The Decibel - The flying objects being shot down over North America

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

In the span of nine days, we’ve seen the takedown of four flying objects over North America by U.S. fighter jets. It has both Canada and the U.S. on high alert with speculation of Chinese spying. The White House has had to tamp down questions of whether aliens could be involved. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Trudeau says the search for debris in Yukon, where one of the objects was taken down is currently under way.The Globe’s senior parliamentary reporter, Steven Chase is on the show to tell us what we know so far about the mysterious flying objects and why all of a sudden, they’re being detected.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

And one last thing before I turn it over to the Admiral, I just wanted to make sure we address this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this. That's White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking at a briefing on Monday. But there is no, again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. Again, there is no indication of aliens. The takedowns she's referring to are four airborne objects that have been recently shot down by fighter jets.

It's led to a lot of speculation about what these things are, from aliens to Chinese spying. 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, which is exactly what we're doing. Canada is involved because most of these have passed through Canadian airspace. One of the objects was shot down over Yukon, and another was likely shot down into Canadian waters in Lake Huron.

The Globe's parliamentary reporter, Stephen Chase, is following the latest developments. I'm Maina Karaman-Welms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Steve, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Oh, happy to be here. I know it's a busy day and there's lots going on in this file, so I'm really excited to get some details from you here. But maybe we can just start with a brief timeline. When did these incidents happen? So we're talking about, I guess, the shooting down of four balloons over 10 days. So

what happened is all of a sudden we discovered that these objects. In fact, the government won't admit that they're all balloons yet. But they showed up originally around end of January on radars. We can determine there was Air Force activity at that time. Planes were being scrambled. But the first one we know because the government says it's a high-tech surveillance balloon, a high-altitude surveillance balloon, and that one was shot down on February the 4th. That was the one we heard about across the U.S. there that was shot down on the waters on the East Coast.

That's right. For some reason, they let it meander across Alaska, down through Western Canada, all across the continental U.S., and then was shot down off the Carolina coast. And then, of course, what's made this story even more fascinating is there's been three more of these objects, which are sometimes called balloons, but are not officially being called balloons yet.

And they, one was shot down Friday, just, I would say, off the northern coast of Alaska. Another one was shot down on Saturday over central Yukon. And then the latest was shot down on Sunday over Lake Huron between basically on the border between Canada and the U.S. And when we say shot down, who's shooting these down? In all cases, it's the Americans, the American fighter planes, fighter jets, and they are using, I think most of the time, if not every time, what we call sidewinder missiles.

Okay. And Steve, you use the term balloons there, and then you also switch to objects. What should we be calling these things, and do we know what they are? Mysterious flying objects. UFOs. The first one we have pretty good pictures of. It's a white spherical object that the Canadian government has called a high-altitude surveillance balloon, and the U.S. government has called a Chinese spy balloon. And so pretty clear it's a balloon unless we're being lied to,

which I don't think we are. But the other three, we haven't actually seen pictures yet, which is also interesting. They're not showing us pictures. There, however, have been descriptions of them that vary from object to object. The Minister of National Defense in Canada called the third one a cylindrical object. And then we had reporting from CNN saying that the fourth one shot down over Lake Huron was an octagonal object. So don't hold me to that, but that's what we're being told so far. The weird thing is, is many people are resisting describing the actual nature of the last three of these objects. They're ultimately called objects or in fact, they're pretty much only called objects.

But sometimes the government slips or the military slips and they use words like balloon. So the one that was shot down Saturday, our top soldier in Canada, General Wainier, did call it a balloon. So is the idea that the military knows what these are, but we're just not necessarily making this information public? I mean, from deduction alone, if it's not falling through the air and plumbing towards the ground, it's being held aloft in some manner. And if it doesn't have external propulsion, like fuel, then it has to be a balloon. So I'm assuming these are all balloons. We can call these all airships because that's a generic term that would apply to any of these things.

But we've had no reports that there's any kind of external propulsion like engines. So I'm assuming they're all balloons of one kind or another, and I stand to be corrected. They couldn't be like a drone or something. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, because a drone would have some kind of helicopter blades or would be powered either by the sun or by fuel. And we've had no indication of that in any of these cases. And of course, there's been a suggestion that they've been cylindrical in shape, at least

one of them has. So that's a real puzzle. And what's also annoying for journalists is they're not releasing any pictures of the last three. Is there a reason why? Why would we not be seeing pictures of these things? I don't know. I think at this point, it's probably good to sort of introduce some of the information that a spokesman for the Pentagon at the White House told us today. And that is that, and again, the Americans have said the first one was Chinese. Nobody said where any of the rest

