, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand declined to provide details about the device, saying the object was “similar to but smaller” than the Chinese balloon shot down off the North Carolina coast on February 4.
Ottawa authorities also noted that weather conditions and the locations where the devices were dumped make it difficult to search for and recover the remains of these objects.
The head of the Canadian Mounted Police, Sean McGills, who coordinates the rescue operations of the remains of the two artifacts that fell on Canadian territory, explained that the search area is wide, up to three thousand square kilometers, and in the case of Yukon, is a mountainous area.
Canadian authorities have mobilized three planes and two helicopters to locate what remains of the artifacts in the Yukon.
In Lake Huron, the Coast Guard is leading the search for the third downed object.
Despite the intensity of the search, McGillis cautioned that there are “no guarantees” that what remains of the objects will be recovered.
Source: TSF
