An American radar discovered an anomaly in Montana (in the north of the USA) on Saturday. The FAA has closed the airspace around Havre near the Canadian border for defense reasons. Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale On his Twitter account, he stated that he was in direct contact with the military commanders and that it was another object Unknown flyer. The fighters went out to investigate and found nothing. False alarm? That Sunday, radars spotted another signal on Lake Huron. The militants mobilized and neutralized a new unidentified flying object, adding to those shot down by US missiles on Friday and Saturday, one in Alaskan waters and one in the Yukon region of Canada, three events so far shrouded in mystery were involved.
To add to the confusion, the Pentagon, when asked about it at a news conference this Sunday, didn’t even dare rule out the possibility that the objects were extraterrestrial or extraterrestrial in origin, saying, “I’m going to give the intelligence and counterintelligence community a role.” let’s play it out.” Find out. I haven’t ruled anything out at this time. We continue to assess any unknown threat or potential threat approaching North America with the intention of identifying it,” said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, Commander of Air Force Northern Command.
The one shot down on Friday was the size of a small car, the one shot down on Saturday was cylindrical, and the one shot down on Sunday was octagonal.
The discovery and destruction of these three objects also comes in the week after a Chinese balloon crossed the United States at high altitude. According to the State Department, this balloon was equipped with antennas capable of detecting and intercepting communications signals and other instruments unsuitable for the civilian nature of a meteorological balloon that China attributes to it. Washington claims the balloon is part of a Chinese spy program that has flown over more than 40 countries on five continents. The incident has heightened diplomatic tensions between the two superpowers.
Questions remain about the Alaskan and Yukon objects. The first, the White House said, was the size of a small car (much smaller than the Chinese balloon, which is the equivalent of several buses) and would fly at an altitude of about 40,000 feet (just over 12,000 meters). ). According to the Pentagon, it did not pose a military threat, but it did pose a risk to air travel, as commercial aircraft typically have a cruising altitude of 40,000 to 45,000 feet. It was spotted Thursday and shot down Friday by an F-22 armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile on orders from US President Joe Biden.
The remains fell on the frozen water. Finding the remains of a car-sized object shot down by a short-range missile 40,000 feet above the sea ice of northern Alaska, amid snow and temperatures well below freezing, is no easy task. So far, the Pentagon has not located the remains and does not know their capabilities, origin, or purpose.
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The downed object over the northwestern Yukon was spotted Friday by the US Joint Air Command, which coordinates Canadian and US air forces in the region. It was shot down by another American F-22 on orders from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who spoke to Biden earlier. Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said Saturday that it looked more like a Chinese balloon but was smaller and cylindrical. Its origin, capabilities, and purpose are also unknown, although the fighters who followed its trajectory had more time to observe and record it with their cameras. The wreck fell in a remote and rugged area, and salvage efforts are also underway.
FANI instead of UFO
Senate Democrat Chairman Chuck Schumer said Sunday he spoke to the White House and they believe the first two balloons are, but much smaller than the Chinese one. In the afternoon, however, General VanHerck assured: “We call them objects and not balloons for a good reason.” More puzzles.
The third object shot down over Lake Huron this Sunday, the Pentagon reported, was flying at about 20,000 meters and appeared to be octagonal.
It is known that all three objects were, that they were flying and that, unlike the Chinese balloon, they were not identified. They therefore correspond to the definition of a UFO. But in the collective imagination, the word UFO is loaded with extraterrestrial-related connotations, so the authorities and mainstream media have generally avoided going along with the acronyms, although they have used each of the parts (unidentified flying object, UFO , in English ).
Partly because of these connotations, and also to open the analysis to other sightings that are neither specifically objects nor strictly flying, authorities and scientists have decided to rename UFOs to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP for its acronym in English, FANI in Spanish). . However, the official number of registered FANI has recently skyrocketed, according to a report released by the Pentagon earlier this year.
In this report, 366 UFOs and other phenomena have been added to the list. Of these, “more than half had unremarkable features,” says the report. There are 195 cases, which were mainly characterized as balloons (163), drones (26), and other disturbances such as birds, meteorological phenomena, or aircraft debris such as plastic bags (6).
However, 171 sightings remain, the explanation of which is not credited. Most reports of sightings come from US Navy and Air Force pilots and operators who have observed the phenomena in the course of their operational duties and reported it through official channels. The most recent cadence (from March 2021 to August 2022) was an unidentified phenomenon roughly every two days, but nothing had been heard of it until the report was published, nor are the air forces known to have attempted to shoot it down.
Some of these uncharacterized phenomena “appear to have exhibited unusual flight characteristics or performance and require further analysis,” said the Pentagon, which released the non-confidential version of that report that was submitted to Congress. US military officials said they would continue to “investigate any evidence of possible foreign government involvement in events involving unidentified aerial phenomena.”
The three consecutive blasts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well as the unconfirmed alarms give rise to all sorts of theories. The Pentagon says it learned a lot from monitoring the Chinese balloon, and there are those who believe it may have helped interpret radar signals and respond more quickly, but the Department of Defense doesn’t believe it did in this case there is a direct connection. When asked about it on Friday, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said it was “a bit like comparing apples to apples.”
This Sunday, however, Secretary of Defense for National Defense and Hemisphere Affairs Melissa Dalton told a news conference: “We’ve been taking a closer look at our airspace at these altitudes, including upgrading our radars, which could at least partly explain the.” Increase in objects we’ve discovered over the past week.”
Republicans have criticized Biden for letting the Chinese balloon (first spotted in the Aleutian Islands in northwest Alaska and shot down off the coast of South Carolina in the southeast) cross the country rather than attacking it first, justifying the White House avoiding risks for the population by the fall of the remains. This criticism may have caused one to become more vigilant or to overreact. “I think everyone, including the media and the public, is paying a lot of attention to Ballons right now,” Ryder said Friday. Homeland Security spokesman John Kirby said the object was shot down over Alaska in a cautious exercise.
And of course there are the conspiracy theories, initially limited to memes and social networks, which always appear with the word UFO: Aliens have arrived. The hypotheses discussed point to a terrestrial origin, probably objects from another country, and there is no indication of an extraterrestrial origin, although General VanHerck did not dare to rule it out this Sunday. UFO became a prominent trend on Twitter this weekend before being swept away by the Super Bowl.
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