Invading extra-terrestrials, weather balloons or spy satellites - what exactly are the "unidentified flying objects" shot down over the United States and Canada?
The first was downed in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of South Carolina, on February 4 by the US military. China insisted it was one of their weather balloons which had gone adrift but it sparked concern after flying over nuclear bases as well as a US Air Force Base in Montana.
Three further as-yet-unidentified objects have been shot down. Two in US airspace - one on Saturday over North Alaska, one over Lake Huron in Michigan on Sunday, and a third over Canada’s Central Yukon territory on Saturday.
The US Department of State claims the first balloon was part of a fleet of Chinese military surveillance balloons which have been flown over more than 40 countries, across five continents, including Europe.
Yesterday the Chinese military were said to be preparing to shoot down an unidentified object spotted flying over the port city of Qingdao.
Dr Patrick Bury, Senior Lecturer in Security at the University of Bath, and a former NATO analyst and Captain in the Royal Irish Regiment, answers the key questions on the escalating situation.
What are these objects in the air over North America?
There is a real lack of clarity around what the latter three objects actually are. The White House said last night it was certain the first large, high altitude balloon shot down was a Chinese surveillance balloon that is part of a programme they are running around the world, and which they had been tracking for a while. It had a huge payload – three school buses – and the US was happy to monitor it until it was safe to shoot down. The US is much less certain about the three smaller, slower moving objects at lower altitudes.
Why have there been so many spotted all at once?
It’s important to unpick the context. There’s a few things going on at the moment between the US and China. Firstly, you have the rise of the latter as a superpower. Secondly, just before the first suspected Chinese balloon was shot down, the US signed a deal to put military bases back on the Philippines, something China viewed as boxing them in. Thirdly, the US has known about these balloons for a long time, and spies itself, but something has changed in the last week.
China seems to have been brazen with flying them lower, so the military is responding to smaller ones with shoot-down orders when they wouldn’t have before. And because of the heightened risk, they may have high-tuned their own radars and are now seeing more stuff, spy balloons and not.
What are surveillance balloons actually used for?
Depending on what you put on these balloons, they can do various things like collecting signals from communications such as phone calls, take photos or use a radar that penetrates the ground to look for underground weapons or military constructions. They are easily manoeuvrable and can hold their position in the atmosphere for a long time. They can be better than satellites as you don’t have to wait for them to orbit and they have more time on target to collect intelligence than a satellite may have. There are some advanced stealth drone programmes in existence that can do similar stuff to both spy satellites and balloons, but balloons are much cheaper than those.
The latest three objects shot down are smaller than the first ‘spy balloon’, could these be different?
It’s possible the North American Aerospace Defense Command, who cover Canada and the US have fine-tuned their radars to catch everything and they are catching smaller objects. Research and science organisations also use balloons. Less likely I think, it could be down to extra-terrestrials, you can’t rule it out until you’ve investigated further.
China has admitted one of the balloons belonged to them but say it was a weather balloon. Is this plausible?
A lot of countries use weather balloons to take measurements and they also have a military function. However, it is highly unlikely that balloon was a weather balloon. An out-of-control weather balloon doesn’t loiter over a nuclear base does it? That just doesn’t fly as an excuse, it’s nonsense.
Do other countries send ‘spy balloons’ to China?
All rival nations spy on each other. They either do it knowingly and let each other do it because they don’t want to risk a provocation and understand that these are the rules of the game - or they do it with a new technology which is unknown to their rivals. Balloons have been used by a number of nations since World War One because they are cheap and can hold location better than a satellite.
Could things escalate between the US and China if the former keep shooting them down?
The ramifications really depend on how either country responds to this. We’ve already had tit-for-tat, with the Chinese saying the US have sent 10 balloons over to them, which the latter has denied. The relationship between the US and China is definitely deteriorating. The direction of travel at present, seems to be indicating a confrontation in the longer term, but this incident is unlikely to be a turning point towards that.
Is it possible they have already been flown over UK airspace, and if so, why?
Yes it is plausible. The Chinese could be using them to see take a look at our nuclear stock and how it is stored, or trying to find out information about military readiness or get signals intelligence from areas of high security. This is what nations do, try to gain an intelligence information advantage all the time.
Why is the US government not ruling out the possibility of aliens?
The foremost astronomers in the world have talked about the chances of advanced life in the Universe and say it is mathematically possible. Also, after the US Department of Defence opened a department looking at UFOs so there’s been a lot more reports of things that have been unexplained. Navy and Air Force pilots have spotted things in the past and are now encouraged to report it without it affecting their careers, so sightings have gone up.
Before you’d be seen as crazy saying these objects could be extra-terrestrial but now it’s backed by experience and theoretical evidence so you can’t rule it out, and there’s a long history around the world of military personnel reporting UFOs. On the other hand, if the smaller objects turn out to be spying devices, the recent uptick of sightings would indicate increased efforts by China and possibly Russia. At the moment, they are being referred to as ‘unidentified flying objects’ because currently, that is what they are. The US said they didn’t see any obvious surveillance or propulsion systems but shot them down out of an abundance of caution. At the moment, the US is certain the first balloon is part of the Chinese balloon programme but much less sure about the lower altitude smaller objects…
