White House says the same spy balloon programme was in operation during Donald Trump’s Presidency, but his administration was not able to detect them…reports Asian Lite News
The US military has said it had recovered critical electronics from the suspected Chinese spy balloon downed by a US fighter jet off South Carolina’s coast on Feb. 4, including key sensors presumably used for intelligence gathering.
“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 US military’s Northern Command said in a statement.
The Chinese balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy vessel, spent a week flying over the United States and Canada before President Joe Biden ordered it shot down. The episode strained ties between Washington and Beijing, leading America’s top diplomat to postpone a trip to China.
It also led to the U.S. military scouring the skies for other objects that were not being captured by radar, leading to an unprecedented three shootdowns in the three days between Friday and Sunday.
The US military and the Biden administration have acknowledged that much about the most recent, unmanned objects remains unknown, including how they stay aloft, who built them and whether they may have been collecting intelligence.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to calm Americans on Monday about the risks posed by the unidentified objects.
“I want to reassure Americans that these objects do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground,” Austin said, speaking to reporters as he landed in Brussels for a NATO gathering.
Meanwhile, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the Chinese spy balloon is linked to intelligence collection.
“China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army,” he said while addressing a press conference. He said that the Chinese spy balloon program targeted the United States’ “closest allies and partners,” but provided “limited additive” intelligence collection capabilities.
“We assess at this time these balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the PRC’s other intelligence platforms used over the United States,” Kirby said at the White House briefing.
“We know that these PRC surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries including some of our allies and partners. We assessed that at this time these balloons have provided limited value to PRC’s other intelligence platforms but could become more valuable in future,” added Kirby.
He also confirmed that the US does not yet know who owns the recently shot-down unidentified objects.
Kirby also said that the same spy balloon programme was in operation during Donald Trump’s Presidency, but his administration was not able to detect them like the Biden administration.
“It was operating during the previous administration but they did not detect it. We detected it. We tracked it,” said the US NSC spokesperson while taking credit for finding the spy balloon.
Since shooting down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, the United States has shot down three more unidentified flying objects, two in US airspace and one in Canadian airspace.
Kirby said that the three new objects were much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon and that the United States was still not sure what they might be.
“There is no question in our minds that that system was designed to surveil, that it was an intelligence asset,” Kirby said of the Chinese spy balloon.
“We knew exactly what that thing was. These other three didn’t have propulsion, they weren’t being maneuvered, they were basically being driven by the wind. We don’t know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them but we can’t rule it out.”
Kirby said that the United States’ apparent difficulty in tracking all four objects was owed to the nature of how radar is typically used and that the nation was enhancing its capabilities based on newly gathered intelligence.
‘Space shooting spree targets were not aliens’
The US does not quite know what it has shot off the skies in the last three instances, but officials assured Americans on Monday that they were not alien airships.
The first object downed was a Chinese spy balloon on February 4. But officials have acknowledged they know little or nothing about the last three objects – two by the US acting alone and one in a joint operation with bordering Canada; not their origin, owner or purpose.
“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,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters.
She added: “Again, there is no indication of aliens or (extra)terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that. And it was important for us to say that from here because we’ve been hearing a lot about it.”
US fighter aircraft blew up an airborne object over Alaska on Friday, then one over Canada on Saturday and a third over Michigan state on Sunday. All of them came in the highly charged environment following the downing of the Chinese spy balloon on February 4.
The Chinese balloon was big, with a payload the size of three school buses. And its origin and ownership became clear overnight as a contrite Beijing owned it up and said it was a civilian use airship engaged in meteorological studies; and that it had strayed off course into the US.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the three airborne objects downed since. And that has kicked off intense speculation and all kinds of conspiracy theories, a lot of whom point to aliens and extraterrestrial beings, feeding off a thriving subculture around UFOs, or UAPs as they are called now, short for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.
A top US military commander put these talks on steroid Sunday. “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out,” said General Glen VanHerck, Commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD as a new conference on Sunday, when asked if the US military was ruling out aliens and extraterrestrial beings as it had got nowhere with other possibilities.
“I haven’t ruled out anything. At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threats unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it,” he added.