Briefing the Bush Administration on the 2001 Subic Bay Case with a Newly-Released US Navy Undercover Jet: A Story of Two Globally-Embedded UAVs Colliding in the South China Sea
Beth Sanner oversaw the elements that coordinate and lead collection, analysis, and program oversight during her time as deputy director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration. In this role she also served as the president’s intelligence briefer. She is a professor-of-practice at the Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security at the University of Maryland and a CNN national security analyst. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. You can give your opinion on CNN.
After crossing the US, the Chinese balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Biden administration officials said it posed little intelligence gathering and military risk.
In late 2016, the Chinese seized an unmanned US Navy underwater vehicle in international waters in the South China Sea, just 50 nautical miles from Subic Bay in the Philippines, and hundreds of miles from China. Subic Bay was the biggest US naval base in Asia before disagreements over leasing costs led to a withdrawal, and it is believed that US sailors will return to the base in the near future. The incident was widely believed to have been a message to President-elect Donald Trump, just two weeks before his inauguration and several weeks after he angered Beijing by taking a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s president. Beijing agreed to return the craft three days later, but never apologized and accused the US of spying.
The most memorable and instructive example dates back to the presidency of George W. Bush. On April 1, 2001, two Chinese fighter jets harassed a US Navy EP-3 surveillance plane over international waters near China. The person crashed after colliding with the EP-3. When the pilot was unable to regain control of his damaged plane, he made an unauthorized emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island. The 24 US crew members were held for an extended period of time, with some being repeatedly questioned before their release.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin blamed the US for the collision. Nearly two months elapsed before the two sides reached agreement for the return of the aircraft. The Chinese insisted that the US pay for the dismemberment and transportation of the plane, after removing its hardware, software and communications equipment. The Bush Administration was accused of trying to charge $1 million for the incident, along with expenses for detaining the plane’s crew. Washington countered with an offer of some $34,000 it said was a “fair figure” — money China refused — and never apologized.
The US military shot down a Chinese spy balloon on February 4 followed by the downing of two unknown flying objects on Friday and Saturday in US and Canadian airspace, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Peter Bergen: Security analyst at CNN, CNN, and in Washington, D.C., during the 1950’s (after Tom Bergen), a US Air Force lieutenant
Let’s create a plan to hold China accountable, but also allow room for dialogue. If we follow Beijing’s lead it will surely be a race to the bottom, making it harder to avoid what we all wish to avoid — military conflict with China.
Peter Bergen is a national security analyst for CNN, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and a vice president at New America. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinions on it.
And it reminded me that when my father, Tom Bergen, was a lieutenant in the US Air Force in the mid-1950s, he worked on a program to help send balloons into Soviet airspace.
He was assigned to Headquarters Air Material Command in the middle of the 60s. There he worked on the “Grand Union” project, which deployed balloons that carried cameras over the then-Soviet Union. Those spy balloons were launched from Turkey.
The work was secret, but it has been declassified for decades and my dad didn’t speak much about it.
The US intelligence community has developed a method to track China’s fleet of surveillance balloons that was only discovered within the last year, six people familiar with the matter tell CNN.
The United States has spy satellites, which can take photos. They can do full-motion video! They can take thermal imagery that detects individuals moving around at night! When the skies are clear, they can spy on pretty much anything, with a resolution of centimeters.
If you’re interested in buying close up images of a Russian battle group in Ukraine, Commercial satellite imagery is so cheap that you can do it yourself. Just ask Maxar Technologies, they have built a profitable business that was acquired two months ago for $6 billion by a private equity firm.
A UFO Case Study in the United States: China and the F-35 Flying Off the Costa Rican Balloon (Japan)
But it may help explain, at least in part, an element of a little-noticed report published by the US Office of Director of National Intelligence last month.
This is part of a relatively new push by Congress and the Pentagon to make sense of more than 500 credible UFO sightings over the past couple of decades.
China definitely has done worse than any other country. The United States has accused it of obtaining design data for the F-35 fighter aircraft and swindling much of the personal information of Americans when it was used in China’s new generation of fighters. China called the F-35 theft report “baseless” and denied responsibility for the OPM hacking.
The balloon was found in Latin America and was being followed by the Pentagon. Gen. Pat Ryder said was assessed to be “another Chinese balloon.”
