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‘We learned nothing’: Senators still in the dark on aerial object takedowns after classified intel briefing

by

Daily Caller News Foundation

  • Senators received a classified briefing on the U.S. downing of three unidentified aerial objects Tuesday morning, but said the briefing produced little new information.
  • Authorities have not recovered debris from the objects yet, and U.S. officials say they do not have enough information to describe the objects’ function or origin.
  • “We learned nothing that I didn’t already know as a member of the Intelligence Committee and Armed Services Committee or, for that matter, that one could learn from reading your newspapers,” Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Senators offered little information on the mysterious objects shot down over North America in recent days after a classified briefing Tuesday morning, reflecting White House statements that U.S. intelligence agencies are still searching for answers.

Since Feb. 9, U.S. military spotted three unknown objects traveling at low speeds in altitudes frequented by commercial aircraft since and took them down but have yet to recover the debris, according to officials and media reports. A lack of physical evidence could contribute to officials’ hesitance to describe or attribute the objects, but senators said Tuesday that shouldn’t prevent the Biden administration from pursuing transparency with the knowledge it does have.

“They didn’t rule anything out other than they don’t think they are balloons on the order of the Chinese balloon,” Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley told Axios, referring to the briefers’ assessment of the three objects, “[and] they didn’t think they were aliens.” 

Briefers characterized the objects as “Unidentified Aerial Platforms,” two senators told Axios.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley referred to the objects as “balloons” in remarks Tuesday after saying earlier that day U.S. authorities have not recovered any debris from the downed objects, Reuters reported.

Military officials previously avoided referring to the objects as balloons or connecting them to the much larger and higher-flying Chinese surveillance craft that spent roughly a week transiting across North America, including over sensitive U.S. military sites. The smaller objects did not appear to have any form of propulsion or self-maneuvering capability, White House communications coordinator John Kirby said Monday.

Senators confirmed from the briefing that the objects have earth-bound explanations, but the briefing yielded little beyond that, according to Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who sits on the Senate’s Intelligence and Armed Services committees.

“We learned nothing that I didn’t already know as a member of the Intelligence Committee and Armed Services Committee or, for that matter, that one could learn from reading your newspapers,” Cotton told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I think we still need more information,” Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told Axios. “They don’t want to make any definitive statements until they’ve actually recovered the debris.”

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told Fox News he entered the briefing with the assumption that the object phenomena began just weeks ago, but said that was a false notion.

“This has been going on a long time,” he told Fox News. Briefers did not provide any hint regarding why the U.S. military has been shooting down these aerial objects, he added, without delving into further detail.

Republican Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, ranking member on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters after the briefing all three objects were “very small, smaller than a car” and that at least one carried some kind of payload, CQ Roll Call reported.

Pentagon correspondence circulating on Capitol Hill said the second object downed Saturday in Canadian airspace appeared to be a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it,” CNN reported.

The third object shot down in Lake Huron was shaped like an octagon and did not appear to carry a payload, a congressional aide previously told The Wall Street Journal.

“Based on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive [Department of Defense] sites,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The intelligence community has not found any indication the objects are connected to China’s spy balloon program or possessed intelligence collection capabilities, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday, according to AFP. They “could be balloons that were simply tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign,” he added.

He ruled out the possibility they belonged to the U.S.

They’re not aliens, they didn’t kill E.T.,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told CQ Roll Call after Tuesday’s briefing.

“It’s not from outer space,” Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said, adding that the Biden administration did the right thing in choosing to shoot the objects down despite apparent uncertainty about their origin or function, according to Axios.

The U.S. military has not recovered the two objects that crashed down on U.S. soil, and Canadian Royal Mounted Police are likewise struggling to locate the object a U.S. jet downed in central Yukon due to weather conditions, Bloomberg reported.

The White House announced an interagency task force to study unidentified aerial objects Monday, CNN reported.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will head the team of “to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis, and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks,” Kirby said, according to CNN.

Kennedy called for the president and the director of National Intelligence to address the U.S. public, a call echoed by other members of Congress.

“President Biden owes the American people an explanation,” Cotton told the DCNF.

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Republished with permission from Daily Caller News Foundation

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