FILE PHOTO: An undated US Federal Bureau of Investigation handout photo taken at an undisclosed location shows FBI Special Agents assigned to the bureau’s Evidence Response Team processing material recovered from the high-altitude Chinese balloon that was shot down by a US military jet off the coast of South Carolina, in this image released by the FBI on February 9, 2023. FBI/Handout via Reuters
WASHINGTON/BEIJING — The United States said on Monday it still did not know the origin or purpose of three aerial objects that its military shot down over the weekend, as Washington and Beijing traded accusations about high-altitude balloons.
American and Canadian officials were unable to explain the origin of three objects US fighter jets downed over North American airspace since Feb. 4, when a suspected Chinese spy balloon was brought down off the South Carolina coast after drifting across the United States.
Washington called the Chinese craft a surveillance balloon, while China has insisted it was a weather-monitoring vessel blown badly off course.
The Chinese balloon triggered an uproar in Washington, shaking up the already contentious relationship between the world’s two biggest economies and prompting US President Joe Biden’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, to cancel his scheduled trip to Beijing last week.
The US military has not been able to identify what the three most recent objects are, how they stay aloft or where they are coming from.
“We have not yet been able to definitively assess what these most recent objects are,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said at a news briefing.
The objects flying at altitudes of between 20,000 and 40,000 feet were considered a risk to air traffic, Kirby said, although they did not pose a threat to people on the ground. They also were shot down because US authorities could not rule out that they were spying, he said.
Closer scrutiny of airspace may partially explain the increase in objects detected. US officials told Reuters that the military has been adjusting how it examines radar data, allowing it to spot smaller, slower-moving items.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed any suggestion that the objects were anything other than human-made. “There is no, again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns,” she said.
US military fighter jets on Sunday downed an octagonal object over Lake Huron, the Pentagon said. On Friday, an object was shot down over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska, and a third object, cylindrical in shape, was destroyed over Canada’s Yukon on Saturday.
The debris from the objects, which has not been found, should “tell us a lot,” Kirby said.
China said it had no information about any of the three objects.
Chinese returns accusations
Earlier on Monday, China widened its dispute with the United States over aerial surveillance, claiming that US high-altitude balloons had flown over its airspace without permission more than 10 times since the beginning of 2022. The White House denied the assertion.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that the alleged US balloon flights last year were illegal, but did not describe the balloons as military or for espionage purposes.
At Friday’s White House briefing, Kirby said: “There is no US surveillance aircraft in Chinese airspace. I’m not aware of any other craft that we’re flying over into Chinese airspace.”
When pressed whether any U.S. crafts were being used over Chinese-claimed airspace in Taiwan and the South China Sea, he declined to specify further.
Earlier on Monday, a White House spokeswoman accused China of violating the sovereignty of the United States and more than 40 other countries across five continents with surveillance balloons linked to its military.
“This is the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
“It has repeatedly and wrongly claimed the surveillance balloon it sent over the United States was a weather balloon and to this day has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into our airspace and the airspace of others.”
FILE PHOTO: An undated US Federal Bureau of Investigation handout photo taken aboard the USS Carter Hull off South Carolina shows FBI Special Agents assigned to the bureau’s Evidence Response Team ready to process material recovered from the high-altitude Chinese balloon that was shot down by a US military jet off the coast of South Carolina, in this image released by the FBI in Washington, US February 9, 2023. FBI/Handout via Reuters
Searching for debris
The search for debris from the three objects continued Monday. In Canada’s Yukon province, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he toured with some Canadian forces who will be leading recovery efforts on the ground.
Heavy snow was making conditions hazardous for the recovery efforts in what Trudeau said was a “fairly large area” between Dawson City and Mayo in central Yukon.
The search is in “a stretch of terrain that is extremely challenging and difficult to access,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told reporters in Ottawa.
“This is a very serious situation that we are taking incredibly seriously,” Trudeau said, adding that he would speak to Biden fact-to-face about the objects in March, when the US president is expected to make a visit to Canada.
A Canadian coast guard ship and two coast guard helicopters were helping the search and recovery in Lake Huron, said Joyce Murray, the minister of fisheries and oceans.