When an unidentified flying object appeared on radar screens over Montana, the US Army still assumed an anomaly. The signal disappeared very quickly after it first appeared. It only became clear that this was not a random phenomenon when the radar echo also appeared in the states of Wisconsin and Michigan a few hours later. A US Air Force F-16 fighter finally made visual contact with the octagonal object six kilometers away. After President Joe Biden gave the order to do so, he was shot down over Lake Huron on the Canadian border at 2:42 pm local time on Sunday.
Hours after it was shot down, it’s unclear exactly what the unmanned aerial vehicle’s task was and whether it actually came from China. And instead of concrete answers, after what is already the third incident of its kind, there are currently more or less plausible theories ranging from classic spy reconnaissance to testing American skills in detecting foreign aircraft. Because unlike the huge balloon that entered US airspace ten days ago, the three much smaller objects were only at a maximum height of twelve kilometers.
The fact that unidentified flying objects are suddenly discovered in large numbers over the US does not necessarily mean that there were no intruders in US airspace before. However, before the discovery of the large spy balloon, small and slow aircraft were obviously below the detection threshold of the Norad air surveillance system, whose filters and algorithms were designed to detect fast-flying aircraft or missiles. “What makes these aircraft really difficult to locate and track is their small size and shape,” said Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of Norad. “These objects have a very, very small radar signature.”
US recalibrates radar
According to the Portal news agency, after the launch of the large spy balloon, the Norad radar systems were calibrated so that they can now also detect objects flying at maximum wind speed. “We are now surveying our airspace much more closely at certain altitudes,” said US Deputy Secretary of Defense Melissa Dalton. “It also partly explains why we are now discovering significantly more objects.”
According to Luis Elizondo, who headed the Pentagon’s UFO program until 2017, US opponents have been sending low-tech flying objects into US airspace for years. “For China, this is a cheap but highly effective method of harassing the United States,” Elizondo told the New York Times.
A secret report written by US intelligence services to Congress had already pointed to the threat of enemy flying objects in January. Thus, in addition to several incidents with balloons and drones, there were also at least two suspected incidents of espionage in which hitherto unknown technologies may have been used. According to the report, which documents all cases since 2021, there was also no official explanation for 177 of the 366 sightings of unidentified flying objects.
Examining the rubble should now provide information about the targets of the three fallen flying objects. However, saving the objects is difficult. Parts of the aircraft that crashed into Lake Huron first need to be recovered by divers. will probably make the search even more difficult.
signs of de-escalation
Meanwhile, there were signs of de-escalation late on Monday, despite rising tensions between the US and China over the balloon dispute. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is considering meeting his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference next weekend, Portal news agency reported from people familiar with the matter. Blinken had canceled a planned trip to Beijing in early February because of the balloon dispute.
The US government on Monday rejected China’s allegations that American high-altitude balloons had flown over the People’s Republic without permission. “Any allegation that the US government is allowing surveillance balloons to cross the People’s Republic of China is false,” said US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson. Instead, China is engaged in high-altitude balloon espionage that has violated the sovereignty of the United States and more than 40 countries on five continents.
Watson was responding to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s statement that US balloons flew at high altitude over Chinese territory more than ten times last year. When asked how China would react to the flights, the ministry spokesman said only that the People’s Republic’s response to such incidents was responsible and professional.
The dispute over high-altitude balloons has further soured the already strained relations between the two great powers. Earlier this month, the US government announced that a surveillance balloon was located and launched on February 4th off the coast of South Carolina. On Friday, a second object was shot down near Deadhorse, Alaska. A third object was destroyed in Yukon, Canada, on Saturday. On Sunday, a US jet shot down the fourth flying object over the US-Canada border over Lake Huron. (lol, Portal)