What in the name of The X Files is going on in the skies? Since last week, the U.S. government has shot down three unidentified flying objects—otherwise known as UFOs. This follows the government shooting down what folks have been calling a Chinese spy balloon on February 4. So are we looking at an epidemic of Chinese spy balloons now?

Nope—this is much weirder. U.S. officials can't even say exactly what these objects are.

The first UFO was shot down last Thursday as it hovered about 40,000 feet above Alaska.

National Security Counsel Coordinator John Kirby said on Friday that this "high-altitude object" was unmanned, had no significant surveillance equipment, and was "much smaller" than the Chinese balloon—"roughly the size of a small car, as opposed to…two or three buses' size." But it "posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight," Kirby explained, so "President Biden ordered the military to down the object. And they did."

At a press conference not long afterward, Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said that the object "wasn't an aircraft per se" and there was no indication it was maneuverable. "We have no further details about the object at this time, including any description of its capabilities, purpose or origin."



Then, on Saturday, the U.S. shot down an object above Canadian airspace.

"I ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Saturday. "Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled, and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object," which had been spotted over the Yukon. "Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object," he added.

Like the UFO over Alaska, this one was flying at about 40,000 feet, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said at a press conference. It was also unmanned.

Saturday also saw the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) temporarily close down airspace over Montana. "NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate," the organization announced. "Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation."

On Sunday, NORAD temporarily shut down airspace over Lake Michigan "to ensure the safety of air traffic in the area during NORAD operations."

Later reports revealed that the Great Lakes airspace closure also involved shooting down an unidentified object.

"I've been in contact with [the Defense Department] regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today," tweeted U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman on Sunday afternoon. "The US military has decommissioned another 'object' over Lake Huron."

"The Pentagon said the unidentified object shot down on Sunday by an F-16 fighter jet at 2:42 p.m. EST (1942 GMT) over Lake Huron appeared to have traveled near U.S. military sites and posed not just a threat to civilian aviation but also as a potential tool for surveillance," reported Phil Stewart of Reuters.

The Pentagon also said it could connect the object over Lake Huron "to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive DOD sites."

Air Force General Glen VanHerck, the head of NORAD, said on Sunday night that it was unclear how the objects were staying in the sky.

Asked whether aliens could be ruled out, VanHerck said he wasn't ruling out anything yet.

Before we all start panicking, consider this tidbit from The Washington Post:



This month's rash of UFO sightings corresponds to a steep increase in UFO reports since 2021, notes CNN's Peter Bergen.

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" report (released last month), Navy and Air Force staff reported 247 UFO sightings from March 2021 through August 2022—compared to just 144 sightings for the whole 17-year stretch between 2004 and 2021.

"The report suggested that the increase may be because there is less 'stigma' associated with reporting UFO sightings, now that the Pentagon is actively pushing service personnel to report any 'anomalies' seen in the sky," writes Bergen. "Indeed, in July, the Pentagon established a new entity, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, to investigate credible sightings of UFOs by the US military and intelligence community."

A good number of the UFOs reported were balloons or "balloon-like entities," while 26 were drones. But there were also 171 objects that couldn't be readily explained and "demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities."

...In 2019 it was reported that the U.S. military used 25 experimental solar-powered high-altitude balloons to conduct surveillance tests across six midwestern states. “The balloons were equipped with hi-tech radars designed to simultaneously track many individual vehicles day or night, through any kind of weather, and were intended to be used to monitor drug trafficking and potential homeland security threats.”

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed concern that “Even in tests, they’re still collecting a lot of data on Americans: who’s driving to the union house, the church, the mosque, the Alzheimer’s clinic. “We should not go down the road of allowing this to be used in the United States, and it’s disturbing to hear that these tests are being carried out, by the military no less.”

While this technology may not be exclusive to the United States, the description of the balloon — both in size and capability — matches that described recently soaring over Montana. Notably, the balloons are subject to fewer restrictions and regulations than drones.

Furthermore, private companies like ‘World View’ are dedicated to advancing this very technology. World View purports to be “a global leader in stratospheric exploration and flight.”

Per The Guardian, in 2019, World View announced that “it had carried out multi-week test missions in which its own stratospheric balloons were able to hover over a five-mile-diameter area for six and a half hours, and larger areas for days at a time.”

According to Ryan Hartman, the CEO of World View, “The challenge is how to harness the stratospheric winds to be able to create a persistent station-keeping capability for customers.” Who are the customers?

World View is one of many balloon-operating companies in the United States. Another company, Raven Aerostar, has supplied balloons to Southcom, run by the Department of Defense and also the Alphabet subsidiary Loon.

According to FCC documents filed, the balloons provided to Southcom “carried small, satellite-like vehicles housing sophisticated sensors and communication gear," The Guardian reported.

The FCC filing also suggested that the balloons might also carry a Sierra Nevada video capture system called Gorgon Stare; a wide-area surveillance system comprised of nine cameras capable of recording panoramic images across an entire city simultaneously.

As the Guardian noted, “it is unclear from the FCC documents whether Southcom’s tests within the US are linked to any active narcotic or counter-terrorism investigations. Also, none of the parties involved would say whether the Midwest vehicle data would be deleted, stored or passed on to other federal or local agencies.”

Even more alarming is the relationship between DARPA, the Pentagon’s own research arm, and stratospheric balloon companies like Raven Aerostar. Notably, DARPA had made high-risk investments in mRNA technology years before the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, DARPA helped fund and develop the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the Washington Post in July 2020, “if it weren’t for DARPA’s investments over the past decade and earlier, largely outside the glare of Washington’s partisan politics, the American race toward a vaccine and antibody therapy to stop the coronavirus most likely wouldn’t be moving as quickly as it is today.”

Scott Wickersham, the Vice President of Raven Aerostar, told the Guardian that it had been working with DARPA to “perfect stratospheric balloon navigation which has included multiple launches across the country.” This is part of Darpa’s ‘Adaptable Lighter than air’ program, known as Alta.

Hartman, CEO of World View, said in 2019 that it had completed a dozen surveillance test missions but wouldn’t say for whom, or what specific data had been collected.

In light of this, it makes little sense that the Chinese sent their own stratospheric balloon from a Chinese island all the way to the United States mainland — as the Biden administration is now claiming. The administration now says it tracked the balloon all the way from Hainan Island and still waited to shoot it down until it had finished surveilling the United States.

Despite Biden’s worrisome ties to China, it makes more sense that the administration was reluctant to shoot the balloon down because it was part of a U.S. DARPA program — a U.S. balloon — rather than a Chinese spy balloon.

The question isn’t what is China doing with these balloons, but what is the U.S. government doing with these balloons and what are they being used for....