Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, said he was certain that the initial episode, the downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon off the U.S. East Coast on Feb. 4, \u201cwas clearly a balloon. These are objects. I\u2019m not able to categorize how they stay aloft.\u201d The general also declined to rule out any possibility, including whether the objects were extraterrestrial in origin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
After the general\u2019s remarks, a Defense official who requested anonymity to speak about a developing situation said that there is \u201cno indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of the Chinese balloon, said Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, \u201cwe had a basis and intelligence to know definitively that its point of origin was the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d No such certainty exists with the subsequent three objects.<\/p>\n
After the initial episode, NORAD shifted its approach to monitoring the airspace over North America, Dalton added. That effort involves \u201cmore closely scrutinizing our airspace \u2026 including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase in objects that we\u2019ve detected over the past week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The latest object was first detected on Saturday at 4:45 p.m. over Canada. It entered U.S. airspace a short time later, eventually falling off the radar over Montana and reappearing over Wisconsin. By that time, U.S. F-16 and Canadian F-18 fighter planes were scrambled to intercept it. One F-16 knocked it down with a Sidewinder missile over Lake Huron, where it likely fell into Canadian waters, VanHerck said.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden gave the order to take out the object based on the recommendations of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and military leadership, according to a Defense Department statement.<\/p>\n
Although military officials did not assess it to be a threat to anything on the ground, the object\u2019s path and altitude raised concerns, including that it could pose a risk to civil aviation, the officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, a high-altitude object was detected in U.S. airspace over Lake Huron. NORAD launched Canadian and U.S. aircraft to investigate and the object was taken down in U.S. airspace by U.S. aircraft,\u201d Canada\u2019s defense minister, Anita Anand, said in a statement. \u201cWe unequivocally support this action, and we\u2019ll continue to work with the U.S. and NORAD to protect North America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two U.S. House members from Michigan, Republican Rep.\u00a0Jack Bergman\u00a0and Democratic Rep.\u00a0Elissa Slotkin, confirmed earlier on Sunday that pilots from the Air Force and National Guard had taken out the object above Lake Huron.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll know more about what this was in the coming days, but for now, be assured that all parties have been laser-focused on it from the moment it traversed our waters,\u201d Slotkin said on Twitter. She added in a later tweet: \u201cWe\u2019re all interested in exactly what this object was and its purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen.\u00a0Gary Peters\u00a0(D-Mich.) tweeted: \u201cI\u2019m glad the object was neutralized over Lake Huron and I\u2019ll continue pressing DoD for transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader\u00a0Chuck Schumer, speaking after receiving a briefing from national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the objects from Friday and Saturday, said on Sunday that U.S. national security officials believed them to be balloons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey believe they were, yes, but much smaller than the \u2014 than the one \u2014 the first one,\u201d Schumer said on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d Both objects shot down this week flew at 40,000 feet, so \u201cimmediately it was determined\u201d they posed a threat to commercial aircraft, which fly at the same level, Schumer said.<\/p>\n
A Pentagon spokesperson wouldn\u2019t go as far as Schumer on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese objects shot down on Friday and Saturday were objects and did not closely resemble the [People\u2019s Republic of China] balloon,\u201d Sabrina Singh said. \u201cWhen we can recover the debris, we will have more for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following criticism for moving too slowly in taking down the Chinese spy balloon that floated over the U.S. this month, the Biden administration downed an unidentified cylindrical object over Alaskan airspace on Friday, and \u2014\u00a0after discussion with Canada\u00a0\u2014 shot down a separate object violating Canadian airspace Saturday.<\/p>\n
Schumer continued to defend the Biden administration\u2019s timing on shooting down the first balloon as a different situation. That balloon crossed North America before an F-22 downed it off the coast of the Carolinas.<\/p>\n
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week that the first balloon \u201cwas above where flight operations happen, and so any debris would have passed through national airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got enormous intelligence information from surveilling the balloon as it went over the United States,\u201d Schumer said Sunday, adding that the U.S. would \u201cprobably be able to piece together\u201d the entire balloon to learn more.<\/p>\n
Asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether China gained intelligence regardless, Schumer said, \u201cThey could have been getting it anyway, but we have to know what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep.\u00a0Mike Turner\u00a0(R-Ohio), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, called for an aggressive stance on taking down airborne objects on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would prefer them to be trigger-happy than to be permissive,\u201d Turner said of the Biden administration, speaking on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d \u201cBut we\u2019re going to have to see whether or not this is just the administration trying to change headlines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep.\u00a0Jim Himes\u00a0(D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d that he had \u201creal concerns about why the administration is not more forthcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy guess is there\u2019s not a lot of information out there yet to share,\u201d Himes said.<\/p>\n
While such objects \u201cat times\u201d have gone through U.S. airspace, the current scale is unprecedented, Turner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly a new, recent development that you have China being so aggressive in entering other countries\u2019 airspace and doing so for clear intentions to spy, with very sophisticated equipment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
U.S. radar sensors have primarily been concerned with threats that don\u2019t look like balloons, but may find more now that they\u2019re looking out for them, Himes said.<\/p>\n
Turner said the episodes spoke to a larger issue of airspace defense for the U.S., including \u201cinadequate\u201d radar and a lack of an integrated missile defense system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a turning point where we need to discuss \u2014 this is a threat, and how do we respond to it?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
SOURCE: POLITICO<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. military shot down an unidentified object flying above Michigan on Sunday, making it the fourth airborne object downed by American forces in just over a week. Defense officials on Sunday night declined to identify what the three objects shot down over the weekend might be, raising questions over the threat the objects could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":413610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81,78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-413605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-articles","8":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413607,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413605\/revisions\/413607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}