In the days after the furor over the Chinese balloon led officials to adjust how they monitor US airspace, fighter jets have intercepted and shot objects out of the sky over Alaska, northern Canada and Lake Huron.
There is a different model of balloons than the one that fell off the coast of South Carolina, an official and another source familiar with the intelligence have said. Rather, there are multiple “variations,” these people said.
The Washington Post reported that the link to the broader program was uncovered before the balloon was spotted.
The source familiar with the FBI operation also noted the intelligence community will be interested in learning whether the equipment on the Chinese balloon bears any technical resemblance to technology constructed by the US intelligence community and military, as the Chinese government has long been aggressive in stealing American defense secrets.
The US gleaned important clues from the balloon’s transit in the US, according to defense officials.
China maintains the vessel downed by the US was a weather balloon thrown off course but did offer a rare expression of “regret” over it in a statement Friday.
It’s not clear if Xi would have known about a balloon being dispatched to the US airspace or if lower-level officials would conduct the mission without his knowledge.
This elite team consists of agents, analysts, engineers and scientists, who are responsible for both creating technical surveillance measures and analyzing those of the US’ adversaries.
OTD personnel, for example, construct surveillance devices used by FBI and intelligence community personnel targeting national security threats — but they also are responsible for managing court-authorized data collection and work to defeat efforts by foreign intelligence agencies to penetrate the US.
But, according to one member of the House Intelligence Committee, “there’s number of reasons why we wouldn’t do that. We want to collect it, and you want to see what it is doing.
A defense official said that the US has procedures like a digital black out that protects sensitive locations from being eyed by satellites.
The Recovery of a Known Chinese Spy Balloon and its Possible Implications for the US Navy and the Defense of the International Law
The US Navy released photos Tuesday of its recovery effort of a suspected Chinese spy balloon, which US fighter jets shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.
The commander of US Northern Command told reporters on Monday that the balloon was more than two thousand pounds and was approximately 200 feet tall.
It is a safe way to see yourself with large debris if it falls out of the sky. VanHerck said on Monday that they are talking about that. “So glass off of solar panels, potentially hazardous material, such as material that is required for a batteries to operate in such an environment as this and even the potential for explosives to detonate and destroy the balloon that could have been present.”
VanHerck said that it was well worth the time that was taken to assess what they were actually doing, what kinds of capabilities existed on the balloon, and what kind of transmission capabilities existed.
At a Pentagon briefing later, spokesman Brig. An object was shot down over northeast Alaska by a F-22 fighter jet. When pressed by reporters about whether the object was a balloon, Ryder said he didn’t want to “characterize” it yet. He said “we don’t know origin of this object,” but that, based on a “reasonable threat to civilian air traffic,” the decision was taken to take it down.
According to the Foreign Ministry, the Chinese side has told the US side numerous times that the airship is for civilian use and that it came into the US due to force majeure.
The secretary of state plans to go to Beijing within days, but that has been postponed because of the situation.
She would not comment on the equipment on the balloon or the entities that own it. Chinese statements have implied that the balloon was not operated by a government entity, but instead was linked to one or more companies. It has not named them.
“China is a responsible country,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday. “We have always strictly abided by international law. We have informed all relevant parties and appropriately handled the situation, which did not pose any threats to any countries.”
State of the Art: On the Biden Administration’s Decision not to Shoot the Balloon Down before It Came Through the Continental US
The Defense Intelligence Agency sent an internal report that a foreign object was headed towards the US a day before the balloon entered US airspace, according to military and intelligence officials.
The reports of the DIA are sent across government channels, and while US officials have access to read them, it is not certain if they are included in briefings to senior policymakers.
The US looked at the object as an opportunity to collect intel, rather than seeing it as a threat.
The Biden administration’s decision to not shoot the balloon down before it crossed into the continental US has been pointed out by some Republican lawmakers.
According to officials, on January 28, when the balloon entered US airspace, NORAD sent up fighter jets to make a positive identification.
Once it was over US territory, officials have argued that the benefits of gathering additional intelligence on the balloon as it passed over far outweighed the risk of shooting it down over land.
Military officials said that it was unsurprising that the president was not briefed until January 31 because of the expectations for the balloon.
