Biden under pressure after shooting down mysterious flying objects

Several missiles have been shot down over North America since Friday. So far, little is known about them and the US President is silent. That causes criticism.

In the guesswork about the unidentified flying objects over North America, the pressure on US President Joe Biden is increasing. The president should be more transparent, politicians from both political camps demanded yesterday.

So far, Biden has not commented on the three aircraft shot down over US and Canadian airspace between Friday and Sunday. Instead, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there was no indication the missiles were spying. However, it is not yet known where the objects came from and why they were in the sky.

Senators from both political camps received further information about the events behind closed doors yesterday. After that, both Republicans and Democrats called on President Biden to be more transparent. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said after the briefing that he now understands the incidents better, but that the population needs to know more about them. But he is not concerned that the United States would be threatened.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton said Americans have a right to know why Biden shot down the craft.

A Washington Post report, citing several US officials who wished to remain anonymous, said the US military had tracked the downed Chinese balloon since it was launched.

The balloon had been observed for a good week before it entered US airspace at the end of January. Accordingly, the balloon was launched from its home base on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.

He initially took a trajectory that appeared to take him over the US territory of Guam, where several US military bases are located, it said. But then he unexpectedly took a northerly course. The balloon later hovered over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and then drifted over Canada, from where it appeared to have been blown towards the mainland United States by strong winds.

According to the report, analysts are now investigating the possibility that China did not want to intentionally invade the American heartland with its “surveillance device”.

After the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon on February 4, it has taken three other previously unidentified flying objects from the sky since Friday. One was shot down over Alaska, one over Canada and one over Lake Huron, which is part of the Great Lakes in the northern United States bordering Canada. Since then there has been speculation about the flying objects.

The US military hopes to find out more about their remains. Every effort is made to recover the debris, Kirby said. The search turned out to be difficult because of the bad weather and the impassable terrain. In one case, the debris lay at the bottom of Lake Huron. The huge inland lake is almost 230 meters deep at one point.

The government, on the other hand, has more information about the downed Chinese surveillance balloon. Search parties have managed to bring the first parts of the balloon from the seabed to the surface. “We’re learning from the debris we’re pulling up from the bottom of the Atlantic,” Kirby said. He renewed his allegations against China: “It is a concerted action by the Chinese to use this special type of platform for surveillance and information gathering.”

Senate Minority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, called for the President to take a firmer stance on outside threats. Not only has Biden said nothing about the weekend’s incidents, but the president only casually mentioned the alleged Chinese spy balloon in his State of the Union address last week. The American people deserve to learn more about this from the President.