Front Burner - What, exactly, is getting shot out of the skies?

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

It all started two weeks ago with a suspected Chinese spy balloon, which carried a payload about the size of three buses. A U.S. fighter jet shot it down after it floated across the continent. Then, the U.S shot down a second object: something airborne over Alaska that the U.S. said was likely not a balloon at all. And now, there’s been a third and a fourth object taken down above North America this month, in these cases over Yukon and Lake Huron. Today, Dan Lamothe explains the knowns and unknowns about these objects and what could be driving the decisions to shoot them down. Lamothe covers the Pentagon and U.S. Military for The Washington Post.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So it all started two weeks ago with a balloon. Right now, there is a ground stop on our airport, and this thing is up in the sky. The massive suspected spy balloon from China

has been spotted over U.S. airspace. On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible. This is not your typical hot air balloon. We are told the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon is the size of three buses with a technology base suspended below. And the U.S. State Department says it had solar panels and multiple antennas. The second flying object shot down off the coast of Alaska was the size of a small car.

The third one was taken out over the Yukon, and officials say it was smaller and more cylindrical. And the fourth one, the one shot down over Lake Huron, was, according to the U.S., an octagonal structure with strings hanging off. There was no payload. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the U.S. and Canada are treating it as a very serious situation. Obviously, there is some sort of pattern in there.

The fact that we are seeing this in a significant degree over the past week is a cause for interest and close attention. There are so many questions about the situation and so many unknowns. So today, Dan Lamothe is here. He's been reporting on all of this and covers the Pentagon and U.S. military for the Washington Post. Hey, Dan, thanks so much for being here. Hey, thanks for having me. So this story, it's strange, in part because I can't decide if it's like a weird distraction or very unsettling and serious. And on which side of the ledger would you land on? I think a little column A and a little bit of column B may end up be where we ultimately end up. I think that first aircraft, and a lot of us have actually started to lean away from calling it a balloon because while it did have a balloon, it also had that very large attached structure underneath, propellers for steering, and a number of electronics on it.

So it's more of an airship. It's more of a surveillance craft. And assumedly, it had some sort of data link back where they were able to steer it where they wanted it. And what we're waiting for is really what kind of surveillance were they able to do with it? Was it simply photographs? Did it have some sort of listening device on it where they could eavesdrop on conversations or radio transmissions?

That's sort of all to come. And then these latter three, I think, fall into a different bucket. They don't appear to have any kind of scaring on them. There's no sense yet even from where they come or who owned them. And it may end up being several different people that owned, you know, depending on which one you're talking about. Yeah. So we're kind of waiting to see where this goes. Yeah. So when the prime minister, our prime minister, suggested that there could be a pattern here, what do you make of that remark? I think there could be. I don't think there's definitely one, at least yet. I think one pattern that has emerged is that after the first one, the U.S. general who oversees NORAD has acknowledged that it prompted them to basically change the filter on the radar that they use.

them to basically change the filter on the radar that they use. They opened it up to account for craft that were going at slow speeds rather than sort of, you know, the ballistic missiles and the fighter jets and things like that, that they would be more typically accustomed to. That opened up a whole new universe of things that they appear to be looking at. One question I had when I read that, Dan, is why weren't they looking at that stuff in the first place? No, I think that's a very good question. And I don't think I've heard sort of a full and satisfying answer. I think one factor would be that the larger you open up the filter, the more sort of aerial junk, if you will, that you're sorting through. Which, you know, I think one concern would be that if you're looking at too many things, are you taking your eye off the ball on, you know,

the major threats? Yeah. But I think we're sort of waiting to see what emerges there. And I think there's still a lot of unanswered questions. I guess it's right. I don't mean to stick on this, but like, is there a bunch of junk just floating around the skies normally? Yeah. And I think a bunch is probably, you know, hard to quantify right now. But yeah, you mean you're looking at weather balloons, you're looking at scientific projects, things that look at the ozone, things that were tethered to the ground that then broke free and are somewhere that they weren't supposed to be originally. I think there's a big universe of things that it could be.

So, I mean, I've heard theories like these could be somebody's hobbies or some company messing around with some new technology or, as you said, a legitimate weather balloon or even another country spying. Those are all on the table here. Fair for me to say? Yeah. And I think on top of that, you can probably add in the possibility of it being sort of a spy balloon, but a spy balloon that they lost control of. One that they meant to have kind of offshore outside of U.S. or Canadian airspace, kind of on the fringes where once you're in international airspace, it would be more acceptable to the governments involved. Yeah. But if it got caught in a jet stream or something like that, that would be another question. Definitively, the U.S. government does not think that first craft blew off course. They're pretty definitive in saying that they think that it was deliberately put where it ended up.

