Unidentified objects shot down: Senior US basic doesn’t rule out ‘aliens’

Days after the US downed a Chinese spy balloon, the nation’s fighter jets have shot down quite a few flying objects. Meanwhile, the US Air Force basic has mentioned he can not rule out the chances of the presence of aliens.

Washington,UPDATED: Feb 13, 2023 10:36 IST

A Chinese balloon in US airspace earlier than being shot down on February 5 (Photo: AP)

By Reuters: The US Air Force basic overseeing North American airspace mentioned on Sunday after a sequence of shoot-downs of unidentified objects that he wouldn’t rule out aliens or some other rationalization but, deferring to US intelligence consultants.

Asked whether or not he had dominated out an extraterrestrial origin for 3 airborne objects shot down by US warplanes in as many days, General Glen VanHerck mentioned: “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.”

“At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threat, unknown, that approaches North America in an attempt to identify it,” mentioned VanHerck, head of U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command.

VanHerck’s feedback got here throughout a Pentagon briefing on Sunday after a US F-16 fighter jet shot down an octagonal-shaped object over Lake Huron on the US-Canada border.

The incidents over the previous three days comply with the Feb. 4 downing of a Chinese balloon that put North American air defenses on excessive alert. US officers mentioned that the balloon was getting used for surveillance. Another US protection official, talking on situation of anonymity, mentioned the navy had seen no proof suggesting any of the objects in query had been of extraterrestrial origin.

VanHerck mentioned the navy was unable to right away decide the means by which any of the three newest objects had been stored aloft or the place they had been coming from.

“We’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason, said VanHerck.

The incidents come as the Pentagon has undertaken a new push in recent years to investigate military sightings of UFOs – rebranded in official government parlance as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs.

The government’s effort to investigate anomalous, unidentified objects – whether they are in space, the skies, or even underwater – has led to hundreds of documented reports that are being investigated, senior military leaders have said.

But the Pentagon says it has not found evidence to indicate Earthly visits from intelligent alien life.

Analysis of military sightings is conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a newly created Pentagon bureau known as AARO, short for the cryptically named All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

Their first report to Congress in June 2021 examined 144 sightings by US military aviators dating to 2004.

That study attributed one incident to a large, deflating balloon but found the rest were beyond the government’s ability to explain without further analysis.

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued last month cited 366 additional sightings, mostly things like balloons, drones, birds or airborne clutter. But 171 remained officially unexplained.

“Some of those uncharacterized UAP seem to have demonstrated uncommon flight traits or efficiency capabilities, and require additional evaluation,” the office said in the report.

Sill, Ronald Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, told reporters in December that he had not seen anything in the files to indicate intelligent alien life.

“I’ve not seen something in these holdings so far that may recommend that there was an alien visitation, an alien crash or something like that,” Moultrie mentioned.

Published On:

Feb 13, 2023