The mystery in the sky over North America is getting bigger: Within a few days, the US military shoots four flying objects out of the sky. Who or what is behind it?
Four kills in eight days: The United States Air Force is currently busy in North American airspace. After a Chinese spy balloon was shot down, fighter jets have been deployed three times since last Friday to shoot down unknown flying objects in US and Canadian airspace.
Information about the Chinese spy balloon was quickly released by the Pentagon after it was launched. The crews were able to recover significant debris from the crash site, including all key sensors and electronics that were identified, as well as large parts of the structure,” US Military Command North said on Monday. Key sensors believed to be used for intelligence gathering were also secured .
But what are the other objects?
The US Department of Defense has so far kept a low profile on the other three objects. According to official information, they were significantly smaller than the Chinese balloon – about the size of a small car – and at lower altitudes. The flying objects over Alaska and Canada were shot down at an altitude of around twelve kilometers. And so there is plenty of speculation about the origin of the unknown flying objects.
On Monday evening, new details came to light: CNN quoted from a letter from the Pentagon that the object over Canada was a “small, metallic balloon with a payload tied underneath”. Defense officials wrote in the memo to lawmakers, according to CNN, that the object shot down over Lake Huron in Michigan on Sunday “slowly sank into the water” after impact.
Washington: “No reference to aliens”
Earlier, when asked by a journalist whether the Pentagon could rule out that extraterrestrials were behind the mysterious flying objects, General Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Air Defense Command Norad, replied: “I’ll leave it to the secret services and counterintelligence to find out. I have to Nothing can be ruled out at this point.”
MPs from both parties are urging more information to stop wild theories from spreading further. And then there was: In view of the increasing speculation, the White House felt compelled to clarify – and ruled out a possible connection with extraterrestrials. “There is no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial activity in these recent launches,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in Washington. “I wanted to make sure the American people knew that.” There were many questions about it. “And it was important for us to say that from here.”
The Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, citing the National Security Council, said it is currently assumed that the balloons were also involved. But VanHerck denied that: “I’m not going to classify them as balloons — we don’t call them ‘objects’ for nothing.”
Unknown flying objects: What is behind the kills of the last few days? (Quelle: Glomex)
“This is completely absurd!”
The expert Rainer Kresken also considers an alien hypothesis to be untenable. He is a space engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA). “That’s completely absurd,” he says with a laugh when asked about his opinion on the alien hypothesis in an interview with t-online. “However, you can never completely rule that out,” Kresken continues.
However, if there are really aliens behind the unknown flying objects, the scientist does not think shooting down the objects is a good idea: “Otherwise you’ll annoy them! And we don’t want that. Because if extraterrestrial life forms are really here, they are technologically more developed than we are .”
However, he doesn’t believe in the alien hypothesis: “I think the balloons and other objects are of Chinese origin.” Kresken assumes that China wants to test the reaction time of the Americans. “Moreover, balloons are very good for espionage. They fly lower than satellites and can, for example, intercept telecommunications.”
