U.S.
fighter jets being
scrambled and shooting down
three mysterious flying objects
in just the last three days alone.
The White House and Pentagon
are now
facing growing pressure
to answer just basic
but burning questions.
What are these objects? Who sent them?
They were all different shapes and sizes.
According to officials.
They were flying at different altitudes.
We're told that the latest object
was shaped
like an octagon
and shot down over Michigan near
Lake Huron.
It was only flying 20,000
feet up much lower than the objects
that were
shot down over
Alaska and Canada on Friday
and Saturday, respectively.
It was at a lower than cruising
the cruising altitude
of a commercial airliner.
The suspected Chinese spy balloon
that flew across
the US was 60,000 feet in the air
for comparison's,
a lot
higher than the other objects
we've been seeing in recent days.
But lawmakers from both sides of
the aisle are demanding
more details from the White House,
including the Republican chair
of the House Intelligence Committee,
Mike Turner.
They prefer them to be trigger happy
than to be permissive.
But we're going to have to see
whether or not
this is just the administration trying to
to change headlines.
What we're seeing here
is a number of announcements
by the administration
without any real information
being given to Congress.
This could be because they
don't have any information.
Our national security correspondent
Kelly Ayotte is at the State Department.
And I think that's a good question.
What do they know?
Do they know something
that they're holding back or is it
they're not saying a lot publicly
because they don't really know a lot.
Caitlin, it's pretty clear
that they just don't know a lot
right now.
We spoke with some Pentagon officials
on the phone last night,
and they put it
pretty blatantly when they said
one of them
that they believe
that this is the first time
that US Northern
Command has used kinetic action,
the military,
to take down an airborne object in U.S.
airspace.
So this is pretty unimpressive dented.
They are still trying to figure out
a lot of the questions
that lawmakers have answers to now
over the weekend.
President Biden
spoke with Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau of Canada
and they spoke after that
object was downed over Canada.
They both authorized
the downing of that object.
What they focused on
was the need for recovery
to a better understand
the origin
and the purpose of that object.
But as you noted,
just out of the front there,
there were three objects
that were downed over the course of three
days.
On Friday,
there was an object downed over US
coastal waters around Alaska,
then the one over Canada on Saturday.
On Sunday, another object down by U.S.
fighter jets over Lake Huron.
Now, there is no clear connection
to any of these.
And that Chinese spy balloon
that was down off the coast
of South Carolina just last weekend.
But the recovery efforts here are
what U.S.
officials are really looking
at to try and learn more
about where these objects came from,
what they were doing in U.S. airspace.
And we heard last night
from the commander
of Northern Command, however,
that recovery efforts for that object
that was down over the coastal waters
around Alaska hasn't even begun.
Because the teams are still working
to locate that object.
Yeah, we'll see what happens
when they do finally located.
Kylie Atwood, thank you.
There's lots to discuss now.
Joining us now, CNN political
and national security
analyst David Sanger and retired U.S.
Army Major Mike Lyons.
Good to see both of you.
Thank you very much.
So I'm interested in what you have to say
about this.
Mike Lyons,
because you are saying that
this is a wake up call.
What why do you say
this is a wake up call?
No, I think it is.
It puts
the United States on notice
for this great power competition
between us and China.
This one at 60,000 feet potentially.
This is high altitude
airspace
that in the past
that the Chinese
have encroached on before
in other nations as well.
And we've just kind of ignored it.
And now
we're going to have to put the resources
towards looking over the horizon,
especially in areas
in the north in Alaska,
so to speak,
if we're going to protect our country
in a post-9-11 world.
I'm just still shocked
that we don't have control
of this airspace
from 60,000 to 40,000,
especially that FAA space
with regard
to what we know is going in there.
David, you have covered the national
security space.
Has the
when was the last time
the US scrambled fighter jets
to shoot something down in U.S.
airspace?
Gee, I can't remember one, Kaitlin.
In fact,
when NORAD's
took down that balloon on Saturday
or what has been described now
as a balloon.
