President Joe Biden on Thursday offered some details about the unidentified flying objects that were recently shot down by the US military over North American airspace.
Biden explained the intelligence community’s current assessment is that three objects were “most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions.” That does not include the Chinese spy balloon the U.S. military shot down last week.
Biden said he immediately gave the order to shoot the objects down out of concern over air traffic and what they might have observed.
“If any object “poses a threat to America I will shoot it down,” Biden declared, adding that he has asked his military team to come up with a group of criteria for ways to detect what the objects are so they’re not wasting time shooting down everything.
His address to the nation marks the first time President Biden spoke out about the balloon from China.
He said that he immediately gave the order to shoot it down. It was the military that didn’t want to do it right away because it was so huge and it could have hurt people.
“A violation of our sovereignty is unacceptable,” Biden said, adding that he makes “no apologies for taking down the Chinese ballon.”
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