Americans Don’t ‘Need to Worry about Aliens,’ White House Says After Shooting Down Three Unidentified Objects
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National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Monday dismissed concerns that a string of unidentified airborne objects shot down by the U.S. in recent days are related to aliens or extraterrestrial activity.
“I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft,” Kirby said during a press briefing on Monday. “I don’t think there’s any more that needs to be said there.”
Kirby’s comments come one day after a top U.S. general said he hadn’t ruled anything out when asked specifically about the possibility of aliens as it relates to three objects shot down over the weekend.
Kirby said Monday the military is not tracking any other airborne objects, and he said no one has claimed ownership for the three objects shot down since Friday.
President Joe Biden ordered the downing of the object near Lake Huron on Sunday, one day after a a U.S. F-22 fighter jet shot down a separate unidentified cylindrical object over the Yukon Territory in Canada. Also on Saturday, a part of Montana’s airspace was temporarily closed due to a “radar anomaly,” then later reopened. North American air defense could not find an object correlated with the anomaly.
On Friday, the White House announced that a “high-altitude airborne object” was shot down off the northern coast of Alaska.
The incidents come after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the Carolina coast one week ago.
“I think we can all get our heads around the fact that there are sometimes things floating at high altitudes for various purposes, as I said, scientific research, weather balloons all manner of innocuous craft can be aloft at high altitudes,” Kirby said when asked if more objects than usual are flying or if the U.S. has just begun looking at the objects differently. “I don’t think thats necessarily unusual here. It’s difficult for me to say exactly what you can expect going forward.”
He added, “One of the reasons that we think we’re seeing more is because we’re looking for more.”
Kirby said the U.S. has modified the filters of its radar capabilities to “look more discreetly at high altitude, small radar cross section and low speed objects.”
Asked about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s comments that there is “some sort of pattern” to the objects of the last few days, Kirby said only that the objects “were not being maneuvered” and did not appear to have any self-propulsion.
It is likely that the prevailing winds created a general common movement among the objects, he said.
Kirby said there is a “big difference” between the Chinese spy balloon and the other unidentified objects. The Chinese spy balloon was much larger and was flying at or above 60,000 feet, well outside of air traffic concerns, while the other three objects were “right on the border” and appeared to be driven by the wind and therefore posed a danger to air traffic.
“We don’t know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them, but we can’t rule it out,” Kirby said of the three unidentified objects, adding that there was “enough uncertainty” that out of an abundance of caution, President Biden decided it was best to down the objects.
Kirby denied claims by the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the U.S. has illegally flown at least ten high-altitude balloons into its airspace since January 2022. There is “no U.S. surveillance air craft in Chinese air space,” he said.
