Tag: spy

Pentagon still probing if a weapon caused ‘Havana Syndrome,’ even after spy agencies found no smoking gun

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The Pentagon’s research arm, including the Army and Air Force research laboratories, are testing weapon systems to try to determine what could cause the symptoms, according to two former intelligence officials with knowledge of the efforts. The people, like others interviewed for this story, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.
Meanwhile, a “cross-functional team” in the Pentagon mandated by Congress “remains focused” on addressing the incidents, DoD spokesperson Lt. Col. Devin Robinson said in a statement. This includes “the causation, attribution, mitigation, identification and treatment for such incidents,” Robinson said.
The DoD team primarily deals with helping those affected by the incidents and “is not focused on creating weapons,” Robinson said.
But the Pentagon is working on developing “defenses” against the syndrome and is investigating to see if it is possible that a weapon could be responsible, an intelligence official told reporters in a briefing on the findings last week.
An email from a Pentagon official sent out after the CIA-led report released on Wednesday reassured victims that the DoD team is “keeping the course.” The official urged victims to continue to “report any incidents you may have experienced and encourage those around you to do the same.”
A State Department task force is also continuing to collect reports of possible incidents, and coordinating care for those affected, according to a senior State Department official, who said the department supports the intelligence community’s assessment.
DoD treats government employees who have suffered brain injuries, including some related to the Havana Syndrome incidents, at Walter Reed National Medical Center.
The news that the Pentagon is continuing to study the issue comes after most intelligence agencies concluded in a comprehensive investigation led by the CIA released Wednesday that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary using a weapon was responsible for the incidents. But the seven agencies that participated had varying levels of confidence in the final determination.

Two of the agencies, which intelligence officials would not name, had low confidence in the assessment, because they still believe “radiofrequency (RF) energy is a plausible cause,” according to a statement from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Several lawmakers have expressed frustration in recent days over the official findings from the intelligence community.
“I am concerned that the Intelligence Community effectively concluded that U.S. personnel … were simply experiencing symptoms caused by environmental factors, illness, or preexisting conditions,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement. “As I have said before, something happened here and just because you don’t have all the answers, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.”
The search continues
The Pentagon’s main line of effort, the cross-functional team, was established by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to address the national security challenges posed by the incidents and to ensure the victims receive adequate care. Senior department leaders are focused on the effort: DoD policy chief Colin Kahl is leading the effort, with Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Gregory Masiello as the military deputy, Robinson said. Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, is the interagency coordination lead.
Griffin Decker, a career civil servant, led DoD’s efforts related to the incidents until recently. He left DoD in the last few weeks to lead the effort for the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee Republicans, according to two people familiar with the move. Decker was one of several DoD officials to brief lawmakers in 2021 that U.S. troops were increasingly vulnerable to the attacks, POLITICO reported at the time.
The Pentagon has long studied the possible military applications of directed energy, including lasers and high-power microwaves, and today spends roughly $1.5 billion a year looking into this technology. A number of programs have emerged from this effort, including the Navy’s Laser Weapons System, which was mounted on an amphibious transport ship in the Persian Gulf, Boeing’s “CHAMP,” a high-power microwave source mounted in a missile, and “THOR,” which was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory to counter drone swarms.
Directed energy weapons convert energy from a power source into radiated electromagnetic energy and focus it on a target, wrote Edl Schamiloglu, a professor at the University of New Mexico who has worked with DoD on high power microwave sources, in a 2020 piece for Defense One. While they are generally designed to disable and damage electronic equipment, they can harm people as well.
A wide body of research indicates a device that harnesses energy could be responsible for the Havana Syndrome incidents. A 2020 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report commissioned by the State Department to look into the initial cluster of incidents in Havana found that the symptoms were consistent with the effects of “directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy.” A panel of outside experts also found that this was “the most plausible mechanism” to explain the illness.
But the medical community’s thinking has “evolved” since then, the intelligence official said Wednesday when rolling out the new report’s findings. While initial studies concluded the incidents represented a consistent pattern of injuries similar to traumatic brain injury, more recent studies have not shown a consistent set of symptoms.
Another reason the intelligence community’s assessment determined it was unlikely a weapon caused the illness was that such a weapon would create heat and a racing pulse with victims, neither of which were consistent with what the victims experienced, the intelligence official said. Further, the intelligence community does not have any evidence that potential adversaries have such a weapon, the person added.
But some scientists dispute both these points. A continuous, low-power electromagnetic wave, such as in a standard microwave oven, would cause the victim to feel heat. But a high-power, rapidly pulsed source could have a detrimental effect on the victim’s brain while imparting much less energy, and thus there would be no heating effect, explained James Giordano, a professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown and the federally-funded think tank the Institute for Biodefense Research.
For example, “If you take a match, and if you put that match out very quickly on your finger and then remove the match, you would not feel heat,” he said.
Giordano was one of the experts brought in to investigate the original cluster of incidents, which occurred among U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. The group did not find a smoking gun, but ruled out environmental or ecological causes, such as toxins or pesticides, as well as drug exposure and psychogenic causes, he said. The group concluded that the individuals most likely were exposed to “some form of energy” that led to the effects, such as an acoustic or ultrasonic device, or a rapidly pulsed, scalable microwave.
China, Russia and the United States have developed devices that harness targeted energy in these forms, he said.
“We’re not very happy with the report because [it] categorically dismisses the existing evidence as regards those cases in Havana,” Giordano said. “It is important to not categorically classify all of the subsequent reports of which there has been over 1,000 to those very prototypic cases in Havana. That really is a question of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
Intelligence officials said they’d welcome additional research on this topic.
“All agencies acknowledge the value of additional research on potential adversary capabilities in the RF field, in part because there continues to be a scientific debate on whether this could result in a weapon that could produce the symptoms seen in some of the reported AHI cases,” the DNI statement says.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 7, 2023
Pentagon releases selfie taken by US pilot of Chinese spy balloon

