The Biden administration has been facing a lot of criticism over its handling of recent unidentified flying objects (UFOs) shot down by the U.S. Air Force.
During a White House press briefing, John Kirby, President Biden’s National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, was unable to provide any explanation as to what the standard would be going forward in handling such objects and expressed uncertainty as to whether it was “strange” that no country had yet to claim responsibility for the UFOs.
“I don’t know what kind of imagery might exist, and they’d be wanting to talk about whether they’re releasable or not,” Kirby said, referencing possible photos of the UFOs the Department of Defense might have. “Obviously, certainly with respect to the spy balloon, we want to make sure that we are gleaning what we can from this imagery so that we can answer your questions better.”
“And so to what degree there will or will not be public release, I do want to stress that, you know, we’re going to want to make sure that we have had a chance to analyze that imagery for ourselves as much as possible,” Kirby added.
Kirby expressed doubts as to whether there were any releasable images of the three downed UFOs and said the administration was going to “learn from these three events” and “continue to study what happened” in order to decide what the standard would be going forward. While Kirby was unable to comment on whether the lack of any country owning up to the objects was strange, he did acknowledge that the administration was in “uncharted territory” with this situation.
Biden faced sharp criticism for waiting days to take down the balloon once it was over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
“I kind of feel like I took care of that in my opening statement, but I’m happy to revisit it,” Kirby said, going on to argue there were differences in the situation with the Chinese spy balloon compared to the UFOs, including it flying at a higher altitude away from commercial aircraft and enhanced knowledge about its purpose.
“Really the option of shooting that down over land wasn’t a legitimate option because somebody really could have gotten hurt. And we use the time available to us knowing what this thing was all about. We use that time to study it, to learn from it, to collect on it, then taking it down at the earliest opportunity in the water,” Kirby said.
“These other three, they didn’t have propulsion. They weren’t being maneuvered. It was basically they were being driven by the wind. We don’t think – we don’t know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them, but we can’t rule it out. So there was a little bit, there was enough uncertainty there that, again, out of all abundance of caution, doing the prudent thing, the president directed that they get taken down,” he said.
Kirby added that the administration was going to “learn from these three events,” and “continue to study what happened” in order to decide what the standard would be going forward in handling such objects.
“We’re going to have an interagency effort that helps us get around the policy implications here. And we’ll see where this goes. But bottom line for President Biden is going to do the right thing for the American people, for our safety and security,” he said.
Heinrich went on to ask whether Kirby thought it was “strange” no country had claimed responsibility for the three UFOs yet.
“I can’t say whether that’s strange or not, since we’re sort of in uncharted territory here, no pun intended,” Kirby said.
It’s a worrying sign that the Biden administration is seemingly unable to explain the situation with the UFOs. The lack of knowledge and transparency is only serving to heighten the public’s fears and suspicions over government secrecy. After all, if the government can’t explain what is happening, then how can the public trust that it is doing the right thing for their safety and security?
The Biden administration needs to come clean about the unidentified flying objects and provide the public with the information they are asking for. Until then, the public will remain in the dark and the administration will continue to face criticism.