President Joe Biden made his first detailed comments on the discovery and downing of three unidentified aerial targets in separate incidents on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Biden said while the debris from the objects is being recovered, “we still don’t know exactly what those three objects were.”
“But at the moment there is nothing to suggest that they are connected to China’s spy balloon program. or they were surveillance vehicles from another country,” Biden said. “The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons associated with private corporations, recreational or research facilities studying the weather or conducting other scientific research.”
Biden also said: “We have no evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. We are only now seeing more, in part because of the steps we have taken to expand our radar system.”
The three objects were spotted over Alaska, Canada and then over Lake Huron, sparking intense speculation after the earlier sighting of a Chinese spy balloon. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this week that there was no evidence that the objects were extraterrestrial. This object hovered over the continental United States until it was shot down by the US military off the coast of South Carolina.
Biden said he ordered the final three objects shot down because they posed threats to commercial air travel.
He also said he expects to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the Chinese balloon.
“We are not looking for another Cold War, but I have no excuses and we will compete, and we will manage this competition responsibly so that it does not become a conflict,” Biden said.
The president defended the decision not to launch the Chinese balloon as it hovered over land. “Because we knew the route, we were able to protect sensitive sites from collection,” he said. “We waited until it was safely up and running, which would not only protect civilians, but also allow us to collect essential components for further analysis.”
Source: Deadline
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
