Tom Minear: America is blowing UFOs out of the sky and Joe Biden has not explained why

America is shooting down mystery objects and the US President has not revealed why. Tom Minear says it’s time key questions were answered.

Shoot first, ask questions later. In dozens of states in trigger-happy America, that’s not just a saying – it’s the law of the land. Deadly force is legal as a first option, not a last resort.

So maybe that’s why the US Air Force has started blowing unidentified objects out of the sky with Sidewinder missiles on a daily basis, and people aren’t … completely freaking out?

Up until February 4, when an F-22 fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had been surveilling defence bases, US forces had never fired upon an object in its airspace.

The next weekend, while Americans were planning their Super Bowl parties, three more missile strikes were launched over Alaska, Canada and Michigan.

Taking lethal action against China’s balloon made sense. The Chinese government may as well have painted a giant target on the 60m sphere, such was the anger it provoked from Americans (especially Republican politicians) who were desperate for it to be shot down.

But how to explain what happened next, when three far smaller and far more mysterious objects were also taken down before the public knew they were above them? If you’re Joe Biden, you don’t even bother trying.

US President Joe Biden enjoyed a black-tie dinner over the weekend amid confusion about the unidentified flying objects. Picture: AFP

Had the RAAF launched a military strike in Australian airspace, you could guarantee Anthony Albanese would be holding an emergency prime ministerial press conference.

In the US, by the third strike, the President dispatched his Assistant Secretary of Defence for Homeland Defense and Hemisphere Affairs to take questions while the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles were going head-to-head in the year’s most watched TV event.

Perhaps Biden decided to send out Melissa Dalton instead of addressing the country himself because he did not have any answers. As she told journalists before they started interrogating her: “Because we have not yet been able to definitively assess what these recent objects are, we have acted out of an abundance of caution to protect our security.”

According to Dalton, American authorities also did not know where the objects came from, who owned them or what their purpose was. They did not even know whether they were balloons or powered by propulsion systems, although reconnaissance missions at least established they were unmanned and unarmed.

When one reporter tried to confirm they were not sent to earth by aliens, Dalton batted that hot potato to General Glen VanHerck, the boss of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Assistant Secretary of Defence for Homeland Defense And Hemispheric Affairs Melissa Dalton had few answers about the objects that were shot down. Picture: Getty Images

“I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything,” he declared.

“At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threats unknown that approaches North America.”

Wait, hang on. These unidentified flying objects could actually be extraterrestrial?

The White House took almost a day to hose that down, until Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared with a laugh that there were “no indications of … extraterrestrial activity with these recent take-downs”. So at least they didn’t start a war with aliens.

All Dalton really explained over the weekend was that the objects were shot down for two reasons: because they were near sensitive defence sites and because their altitude, unlike China’s spy balloon, potentially put them in the path of civilian flights. Given they were smaller than the balloon, they could be blown up with limited risk to anyone on the ground.

That seems fair enough. But it also prompts more important and unanswered questions.

How long have such objects been floating over the US? Did defence chiefs know they were there? If they did, why were they allowed to pass when the latest three objects were not, and if they didn’t, isn’t that an alarming black spot in the country’s security apparatus?

US Navy sailors retrieve debris from the Chinese spy balloon. Picture: US Navy

The Financial Times reported Taiwan observed dozens of Chinese military balloons over its airspace in recent years, while a US report released just before this month’s fireworks confirmed that 163 of 366 unexplained UFO incidents since 2021 involved balloons. (Another 26 were drones and the rest were unattributed.) So it is possible to track them.

US security officials say that since the Chinese balloon, they have tweaked their radars to pick up high-altitude, slow-moving objects, which perhaps explains why more are being identified. But National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has failed to clarify why they are suddenly being met with America’s military might.

Whether they keep shooting or not, it’s well past time for Biden’s administration to start asking questions. We are constantly reminded that this is the most precarious security situation since the Second World War, so even if they don’t have all the answers, honest disclosure is surely better than a cloak-and-dagger defence of unprecedented military action.

Some questions should be asked and answered in Australia as well. If this is indeed all part of a Chinese surveillance operation, it is hard to imagine that our skies would be safe.

Originally published as Tom Minear: America is blowing UFOs out of the sky and Joe Biden has not explained why