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The White House conceded Friday that officials may never be able to identify the three mystery objects shot from the American skies in the past two weeks, let alone their owners or their purpose.
Officials have been under intense pressure to explain more about why advanced fighter jets rushed to shoot down items that might turn out to be nothing more than cheap toys.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said no one had come forward to claim the downed objects.
They had been shot down in inaccessible terrain, he said, making recovery and identification extremely difficult.
“We would like nothing more,” he told reporters at the White House. “But I can’t sit here and promise you that we’ll get to that level of fidelity to detail.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said no one had come forward to claim the downed objects, which had been downed on inaccessible terrain.
Since February 4, four objects have been shot down, including the Chinese spy balloon, and then three ‘UFOs’.
Authorities believe an object shot down on February 4 off the South Carolina coast was a Chinese spy balloon.
Three other sky-dropped items are not believed to be linked to China or intelligence gathering, President Joe Biden said Thursday.
Kirby said their locations — in the frozen north of Alaska, deep in the waters of Lake Huron and in the wintry Canadian province of Yukon — had impeded recovery efforts.
Meanwhile, a fan club said it believed one of its balloons might have been the object they lifted over the Yukon last week.
Kirby said there had been no contact between officials and the Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade.
“We just can’t confirm those reports or what the remains of that balloon might be,” he said.
And then we have not recovered it. So it’s very difficult until you can get your hands on something to be able to say it.’
The group said its balloon was tracked to a position over Alaska on Saturday. The position is close to where an F-22 used a Sidewinder missile to shoot down a target over the Yukon earlier that day.
Members of the Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade, whose balloon went missing near the area where a fighter plane shot down an unidentified object over Alaska
The hobby balloon’s last known location over Alaska came several hours before a fighter jet shot down an unknown object several hundred miles away over Canada. A map of the hobby balloon’s intended route indicates that it was heading towards the site where the UFO was shot down.
Kirby said he was unaware of any plans to reimburse the group for the loss of their $12 balloon.
“For now we call Pico Balloon K9YO Missing in Action,” the club’s website says.
It all led to more questions about whether Biden had overreacted by ordering fighter jets to shoot down the targets.
Kirby said it had to be read through the prism of seeing for the first time a Chinese spy balloon operating over the US.
“They are also at altitudes that could affect the safety of civilian air traffic and, depending on the flight path and prevailing winds, potentially move over sensitive military sites.”
‘And the military leaders come to you and say, Mr. President, we don’t know what they are. We are concerned with what they might be, where they might go, and what might be the purpose.
‘And we recommend that you remove them in the interest of the safety of the American people and out of an abundance of caution.
“And the president acted on that recommendation because he takes very seriously his responsibilities to protect this country, our secrets, our interests and our people.”
A day earlier, Biden said he did not apologize for shooting down a Chinese spy balloon, but admitted that three other mysterious aerial objects, destroyed by US warplanes, were not believed to be surveillance vehicles.
President Joe Biden said there was no evidence of an increase in mystery balloons when he addressed the nation on Wednesday. “Now we’re seeing more of them,” he said.
He finally broke his silence after more than a week of questions about a series of apparent incursions into US airspace.
He said he planned to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the first raid. But he abruptly left the stage at the end of his remarks when a reporter demanded to know if his family’s business interests were getting in the way of the China deal.
He said there was no evidence of a surge, just that officials were now looking harder for aircraft.
“We still don’t know exactly what these three objects were, but nothing at this time suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program, or that they were surveillance vehicles from another country,” he said.
“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were likely balloons linked to private companies, recreational or research institutions, studying the weather or conducting other scientific research.”