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Wshington: The US Department of Defense (DOD) has released a selfie image taken by an American pilot which shows the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month.
The selfie, taken by the pilot of a U-2 spy plane, shows the shadow of the aircraft on the balloon and a clear image of the latter’s payload as it crossed across the continental US, CNN reported.
The suspected spy balloon, which was first spotted by the US on January 28, was shot down on February 4 by an American F-22 fighter jet.
The officials waited until the “strange object” was safely over water before shooting it down.
The balloon was retrieved off the coast of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina on February 5.
A senior State Department official said earlier this month that fly-bys “revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations”.
The image, which was released on Wednesday was taken the day before the balloon the shot down, has reportedly “gained legendary status” inside the Pentagon, reports the BBC.
The balloon was said to be hovering at 60,000 fee in the air. U-2 spy planes routinely fly at altitudes over 70,000 feet, according to the Air Force.

The single-seater reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft, nicknamed the Dragon Lady, were previously flown by the CIA.
Pilots are required to wear full pressure suits similar to those worn by astronauts.
Recovery efforts for the balloon’s scattered remnants in the Atlantic Ocean ended on February 17.
Pieces of the debris were transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in Virginia to be studied further, reports CNN.
Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a briefing on Wednesday that the payload of the balloon had been recovered.
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#Pentagon #releases #selfie #pilot #Chinese #spy #balloon
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 23, 2023
So that crazy selfie with the spy balloon? It’s real.

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CNN first reported that the photo had been taken and had quickly gained “legendary status” in military circles.
The high-altitude surveillance aircraft had been sent up as the balloon traversed the U.S., and the Pentagon later cited imagery taken by the pilots to say the airship was “capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations.”
An Air Force fighter jet shot the balloon down on Feb. 4 and “the majority of the balloon, including the payload, was recovered,” said Singh.
The Pentagon wrapped up search operations in the area off South Carolina last week and referred reporters to the FBI for details on what was recovered.
After the initial Chinese balloon incident, three other unidentified objects flying over North America were destroyed by U.S. forces just within a little over a week. Those objects were not believed to be from China or to pose a national security threat. The U.S. military did disclose, however, that they’ve observed Chinese surveillance balloons flying over the Middle East and Afghanistan in recent years.
President Joe Biden was criticized by Republicans for how the administration handled the Chinese balloon incident, including waiting until it was over water before destroying it. However, lawmakers passed resolutions condemning China for the balloon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Wang Yi, director of China’s Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last week about the situation and the consequences of Chinese surveillance of the U.S. Blinken stated on NBC that Wang offered no apology.
Wang publicly condemned the U.S. at the conference for the country’s response to what China claims was a weather monitoring device and accused the U.S. of warmongering.

Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.
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#crazy #selfie #spy #balloon #real
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 23, 2023
Biden says he will not apologise for downing Chinese spy balloon

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Washington: US President Joe Biden has said that the last three of the four aerial objects shot out of the skies were probably balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions; but the fourth was a Chinese spy and “I make no apologies”, he added, for bringing it down.
Biden said that he ordered the shooting of the remaining three “due to hazards to civilian commercial air traffic and because we could not rule out the surveillance risk of sensitive facilities”.
The American President acknowledged that the US knows nothing about these three, which were shot down on consecutive days last week – one over Alaska, the second over Canada in a joint operation with Canada, and the third over the American midwest.
Biden said further that he has asked for a new protocol for dealing with these kinds of unidentified aerial objects.
The Chinese spy plane, which started this shooting spree, was shot down by a US F-22 on February 4 off the coast of the American state of South Carolina on the western coast. It had been floating above the US mainland for more than a week, hovering over sensitive installations.
The Chinese owned up and expressed regret, saying the airship was studying weather and had gone off course.
The US declared the aerial intrusion as a violation of its national sovereignty and Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his visit to Beijing to express US displeasure more forcefully.
Relations worsened as an exchange of sharp words followed, especially after Biden seemingly taunted the Chinese President Xi Jinping in his state of the union speech, saying, no world leader would like to trade places with the Chinese leader because of the spy balloon incident.

Biden sounded reconciliatory on Thursday, reiterating that the US doesn’t seek a conflict with China and it also doesn’t want a new cold war.
“This episode underscores the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between our diplomats and our military professionals,” Biden said, adding, “Our diplomats will be engaging further, and I will remain in communication with President Xi.”
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 17, 2023
Biden says latest objects shot down over US not linked to China spy program

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Joe Biden has broken his silence on unknown aerial objects shot down over North America during the past week, assessing that they were “most likely” operated by private companies or research institutions rather than China.
The US president’s tentative conclusion is likely to fuel criticism that his orders to take down the objects were an overreaction amid political pressure over the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that transited much of the country.
Biden spoke for eight minutes at the Eisenhower executive office building on Thursday after Republicans and some Democrats expressed concerns that his unwillingness to comment on the issue could allow conspiracy theories to thrive.
“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” the president told reporters, against a backdrop of flags and the presidential seal.
“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”
Earlier this month an American fighter jet downed a balloon sent by the Chinese government off the coast of South Carolina. The incident prompted accusations from Republicans that Biden had been too slow to react and should have shot it down before it passed over the continental US.
When three additional unidentified objects were spotted on Friday off the coast of Alaska, on Saturday over Canada and on Sunday over Lake Huron, Biden was quick to order that they be taken down.
But on Thursday, with efforts to relocate the wreckage hampered by weather, he acknowledged that many objects are sent up by countries, companies and research organisations for reasons that are “not nefarious”, including legitimate scientific research.

“I want to be clear,” Biden said. “We don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. We’re now just seeing more of them partially because the steps we’ve taken to increase our radars.”
The president, who has directed national security adviser Jake Sullivan to lead an “interagency team” to review procedures, said the US is developing “sharper rules” to track, monitor and potentially shoot down unknown aerial objects.
These rules would help “distinguish between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not,” he added. “Make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people I will take it down.”
The downing of the Chinese surveillance craft was the first known peacetime shoot down of an unauthorised object in US airspace and continues to send out diplomatic ripples.
The White House national security council has said the balloon had the ability to collect communications and that China has previously flown similar surveillance balloons over dozens of countries on multiple continents, including some of the US’s closest allies.
The US blacklisted six Chinese entities it said were linked to Beijing’s aerospace programmes.
China has denied that the balloon was a surveillance airship. Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesperson, told a press conference that the balloon’s entry into US airspace was “an unintended, unexpected and isolated event”, adding: “China has repeatedly communicated this to the US side, yet the US overreacted by abusing the use of force and escalating the situation.
“It also used the incident as an excuse to impose illegal sanctions over Chinese companies and institutions. China is strongly opposed to this and will take countermeasures in accordance with law against relevant US entities that have undermined China’s sovereignty and security to firmly safeguard China’s sovereignty and legitimate rights and interests.”
US relations with China have been tested over the last year due to tensions over cybersecurity, competition in the technology sector, the looming threat to Taiwan and China’s failure to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday Biden criticised China’s surveillance programme, saying the “violation of our sovereignty is unacceptable,” but said he looks to maintain open lines of communication with Beijing. “We’re not looking for a new cold war.”
Secretary of state Antony Blinken postponed his first planned trip to China as the balloon was flying over the US and a new meeting with his Chinese counterpart has yet to be scheduled.
“I expect to be speaking with President Xi and I hope we can get to the bottom of this,” Biden said. “But I make no apologies for taking down that balloon.”
Senators from both sides of the aisle have complained about being denied detailed information. John Cornyn, a Republican senator for Texas, told the Politico website that the White House was “creating a bigger problem for themselves by the lack of transparency because people’s minds, their imaginations begin to run wild. I think they’re behind the curve on this and they really need to be more transparent.”
On Monday, just to be sure, the White House felt compelled to announce that there was no indication of “aliens or extraterrestrial activity”.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 17, 2023
Biden to speak with Xi Jinping following spy balloon shoot-down

