WASHINGTON — Three flying objects were downed over North America in as many days and another was reportedly spotted over a Chinese port city, showing how “unidentified aerial phenomena” are keeping the world on edge since entering the international mainstream in the past two weeks.
U.S. fighter jets brought down objects over Alaska and Canada on Friday and Saturday, and another was taken down on Sunday over Lake Huron in Michigan. While the Biden administration said the high-altitude craft brought down on Feb. 4 was a Chinese spying balloon, details on the latest objects remain sparse.
With shootdowns over the U.S. and Canada coming at a pace of one per day, the incidents prompted renewed pledges by lawmakers in Washington to seek greater U.S. readiness against the overflights and a measure of bipartisan praise for the Biden administration’s military actions.
The White House said Sunday it’s too early to definitively describe the second and third objects. The one taken down over Canada appeared to be a small, cylindrical object, Defense Minister Anita Anand said. Both were flying at about 40,000 feet, while the latest object was spotted about at 20,000 feet — altitudes that were assessed to pose risks to civilian flights. Authorities are working to retrieve the debris from all three downings.
In China, the news outlet The Paper reported Sunday that authorities were ready to shoot down an unidentified object over waters near Qingdao, home to the Jianggezhuang Naval Base. It hosts ballistic and nuclear attack submarines, the country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and is the command headquarters of the country’s North Sea Fleet.
The incidents are adding tension to U.S.-China relations, which spiked after the Biden administration said the balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast more than a week ago was traversing the U.S. on a spying mission. China says it was a weather balloon blown off course.
On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Congress should look into why “it took so long for us, our military, our intelligence to know about these balloons,” adding that the U.S. “got enormous intelligence information” from tracking the Chinese balloon.
“We can’t just have a cold war with them,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have to have a relationship with them.”
Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said there may be other reasons for the proliferation of unidentified flying objects.
“There is a lot of garbage up there,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The truth is that that most of our sensors, and most of what we were looking for, didn’t look like balloons,” he said. “Now of course we’re looking for them. So I think we’re probably finding more stuff.”
U.S. radars and other sensors had most likely previously not been optimized to detect extremely slow-flying objects above 50-60,000 feet, said Charlie Moore, a retired lieutenant general, the former vice director of operations at NORAD who is now a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University.
“Since we’ve seen the development of these balloons over the last couple of years, we’ve had to go back and look at all the sources and methods we might use to detect their launch, monitor their movement and then obviously be able to track them as they approach the United States and Canada.”
Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. should see the incidents as a turning point that leads to more investment in the defense of U.S. airspace.
“What’s become clear in the public discussions is that we really don’t have adequate radar systems,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
A U.S. intelligence report released in January said reporting of unidentified aerial phenomena has increased, as the stigma surrounding claims of aerial sightings lessens and awareness increases about the threats such objects may pose.
“In the absence of information, people’s anxiety leads them into potentially destructive areas,” Himes said. “So I do hope that very soon, the administration has a lot more information for all of us on what’s going on.”
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(With assistance from Katrina Manson.)
