WASHINGTON: After a series of unidentified object shootdowns on Sunday, the US Air Force general in charge of North American airspace deferred to US intelligence experts and said he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation yet.
General Glen VanHerck responded, "I have ruled out an extraterrestrial origin for three airborne objects shot down by US warplanes in the same day." That will be determined by the counterintelligence and intelligence communities. Nothing has been ruled out for me."
VanHerck, who is in charge of the United States' North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Northern Command, stated, "At this point we continue to assess every threat or potential threat, unknown, that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it." VanHerck made the remarks at a Pentagon briefing on Sunday after a US F-16 fighter jet, acting on orders from US President Joe Biden, shot down an octagonal-shaped object over Lake Huron on the border between the US and Canada.
After the suspected Chinese weather balloon that was shot down by US warplanes on Feb. 4 put North American air defenses on high alert, this was the third unidentified flying object that had been shot down by US warplanes since Friday.
After the news briefing, a different US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the military had not seen any evidence that any of the objects in question were of extraterrestrial origin.
According to VanHerck's statement to the media, the military was unable to immediately determine how any of the three most recent objects were kept in the air, how they were propelled, or where they were coming from.
VanHerck, who is in charge of the joint US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Air Force Northern Command, stated, "We're calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason."
The incidents occur at a time when the Pentagon has increased its efforts to look into military sightings of UFOs, which are now known as "unidentified aerial phenomena," or UAPs, in official government parlance.
However, senior military leaders have stated that the government's efforts to investigate anomalous, unidentified objects, whether they are in space, the sky, or even underwater, have resulted in hundreds of reports that are currently being investigated.
However, according to those officials, the Pentagon has not yet discovered any evidence that intelligent alien life has visited Earth.