have come from. But the White House pointed out that China has had a balloon surveillance program in operation for the last 10 years. And get this, NORAD, which is the organization responsible for our continental defense's joint Canada-U.S. effort, has only recently begun detecting these. So they may be just slightly ahead of the learning curve on us and not willing to release information until they get a better handle on what exactly is going on. So I want to ask you about NORAD specifically. Just before we get there, though, I just want to ask why these objects were shot down. Like, did they pose a threat? Did we hear an explanation about why? There's been four takedowns. And in all cases, they use a variation of the same reason, which is it potentially poses a hazard to civil aviation. And it potentially poses, in some of them we've been told, it poses a surveillance threat. What we've also been learning over the past week or so is that surveillance balloons, as the first one was identified to be,

actually have advantages over, for instance, spying via satellite. People have said, well, why these balloons matter, surveillance satellites can snap up the same pictures. But balloons actually have properties that satellites don't. Satellites are fast moving, and their window on any point of the Earth is moving quickly. But balloons can linger. Balloons drift very slowly, and they can linger over their targets, so they essentially can spend more time photographing or taking pictures.

And they can be capturing radio signals, which satellites cannot. What would be the benefit of capturing radio signals? That's a good question. The Americans got very excited because the first balloon, and as far as I know, the fourth balloon, were spotted moving over the Midwest where there are military sites. In some cases, there are nuclear missile sites.

In some cases, there are unspecified military sites. So the balloon can pick up, if it has the ability, the technology to pick up radio signals, which of course would be encrypted, it might have the ability to decipher them later or at least relay them back to whoever's operating them so they can take a crack at decoding them. Okay. So Steve, you said that NORAD was involved. Can you just briefly explain what NORAD is and what's their role here? Sure. North American Aerospace Command is a joint effort to defend the airspace above North America. And it's a joint Canada-US thing. The Americans are the commander. We have a in the, we have a vice commander in charge and it is responsible for defending North American airspace from threats.

So that means we work together and it's essentially a collaborative effort. We do not do this on the ocean and we do not do this in the land. It's only for airspace. It's been around for a long time and it's run out of Colorado, but it spans the entire airspace above North America. And so whenever there's a threat, Canadian or American jets are scrambled to intercept them to monitor. And in this case, and this is very unusual, I think some defense analysts pointed out it's the first time we've actually had jets working for NORAD taking down things over North America. The first time that jets have had jets working for NORAD taking down things over North America. The first time that jets have actually shot something down then?

Correct. Why does it seem like all of a sudden we're seeing this happen, Steve? I think it goes back to something which we don't yet have a full handle on, which is that NORAD has only recently recalibrated its detection to be able to detect these things. And that is an open question that remains of how long this has been going on for and whether we're just becoming better at basically finding them. I should point out, however, that the first balloon was reported by Air Canada through a civilian reporting system back on January 31st. So a civilian airliner did encounter the first balloon.

But as time goes on, we learn that there have been other sightings of balloons believed to be from China. They've been sighted over Hawaii and Taiwan, for instance, which of course lives right next door to China, also recently revealed that it has a lot of balloons coming overhead. And of course, the advantage with surveillance balloons is they linger a lot longer than satellites can. Okay. So there's, it seems like there's, it's a little bit more widespread here.

So it sounds like since NORAD expanded kind of our reach recently, we're starting to see all of these objects. Is NORAD working the way it should be here? Because it sounds like a lot of things were getting through before that we didn't know about. I guess we didn't really plan for balloon-based threats. So we're mostly focused for many years on ballistic missiles, on cruise missiles, any other kind of delivery system for nuclear weapons or Russian patrols. I don't get the sense and I don't recall ever discussing

the risks or the need to guard against balloon-based threats. So, but, you know, we laugh about this, but the balloons are a serious way of collecting intelligence. And that is probably something we're having to adapt to. It's essentially more low-tech, apparently successful. NORAD would have been set up during the Cold War, if I'm correct, right? So it was initially at least supposed to monitor a different kind of threat then? Yeah, it's looking for fast-moving missiles, not slow-moving mylar. We'll be back in a minute.

So Steve, we're speaking to you Monday afternoon here. Have we recovered any debris yet of any of these objects that have been taken down? Not that I know of. The first one that was shot down February 4th off the Carolina coast, they've had to call off the search because of rough waters. They still seem to be working to try to find the one that's over Lake Huron. Prime Minister Trudeau told us that they're searching a very big area in central Yukon for the third balloon.

From Dawson City to Mayo. So that's a good swath of the country there. That's 180 kilometers stretch. And then I've had no word on what's happening off the northern Alaskan coast. Do we know what we expect to find, Steve, when we do find the debris? No. There's been parts of – you can see pictures of parts of the recovered craft that was shot down off the Carolinas. Not all of it, but it looks just like a big white balloon.