Congress has taken a interest in what the administration is up to when it comes to the balloon.
A Senate Republican aide said there were still questions to be asked about Alaska. Why is it acceptable to transit through Alaska without telling anyone, but not in the continental US?
Reply to the House Speaker’s Question about the Shooting Down of a Possible Chinese Spy Balloon in the Ocean Off the Coast of the Carolinas
One pilot took a selfie in the cockpit that shows both the pilot and the surveillance balloon itself, these officials said – an image that has already gained legendary status in both NORAD and the Pentagon.
The shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon in the ocean off the coast of Carolinas has caused questions over its handling by the Biden administration.
Lawmakers were told Thursday that the order to send the balloon was dispatched without Chinese President Xi Jinping’s knowledge, sources familiar with the briefing said.
One official said that only theopy itself, wiring and a small amount of electronics have been delivered to FBI analysts so far. Analysts have yet to see the “payload,” which you would expect to see the “lion’s share” of electronics.
“We did not assess that it presented a significant collection hazard beyond what already exists in actionable technical means from the Chinese,” said Gen. Glenn VanHerck, the commander of US Northern Command and NORAD, on Monday.
The House briefing Thursday morning was tense, the sources said, with several Republicans railing against the administration, including GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who said that the Pentagon made the president – whom she noted she doesn’t like – look weak by their actions.
The Pentagon told us they were able to mitigate in real-time, and I believe that is correct, according to Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois.
“I believe that the administration, the president, our military and intelligence agencies, acted skillfully and with care. Their capabilities are quite impressive. Was everything done 100% correctly? It is hard to imagine that would be the case of almost anything we do. But I came away more confident,” Romney said Thursday.
Sensitivity of the Pentagon to a threat from the spy balloon technology over Alaska and the response to the hearing by Senator Jon Tester
The defense officials were told at the hearing by Senator Jon Tester of Montana, that they did not know how they could say that it wasn’t a military threat.
This baby wasn’t taken out long before and I am telling you that this will not be the last time. We’ve [seen] brief incursions, now we’ve seen a long incursion, what happens next?,” said Tester, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
Pentagon officials said at the hearing that the Defense Department was not concerned about the balloon gathering intelligence over Alaska as it was not near sensitive sites.
The parts of the balloon recovered on the surface of the ocean have been delivered so far, while recovering additional pieces of the balloon that sunk has been complicated by bad weather, officials said.
It’s not yet clear where the balloon’s parts were manufactured, the officials said, including whether any of the pieces were made in America. Because analysts have yet to look at the bulk of the equipment on the balloon, the officials said that there has not been a determination as to everything the device was capable of doing and its specific intent.
Analysts have not identified any explosives or offensive material that would pose a danger to the American public, of the small portion they have examined.
There was English writing on parts of the balloon that were found, one of the sources familiar with the congressional briefings said, though they were not high-tech components. The source wouldn’t provide any information on what part of the balloon contained English writing.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spy-balloon-technology/index.html
State Department update on the alleged Chinese spy balloon over Alaska and its possible impact on air space security and air navigation in the U.S.
The official said that based on China’s “messaging and public comments, it’s clear that they have been scrambling to explain why they violated US sovereignty and still have no plausible explanation – and have found themselves on their heels.”
“As we saw with the second balloon over Central and South America that they just acknowledged, they also have no explanation for why they violated the airspace of Central and South American countries,” the official said. The PRC will find it harder to use its program because the program will only continue to be exposed.
As U.S. Navy crews continue to fish parts of the alleged Chinese spy balloon out of the Atlantic, a senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave reporters an update on Thursday on some of what has been learned so far.
One FBI official said that it was very early to know what the intent was of the device, and that the main electronics payloads had not yet been recovered.
“That narrative is probably part of the information and public opinion warfare the U.S. has waged on China,” Mao added. “As to who is the world’s number one country of spying, eavesdropping and surveillance, that is plainly visible to the international community.”
And the government is investing in improvements, too. A project to research materials that can be used to make balloons that float higher was launched by China.
The U.S. military shot down a “high-altitude object” over Alaska within the last hour, said John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
The Pentagon said the object was taken down by an F-22 fighter jet in US airspace. A general told reporters on Friday.
