Senators Attempt To Quell Fears Over UFOs Following Classified Briefing

Following a classified Senate briefing on Tuesday, most senators involved said that the recent string of objects shot out of the sky over America did not represent an immediate threat but that the White House needed to be more transparent nonetheless — and, no, there is no evidence of an imminent invasion by extraterrestrials.The meeting was the second recent briefing relating to the situation after a hearing on February 9 about the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina.Since then, three more unidentified flying objects have been downed by the American military, including one over Alaska on Friday, one over Canada on Saturday, and one over Lake Huron on Sunday.On Sunday, the Senate majority leader, Charles Schumer, told ABC’s “This Week” that “they believe the second and third objects were also balloons,” though now that characterization appears to have changed.“We’re learning more about these objects and the ability to detect them hour by hour and our defense and intelligence activities are focused like a laser,” Mr. Schumer told reporters after Tuesday’s briefing.He added that the intelligence agencies are focused “on first gathering the information and assessing the information and coming up with a comprehensive view for what is going on.”When asked following the briefing whether the unidentified objects were balloons, Senator Romney said “they didn’t characterize them in that way.”“People are interested and curious as to what we know and the reality is that we don’t know a lot about what these items are,” he told ITV News.Mr. Romney added “there are a lot of things to be worried about — this is not very high on my worry chart,” a sentiment that was echoed by Senator Graham. “I’m not unnerved,” he said.“I think we’ll come up with a more sustainable policy,” Mr. Graham said. “The more things you see, the more decisions you make and the more transparent you can be and the more open — probably for the better — but I didn’t hear anything in there that unnerved me.”Senator Kennedy, on the other hand, seemed more concerned than his colleagues following the closed-door meeting, telling reporters that the Chinese surveillance had been going on for longer than was previously known.“This has been going on for a long, long, long time — since at least 2017 — and last week we were told 2019,” Mr. Kennedy told reporters. “Lock your doors tonight.”The coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, John Kirby, had hinted at this during a press conference on Tuesday but did not specify the year.“We were able to determine that China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army,” Mr. Kirby said. “It was operating during the previous administration, but they did not detect it. We detected it.”He also denied allegations leveled by the Chinese government that America had sent at least 10 balloons into Chinese airspace since the beginning of 2022.Senator Rubio after Tuesday’s classified briefing also expressed concerns regarding how long unidentified flying objects had been traveling undisturbed through American airspace.“The most important question we have to answer now is, what are these things? Who sent them here? And what are they doing here? The only way you’re gonna get answers to that is not just to retrieve whatever is left of them, but to understand how it compares to the hundreds of other similar cases,” Mr. Rubio said.After Senator Marshall left the meeting, he told ABC News that it was President Biden’s duty to tell the American people what had been discussed in the meeting Tuesday.Mr. Marshall said that “the president can get in front of America and tell them firsthand that we’re safe, that everybody’s going to be okay, that we’ve got this under control, but America needs a strong leader to step forward.”Senator Blumenthal was one of many senators who expressed a similar opinion while they were leaving the briefing. “I have a better understanding but the American people need and deserve to know more,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “There is a lot of information presented to us this morning that could be told to the American people without any harm to sources or methods.”What was confirmed is that the last three objects shot out of the sky were different from the first object, with the latter three flying in commercial airspace, whereas the first was well higher.“What we know so far is that the first balloon was a Chinese spy balloon, it was very different in nature than the other three objects that were shot down,” Senator Gillibrand said.

Senators Attempt To Quell Fears Over UFOs Following Classified Briefing

More from the New York Sun

Back to the USSR, Russian Wait in Gas Lines — and Fume

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democrats’ New Voting Math

Trump-Backed Candidate for Georgia Governor Loses His Primary to Billionaire First-Time Candidate

More from the New York Sun

Back to the USSR, Russian Wait in Gas Lines — and Fume

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democrats’ New Voting Math

Trump-Backed Candidate for Georgia Governor Loses His Primary to Billionaire First-Time Candidate

Democrats Withhold Judgment on Clayton’s Nomination To Be Spy Chief, Choosing To Wait for Answers at Confirmation Hearing

Warsh’s First Press Conference as Fed Chairman Could Offer Clues About His Promised Reforms

Justice Department Seeks To Join Lawsuit Challenging Evanston’s Reparations Program

Hegseth Presses GOP Lawmakers for $350 Billion Pentagon Spending Increase Atop $1.1 Trillion Defense Appropriations

After Court Loss, East Village Group Says Fight Over Mamdani’s Homeless Intake Center Plan Is Far From Over