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He added that “nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program” or from any other country.
Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the president over the past few days for remaining mostly silent on the issue. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for greater transparency and for Biden to explain the military’s rationale for the multiple shoot-downs and the policy moving forward.
“At some point in time, the president needs to talk to the American people. There’s a lot of people very concerned,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said on Fox News Wednesday. “Freedom of privacy is a big issue in Montana and across this country. People are concerned. I think it would help.”
Biden added in his address that his team will be creating parameters to deal with aerial objects. He said these parameters will be shared with Congress when completed, but will remain classified so that “we don’t give a road map to our enemies to try to evade our defenses.”
“Going forward, these parameters will guide what actions we will take when responding to unmanned and unidentified aerial objects,” Biden said. “We’re going to keep adapting them as the challenges evolve, if it evolves.”
The Senate attended a classified briefing on Wednesday on the initial Chinese balloon. Senators from both parties said they had unanswered questions following the briefing.
Biden also said he directed national security adviser Jake Sullivan to “lead a governmentwide effort” to prepare the U.S. to “deal safely and effectively with the objects in our airspace.”
These efforts include creating an accessible and updated inventory of unmanned objects in U.S. airspace, implementing measures to improve the ability to detect those objects, and updating the rules regarding launching and maintaining aerial craft, Biden said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also work to establish global norms on the issue, he said.

The day the military shot down the spy balloon, Feb. 4, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attempted to speak with his Chinese counterpart. But Chinese Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe refused to take the call.
In the days after, Beijing accused the U.S. of sending its own spy balloons over China, a claim the White House denied.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 17, 2023
Of course China’s balloon was spying. States all spy on each other – and we all benefit | Jonathan Steele

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Long ago, in May 1960, an American U-2 spy plane took off from Pakistan to fly at high altitude across the Soviet Union as part of a mission to photograph key facilities and military sites on behalf of the CIA. The Russians saw it and shot it down. The pilot, Gary Powers, managed to descend by parachute and was arrested. In Washington, the Eisenhower administration lied about his mission, claiming the U-2 was a “weather plane” that had strayed off course after its pilot had “difficulties with his oxygen equipment” (sound familiar?).
The incident caused a temporary poisoning of US-Soviet relations as the Kremlin turned it into political theatre. Moscow subjected Powers to a highly publicised criminal trial and gave him a 10-year sentence.
In the US, Powers was portrayed as an all-American clean-cut hero who neither smoked nor drank (which was not true). In spite of the mutual fury neither side was genuinely shocked, since it was accepted that spying was routine. The technology might change as improvements were made in information-gathering systems, but the practice of surveillance went back to time immemorial and could not be stopped.
The analogy with the US downing of a Chinese high-altitude balloon that intruded into US airspace last week is clear. It too produced a hurricane of hypocritical outrage. The Republicans attacked Joe Biden for being weak and failing to protect US national security. They said he should have shot the intruding balloon down as soon as it was spotted. Fearful of being seen as too old to run for a second term, Biden ordered his secretary of state to delay a planned visit to Beijing.
In a pathetic parody of the political row in Washington, the UK government promptly ordered a review of Britain’s security. Rishi Sunak forestalled any Labour charges of being weak on defence by announcing that RAF jets were on standby to shoot down any Chinese surveillance balloons that penetrated UK airspace. What about Chinese spy satellites? Are they also going to be taken out by doughty British pilots?
The reality is that using technology to spy on other states’ military capabilities is as old as it is widespread. So is the use of covert tools to discover another government’s intentions. The methods are constantly being updated. Listening devices and phone-tapping have now been supplemented by cyber systems to hack emails and other internet messaging. An Israeli company, NSO Group, has – as well documented in the Guardian developed the Pegasus technology that can listen to conversations, read SMS texts, take screenshots and access people’s lists of contacts. It has sold the system to a range of authoritarian foreign governments that want to monitor their own citizens’ views and behaviour.
Phone-tapping and cyber surveillance are not only done by governments to potential or actual enemies. Remember the row in 2013 that erupted during Barack Obama’s presidency after Edward Snowden revealed that the US National Security Agency had been listening to German chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone conversations for years. The Germans were almost as embarrassed as the Americans. Merkel angrily declared that “spying between friends just isn’t on” but an inquiry by the German federal prosecutor was quietly dropped.
Let’s face it. Spying is a benefit. The more that countries know about a potential enemy’s defence systems the better it usually is. Starting hostilities is less likely if you have accurate and up-to-date information about what your army is up against (a lesson Vladimir Putin failed to learn before 24 February last year).