Ryder also emphasized that officials do not know the origin of the object, which did not appear to be manned, and that it was shot down because it posed a “reasonable threat to civilian air traffic” as it was flying at 40,000 feet.
Kirby told reporters that there were two fly-bys of US fighter aircraft on Friday. The information they brought back was limited.
“We were able to get some fighter aircrafts up and around it before the order to shoot it down, and the pilots assessment was this was not manned,” Kirby added.
The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, had entered the Canadian airspace, and posed a risk to the safety of civilian flight. She said the object was shot down around 100 miles from the United States border over Canadian territory.
US Northern Command’s Alaska Command coordinated the operation with assistance from the Alaska Air National Guard, Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ryder said.
The US Mission to China and its Implications for the General Relativity and the State-Dependent Control of Xi
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now. Kirby said that they don’t know who owns it, whether it is state owned or corporate owned.
The object first came to the attention of the US government “last evening.” Biden was first briefed Thursday night “as soon as the Pentagon had enough information,” Kirby said.
“This thing did not appear to be self-maneuvering so therefore at the mercy of prevailing winds, it was much less predictable. He stated that the president was not willing to take that risk.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction Friday in the area around Deadhorse, Alaska, as the military took action against the object.
The president’s handling of the balloon has been defended by his administration, but he has faced criticism for allowing the balloon to go over a large swath of the country before shooting it down.
He said the size of the aircraft made it difficult to glean a lot of information from it.
According to CNN reports, the assessment was given to American lawmakers in briefings on Thursday and could suggest a lack of coordination between China and the US.
It could mean that Xi and his top advisers underestimated the potential gravity of the fallout of the mission and the possibility it could imperil Blinken’s visit, which would have been the first from the most senior US diplomat since 2018 and had been welcomed by Beijing as a path to easing strained ties.
Beijing, in a statement last weekend, appeared to link the device to “companies,” rather than the government or military – though in China the prominence of state-owned enterprises and a robust military-industrial complex blurs the line between the two.
Such a situation, according to Singapore-based analyst Drew Thompson, could have been exacerbated by the level of control wielded by Xi – who cemented his grip on power last fall as he entered a precedent-breaking third term atop the Communist Party.
That means that lower-level officials who can more closely monitor such missions may not be given the authority to make any political judgments about their impact. Communication could be affected by power struggles between lower and higher ranking officials.
There is a tension within the Chinese governance, where lower levels fight for their own independence and upper levels fight for control, he said.
In the past there have been crises in China that have pointed to tensions like the Covid-19 outbreak where reporting delays were seen as slowing the response and compounding the problem. Local officials were blamed for being accustomed to a system where information flowed from the top down and not the bottom up.
In the same way as space or other aircraft missions, balloon launches could fall into a gap in which operations weren’t managed in the same way.
In this case, entities launching balloons may have received “little or no push back from other countries, including the United States” and “increasingly seen such launches as routine based on weather conditions and at modest costs,” Yang said.
It was likely that the leaders of these programs were not top priority from a political risk point of view.
Biden officials expressed the belief that both the senior leadership of the People’s Liberation Army and Chinese Communist Party, including Xi, were also unaware of the balloon mission over the US, and that China is still trying to figure out how this happened, a source familiar with the Thursday briefing to Congress told CNN.
“Because of his personality, he wants 100% (control),” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor, also at the NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “I don’t think Xi Jinping allows for that kind of autonomy.”
The incident that caused the talks to be put off diverted attention away from a faltering economy after years under the Zero- Covid policy, but was still seen as a victory by the United States.
What Happened to a UFO Shot Down by a Chinese Balloon in Alaska? A Pentagon spokesman told CNN on Sunday
US officials said an object was shot down 10 miles off the coast of Alaska, but no details about the object are available.
A senior administration official told CNN that an object was flying over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The official and another source briefed on the matter agree that it was confusing with strings hanging off.
The Chinese balloon was allowed to cross the continental US because there was not a big concern about damage to people or property if it was shot down.
The object has not been linked to the Chinese balloon that fell over the Atlantic Ocean last weekend, despite the fact that debris is still being recovered.