But these latter three are kind of, you know, open-ended questions right now. And just to pick up on what you were saying about how they think that that first one, the first, well, let's go with airship, because that's what you called it, was deliberately put there. Why? Why would China fly it over the U.S. in a way where people on the ground could see it, right? Like, why would China do that? Well, I think one factor here is that it initially popped up over a series of sensitive military sites, but also military sites in places that there aren't a lot of civilians. You know, northern Alaska, the radar sites that Canada would have. And then once it made its way back into U.S. airspace, it popped up over Montana, where there's a number of nuclear missile silos,

and then kind of traveled on down to other airfields in the center of the country. And, you know, at some point, it becomes more evident that it's there. But if there's a decision that it's too large for safety purposes to shoot down, you know, at that point, China's, you know, assumably kind of steering it wherever they can, knowing that at some point it probably dies a fiery crash. But until then, it's kind of unclear where it would go or how long the U.S. government would tolerate. China has said that it was a weather balloon and that the U.S. is overreacting and that this was a serious violation of international practice. Right. Can you tell me a bit more about what's going on over there, like how they're reacting to this? Yeah. And our sense is that they pushed back

pretty strongly. Some of our reporting would also hold that internally that there's actually a bit of frustration and embarrassment that this has emerged as publicly as it did, particularly when it was then connected to a larger global program. You know, U.S. officials writ large now say have appeared over five different continents, numerous countries, recent sightings over Latin America. It basically being a pretty broad program. And now they have briefed all these other countries about what's been going on for a pretty long period of time at this point. And tell me more about that, this information that they released that this was part of a broader program. How long have they known about this program? I think they're saying that the program has

been in use in over 40 countries. I think they were tracking in bits and pieces that were initially hard to put together. A program that, you know, goes back at least a couple years, you know, you had all these individual sightings, you know, and they were put into sort of a one of the government phrases would be unidentified aerial phenomena in layman terms, it's a UFO right, so these things popped up, we have sightings from

US Navy pilots saying I don't know what I just went by, but this is weird going against the wind, the wind's 120 knots to the west don't go all pink dude that's not our LNS though is it it's not you know this is weird and for a period of time at least there was sort of a stigma attached to reporting this stuff because it's easy to joke about

it's you know are you making it up you didn't get a good look at it you're flying a fighter jet going hundreds of kilometers an hour past something that is stationary or close to it. How good of a look did you get at it? But over time, and I think especially because of the first major airship in the last couple of weeks, they appear to have gone back and patched together a lot of data points that they were already tracking. And now there's the sense that this was all related. It is part of a bigger program. You know, they've even ID'd potential spots in China from where these things are launched.

And it sounds a bit different. I know that China has suggested or said, I think they flat out said, that the U.S. has also sent similar objects into its airspace. And is there any evidence to back that up? So I read that two ways. One, the U.S. governed definitively and on the record, categorically denied it. But I think another piece that's probably worth considering here is what China considers its own airspace and what the rest of the world considers Chinese airspace are not the same thing. So the Chinese air defense identification zone where you kind of are able to monitor pilots. But, you know, it's usually a spot where you might send up an aircraft and get a better look or intercept. But it's not actually Chinese airspace according to international definitions.

China, several years back, kind of grandly announced that they were extending the Chinese airspace through their own definition, South China, East China, these areas that they have ambitions for. But those are not internationally recognized definitions. So when I heard that, and then I heard the denial, I was like, are we really talking apples to apples? I haven't been able to really lock that down. I guess one other question I have is the use of these aerial devices. How widespread do you think this is amongst countries, right? I think before learning of this, you know, so-called balloon, a lot of people, myself included, might just assumed that countries spot on each other via satellites from above, right? What is even the purpose of these?

I mean, electronics, photographs, the ability to gather information, but without sending over a plane or something like that that would be seen as more aggressive. They move at very slow speed, so you're able to kind of sit tight somewhere and kind of get a very good look, whereas the satellite is kind of tied to the orbit and has a natural move. When you see satellite photographs released of a place like Ukraine, you're usually getting an update once or twice a day as the satellite comes back over and then disappears again. So if you can just put a balloon somewhere and let it sit, or maybe even steer it around where you really want it,

you're kind of talking a different scenario at that point. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing.