Understanding another state’s or another leader’s intentions is even more important, whether this intelligence-gathering is performed by spies, diplomats and non-governmental political analysts or by what are politely called “technical means”. The crucial issue, which no amount of balloons or satellites can provide, is empathy. Put yourself in the other side’s shoes. Understand their history, culture and the economic and political pressures their leaders are under.
There is no doubt that the relationship between the US and China is the leading global security challenge of at least the next 10 years. The two countries are rivals and competitors, but they are not enemies. Everything should be done by western countries not to slip into a mindset that treats China as hostile. Peace in Asia – and indeed the whole world – is too important to be hijacked by hysterical excitement over a roving balloon.
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#Chinas #balloon #spying #States #spy #benefit #Jonathan #Steele
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 16, 2023
Most UFOs – like the Chinese spy balloon – can be explained away. But what about the other 2%? | Heather Dixon

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Sometimes they appear in the form of an orb of light, high in the sky, that seems to pass through solid objects such as trees and buildings. Sometimes it’s a strange mist that descends out of nowhere. In an increasing number of cases, an object that can’t be seen with the naked eye shows up clearly in a photographic image.
These are examples of UFOs – literally, unidentified flying objects – that are spotted in UK skies every day. In the wake of the US shooting down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, plus three other objects it has yet to identify, experts say there are going to be a lot more of these kinds of sightings. As a UFO researcher, I treat these things with scepticism and scientific rigour, but part of me hopes they will never be fully explained.
As the head of national investigations for the British UFO Research Association (Bufora), I’m one of a team of people who investigate such sightings, which are sent to us by the public at a rate of hundreds a year. Often they come as grainy mobile phone footage taken at dusk or from a moving car, but we also require witnesses to fill in a detailed form explaining what they saw, heard, felt and even smelled at the time of the event. We promise to treat sightings confidentially, objectively and with scientific rigour. In 98% of cases, we find they have a simple explanation.
‘When Elon Musk’s SpaceX first launched its Starlink satellites in 2019, we were inundated with sightings of small pinpricks of light moving steadily across the night sky.’ Starlink launch, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Photograph: Joe Marino/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
Typically, when we receive a report at Bufora, I take a look and pass it on to our photographic analyst, Mark Easen. Objects most commonly turn out to be drones, aircraft (sometimes military aircraft), satellites, meteors, balloons, lanterns or birds. When Elon Musk’s SpaceX first launched its Starlink satellites in 2019, we were inundated with sightings of small pinpricks of light moving steadily across the night sky, sometimes 50 or 100 at a time. By finding out where witnesses are at the time and what airports, military bases or other facilities are nearby, we can usually identify the objects they’ve observed. It’s important to know what they’ve seen with the naked eye, because often a UFO will turn out to be a speck of dust on the camera lens, a tiny insect flying into shot or the reflection of a seatbelt buckle in a car window. First, we rule out the obvious. If it looks like a plane and flies like a plane, it’s usually a plane.
Reports follow patterns and trends that reflect the changing media landscape. In our not-too-distant past, unexplainable phenomena tended to be reported as fairies or goblins – things people saw in the folklore and mythology of the day. Now, sci-fi books and films affect the way people interpret what they have seen. There’s a particular type of sighting that we call high strangeness sightings (HSS), when someone feels they have been up close and personal with something of unknown origin – and during the 1990s, when The X-Files was hugely influential, as many as 8% of sightings reported to us were HSS. They’re usually rare, but I saw them increase again during lockdown. People were scared, and understandably so.
‘During the 1990s, when The X-Files was hugely influential, many sightings reflected the TV series.’ Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
