UNCERTAIN ORIGINS, OBJECTIVES
The United States says the large Chinese balloon was obviously a spy craft and that the debris is currently being plucked from the Atlantic ocean for analysis.
The other three unidentified objects – shot down on Friday over Alaska, Saturday over the Yukon in Canada, and Sunday over Lake Huron on the US-Canadian border – so far present a greater challenge.
Other than that they were much smaller, less sophisticated, and flying lower than the Chinese balloon from earlier this month, US officials know little – not even to whom they belonged.
“Countries, companies, research and academic organizations operate objects at these altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious at all, including scientific research,” Kirby said.
Whether they were spying also remains unknown. “Even if we have no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we couldn’t rule that out,” he said. “Because we haven’t been able to definitively assess what these most recent objects are, we acted out of an abundance of caution.”
Another looming question is why such a spate of incidents?
The answer, officials say, may be not that an increased number of devices is coming over the United States but simply that an adjustment in the sensitivity of radar settings after the Feb 4 shoot down means that items once passing unseen are now caught.
“One of the reasons that we think we’re seeing more is because we’re looking for more,” Kirby said.
The truth will not be clear until debris is collected and that is not simple, either.
In the case of the large Chinese balloon, sea conditions made diving impossible Monday, Kirby said, while the three subsequent craft were brought down in “pretty remote, difficult areas to reach”.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino called the location of the debris of the unidentified object shot down over the Yukon on Saturday “extremely challenging and difficult to access.”