Suspected Chinese spy balloon spotted over U.S. skies

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But once you shoot down a Chinese balloon you always get the urge to shoot down another...like about an hour later!

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sought to put to rest any questions about whether recent objects detected in the national airspace are tied to aliens, saying Monday that there is "no indication" of extraterrestrial activity related to the handful of high-altitude objects shot down in a nine-day span.

"I just want to make sure we address this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no, again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns," Jean-Pierre told reporters as she opened the White House press briefing. "Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that, and it is important for us to say that from here."

Jean-Pierre's reassurances that aliens are not behind the unusual activity happening in the sky came a day after Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who heads U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was asked if authorities have ruled out extraterrestrials.

"I haven't ruled anything out at this point," he told reporters during a briefing Sunday. "We continue to assess."

Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, said Sunday that authorities are "working hard to understand the nature of these unidentified objects," especially if they were for surveillance and what their capabilities are.

A U.S. official said the salvage operation off the coast of South Carolina has recovered a "significant" portion — about 30 to 40 feet — of the Chinese balloon's antenna array from the bottom of the ocean.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that the U.S. did not believe the three objects posed a direct threat to people on the ground, but could have been a danger to civilian commercial air traffic, given their altitude. The government is "laser-focused" on confirming the nature and purpose of the objects, he said, including through "intensive" efforts to collect debris in the areas where they fell.

Kirby said the recent increase in the objects detected could partially be explained by NORAD enhancing its radar capabilities to more closely scrutinize the airspace over the U.S. and Canada in light of the recent incursion by the Chinese airship.

"I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these crafts," he said.

Kirby noted that unidentified aerial phenomena have been reported "for many years without explanation or deep examination" by the federal government, though the U.S. under the Biden administration is trying to gain greater understanding.

An assessment of reports of what the government calls "unidentified aerial phenomena" released last month said of the 366 additional reports of sightings since 2004, 163 were "balloon-like objects."

n Belgium, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters the priority is debris recovery. He added that the Pentagon is working closely with the rest of the federal government, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI and NASA, and he assured Americans that the objects don't pose a military threat to anyone on the ground.

The White House said Tuesday that the U.S. intelligence community is considering that the three most recent unidentified objects shot down over North America were being used for commercial or benign purposes.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the evaluation is based on what the U.S. knows from images of the three objects and cautioned that the assessment is preliminary because no debris from any of them has been recovered.

"One thing we have to consider, and we believe the intelligence community is considering as an explanation, is that these could be balloons tied to commercial or research entities and therefore totally benign," Kirby said.

Initial assessments indicate there’s no evidence that the three more recent objects are part of the Chinese government’s spying program or intelligence collection against the U.S., Kirby said Tuesday.

He added, "I want to caveat that we haven’t found the debris. We’re still doing the best we can with the observations that were made by the pilots, with the flight profile data that we’ve tried to collect."

At the White House press briefing on Monday, Kirby acknowledged that "a range of entities — including countries, companies, research and academic organizations — operate objects at these altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious at all, including scientific research."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley confirmed during a separate news conference Tuesday in Brussels with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that no debris from any of the objects shot down in the last week has been recovered. Milley also revealed that when targeting the object shot down Sunday over Lake Huron, the first U.S. missile missed. Fox News was the first to report that the first missile aiming for the object over Lake Huron missed.

Milley indicated the missile that missed the fourth object Sunday "landed harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron" and the U.S. military tracked it on the way down. He emphasized that officials made sure that airspace was clear of commercial or civilian aviation traffic.

Milley said that no debris from those three objects has been recovered due to rocky terrain and other difficult conditions.

"Two, three and four are not yet recovered. They are in very difficult terrain," Milley said. "The second one off the coast of Alaska, that's in some really, really difficult terrain in the Arctic Circle, with very, very low temperatures in the minus 40s. The second one is in the Canadian Rockies and the Yukon. Very difficult to get that one and the third one is in Lake Huron, probably a couple 100 feet depth, so we'll get them eventually, but it's going to take some time to recover those."

