Conflicting reports exist about what we are shooting down from Alaska and Canada. On Friday, a balloon carrying a car-sized cargo was seen flying over Alaska. The balloon flew at around 40,000 feet, which is about the same height as commercial jets. The Pentagon does not believe the balloon came from China because it flew above the North Pole.

NORAD detected another object over Alaska on Friday night. It was detected by NORAD and drifted into Canadian skies. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau realized his childhood dream of becoming a wartime leader and helped the United States to shoot down an unmanned balloon on Saturday.

The FAA then closed Montana’s airspace. A second “object” was detected on radar, but it vanished before fighters could investigate.

What in Sam Hill is going on?

Politico:

There were many theories in Washington about the origin of the objects. However, several Biden administration officials warned that there was still much to be known about the two most recent objects. The United States has been monitoring U.F.O.s entering American airspace for many years. Officials believe that U.F.O. surveillance operations by foreign countries, weather balloons, or other airborne clutter could explain recent unidentified aerial phenomena. This is government-speak for U.F.O.s, as well as previous episodes.

According to a report made public in 2021, “Nearly all of these incidents remain officially unexplained.” The intelligence agencies will deliver a classified document to Congress Monday to update the report. The original document covered 144 incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2021, which were mostly reported by U.S. military personnel.

So, why is it that all these objects are suddenly being discovered? One reason is that the highly sensitive sensors we use to protect our airspace occasionally filter out valuable intelligence. The raw data would overwhelm both man and machine if we didn’t employ filters.

One defense analyst stated that “we basically opened the filters.”

This change doesn’t yet answer all the questions, an official warned. It is not clear if stepping back to examine more data yields more hits, or if these latest incursions were part of a more deliberate act by an unknown country or adversary.

If these spy balloons are smaller than the one China sent last week, who is sending them there? These latest balloons could be launched from an Arctic Ocean ship or a sub-surfaced vessel. They are well hidden from the public, whoever it may be.

CNN:

Six people familiar with the matter said that the US intelligence agency’s method of tracking China’s surveillance balloon fleet was discovered only last year. CNN reported this to CNN.

Sources said that the US has now developed a consistent technical method to track balloons around the globe in almost real-time thanks to these findings.

We have an $800 billion defense budget, and we are just beginning to figure out how to track this. This is not a comforting thought.