Tonight the US is still not able to call
the three objects shot down
by the United States
over the course of three days.
Anything but objects.
National Security Council spokesperson
John Kirby says one
leading explanation
is that the objects
shot down over Alaska,
Canada and Michigan over
the weekend were tied to some
commercial yet benign purpose.
But this is not satisfying
White House critics
who are demanding more answers
I don't think they're being transparent
enough, and
and I think that's got to change.
All right.
Meanwhile, and OUTFRONT investigation
tonight from our Selena Wang and Beijing
showed six Chinese entities
that produced Chinese spy balloons
and are blacklisted by the United States
openly talking about
their words,
killer military
capabilities, their products.
And then one of them,
I mean, this is really incredible.
Just show you
this was one of their founders
had put the screen up in a presentation
and points to the balloon and says,
oh, look,
there's the United States is a fly
right over.
So there.
There you have it.
OUTFRONT now, astrophysicist
Neil deGrasse Tyson.
He is also the author of Starry Messenger
Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization
and many other books
that I hope people get. Okay.
But so so,
Neil, let's just start here with
this.
This they're
bragging about flying over the US.
What's your reaction
as you hear this whole story
and if watched this unfold?
By the way,
if you lift balloons high enough
from the west of the United States,
that's what they will do.
Because these are the prevailing
jet streams that move a floating object
circulating around the earth.
So to say, they're like targeting the
the wind does that for free.
So to put that out there,
that's why they're so cheap.
Right.
The windows mean does the propulsion
the wind is or is you is your jet
a jet stream in this?
And so so not only that, by the way.
Just for context.
A thousand or so weather
balloons are launched
every day around the world
and loaded with helium.
They get very high.
They get very large and they float
the way, you know, a drop of oil
at the bottom of a
water will float to the top slowly,
but it'll get there.
And then when it gets there,
it kind of hovers there
and it'll move wherever
the water currents will take it.
So by analogy, I'm just saying,
this is not a new phenomenon
that you might find balloons in the air.
The fact that the
you know, just a bee,
that first balloon,
the one that we are certain
was from China.
It's very large,
you know, three busses
or something like that in length.
And just the idea
that we should feel threatened
by something that is large
and slow moving, that you can pop
I don't
I just
so I don't know,
I'm more casual about this.
You make me feel
maybe I should be
I make me feel better because, you know,
John Bolton was on Ambassador
John Bolton
earlier was I consider using nuclear
you know, use it as a nuclear
delivery system. So.
But but I guess
the separate part from
this is the US China space race.
I know here we're talking
near space right where
we're sort of in that
that that that in the middle
is going to control the new high ground.
Right.
And so the Space Force lieutenant
general of the U.S.,
Inner Mongolia, said recently,
I think it's entirely possible
they could catch up and surpass us.
Absolutely. Talking about China.
And you've got
they've got their own space station
now, Tiangong, because we didn't
we didn't work with them on the issue
as they went, did their own.
It's not that we don't work with them.
And I invite them.
We invite them.
They went to the south.
We've kicked them out of the sandbox.
They built their own sandbox.
So would you expect them to do.
The NASA
administrator, Bill
Nelson, says
China could beat the US to the moon.
I mean, we went once,
but then we didn't go for 30 years.
So, by the way,
all this whining
I'm going to call it whining
because I feel strongly about this.
Had we
continued on to the moon
and stayed on the moon and onto Mars,
we wouldn't
be like looking over our shoulder now
wondering who's
going to catch up with us.
We would have stayed ahead of the world.
So.
So to sit back,
kick up our feet for five decades
and then all of a sudden say,
Oh, let's build our audience
and go back to the moon.
Well, what's motivating you?
Well,
China says
they want to go back to the moon.
So let's be honest with ourselves
that we're not being proactive
for the high ground.
We're being reactive
And on top of that,
just to people understand,
you're talking
about unlimited resources of minerals.
Oh, yes.
Everything up.
I mean, it's not just it's
not just for the bragging rights, right?
That's all there.
Never mind the military aspect
of hypersonic missiles
and everything else,
but SpaceX
basically has unlimited resources.
Everything that's rare on
Earth is common in space.
You know, rare earth
metals, even though
they're just rare in location,
they're not really rare in abundance.
But you look at things
that we have fought wars over
access to energy, minerals,
water,
and there's no end of that in space.
So one of my dreams
is that we turned space
into our backyard, earth,
turn SpaceX into its backyard,
and upon doing so,
it would remove an entire category
of why we have ever fought wars,
which is
battling over access
to limited resources.
So I think SpaceX might be the best hope
for peace in the future of civilization.
And of course, now
looks like we're fighting over it.
So now in the context of these objects,
okay, three more objects are shot down.
And as you point out,
there's a lot of objects out there.
But, you know, and look,
I look at a map of the world
and I see all the satellites up there,
and it's very terrifying
because you're like, my God,
if this started raining
down, we'd all be gone.
But now, you know,
this whole concept of extraterrestrial
came up, right?
And there had been congressional hearings
about this, about UFOs.
And and now we find out
most of them were Chinese
spy balloons or weather
balloons or whatever.
But in the broader conversation here.
Does this change your view at all
of the nature,
the nature of extraterrestrial life?
I know.
Not really,
because we have greater capacity.
I've used this phrase before,
and I mean it genuinely
given the number of smartphones
in the world today, 6 billion.
Yeah.
We are
unwittingly crowdsourcing
any possible alien invasion
because everyone can take High-Resolution
video of it,
post it instantly, and it would be viral
at least as viral as kittens jumping from
a table.
Oh, no, nothing that's not viable.
Okay. Okay.
Anything to do with cats?
I think it would be best.
Okay.
After cat, then aliens invading earth.
Okay. So. So
I.
So I think I'd
like it when people need an excuse
to look up. Right. Look up.
And by the way, the government
doesn't want you to not look up
if a billion.
Hundreds of millions of people look up
and see things that could harm us.
I want the military to investigate this.
But by all means. Right.
And so it's just odd
that we have expensive
planes and expensive missiles
to pop balloons.
That's a little odd to me, but fine.
Protect my airspace.
Now, do I think these are
visiting aliens?
It would be odd
if they were aliens
moving across the galaxy.
And dropping some balloons.
Oh, what aliens would do?
I don't want to meet those aliens coming.
I don't want to take aliens
Well, it's a high tech to
think that you could come in
and then launch balloons.
But just so you know, I'm just.
I'm disappointed.
So, yes, we don't know what they are,
so technically, they are.
You f the first three, you unidentified
flying object.
The government call them UAPs
that they were just rebranding.
Oh, they were trying to rebrand.
Don't try to fool before you
before you leave the stunning images
from the James Webb.
What's your favorite so far?
Oh, I'd say the Carina Nebula.
Oh, my gosh.
It's it's this is like.
Oh, oh,
I just have to bask
in the majesty of that image.
This is a gas cloud,
a ridge of gas clouds.
And the
James Webb Space Telescope
because it uses infrared light,
infrared can penetrate into gas clouds
where you bear
witness to the birth of stars,
stellar nurseries,
not only the birth of stars,
but the birth of planets.
And that's just in front of our nose.
And it does that.
In addition
to looking at the birth of galaxies
in the early universe,
It's a bad telescope, the thought.
And if it finds a balloon, then there
call me.