Stephen Colbert
The Super Bowl may have taken place on Sunday evening, but by Monday afternoon, Stephen Colbert was ready to focus on “America’s other national pastime: being scared of giant balloons” after three unidentified flying objects were downed by the US military in as many days.
The suspicious objects were detected days after the US military tracked a Chinese spy balloon across the country and destroyed it off the coast of South Carolina.
“Just a reminder: we spend almost $800bn a year on defense, and we used it to pop a balloon,” the Late Show host said. “You can do that with a thumb tack and a straw.”
It’s since been confirmed that the Chinese spy balloon, the size of three school buses, contained an antenna meant to pinpoint the locations of communications devices, and was capable of intercepting calls. “We can’t have Chinese balloons monitoring our cellphones! That’s what TikTok is for,” Colbert joked.
As for the three other objects, downed over Michigan, Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory, Colbert anticipated audience skepticism. “You’re thinking, ‘Steve, you can’t possibly be suggesting that these are aliens,’”he said. “Well, let me be clear about this, ladies and gentlemen. I am not suggesting that. I am declaring that.”
The military was unable to immediately determine how any of the objects were kept aloft or where they were coming from, he noted, and a senior US general said: “I haven’t ruled out anything.”
So it “could be aliens, it could be balloons, or it could be alien balloons”.
Seth Meyers
“The sky over America is suddenly turning into that carnival game balloon pop,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night.
“As far as I can tell, there are three possibilities here,” he explained. “It’s a foreign adversary spying on us, it’s aliens, or there’s a dude in Montana with a remote in his hands absolutely shitting his pants right now.”
There’s also a much more mundane potential explanation: after the Chinese spy balloon, the military expanded the filters on their radar to identify more objects than than usual.
“Personally, I would like to know: why are there filters in the first place?” Meyers wondered. “Shouldn’t Norad [the North American Aerospace Defense Command] be able to detect abnormal objects with surveillance capabilities? How many of these have we missed so far?
“I mean on the one hand, the explanation is a relief,” he continued. “On the other hand, it feels like they’re saying, ‘Don’t freak out about these, they’ve been in the sky forever, we just didn’t notice them. Be they from China or outer space, one thing is clear: they know every single fucking thing about us by now.’”
“I never thought I would say this, but this is one time I kinda wish Donald Trump was still president,” he added. “Just for like, one hour. Because if it was aliens, he would blurt it out instantly.”
The Daily Show
On the Daily Show, guest host Sarah Silverman appreciated “how we’re not ruling anything out, but we’re shooting everything down”.
“Is it a kite? Is it aliens? Is it the old man from Up? Who cares! We’ll figure it out when we sift through the wreckage,” she joked.
Are the UFOs a kite, aliens, or the old man from Up? Who cares, America is blasting it! @SarahKSilverman pic.twitter.com/wXUFz6micf
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 14, 2023
The three UFOs were detected once the government adjusted the radar settings to be more sensitive, “and once they did that, they realized there’s all kinds of shit flying up, all the time, everywhere. It’s like when you start paying attention to what ingredients are in your food and realize like everything has guar gum in it. What’s guar gum?”
Silverman had to wonder: where was the Space Force? “Isn’t dealing with UFOs their thing?” she said of the branch of the military founded by Trump during his presidency, whose jurisdiction actually extends to space, not the North American sky. “They’re in this like weird in-between zone between the sky and space. It’s like the Earth’s taint. Really, what we need is a taint zone to protect this in-between area, this no man’s land. It’s a very sensitive zone.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel briefly noted the Super Bowl festivities from the night before, including the confirmation that Rihanna is pregnant with her second child minutes after her half-time show. “If you’re one of those 19 million people who called in sick to work today – Rihanna last night had a nine-month-old in her dressing room, she was 8mm dilated, and she still managed to get out there and do her job,” Kimmel said.
As for the UFOs shot down over the weekend – “I’d never in a million years thought I’d say this: where the hell is the Space Force?”
After initially refusing to rule it out, the military said on Monday that they do not believe the objects indicate extraterrestrial visits. “Which is exactly what they say at the beginning of every movie about extraterrestrial visits,” Kimmel noted. “Remember the good old days when all we had to worry about balloon-wise was whether or not there was a boy inside one?”
