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The White House laughed off suggestions aliens were involved in the three unidentified objects shot down over North America during the weekend, at a briefing where a top official was still unable to say who set the objects aloft or what their purpose was.
Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed any claim that ‘extra-terrestrial activity’ was behind the three ‘takedowns’ of UFOs over Alaska, Canada and Michigan – bringing up the topic unprompted at the start of a press briefing Monday.
‘There is no indication of aliens or extra-terrestrial activity with these recent take downs,’ Jean-Pierre said during her White House briefing on Monday.
She then made a joke about how she ‘loved’ the E.T. movie – while the Biden administration and Pentagon have still not revealed any details about the recent objects separate to the Chinese spy balloon.
The U.S. is also still trying to recover debris from the downed objects and trying to figure out where they came from.
Pentagon officials held a press conference on Sunday night in the middle of the Super Bowl, when the majority of the country was distracted, where they failed to answer many questions and sparked a flurry of speculation.
The White House has laughed at suggestions aliens were involved in the three unidentified objects shot down over North America during the weekend
General Glen VanHerck was specifically asked if it’s possible the objects are indicative of extraterrestrial life.
‘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 with an attempt to identify it,’ he said.
Jean-Pierre brought up the alien issue at the top of the briefing, while reading through a prepared statement.
‘And one last thing before I turn it over to you to me, I just want to make sure we address this on the White House’s questions and concerns about this,’ she said before providing her alien assurance.
‘Again, there is no indication of aliens or [extra] terrestrial activity with these recent take downs,’ she said.
‘Wanted to make sure the American people knew that, all of you knew that, and it was important for us to say that from here, because we’ve been hearing a lot about it,’ she said.
‘I loved E.T. the movie, but I’m just going to leave it there,’ she said, to laughs from the press room.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby then took the podium and rejected Chinese claims the U.S. has flown at least 10 spy balloons into their airspace in the last year.
He also revealed the spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina last weekend was part of a network linked to Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army.
Kirby also fielded question about aliens, including asking for clarification on the Pentagon’s comment ‘ruling out any kind of extraterrestrial presence,’ and how that jibed with Jean-Pierre’s dismissal of the idea.
‘I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft, period,’ said Kirby, a retired Navy rear admiral. ‘I don’t think there’s any more that needs to be said.’
When asked why the most recent three were taken down, he said they posed a risk to civilian aircraft and there is not yet any evidence they were being used for surveillance.
‘I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft, period,’ said White House security spokesman Adm. John Kirby
US military fighter jets were scrambled to shoot down an object yesterday over Lake Huron. It remains underwater today
Since February 4th, US jets have shot down four objects including the Chinese spy balloon. Unlike the balloon, there have been no images of the other three objects, which were flying at considerably lower altitudes, and which remain a mystery
Kirby said the U.S. had been able to recover some of the payload of the Chinese spy balloon
U.S. forces were able to recover ‘some of the fabric’ of the balloon off the South Carolina coast. But much of the payload, assessed to be the size of three school buses, sank to the bottom of the Atlantic
Kirby also provided new information about the mission to recover the Chinese spy ballon – the only one of the four objects the U.S. has described as such.
‘In the case of the Chinese spy balloon, we have been able to recover some debris and some of the electronics, and even some of the structure, from the bottom of the Atlantic and that will also tell us a lot and we are learning from it right now,’ he said.
But he noted that foul weather off the South Carolina coast had prevented further dive operations today.
Weather conditions are pretty tough off the coast right now,’ he said.
He noted that the day after the shoot-down, U.S. forces were able to recover ‘some of the fabric’ and said in the day since ‘they have been able to recover some, not all, of the payload that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic in 45 feet of water.’
Kirby explained that in the case of the latest objects shot down, the U.S. determined they could be a risk to flights, with one at about 20,000 feet and two others at around 40,000 feet – in the range where commercial aircraft fly.
‘We assessed whether they posed any kinetic threat to the people on the ground. They did not. We assessed whether they were sending any communication signals. We detected none. We look to see whether they were maneuvering or had any propulsion capabilities. We saw no signs of that. We made sure to determine whether or not they were manned. They were not.’
But he said officials did assess they could pose a threat to civilian aircraft due to their similar altitudes.
And while we have no specific reason to suspect that they were conducting surveillance of any kind, we couldn’t rule that out,’ he said.
That is why Biden, at the recommendation of top military leaders, gave the order to shoot them down.
He said efforts were underway at all sites to locate the objects. But he said they were in ‘difficult terrain,’ including ice and wilderness.
One was shot down over the Canadian Yukon. Another is deep under Lake Huron’s fresh water on the Canadian side of the great lake. The second object shot down has been identified as landing on ice in the Beaufort Sea.
The most recent object lies in what is ‘probably very deep water.’
At its greatest depths Huron is 750 feet deep. Kirby said U.S. Coast Guard and Canadian authorities were working jointly on recovery.
He said the administration was briefing Congress on what it knows, and didn’t rule out a briefing as soon as Monday.
Kirby also got asked if the Biden administration had lowered the threshold for shooting down an object – which might explain the sudden uptick.
‘I think we just don’t know right now, in terms of whether there needs to be threshold changes,’ he said, raising the possibility that more craft were being detected due to adjustments in what U.S. radar facilities were looking for at high altitudes.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin addressed the shoot-down in Brussels, saying the U.S. ‘acted out of an abundance of caution.’
‘And I want to reassure Americans that these objects do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground. They do however, present a risk to civil aviation, and potentially an intelligence collection threat,’ he said.
Austin said the U.S. hadn’t recovered any debris from any of the three most recent shoot-downs.
‘I want to be clear, the three objects taken down this weekend are very different from what we were talking about last week. we knew exactly what that was – a PRC surveillance balloon,’ he said.
He described difficult conditions at all three sites, noting that in Alaska ‘sea ice, wind chills, and safety concerns’ were ‘partially dictating recovery timelines.’
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