Defense secretary says he’s ‘not aware of any’ new objects over US airspace
Mike Brest
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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he was not aware of any new objects hovering above the United States on Wednesday.
The U.S. military has shot down four objects that crossed into U.S. airspace, the first of which was identified as a Chinese surveillance balloon, while more questions remain unanswered surrounding the three more recent instances, though the secretary confirmed on Wednesday following a NATO defense meeting that he was not aware of any new cases.
WHITE HOUSE SAYS NO INDICATION THREE OBJECTS SHOT DOWN WERE CHINESE SURVEILLANCE
“I’m not aware of any additional objects that have been reported operating in this space in the last 48 hours or so,” he said.
The military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon after it traversed the U.S. on Feb. 4 once it reached the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina. Since then, the military has shot down additional objects off the coast of Alaska near the Arctic Circle on Friday, in the Canadian Rockies in the Yukon region on Saturday, and over Lake Huron on Sunday.
The three more recent objects shot down are more difficult for U.S. military personnel to recover, and that is a big factor in the limited information the Pentagon has been able to provide about them.
“In terms of whether or not the debris is important, it’s absolutely important, and we’re going to do everything we can to recover debris if it’s possible,” Austin continued. “That will help us learn a lot more about what these objects are. We’re also working with other agencies, NASA, FAA, FBI, and everybody in the community who may have an interest in operating in this space to learn more about what these could have possibly been.”
The administration hasn’t definitively ruled out that the three more recent objects shot down were of Chinese origin, but national security council coordinator John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that they had “no indication” thus far to support the claim.
“While we can’t definitively say, again without analyzing the debris, what these objects were, thus far, and I caveat that by saying thus far, we haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of [China’s] spy balloon program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” Kirby said.
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He also noted that the intelligence community’s “leading explanation” right now is that “these could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose,” he explained. “We don’t know of any evidence right now that confirms that they were in fact doing intelligence collection by another government.”