I became interested in space when I lived in the US in the 1970s and early 80s, where my dad was an aeronautical engineer for Nasa. But I’ve always been interested in extraordinary human experiences – things outside the boundaries of what we understand. The UFO subject embraces a huge and diverse landscape: science, religion, folklore and myth, the paranormal, neuroscience and philosophy. I’ve learned a lot about the way memory works: once you lay down an experience into long-term memory, each time you access that memory it is slightly edited. You add to it things you’ve seen, conversations you’ve had, a TV programme you saw. I never think people are foolish when they report a UFO; I’m just fascinated by the ways we interpret reality.
I’m often asked what I believe about extraterrestrial life, and whether it will ever make contact. After all, about 2% of the UFOs we hear about can’t be identified – yet. In all the years I’ve spent looking at the evidence, I have never seen any definitive proof that a UFO has been extraterrestrial in origin, but I don’t close my mind to the possibility. I’m sceptical – to do this work properly I have to be. But, as JBS Haldane wrote: “It is my suspicion that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”
Personally, I think there will be a rational explanation for the objects that have been shot down by the US military recently. But there are still mysteries, and I think there always will be. I wonder what narratives humans will invent to explain the sightings of tomorrow, and what science fiction will come up with next. Will science and expert analysis be able to explain all of these things, eventually? I suspect not. I hope not.

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#UFOs #Chinese #spy #balloon #explained #Heather #Dixon
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 16, 2023
UK PM vows to do whatever it takes amid Chinese spy balloon fears

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London: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday vowed to do “whatever it takes” to keep his country safe, amid mounting fears that suspected Chinese spy balloons could also target the UK, a day after the US military shot down a fourth flying object over the American airspace.
During a hospital visit in northern England, Sunak said the UK was in constant contact with its allies across the Atlantic and remained in readiness for any safety response.
Sunak’s response comes as his defence minister Ben Wallace confirmed the UK is launching a review into the security implications of the recent incursions into western airspace.
“I want people to know that we will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe,” Sunak told reporters.
“We have something called the quick reaction alert force, which involves Typhoon planes kept on 24/7 readiness to police our airspace. I can’t obviously comment in detail on national security matters but we are in constant touch with our allies and as I said we will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe,” he said.
On Sunday, the US military shot down its fourth flying object, indicating that they were still trying to determine the details and did not yet rule out any explanation for the objects.
“The UK and her allies will review what these airspace intrusions mean for our security. This development is another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse,” said UK Defence Secretary Wallace.
Tensions were rising since a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last week.

According to reports, US officials fear it was sent by Beijing to monitor sensitive sites but China has described it as a weather balloon.
In the UK, Transport Minister Richard Holden said it was “possible” that Chinese spy balloons had already been sent to this country.
“It is also possible, and I would think likely, that there would be people from the Chinese government trying to act as a hostile state. I think we have to be realistic about the threat these countries pose to the UK,” Holden told ‘Sky News’.
Meanwhile, the diplomatic row continues to escalate as the Chinese foreign ministry claimed on Monday that the US has flown balloons into its airspace more than 10 times over the past year.
“It’s not uncommon as well for the US to illegally enter the airspace of other countries,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a press briefing.
“Since last year alone, US balloons have illegally flown above China more than 10 times without any approval from Chinese authorities.
The first thing the US side should do is start with a clean slate, undergo some self-reflection, instead of smearing and accusing China,” he said.
Washington is yet to respond to the allegations from Beijing.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 13, 2023
Congress unites to condemn China — but splits again over Biden — after spy balloon incident

