US President Joe Biden recently confirmed that the three unidentified flying objects shot down in US airspace are not related to Chinese intelligence. The Wall Street Journal reported that an Illinois hot air balloon company recently lost one of its balloons over Alaska.
According to President Biden, the three objects were shot down by the US Air Force and were likely related to private enterprise and scientific research, not Chinese intelligence. They were shot down out of an abundance of caution, following the shooting down of a Chinese intelligence air balloon near the US East Coast.
President Biden stated that he has tasked the government with creating clearer rules for distinguishing dangerous air objects from non-dangerous ones. He also confirmed that objects found in the air that pose a threat to US citizens will be shot down. The US government is creating a better list of unmanned objects, as reported by CNN.
President Biden stressed that the US will continue to communicate with China and has done so in recent weeks. He is also in contact with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
In a later interview with NBC News, Joe Biden stated that in his opinion, Xi does not want to significantly harm his relationship with the United States or with Biden personally.
The US military has previously stated that the shot-down objects have not yet been definitively identified, and getting a clearer picture may take several weeks, as pieces of the downed objects are still being searched for.
The US air detection system learned about the different high-altitude moving air objects when radar data was analyzed differently. It is currently unclear how long such objects have been moving around in US airspace. Biden confirmed that the search for the remnants of the specific Chinese intelligence air balloon is still ongoing. According to Biden, the gondola of the specific intelligence air balloon was the size of several US school buses.
President Joe Biden emphasized that US sovereignty violation is unacceptable, and the US imposed restrictions on six companies associated with the Chinese Liberation Army.
The Wall Street Journal pointed out that an Illinois hot air balloon company recently reported that one of their balloons had gone missing over Alaska. A day later, the US government announced that a US Air Force F-22 fighter jet had shot down an unknown object over Canada's Yukon territory, which had a similar trajectory to the missing hot air balloon.