Senior officials from the Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided a classified briefing on the objects to all senators on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning.

The United States says it has now retrieved key electronics, including sensors, from the suspected Chinese spy balloon it shot down earlier this month — a development that comes as new evidence emerged of past balloon sightings over other countries.

“Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified as well as large sections of the structure,” the U.S. military’s Northern Command said in a statement Monday. It added that recovery operations were continuing, though bad weather was hampering the underwater search.

Japan, a close U.S. ally that has seen its own ties with China deteriorate, also entered the fray Tuesday.

Tokyo said it now assessed that Chinese surveillance balloons had entered its airspace on at least three occasions in recent years.

“As a result of further analysis of balloon-shaped flying objects confirmed over Japan’s airspace in the past, including those sighted in November 2019, June 2020, and September 2021, we have concluded that the balloons in question are strongly presumed to be unmanned reconnaissance balloons flown by China,” Japan’s defense ministry said in a statement.

Tokyo added that it had sought clarification and urged Beijing to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

President Biden sought to allay any concerns and fears about the recent spate of unidentified flying objects, saying there is no evidence the latest three aerial objects shot down are related to the surveillance operations of a foreign nation.

"We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were," Mr. Biden said. "But nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from ... any other country. The intelligence community's current assessment is that these three objects were mostly balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research."

The president also sought to send the message that the U.S. is not looking for a new Cold War with China, and he said that he expects to be speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping, though he did not say when a conversation with Xi would take place. Nonetheless, Mr. Biden also said he made no apologies for taking down the spy balloon.

The president's remarks from the White House came as the administration continues to work on identifying the nature and origin of multiple objects the Pentagon has shot down over North American airspace this month. An earlier object, shot down off the coast of South Carolina, was determined to be a Chinese spy balloon, and part of what the Biden administration says is part of a larger surveillance operation. The administration is still searching for three subsequent objects shot down over U.S. and Canadian airspace this month. But Mr. Biden said "nothing" at this point suggests these later objects are related to Chinese surveillance operations or any other country's surveillance operations.

Mr. Biden noted part of the reason why the U.S. is observing more of these objects is because the military recently increased the sensitivity of its radars.

"We don't have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky," the president said. "We're now just seeing more of them partially because [of] the steps we've taken to increase our radars, to narrow our radars. And we have to keep adapting our approach to dealing with these challenges."

The president has created a new interagency group to determine a strategy moving forward on how to handle such aerial objects. But the president emphasized Thursday that won't hesitate to take down aerial objects that pose a threat.

"Make no mistake," Mr. Biden said. "If any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down."

Pentagon officials this week said the Navy is expected to wrap up the search for remnants of the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Thursday. Parts of the balloon and its payload, including a 30- to 40-foot antenna array, have been recovered, the officials said.

U.S. intelligence officials were tracking the spy balloon since it lifted off from the south coast of China, U.S. officials said Tuesday. After takeoff, the spy balloon drifted east in the direction of Guam and Hawaii and then went north to Alaska and entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28, according to those officials. Given the path, it's possible that the balloon was blown off course by weather, but U.S. officials said that once it crossed south over the continental United States, it was under China's control.

The White House announced earlier this week it is putting together an interagency team to study the "unidentified aerial phenomena" and figure out how to handle them. The White House has said that the objects aren't indications of alien or extraterrestrial activity.

Oh this story just get's more farcical. Apparently it's likely to be hobbyists



So much for the 10 trillion dollar defence system

China's laughing.. now they know they can blanket the skies with pico balloons and they won't likely be shot down.. dunno if they can carry the payload required, buuuut, if they can carry light enough weight microprocessors and antennas capable of networking a bunch of balloons together.. China might be able to conduct surveillance with a swarm of tiny balloons that the US won't spend $400k a "pop," to get rid of.