WASHINGTON, February 13. /TASS/. General Glen VanHerck, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), did not deny the possibility of extraterrestrial origin of the objects shot down over his country and neighboring Canada during the last week, noting that the issue should be handled by American intelligence agencies.
"I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything at this point," he said, responding at a briefing for reporters to a question about whether the Pentagon has given up on the theory that the objects were alien in origin. "We continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify [them]," the general added.
He acknowledged, however, that the US military currently could not say exactly what was keeping these objects in the air. "I'm not going to categorize them visible and we're calling them objects for a reason. Certainly the event of the South Carolina coast for the Chinese spy balloon - that was clearly a balloon. These are objects. I'm not able to categorize how they stay aloft. It could be a gaseous type of balloon inside a structure or it could be some type of a propulsion system. But clearly, they're able to stay aloft," VanHerck explained.
"What we're seeing is very, very small objects that produce a very, very low radar cross section," he noted, stressing that these were "very, very slow objects <...> going at the speed of the wind." "It's really, really difficult for pilots at the altitudes we're operating <...> to give us what I would consider factual, scientific base description of what we see and therefore I'm hesitant to tell you that," the head of NORAD said.
According to him, all three of the objects shot down in the last week were "similar in size, similar in speeds." "As far as specific shapes, we’ve got to get our hands on those to see fidelity and detail of shape, how they get airborne, do they have propulsion? All of those things are still to be determined," the general said.
That said, according to Melissa Dalton, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, all three objects were distinctly different from the Chinese balloon that was shot down on February 4. "The spy balloon from the PRC was of course different in that we knew precisely what was," she said.
Objects in skies over North America
In late January, US authorities noticed a Chinese balloon flying over mainland America at an altitude well above standard parameters for commercial air traffic. However, it did not pose a threat to people on the ground. On February 4, the US armed forces shot down this "reconnaissance balloon" within national airspace. It was, according to the Pentagon, engaged in "the collection of important information." US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a visit to China in response to the incident.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry protested the attacks and slander from Washington. Beijing explained that the Chinese meteorological probe ended up in US airspace by accident.
Last week, NORAD recorded three more "unidentified objects," two of which were shot down by the US military in national airspace and another one over Canadian territory. It was noted that all three objects were much smaller than the Chinese balloon, were at a lower altitude, and were not similar in appearance. The last of them was destroyed on Sunday over Lake Huron on the US-Canada border, its debris presumably fell into Canadian territorial waters.