United States
The United States Air Force shot down three new unidentified flying objects in the space of three days. The first was spotted and hit on Feb. 10 while flying over Alaska, the second over Canada's Yukon Territory on Feb. 11, and the third over Lake Huron, Michigan on Feb. 12. Unlike the Chinese spy balloon shot down a week ago, the origin and type of these aircraft has not yet been confirmed.It has been a busy weekend for the forces of NORAD , the Aerospace Defense Command of the North America, where Canada and the United States cooperate in the surveillance and defense of their airspace. US F-22s, with the approval of Canadian President Justin Trudeau, have taken off daily to intercept unidentified flying objects that have entered the airspace of the two countries.
What the debris of the spy balloon shot down by the United States tells us United States The components are now in an FBI laboratory in Virginia. According to government officials, it flew over all infrastructure and nuclear defense sites
What we know
The containment actions were also necessary due to the low altitude at which the aircraft were located, between 6,000 and 12,000 meters , the same at which civil and commercial aviation normally operates . This is already a fundamental difference with the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina, which instead hovered at about 18,000 meters above sea level without creating any danger for scheduled flights.Another difference would concern the typology of these unidentified flying objects. The accounts of the pilots tasked with spotting them differ, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The one hit over Alaska appears to have an octagonal shape and was not tied to a balloon, suggesting it could be a drone. While according to the Associated Press and Reuters , the other two would have had a cylindrical shape and would resemble small airships .
Finally, all three objects were much smaller in size than the Chinese spy balloon and China has not claimed the their provenance. Only the analysis of the debris will perhaps be able to determine their origin and their purpose which, for now, remain completely unknown. However, especially among the US forces, there are many suspicions that it is a large-scale espionage operation carried out by China.
Suspicions also aggravated by the latest statements released by the Taiwanese authorities. As reported by the Financial Times , in fact, spy balloons "come very often" to their airspace, "the last one just a few weeks ago" . According to officials, dozens of Chinese military balloons have been seen flying over their airspace in recent years, on average about once a month.