Years ago, I knew a young lady in the media business who said she had a BFF working at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station (CMAFS), a short distance from NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado..Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station now falls under Air Force Space Command. That is because it monitors everything not only in space, but everything over North America. I could not help but say, 'Can you ask your BFF if he ever sees UFOs on those big screens at CMAFS headquarters?' Meaning, you know, stuff we can’t explain. Stuff maybe from other planets..And she did. Surprisingly, she said yes. We see them every night. Over Minnesota, over Wisconsin, everywhere. And no, they don’t scramble fighter jets anymore..Until now..All it took was for one Chinese 'weather balloon' to float across Canada and the US to cause a major controversy over alleged Chinese intelligence efforts. Since February 3, four unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have been shot down by US jet fighters. Canada was consulted of course, but it’s clear the Pentagon runs the show. While Trudeau claimed on Twitter he ordered the recent shoot-down over the Yukon, it’s nothing more than smoke and mirrors — putting up a false front that both the US and Canada are actively defending our sovereignty..Here is how CNN reported a statement from Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder..Ryder said the object shot down on Saturday was first noticed over Alaska on Friday evening. Two F-22 fighter jets “monitored the object” with the help of the Alaska Air National Guard, Ryder’s statement said, “tracking it closely and taking time to characterize the nature of the object.”.“Monitoring continued today as the object crossed into Canadian airspace, with Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joining the formation to further assess the object. A US F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory using an AIM 9X missile,” his statement added..“As Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations to help our countries learn more about the object, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” Ryder said..Well, at least that much is true..Our aging F-18s based at 4 Wing Cold Lake likely don’t even have the flight range to scramble to the “remote areas” described by our Defence Minister Anita Anand. Today, I watched a White House press conference, where Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre threw cold water on the idea the slew of high-altitude objects are extra-terrestrial..Which, ironically, leads one to believe they are lying. Or are they? Take your pick..“There is no — again, no — indication of aliens or extra-terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns,” Jean-Pierre said, eliciting laughter from the press corp..Alas, no one in the US military is laughing. Not anymore. Not after the political raking the Biden White House received for letting the Chinese balloon float across the US, possibly absorbing valuable electronic intelligence..The excuse they didn’t want the object to fall on someone is laughable. It could have easily been shot down over Montana..Something very weird is going on — but what, exactly? And should Canada be more involved in protecting its airspace?.Some well-known analysts say the US military seems aloof to the fact it’s being toyed with by a terrestrial adversary, and key capabilities may be compromised as a result..According to analyst Tyler Rogoway, at The War Zone, the gross inaction and the stigma surrounding unexplained aerial phenomena as a whole has led to what appears to be the paralysis of the systems designed to protect the US and its most critical military technologies, pointing to a massive failure in US military intelligence..This is a blind spot the US literally created out of cultural taboos and a military-industrial complex that's ill-suited to foresee and counter a lower-end threat that is very hard to defend against, Rogoway writes..Air balloons? The US would rather spend a fortune on high-tech weapons — the Air Force’s AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) hypersonic missile would be about US$15 million a copy, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine..What it may suggest is an alarming new capability set and tactics that seem to have been allowed to be exploited with little response for years while the Pentagon scratched its head and shrugged or even worse, turned largely a blind eye toward it..And that brings us to one of the biggest problems with this topic, as a whole, writes Rogoway for The War Zone..People expect one blanket and grand explanation for the entire UFO mystery to one day emerge. Unfortunately, this issue is clearly one with multiple explanations due to the wide range of events that have occurred under a huge number of circumstances. Strangely enough, the three unidentified objects shot down by US fighter jets since Friday may turn out to be balloons connected to benign commercial or research efforts, a White House official said today, The Guardian reported..The US has not found any evidence to connect the objects to China’s balloon surveillance program nor to any other country’s spy program, national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters..“We haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the [People’s Republic of China’s] spying program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” he said..According to a Pentagon memo to US lawmakers obtained by CNN, the unidentified object shot down by a US fighter jet over northern Canada was a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it.”.So it wasn’t from outer space, after all?.The object shot down over Lake Huron on Sunday was previously described as an “octagonal structure” with strings attached to it..“These objects did not closely resemble and were much smaller than the PRC balloon, and we will not definitively characterize them until we can recover the debris, which we are working on,” a national security council spokesperson told CNN..As for Canada’s F-18s, which are flown by ace pilots, shooting down a balloon is not cut and dried. William Kim, a specialist in surveillance balloons at the Marathon Initiative think tank in Washington, said, “these balloons use helium… It’s not the Hindenburg, you can’t just shoot it and then and then it goes up in flames.”.This means that if US or Canadian fighter jets try to shoot it down and punch a hole, it might still stay in the air, with its helium leaking very slowly..Also, Canadian Lieut. Steve Wills told the BBC targeting a balloon is challenging..“With something like this, which is stationary in the air when the CF-18s are flying very, very fast, it is difficult to shoot it,” Wills said..And no, surprisingly, we don’t have the latest Sidewinder missiles — they’re still on order..The US approved the sale of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles and advanced radars to Canada in June 2020, as part of a package of new equipment to upgrade weaponry and combat systems and keep the CF-18s flying through 2032, Global News reported..The upgrades were deemed necessary after the federal government delayed plans to replace the fleet with F-35s, and followed a report from Canada’s auditor general in 2018 that warned the CF-18s were outdated..Yet while Canada has since ordered 36 of the missiles, Department of National Defence spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier said Monday none have been delivered. With just 76 fighter jets available to patrol 250,000km of coastline, the Canadian Armed Forces is not known for its ability to intercept aerial threats, The National Post reported..Canada does have a small stockpile of older Sidewinder missiles and any CF-18 could get the missile high enough to strike a target at 60,000 feet, the estimated maximum cruising altitude of a balloon. The only problem is the RCAF’s ability to get to a remote area without running out of fuel..“We have such a vast territory that covering all of it presents challenges,” said Richard Shimooka, a defence analyst at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. “Getting to some areas, hitting it and getting back to base can present a challenge.”.The range of a CF-18 is about 3,300 km, so it means that any jets stationed at CFB Cold Lake would only be able to fly as far as Whitehorse, before turning around.
