According to the White House, there is no evidence that “alien or extraterrestrial activities” occurred in connection with recent “takedowns of unidentified flying objects within the last days after the Chinese spy balloon.

After multiple U.S. military aircraft were shot down over Canadian and U.S. airspaces, White House press secretary Karinejean-Pierre stated that there was no evidence that “alien or extraterrestrial activities” had occurred during Monday’s press briefing.

General Glen VanHerck had said that “I’ll leave the intel community, and counterintelligence community figure out that.” He also stated that he hadn’t “ruled anything out” when asked if he thought there was an extraterrestrial origin to objects that were shot down by the U.S.

Breitbart News reported on Sunday that the U.S. had shot down an unidentified object flying over Michigan — the fourth U.S. military shoot-down in as many days.

The U.S. downed a Chinese spy satellite that had been floating over the U.S. continental for several days. It was located over the Atlantic Ocean, off the Carolina coast. The U.S. knew about the balloon for days, but the news was only made public when civilians found the spy balloon hovering over their homes.

Senator Markwayne Mullin (R.OK), who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, claimed that the Chinese spy balloon was collecting information about the U.S. infrastructure and not military installations.

All of these factors ultimately increased tensions between Washington, China and the United States days before President Joe Biden gave his State of the Union address.