The other ones, we have pretty – we have no idea. I assume it would have – if it is indeed a surveillance device, it would probably have some kind of radio device. It would have some way to collect either signals or take pictures and then to send these things back to their owners. But we have had no descriptions of the actual, any of the assets that are on these, despite the fact that I believe there must have been pictures taken of some of them, particularly because the encounters did not take place at night. Has anyone claimed these objects yet? Yes. In the first case, China had admitted that the high-tech surveillance balloon was theirs, but they said it was simply a civilian weather

balloon that had blown off course and said, stop making a fuss about it. And then what about the other three? We've had no information on where they come from. I was told by a senior Canadian government official, and I reported this, that the balloon shot down over central Yukon. In the briefing they were given, they were told it was likely believed to be of Chinese or Russian origin. Chinese or Russian? That's the first time I've heard Russia introduced into that. Is that something that you've been hearing? This is a potential possibility? Yeah, I reported it Saturday night, and we reported it yesterday as well. So it's, as whether it's possible or whether they're just not ruling yet, yet, oh, yet, I can't tell.

And has China or Russia said anything about those three? No, but China has suddenly started complaining about balloons floating over its territory. And it said that, it just came out with a story today in the Chinese state-controlled media that in fact, there's been balloons floating over their land that are American balloons. The Americans, of course, said that's not true. We don't have any kind of balloon program. Is there any way to tell where the objects are coming from based on where they've been spotted? Well, the first one, which is the only one for which we have a lot of analysis of, there was a meteorologist in the US, not the government,

who is good at backtracking or backtracing objects based on the wind currents. And he was confident enough to put out a map that he said demonstrated that it came over the Aleutian Islands, which are owned by Alaska,

and then down through Western Canada into Montana. As far as we can tell, the American government has corroborated that this is roughly the route. As for the other three, we don't have much of a sense yet. Steve, do we have any info on, I guess, the potential surveillance capabilities that are being suspected of these objects? What exactly could these objects be collecting? Photographs, potentially video of military sites of sensitive installations.

Canada and the U.S. have an early warning system across the North. And of course, according to the Americans, the first balloon and the fourth balloon both traversed over sensitive military sites in Montana where there are places like that. There are nuclear missile silos and there are other military bases. So these balloons have the ability to linger far longer over their surveillance targets than satellite do. So this could be a – the concern is this is a national security issue then. Yeah, and there has been unconfirmed speculation in the intelligence community that under Chinese President Xi Jinping that the on the part of the Chinese military to just try new things, try new ways of gathering information. And again, slow-moving objects that aren't picked up by radar in the way that faster-moving, bigger objects are

seem to have at least initially eluded North American defenses, although that seems to be changing quickly. White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that China has a fleet of spy balloons. What do we know about that, Steve? Very little. We know very little about it. We're just learning now that there's a Chinese military program that he says, Mr. Kirby says, has been running for 10 years. But that is just sort of breaking news, and we don't know much more about it at the moment. Steve, there are, of course, lots of jokes going around about UFOs here.

And I have to ask, just because reporters were even asking this during the press conference at the White House on Monday, is there any chance that we could be talking about aliens here? You know, that was also asked on Saturday at the Canadian briefing. And no, there's, unfortunately, sadly, there's no evidence that this is extraterrestrial in origin. In the grand scheme of things, Steve, how big of a deal are these incidents, like these objects coming into North American airspace and us having to shoot them down? Well, it's – as I said before, it's kind of – it's the first time that we've seen, you know, Canadian American jets shooting down airships. I'm going to call them airships over North America since NORAD was formed. And there's been a lot of talk in the last few years about the need to upgrade NORAD's surveillance capabilities

because the Chinese and Russians are making great advances in what's called hypersonic missile technology. Those are missiles for which you cannot predict the flight path and therefore you cannot protect against. And so there has been a huge push on the part of the Americans and most recently Canada to announce a lot of upgrades to our early warning system. So this kind of, in a sense, turns the discussion to how well

the continent is protected against incoming threats. And it also comes at a time in which we've had sort of a steady erosion of relations between the West and China. So it's possibly the worst time for this to happen in the last six or seven years. There's been a steady sort of decoupling and a lack, a total disengagement for a variety of reasons, mostly involving China's increasing aggression on the world stage. And so before I let you go here, Steve, so do you think, first of all, do you think we're going to see more objects that NORAD's going to pick up on? And I guess, where do you think this kind

of conversation is headed in the next few months? Well, yeah, I think we're going to see more. And I think that we're getting better at detecting them. It goes to the question of relations between China and the West. This is not the behavior of a friend or a partner. This is the behavior of a rival, an adversary. And Canada just released a foreign policy statement a few months ago that said China is an increasingly disruptive power on the world stage. So nothing that's happening right now is helping relations between the West and China. Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to walk through all of this today. You're welcome. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin.

David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.