Ryder said on Friday that recovery teams have “mapped the debris field” and are “in the process of searching for and identifying debris on the ocean floor.”
When asked Friday if the lessons learned about China’s balloon helped detect the object that was shot down over Alaska, Ryder said it was a little bit of apples and oranges.
US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both approved the shoot down on Saturday, according to a statement from the White House.
Ryder’s statement said that while Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations, the FBI will be “working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”
Some pilots said the object interfered with their sensor and others said they did not, but a source briefed on intelligence told CNN that the pilots gave different accounts.
The report suggested that the increase may be because there is less “stigma” associated with reporting UFO sightings, now that the Pentagon is actively pushing service personnel to report any “anomalies” seen in the sky.
Congress should convene hearings to get to the bottom of this. The Pentagon and US intelligence community can’t explain why objects are flying around in American airspace, so the public has a right to know.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, Melissa Dalton told reporters on Sunday they were taken down out of an “abundance of caution.”
The Shot Down of an F-16 Flying High-Altitude Object by the Pentagon and Associated Airborne Signals in the Large Magellanic Cloud
High-altitude objects can be used for a range of purposes, including legitimate research.
Due to the fact that we haven’t been able to assess what these objects are, we’ve taken precautions to protect our security and interests.
Canada’s chief of defense staff made reference to a balloon when describing the instructions given to the team to take down the object.
Still, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh noted Sunday “these objects shot down on Friday and Saturday were objects and did not closely resemble the PRC balloon. We will have more when we can recover the debris.
The findings have allowed the US to develop a consistent technical method for the first time, which they have used to track the balloons in near-real time across the globe, the sources said.
New speculation and criticism could be premature as officials work to fully understand the sequence of events and more about the objects. NORAD had used to use a different set of filters to sift the data, which used to focus on spotting fast moving objects below a certain altitude. A source briefed on the matter said that the early warning filters were set to not pick up birds and weather balloons.
In light of the People’s Republic of China balloon crashing last Saturday, we have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may include the increase in objects that we detected over the past week.
The object was shot down on Sunday afternoon by an F-16 over Lake Huron, which is between Michigan and Ontario. The object was deemed a flight hazard by the Pentagon but it was not assessed as a military threat. But it did connect the craft to a radar signal picked up earlier over Montana, the home to US intercontinental missile silos and other sensitive sites.
Slotkin said that the military has an extremely close look at the object above Lake Huron. We will know more about it in the coming days, but for now all parties have been focused on it from the moment it crossed our waters.
Legislators on Capitol Hill want to know the answers. Politicians on both sides of the aisle met the news of further objects being shot down with a range of responses Sunday.
The Biden administration’s appearance is a little triggered-happy, but it’s better than the situation they had when the Chinese spy balloon came over some of our most sensitive sites.
I think this shows us what we need to say about our policy: we are going to defend our airspace. Turner said that they need to invest. We have a lot of problems and gaps, and this shows some of them. We need to fill those as soon as possible because we certainly now ascertain there is a threat.”
Turner’s Democratic counterpart on the Intelligence panel, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he had “real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows,” before adding, “My guess is that there’s just not a lot of information out there to share.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, said Congress needs to investigate why it took so long for the US to catch on to the Chinese government’s use of spy balloons.
Three days in a row, US fighter jets shot down three aerial objects over the North American continent, causing a political storm and threatening a deeper national security mystery.
The intrigue is also unfolding against a tense global situation, with already difficult relations with rising superpower China becoming ever more hostile and with the US leading the West in an effective proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
“What’s gone on in the last two weeks or so, 10 days, has been nothing short of craziness,” Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS, hours before an airborne object was shot down over Lake Huron.
The commander of the NORAD said that recent objects shot down were probably the first action taken against an airborne object over US airspace.
The events of the last couple of days have caused serious national security and political questions and they can only be answered once more details are known.
It is unlikely that the lack of specificity will stop speculation in Washington. At the start of a new presidential election cycle and in a polarized political age when social media magnifies conspiracy theories, this odd series of incidents is heaping fresh pressure on Biden following recriminations after his decision to wait until the Chinese balloon had crossed the country before shooting it down over water.
Such speculation may be premature. The political debate over the balloon has made Biden less tolerant of unknown aerial objects.
