Coordinator for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council John Kirby speaks in the course of the day by day press briefing on the White House February 13, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday defended its decision to shoot down three low-flying, aerial objects over U.S. and Canadian airspace previously three days, but said it had not determined yet exactly what the objects were, who owned them or what they were doing.
Each of the three crafts was the dimensions of a small automotive, and was detected floating on prevailing winds.
“We’ve got not yet been in a position to definitively assess what these most up-to-date objects are,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said at a White House briefing.
“And while we’ve got no specific reason to suspect that they were conducting surveillance of any kind, we couldn’t rule that out,” he added.
The primary of the three crafts was destroyed on Friday in U.S. airspace over Alaskan waters. It was cylindrical, the dimensions of a small automotive and had been floating at around 40,000 feet in altitude, Kirby said, posing a threat to civilian aircraft.
On Saturday, the U.S. and Canada coordinated using American military jets to shoot down a second object, this time overland within the distant Canadian Yukon.
That craft was similar in size, shape and flight altitude to the one which was destroyed Friday, Kirby said.
The third object was also the dimensions of a automotive, nevertheless it was octagonal and was flying lower, at roughly 20,000 feet. That object was shot down Sunday over Lake Huron, on the U.S.-Canadian border.
Kirby said the sharp increase within the variety of objects shot down in recent days was partly a results of heightened radar sensitivity, implemented within the wake of the invention of a large Chinese spy balloon in late January.
That balloon was 200 feet high and carried a payload of surveillance equipment. Defense officials opted to let it float over the continental U.S. for every week, before shooting it down Feb, 4 above the waters off South Carolina.
“One among the explanations we’re seeing more, is because we’re on the lookout for more,” Kirby said Monday, taking pains to not call the three latest floating objects “balloons.”
“We’d like to separate [the three recent objects] from the Chinese spy balloon,” he said. Within the spy balloon situation, “we knew what it was, we knew where it was going, we knew what it was doing.” This time around, there are more questions, he said.
The trouble to salvage debris from these latest incidents is being hindered up to now, said Kirby, by terrain and freezing temperatures on each land and within the deep waters of Lake Huron and the Arctic Ocean.
“We all know that [Chinese] surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of nations on multiple continents world wide, including a few of our closest allies and partners,” said Kirby.
“We also know that a variety of entities, including countries, firms, research and academic organizations operate objects at these altitudes for purposes that should not nefarious in any respect, including scientific research,” he said.