In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cops. I know we don't know the origin of the other three devices, but I wonder if we could spend a bit of time talking about U.S.-China relations and what this all means, really. So after the airship, the initial airship, President Biden canceled Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip to China. We concluded that conditions were not conducive for a constructive visit at this time. In my call today with Director Wang Yi, I made clear that the presence of this surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law,

that it's an irresponsible act, and that the PRC's decision to take this action on the even-by-plan visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have. You know, how big a deal do you sense that this is? I think it's a significant problem at the moment. Not just that the trip got canceled. You can reschedule a trip. You know, I think that was at the moment a demonstration of how serious the U.S. government took it. But since then, there's been a series of overtures by the U.S. government to try and talk about this. The U.S. defense secretary reaching out to his counterpart, things like that. And nobody appears to be really picking up the phone on the other end.

So that's a concern. And one of the concerns is, you is, and this goes across the board, I mean, as tense as things are with Russia right now, there is still a hotline of sorts where the US military and the Russian military can talk about where their given aircraft are over a place like Syria to make sure there's no collisions, to make sure there's no sort of unintended consequences or somebody misreading a situation and launching a missile in response, even in a situation as, you know, kind of dynamic as that. So the idea that China would now be kind of pulling back, you know, that there's concerns about what message

that sends, you know, are we on the same sheet of music about what reality looks like? All of those things are really kind of dicey. Right. And so why do you think this chill on the other side? China, I understand, has not confirmed nor denied the origin of the other three. Yeah. And the other three very well end up being something that are not the same as the first one. The US government hasn't definitively attributed it to anybody yet. And they've left open a possibility that it's some sort of commercial craft or something anybody yet. And they've left open the possibility that it's a, you know, some sort of commercial craft or something like that. And then I think if that some point that becomes a thing where it's like, well, yeah, it was actually, you know,

for the sake of argument to National Weather Services, then that's going to lead to questions about whether there was an overreaction on their part. This could go on a while. So then why do you think China isn't picking up the phone, I guess? Could be one of several reasons. One, they clearly are frustrated based on a lot of our reporting on the way this has been portrayed, sort of their standing in the international community, the way that the United States is doing things like sitting down with Japan, the Philippines, Australia, other partners, the United States is doing things like sitting down with Japan, the Philippines, Australia, other partners that the United States and Canada and sort of the broader coalition have. How does

that make China look? How does that create other problems for China in terms of what they're doing, be it economically or militarily? There's a lot of things that China is trying to accomplish. This is a bump in the road for them in that regard. Dan, before we go, one thing I did want to ask you about is if these objects continue to be spotted and then shot down. I'm not just thinking over the U.S. and Canada, but maybe in other parts of the world. Like, what concerns might you have? And I bring this up because we just found out today that the attempt to shoot down the object over Lake Huron, the first missile missed, right?

I mean, I know that it went into water, but that doesn't sound great to just be shooting tons of stuff down in the missed, right? I mean, I know that it went into water, but that doesn't sound great to just be shooting tons of stuff down in the sky, right? No, I think those are fair concerns. I do think the reason they pick a place like Lake Huron in the first place is hopefully so there is that buffer zone where you're not landing on somebody's house or something like that with an object. And that could be the object you're shooting down or a missile that went off course or didn't detonate the way it was supposed to over, you know, up at altitude. So the assumption here, based on our reporting, would be that this missile didn't detonate because it didn't recognize what the intended target was based on size. It's a heat

seeking missile. It didn't kind of lock in the way that had been anticipated. So like that becomes a concern long term. I do think it's notable that all of these objects that have been shot down so far, three of them were over water, where the airspace had been cleared. The fourth one was over the Yukon. So you're talking about a situation where they seem to be trying to be cautious about where they're doing this, but you're still shooting live rounds and you never quite know exactly what the unintended consequences of that will be. Yeah. And sorry if this is a silly question, but why do these seem to have to be taken out by missiles? Like, why not some other way? Like, I don't know,

guns? No, I think that's a fair question. And it's one that's coming up a lot. And it's sort of a fun with physics question. I think for folks who are tracking this, I've interviewed a few folks about this fighter pilots thing to that sort. And what they said is, especially at higher altitudes, even if you pump a series of bullets through the balloon, helium won't necessarily escape the way you think it would at ground level. So the helium kind of still stays there, and it doesn't really change anything. There's an incident from several years back where a Canadian balloon got off course, and They apparently pumped something like a thousand rounds into it and it continued to be a runaway balloon. So you kind of need to rip a large hole in the canopy and hence the missiles. Huh. I had not heard about this Canadian balloon until right now.

Dan, thank you so much for this. I know that there are a lot of unanswered questions here still, but you have cleared up a lot for me today. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.