At a Monday press conference at the White House, a day after an “unidentified object” was downed over Lake Huron, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby read from prepared notes in front of frustrated reporters. He claimed at one point the Pentagon has been unable to “definitively assess” what the three objects are. They were shot down, he said, because they posed a threat to civilian air traffic safety.
According to a Fox News story, which cites an unnamed U.S. official, the three objects shot down over three days were all balloons. They were much smaller in size to the massive one that floated across North America before it was shot down off the Carolina coast February 4, the story said.
When recovery of the first balloon was still ongoing off the Carolina coast, much to the dismay of the Chinese Communist Party, U.S. fighter jets scrambled and shot down an object near Alaska on Friday. On Saturday, in the Yukon territory, a third object was shot down over Canadian airspace. Then, on Sunday, an object was downed over the massive lake that borders the U.S. and Canada.
According to a related Associated Press story, Kirby told reporters Monday that U.S. officials have not ruled out if the objects belong to China.
The Biden administration has said the first balloon is the property of China and was being used to spy on strategic military sites as if drifted eastward. China said it was a “civilian” balloon that drifted too far.
National security analyst Bob Maginnis, with the Family Research Council, tells AFN it appears a dangerous new phase is developing between the U.S. and China. Hopefully, he adds, the Pentagon is recognizing the United States is entering a “cold war” with China that he says is troubling to witness.
“And I would expect,” Maginnis observes, “that the administration is going to have to, at some point here in the very near future, give us more facts than they have as yet.”
