New this
hour, dramatic new details
about the unidentified object
shot down by fighter jets
just miles off the coast
of Alaska yesterday.
Unlike the Chinese spy
balloon shot down last Saturday.
This object demanded
more immediate action yesterday.
Officials say it was flying
much lower at 40,000 feet,
making it a dangerous potential threat
to civilian aircraft.
But now we are learning that U.S.
military pilots
who approach the craft have given
conflicting accounts of what they saw.
This new reporting
coming in
now from CNN National security reporter
Natasha Bertrand.
Natasha, so this is interesting.
This is kind of unusual
that these pilots
saw different things and that is sort of,
I guess, adding to the mystery
of all this. Yeah.
Not even the pilots
apparently were really able
to identify what they saw.
Just to take you back for a sec.
On Thursday, the
the US defense official sent F-35 fighter
jets off
to try to figure out what this object was
that was flying around near Alaska.
Those pilots, we have learned,
have given
very conflicting accounts
of what they actually experience
with some pilot
saying that
the object interfered
with the plane's sensors.
Other pilots saying that they didn't
really experience that.
Other pilots
saying that
when they looked at the object,
they could identify no identifiable,
identifiable propulsion system
and they did not know how
it was actually staying
in the air, cruising at that altitude.
Of about 40,000 feet.
So this is all
added to the Pentagon's wariness
of describing in more detail
what this object actually is
until they can get more information
through the debris
that they are recovering right now.
And what do we know about the efforts
to recover the wreckage
of this second object?
It looks like Nora had
just put out an email a short time ago.
And it sounds like
they're trying to recover it.
They did.
And what we were told yesterday
is that the object was
shot down over frozen water.
So it landed on the ice, essentially.
We don't know what kind of condition it's
in, whether it is intact, for example.
But recovery efforts have been launched.
And according to the Defense Department,
they have been able to recover
a significant amount of debris now.
Notably,
they still don't know what this object
is, where it came from
or even what direction
it was headed in or what
direction it came from.
It is just all very murky at this point.
But they do say that
the FBI is going to be taking the lead
on analyzing the debris.
If that sounds familiar, it's
because just last week
we saw that another Chinese spy balloon.
Another,
I should say a Chinese spy balloon,
because we don't know
what this one actually is.
Right.
Was shot down
also being analyzed by the FBI.
But right now,
there are just so many more questions
than answers, Jim.
And as the hours go on,
it gets more and more mysterious.
All right, Natasha Bertrand,
thank you very much.
Let's bring in former CIA operative
Bob Baer.
Bob,
this is starting to sound
like something out of The X-Files.
I don't want to get carried away here,
but what do you make of these
different assessments
coming in from the pilots
of what they saw
Well, Jim, the speed of
those airplanes
f 35, it's
no wonder they also saw different things.
And as far as intercepting communications
to that vehicle, it's very difficult.
I don't want to get too technical,
but it could be,
you know, frequency hopping,
you know, the propulsion
It just
there's so many questions out there
that you're absolutely right.
Not until they actually go
through the debris
and see what the
what it's made of and what it looks like.
The communications, obviously,
there was some sort of propulsion system
that was driving that that vehicle.
And don't forget, in our ED with Doppler
radar is probably going back
and looking at where it came from
and see if they can track it back to,
I don't know,
China or Russia or wherever.
But it is it's a great mystery.
I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
Yeah.
I mean, one U.S.
official tells us
there was no obvious surveillance
equipment on board.
You know,
some of this is the initial information,
initial reporting that comes in
and I suppose things change
as they assess
what they have on the ground
or on the ice there.
What does that tell you, if that is
if that ends up being the case
Well, there's a couple of things
that I take away from this.
And if it's a foreign made object and
it was sent from a place
like China or Russia, it's
some sort of provocation against us.
I can't imagine a vehicle like this
would give the Chinese or the Russians
a real intelligence advantage
of collecting photographs of signals
or things like that.
But I think what bothers Norway
and the White House is these
these probes,
we now know there was, what,
a total of five balloons,
Chinese balloons that have come over
the United States.
Why are the Chinese doing this?
Who's ordering it
and why would you do it?
Right before Blinken,
the secretary of state
is on his way to Beijing?
That makes no sense to me.
Is the you know, with the balloon is
it was the Chinese
military did struck out on its own.
So all of these questions,
analysts at the CIA
and the White House
are looking through this
and trying to piece this together.
Remember, there's these balloons are
flying over 40 places across
across the world, these Chinese balloons.
And there are a lot of aerial vehicles
I've been involved in before.
We've never been able to identify
from radar one.
We saw
I remember
I was involved
in was going Mach six,
which made no sense at all to anybody.
And eventually it was just shelved
and figured out.
Wow.
And I guess,
you know,
the question that you're leading me to
with the comments on China is that
we have one of two situations, I suppose.
One is
they're just trying to provoke the US
to see what the response might be.
The other would be
that she and the military
might not be on the same page,
that the folks who want to try to conduct
the diplomacy
with the United States
are not on the same page as the military.
Could that be it?
Exactly.
The People's Liberation Army is very
army is very difficult to understand.
And would they
act in non accordance with was she?
We don't know.
I mean, is China
close to some sort of military takeover
with with all these COVID protocols
that closed down the economy?
These are very hard questions to answer.
And for American
intelligence, getting inside
these circles is nearly impossible.
It's always been impossible
but it's certainly something
the analysts are picking through
right now.