Biden did not speak to Americans in person about the events at the black-tie event with state governors on Saturday.
What Do They Say About The Three Off-Satellar Objects Downed Over Alaska And the Yukon? Revised Observations
“They are getting lots of positives that they did not get before. Kayyem was a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.
“We can’t tell if it’s part of a bigger organization or if it’s just stuff that has been forgiven, around in the skies, because it didn’t pose a threat.”
There was more confusion on Sunday. Schumer told ABC that the objects shot down over Alaska and the Yukon were smaller than the original Chinese invader, after saying he had been briefed by Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
The congressman from Montana appeared to link a Chinese balloon to the latest objects even if there was no proof that they are connected.
“It doesn’t give me much safe feelings knowing that these devices are smaller,” he said. I’m very concerned with the amount of data being collected. I need answers and the Americans need them.
That term – “objects” – is deliberately vague with regard to the three objects downed since Friday. Nobody currently knows who these things are.
“I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft. Period. John Kirby, National Security Council coordinate for strategic communications, said there was nothing more to be said about it at a White House briefing Monday.
He suggested that the downed objects did not pose an immediate threat, were not sending communications signals or having any propulsion abilities, and were not manned.
What the Chinese spy balloon really told us about the invasion of our air space and how to protect ourselves against possible threats from foreign invaders, including drones and other small metal objects
The government is working to appear more engaged under scrutiny for the president’s lack of comments. National security adviser Jake Sullivan is set to lead a new “interagency team” to assess the UAPs.
The balloon like features and small metal objects attached to them were flying over Alaska and northern Canada when they were intercepted.
The filters were only readjusted and broadened in the past week, the source said, after a high-altitude, suspected Chinese spy balloon transited the US and ignited a debate over the United States’ ability to detect and defend against any potentially threatening objects entering its airspace.
About half of the total are “characterized as balloon or balloon-like entities.” Others do things like drones. And a few appear to be nothing more than “airborne debris like plastic bags.”
SANNER: There was a lot of discussion when we first started looking at this in 2021, that these were aliens. I think that since that time, people have pulled back and said that most of the things can be explained. But to me, these stories really come together, right?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/politics/us-mystery-objects-in-sky-what-matters/index.html
What we really see as terrorists and what we do not know about ourselves – Is there a hidden place in the sky, or what we don’t know?
Because the things that pilots have been seeing – and many times were discouraged from talking about, there was a stigma with that – they could very well be spy or other kinds of threats. So it’s important to get these things out there.
There was Sanner. We don’t have the interest or the capacity to keep scrambling F-22s every time we see an object in the sky. So now we’ve got to really focus and say, “How do we identify things that are actual threats?”
We’ve invested in ballistic missile defense, but not in this. And so, that might be a secret to all of us, but it’s not to the US military, and the Biden administration actually put money into the budget this year to start looking at this.
We have a large gap. We have a gap geographically – we’re really only focused toward anything coming over the North Pole. But if something comes in south of Alaska, we might not see it.
And then we have this technology gap, in terms of most of our radars are from the 1980s. That is because ourProcessors, attached to the radars, are not capable of looking through that much material. We have to look at threats that look similar to what we know as threats.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/politics/us-mystery-objects-in-sky-what-matters/index.html
CNN: Are we close to what we saw in a close plane? Is it still going to be hard to tell when the Chinese are going to come down?
Sanner: We are in a lie, pants on fire moment here. I think the Chinese will try and make up things in order to cover their tracks.
It could take some time to figure out what these objects were, according to Andrew McCabe, a CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former FBI deputy director.
Some of them are coming down in a more difficult way to reach places. “Then those materials have to be transported back to Virginia, to the FBI laboratory at Quantico.
“Then the right partners, whether they are international partners or researchers here from the United States, have to be assembled to participate in what we call the exploitation of that technology, of the equipment.
Time is required for all of that. I think we will comprehend the full scope of what these things are but it might take a while.
While there has been plenty of criticism of the Biden administration for not communicating about these incidents more effectively, there is bipartisan support for shooting the objects down.
“I would prefer them to be trigger-happy than to be permissive, but we’re going to have to see whether or not this is just the administration trying to change headlines,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” before Sunday’s shoot-down took place.