I think it was the first time that Norway
had actually fired
in a real live situation, not training
in North American airspace,
which which gets to the point
of how unusual this is.
But, you know, this
a big distinction
between the first balloon,
the one that clearly came from China
and the three that we've seen now
for the first one.
The US actually tracked it
as it was leaving Hainan Island in China
and saw it
go up over the Aleutians
and then, of course, warn the president
and they made the decision
right or wrong, to track it
across the United States.
These other three,
there's no indication
right now that they came from China
Their small size
suggests
that they may have been much more local.
We don't know if they were
foreign powers, balloons at all.
And so that tells you
that we've sort of got
two separate issues going on here.
The first is
how well we
actually track
these as they come into US airspace.
And understand
what the sensitivity of our sensors are.
Clearly,
that sensitivity
has been turned up in recent times.
The way you might
turn up a magnetic reader in an airport.
And then the second is
what are the conditions under
which you shoot them down?
And it's not clear right now
that these posed
these latest balloons
posed a major threat
other than to commercial air traffic.
Well, it's interesting
that a major general on from Norway
who said, look,
these have been happening for a while now
or that
maybe it always happened,
but they've just tweaked the system
that is able to track them.
My question is, though,
obviously,
the fascination is because it's
balloons, right?
And it's flying in spaces
with commercial aircraft
that is very dangerous.
But China has said that
the US has a legally flown, high altitude
balloons into China's
sovereign airspace
without Beijing's consent
for more than ten times in 20, 22.
We spy on China.
They spy on us.
So what gives? What's new here,
Mike Lyons?
Well, I think first and foremost,
we likely do that.
We'd likely put these balloons up there.
We're always looking for an advantage
when it comes to communications.
You know what the balloons provide.
The military is kind of
skipping off
this instead
of a satellite
from the Earth's atmosphere.
You get better communications
if you can do this.
So there's no question
that it doesn't surprise me at all
that we've been doing that.
It's looking to get
an advantage on our side.
Whether they're spy
balloons really remains to be seen
because we have the kind of technology
that could read literally
somebody's nametag in a foxhole down
from space if we had to do that.
So, again,
it's important
that we're in high altitude.
It's important that we're in that space
and we can use it to our advantage.
But what does it say to you that they're
they called the first in a balloon?
As David said,
they're they're not referring to these
as balloons.
They're referring to them as objects.
So so what are they doing?
Are they emanating pulsing signals?
Are they relaying communications signals?
What exactly is the point?
We don't really know what they are yet.
I'm sure the first balloon,
for example, part of the reason
why they are allowed to track it,
because they really wanted
to get inside of it.
It was likely inoculated.
It didn't harm the United States.
It didn't do anything.
And they use,
you know, made a science experiment
out of it, basically,
which is why they convince
the administration to track it
for all that space.
It seems. It seems that it is.
David Sanger.
More transparency
rather than more incidents. Right.
It's like the incidents
you see on cell phones.
They're more cell phones now.
So people are able to to
to track them more, to see it more.
So this should we be more concerned
about these developments
or is this good
that we're at least getting more
transparency now?
Well, Don, you're absolutely right.
Know, it's
one of the cardinal rules of intelligence
is that
if you focus your systems
on looking for a certain kind of thing,
you're going to find more
because things that sort of
you ignored along the way.
And I think
there's a good deal of that happening.
So we have to fine tune the system now
to both pick up
what we really care about.
Not pick up what we don't care about.
And I think probably have a little bit
better sense
of what we really need to go
shoot down
because these are
is a pretty dramatic weekend
Super Bowl aside of of the shoot downs.
Should we be more concerned?
I think that if we're right to focus
right now
more on this,
because the Chinese government
clearly has put together
a very comprehensive surveillance
system of which the balloons are
just a small part.
But I'm not sure we should
necessarily panic
about the smaller incidents.
Big questions still remaining about it,
but No.
Two better to people
to speak about it with David Sanger.
Major Mike Lyons, thank you both.
Good to see both of you.
Thank you very much.