Washington: The White House has said that the unidentified aerial objects shot down in recent days do not indicate the presence of extraterrestrial activity or aliens and while the first surveillance balloon was deployed by China, the origins, nature, purpose and capabilities of the three subsequent objects that were taken down are still being studied.
At a press briefing on Monday, John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator at the National Security Council, said that these recent objects did not pose a “direct threat” to people on the ground but the US had acted out of an “abundance of caution”. He also reiterated that there was no US surveillance aircraft over Chinese airspace.
Offering an explanation for the takedowns, Kirby said, “We did, however, assess that their altitudes were considerably lower than the Chinese high-altitude balloon and did pose a threat to civilian commercial air traffic. And while we have no specific reason to suspect that they were conducting surveillance of any kind, we couldn’t rule that out.”
Kirby said that the Joe Biden administration has also decided to take four steps – continue monitoring unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), consult with allies and partners, brief the Congress, and set up an “interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis, and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks”.
Even as Kirby focused on the specifics of the US approach, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre began the briefing with a clarification, half in jest and half seriously given the speculation and conspiracy theories the spate of takedowns have triggered in American public imagination.
Amid laughter, she said, “I just wanted to make sure we address this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no – again, no – indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.”
Jean-Pierre added that it was important to say this from the White House because they had been hearing about it a lot. “Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that.”
Kirby claimed that Biden had held his first intelligence briefing session devoted to UAP back in June 2021 and while they had been reported for years without explanation or deep examination, the president had changed that. His comments come at a time when the Republicans have criticised the administration for being slow in responding to the threat posed by unidentified aerial objects.
When asked what he thought China was getting from the balloon in addition to what its satellite imagery would provide, especially since the US has said that the surveillance balloon had limited additive abilities, Kirby said that they were still in the process of recovering the debris and studying it.
“When you are at a lower altitude than space, you could perhaps get a better fidelity of imagery, for instance, of things on the ground. When you are not moving at the speed of a satellite and therefore, you know, only getting seconds over a site, when you can manoeuvre left, right, slow down, speed up, like this thing could, then you can loiter. If you can loiter, you can soak in a little bit more, you can spend more time over a sensitive site.”
