Why do unidentified objects seem to be popping up above North America all of a sudden?
CBC
The appearance of a series of unidentified objects in the sky over a week that were subsequently shot down has prompted questions about why there seems to be a sudden rash of such incidents. Since Feb. 4, when U.S. military personnel shot down what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, there have been three other objects shot from the sky over an eight-day period.
So far, only the first object shot down has been identified as a Chinese spy balloon. The U.S. military said on Monday it had recovered key sensors from the wreckage.
The other objects according to John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council co-ordinator for strategic communications, didn't have propulsion and they weren't being manoeuvred. The U.S. therefore isn't sure if "they had a surveillance aspect to them," he said.
However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there's reason to believe it's not a coincidence that the four objects have been spotted over such a short time period.
"Obviously, there is some sort of pattern in there," he said. "The fact we are seeing this in significant degree over the past week is a cause for interest and close attention, which is exactly what we're doing."
CBC Explains if more objects are popping up in the North American skies, why they have been difficult to detect and what's being done to more easily discover them:
It's difficult to say whether there are more unidentified objects hovering over the U.S. and Canada than in the past.
Thomas Lawson, former chief of defence staff who also served as deputy commander of NORAD from 2011 to 2012, told CBC News Network that during his time at NORAD, he had "no indication … that anything like this was floating all over continental North America."
"I thought it was remarkable that the current commander of NORAD had released his assessment that several of these [unidentified objects] over recent years have now been determined to have flown over continental North America," he said.
But, as noted by Kirby, for many years, there have been "unidentified aerial phenomena" that have been reported without explanation or deep examination by previous governments.
"We are finally trying to understand them better now in light of the Chinese balloon program and this recent incursion into our airspace," he said in a news conference on Monday.
The White House has acknowledged that there were at least three incidents where balloons flew over U.S. territory during the Trump administration, and one incident during the Biden presidency, before the past week's discoveries.
"This is what we assess as part of a larger Chinese surveillance balloon program," Brig-Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesperson, said in a news conference last week. "What we do know is that in some cases, whereas some of these balloons previously had not been identified, subsequent analysis, subsequent intelligence analysis did enable us to indicate that these were Chinese balloons."
Since the U.S. shot down a suspected spy balloon from China on Feb. 4, there has been closer scrutiny of the air space, Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defence for homeland defence and hemispheric affairs, said in a news conference last week.
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