4 Shootdowns in 8 Days Over US Airspace Unprecedented in History: Top General

U.S. Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, attends a hearing held by the House Armed Services Committee in Washington on March 1, 2022. The committee heard testimony on fiscal year 2023 strategic forces posture. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The United States has shot down four objects flying over U.S. airspace in just under two weeks, an amount that officials consider to be unprecedented.

Since the downing of a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, the U.S. military has shot down three additional unidentified flying objects (UFOs) over Alaska, Lake Huron, and Canada’s Yukon.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said he believes that these were the first instances of NORAD taking action against airborne objects in North American airspace since the agency was founded in 1958.

“I believe this is the first time within United States or American airspace that NORAD or United States Northern Command has taken kinetic action against an airborne object,” VanHerck said during a Feb. 12 press call.

“With some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now, and that’s why I think you’re seeing these.”

U.S. officials said that the three objects shot down since the Chinese spy balloon incident were not believed to pose a kinetic military threat to the United States, but may have threatened civilian air traffic as they lingered at an altitude between 20,000 and 40,000 feet.

In the final incident, one UFO escaped U.S. military verification near sensitive nuclear sites in Montana, only to be rediscovered over Lake Huron between Michigan and Canada.

The abrupt increase in military shootdowns of UFOs and the relatively tight-lipped response from the White House have led some lawmakers to raise concerns about what the Biden administration is not telling Congress or the American people.

“I have real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said during a Feb. 12 interview with NBC. “I do hope the administration has a lot more information for all of us on what’s going on.”

However, the White House pushed back on such criticisms during a Feb. 13 press briefing.

“We have been, I think, as transparent as we can be,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “We’re doing what we can in the public sphere.”

US Must ‘Respond With Strength’

The lack of understanding about the nature of the three objects shot down this month has spurred speculation as to the origin and purpose of the objects, with commentators suggesting Chinese espionage efforts or extraterrestrial alien invasion as explanations.

Retired Lt. Col. Darin Gaub said that the UFOs could be from China and that, regardless of their origin, the administration would need to respond to such threats with strength.

“China, if this is all them, they’re probing us. They’re testing us,” Gaub said during a Feb. 12 interview with Fox News. “We need to make sure that we respond in strength, and a type of strength that we may not be comfortable with or used to when dealing with China.

“We need to make sure they know we are not going to tolerate these types of incursions. And we need to take all steps necessary to make sure that we defend our homeland and our sovereignty on air, land, and sea.”

Concern over the Chinese communist regime’s vast espionage campaign against the United States has grown since the shootdown of the spy balloon, which U.S. leadership has admitted it knew nothing about until mere months ago.

“The bottom line is, until a few months ago, we didn’t know of these balloons,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) during a Feb. 12 interview with ABC. “Our intelligence and our military did not know.

“We got enormous intelligence information from surveilling the balloon as it went over the United States watching.”

Schumer said the United States believed the most recent objects were balloons carrying unidentified payloads but could not verify whether they were deployed by the Chinese regime. Nevertheless, he said, the discovery of China’s balloon program and the subsequent downing of the airship had likely embarrassed the communist regime.

“I think the Chinese were humiliated,” Schumer said. “I think the Chinese were caught lying, and it’s a real step back for them.

“They look really bad.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.