Spokane — The origin of the unidentified flying objects shot down over U.S. and Canadian airspace over the past week remains a mystery to the public, but their flight trajectory could be more easily explained by the natural jet stream in the atmosphere.
The objects were shot out of the skies near Alaska on Friday, over Canada’s Yukon Territory on Saturday and over Lake Huron, in between Canada and Michigan, on Sunday. An object was also spotted over Havre, Montana — about 190 miles east of Glacier National Park — which prompted a response from fighter jets in Oregon and refueling tankers at Fairchild Air Force Base. However, that object is suspected to be the same as the one shot down over Lake Huron.
The shootdowns mark the first time the U.S. has ever taken “kinetic action against an airborne object” over North American airspace, Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck said.
The objects were described as being unmanned and with no visible propulsion, according to White House spokesman and National Security Council adviser John F. Kirby in a press conference during the weekend. All of the objects that were spotted lie roughly along the same path as the polar jet stream, a current of wind that moves from west to east along and across the U.S. and Canadian border, according to local meteorologists.
The jet stream’s path often crosses over Eastern Washington and North Idaho and can reach speeds of up to 275 mph.
“That’s why flights from the West Coast to the East Coast can be a bit shorter,” said Spokane meteorologist Steven Van Horn .
Although the first object shot down near Alaska was a farther north, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for an object floating in the jet stream to get pushed in that direction, Van Horn said.
The objects were said to be floating between 20,000 and 40,000 feet. The jet stream also runs between about 30,000 and 40,000 feet.
The object downed over the Yukon Territory was described as cylindrical and about the size of a car, Kirby said. The one downed over Lake Huron was described as octagonal with strings hanging off it.
“That description wouldn’t be one of our weather balloons,” Van Horn said.
A Chinese “spy balloon” that traversed across the country earlier this month was also shot down by fighter jets on Feb. 4. However, that balloon was about 200 feet in height and floated at around 60,000 feet, according to officials.
Chinese officials confirmed the balloon belonged to the People’s Republic of China.
Kirby said it’s likely that the other balloons could ultimately turn out to be “benign” property of a commercial or research entity.
However, no government or private entities have claimed ownership of the more recent objects.
Regional weather service balloons are about 5 feet in diameter and are released twice a day, Van Horn said. The balloons expand to about five times their size as they reach about 115,000 feet before they pop, he said. The debris and weather-monitoring instruments are guided back to the Earth’s surface with a twine cable and parachute, he said.
The weather service is in frequent communication with Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base to clear the airspace for launching the balloons, Van Horn said.
Speculation has run rampant as to the origin of the objects shot down and their purpose. U.S. officials have not ruled anything out, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “there is no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.”
The U.S. government did acknowledge the presence of “unidentified aerial phenomena,” a fancy term for UFOs, in 2021 following the release of declassified videos from 2004 that showed aerial footage of an object referred to as the “Tic Tac.” The object, which was about the size of a 737, also had no visible propulsion system.
The government collected 336 new reports of UFOs in 2022. Among those, 26 were drones, 163 were balloons, and six were attributed to airborne clutter. The rest were unattributed.