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Kennedy was hardly alone among Capitol Hill Republicans chastising the administration for handling the balloon’s incursion inappropriately, while Democrats stood by the administration’s decision to wait until the balloon had traveled toward the coast before bringing it down. The partisan lines that formed after the briefings starkly contrasted with the House’s Thursday morning vote on a resolution condemning China for the balloon that passed in a 419-0 blowout.
That measure, introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas), required two-thirds support to pass, and its lack of opposition was a remarkable show of bipartisanship in the closely divided chamber. But the GOP remained openly concerned about the administration’s management of the balloon episode.
“I think they should have taken it down earlier,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in an interview. “I mean, I think there’s the debate, ‘what’s the collection opportunities for us if we shut it down early?’ but then they had their collection opportunities.”
And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, also said the White House should have shot down the balloon before it completed its transit.
“We had both authority and the capability to bring it down much earlier than we did,” Rubio said. “What if it had malfunctioned, or what if it had a self-destruct mechanism and could have fallen on a city? If it wasn’t threatening, why did they shut down civil aviation?”
At least one Democrat also took the opportunity to slam Republicans for political jostling over the Chinese incursion. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) held a Thursday hearing on the balloon in the defense spending subpanel that he chairs. The centrist, who’s up for reelection in his red state next year, said Republicans were using China’s actions as an “opportunity to score some cheap political points and get attention on social media.”
“I do not care who was in the White House,” Tester said, vowing to “hold anyone accountable” he needs to in the Biden administration over the spy balloon.
While the State Department indicated it would “explore” potential punishment in response, McCaul argued on the House floor before the vote that the incident “cannot go unanswered.” A House vote in condemnation, he said, sends a “clear, bipartisan signal” to the Chinese Communist Party that the incursion “will not be tolerated.”

“I’ve never seen a foreign nation adversary fly a reconnaissance aircraft that you could see from the ground with your own eyes,” McCaul said. “The CCP threat is now within sight for Americans across the heartland, a vision and memory that they will not forget. This is further proof that the CCP does not care about having a constructive relationship with the United States.”
The bipartisan vote to censure China for violating U.S. airspace came after House Republicans initially weighed a symbolic measure more pointedly criticizing the Biden administration’s response to the balloon. GOP leaders pivoted amid lobbying from McCaul to call out China’s spy tactics on a bipartisan basis rather than ding Biden.
Democrats have noted, in particular, that bringing the balloon down closer to land would have risked injuring Americans with debris.
Republicans “would probably feel differently if the craft had been downed and killed someone on the ground and the administration put the security of the American people paramount as they should and so I think they made the right call,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a former intelligence panel chair, said in an interview after the House briefing.
Biden last week ordered the balloon shot down, but military brass advised waiting until the aircraft was over water to minimize risks. The balloon was shot down by a U.S. fighter Saturday off the coast of the Carolinas, and the military is working to recover debris.
Pressed during Thursday’s hearing on why the balloon wasn’t shot down when it first approached U.S. airspace in Alaska, Pentagon officials told senators doing so would have made recovering the payload a much riskier operation.
Melissa Dalton, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for homeland defense, said the depth of the waters near Alaska, cold temperatures and ice could make recovering debris “very dangerous.”
“If we had taken it down over the state of Alaska … it would have been a very different recovery operation,” Dalton added. “A key part of the calculus for this operation was the ability to salvage, understand and exploit the capabilities of the high altitude balloon.”
The No. 2 U.S. diplomat, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a separate China hearing on Thursday that the administration “responded swiftly to protect Americans and safeguard against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information.”
Sherman, one of the officials who briefed lawmakers behind closed doors, added that the U.S. “made clear to PRC officials that the presence of this surveillance balloon was unacceptable.
“And along the way we learned a thing or two, which you’ll hear in the classified briefing, about the PRC’s use of the balloon,” she said.
Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said he was convinced by Sherman’s presentation that the administration had done the right thing by monitoring the balloon’s path across the U.S. before shooting it down over the Atlantic Ocean — as well as by announcing they would postpone Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s visit to Beijing.
“I believe that the administration acted correctly in how it dealt with the surveillance balloon,” Menendez said. “To the Chinese, it sent very resolute message, including stopping the Secretary of State from his visit, [and] the downing of the balloon. And I think all of those sends a very resolute message to the Chinese.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 9, 2023