With few confirmed details from the White House, the downing of three unidentified aerial objects in as many days by US warplanes has sparked wild speculation as to what they were and where they came from. It even led the president’s press secretary to say Monday there was no evidence of “alien activity.”
US President Joe Biden had no public events Monday and has offered little explanation after the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon crossing the country and the unprecedented peacetime shootdowns that have taken place.
US officials said they had little information about the three objects, which were shot down first off the coast of Alaska on Friday, then over Canada on Saturday and finally over Lake Huron on Sunday. But these launches were part of a larger response to post-balloon aerial phenomena, which has been attributed to a Beijing espionage program.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a blunt statement to try to mollify the unverified theories: “I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there aren’t, I repeat, there are no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity”.
The US government insists that none of the three objects posed a threat to the country’s security and that even the massive spy balloon provided “limited additional capabilities” to other Chinese surveillance programs. However, they were shot down “out of caution,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council.
Biden’s unprecedented decision to shoot down four objects in flight over North America in eight days – coupled with efforts by US officials to publicly downplay the foreign threat – has fueled the dissonant messages about measures to protect the homeland.
US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, acknowledged the confusion and said the administration wanted to prevent the US public from becoming unduly concerned while trying to maintain a strong stance on China .
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Kirby said that while the United States has no particular reason to believe the airborne objects were spying, “we cannot rule it out”. He added that the recent objects flying between 20,000 and 40,000 feet (6,000 and 12,000 meters) could have posed a remote risk to civilian aircraft.
Some officials say the legal justification for the downings – that the objects could endanger civilian flights – is so long that it raises questions if it was just an excuse for tougher action.
Biden “wants to crack down on China, and this is a good example of how actions speak louder than words,” said Brian Ott, co-author of The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage.
“If we find ourselves in a presidential debate between the two of us next year, Trump will try to paint Biden as weak on national security, and Biden will turn to Trump and be able to say, ‘How many of these Chinese balloons and unidentified objects ? shot down?'”
Ott, a professor of communications at Missouri State University, noted that Biden’s relative silence on the sinking of the Chinese globe and other objects may be aimed, at least in part, at his potential re-election bid in 2024. Republicans criticized Biden in the days after the Chinese balloon was spotted in US airspace for delay.
When asked if the decision to demolish the objects was a response to those criticisms, Kirby insisted that “they were decisions made purely and simply based on what is best for the American people.”
With little new information, senators from both parties demanded answers when they returned to Washington on Monday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that senators would receive a confidential briefing Tuesday morning and that Congress would work in the coming weeks to “learn the full story of what happened.” Senator Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat behind Schumer, said Biden “owes the country some answers.”
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Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said Biden must “communicate with the American people and be honest.” He questioned what the government knew about China’s espionage before the first balloon flew over the country.
After the balloon was launched, the White House revealed that such balloons had crossed the United States at least three times during the Trump administration without the knowledge of the former president or his advisers, and that others had flown over dozens of nations in other continents. Kirby emphasized on Monday that they were only discovered by the Biden administration.
Jim Ludes, a former national defense analyst who now directs the Pell Center for International Affairs and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, said political simulations are inevitable.
“It doesn’t matter what the government says. People will use it to make politics and try to score points,” he said. They will always say that “they acted too slowly or too hastily”.
There is good reason for the Biden administration to be cautious, Ludes added, noting that the dispute over the craft comes amid heightened tensions between China and Taiwan. A false testimony from Biden could destabilize an already tense situation.
“What will China do the next time we fly a B-52 through the straits?” Ludes asked. “There are possibilities for this to become very complex very quickly.”
On Monday, Kirby attempted to distinguish between the newest objects and the confirmed spy balloon, noting their much smaller size, lack of maneuverability, and lack of any indication they had communication links before being shot down.
They were only spotted, he said, because the United States adjusted the sensitivity of air defense radars to detect high-altitude, slow-moving objects like the spy balloon.
Officials have yet to recover any parts of the three unidentified objects, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, citing hazardous terrain, water and weather where they were struck down as the cause.
US officials couldn’t even tell if they were balloons or some other type of aircraft, and have so far declined to share images taken before they were shot down.
It is clear, or at least it seems so, that it is not about extraterrestrial activities.
Kirby echoed Jean-Pierre’s point: “I don’t think the American people need to worry about extraterrestrials in relation to these objects.”