White House Says Latest Downed ‘Objects’ Were Likely Benign
After days of concerns that mysterious objects shot down while flying over North America over the past week could be Chinese spy vehicles or even alien airships, the US intelligence community said on February 14 that they were “entirely harmless” commercial ones or research balloons could act.
“The intelligence agencies are considering as the main explanation that these could just be balloons tied to a commercial or benign purpose,” said John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator.
In a series of kills from February 10-12, Air Force jets destroyed three “objects” on consecutive days using four AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. A missile missed its target. The shootings followed the downing of a large Chinese surveillance balloon on February 4 off the coast of South Carolina after it had crossed the entire continent of the United States.
Kirby offered the Biden administration’s most comprehensive public statement to date on the origins of three objects shot down over the waters of Alaska, the Yukon, Canada, and Lake Huron in the Great Lakes. Kirby said the US did not believe the objects were linked to the Chinese government’s spy balloon program or even involved in intelligence gathering against the US
“I would like to point out that we did not find the debris,” Kirby added. “We’re still doing our best with the observations made by the pilots with the flight profile data we’ve been trying to collect.”
Officials said the missile, which missed its target, was fired by a Minnesota National Guard F-16 over Lake Huron on Feb. 12.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley said at a news conference in Brussels with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III that after the first Sidewinder missed, a second AIM-9 hit the object, officials said, flew at about 20,000 feet. The miss was first reported by Fox News. Milley said the US tracked the misguided missile as it fell “harmlessly” into the lake and that the surrounding airspace and water had been cleared of any civilians who may have been harmed in the sortie.
While the US is still examining the objects shot down, there seems to be an answer as to why so many have been spotted in quick succession. Radars can be programmed to filter out data on slow-moving objects, allowing users to focus on fast-moving threats. That made it harder to spot balloons moving at the speed of the prevailing winds. After the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) spotted the Chinese spy balloon in late January and early February, the filters were turned off, revealing balloons that would have been ignored in the past, NORAD commander Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck said 12. February.
After a week of circling the United States, the giant Chinese balloon was finally shot down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4th.
Kirby said an interagency team deployed by President Biden will soon establish new parameters for handling unidentified airborne objects. US defense and intelligence officials, including VanHerck, briefed the Senate on February 14.
After the briefing, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wanted the government to develop better procedures for handling unidentified airborne objects in the future.
“There’s nowhere near as formal a process as it probably should be,” Warner told reporters.