Phone home
Yesterday, the US military shot down another high altitude object, this time over Lake Huron, marking the 4th time in less than 10 days that US fighter jets have shot something out of the sky.
It goes without saying that the events of the last few weeks have been unusual. Work is ongoing to recover as much debris as possible, but the latest reports suggest that the 3 objects shot down in the last few days were likely cylindrical objects that moved at wind speed, and were substantially smaller than the Chinese spy balloon which was the first object shot down on Feb 4th. However, the head of North American Aerospace Defense Command has yet to confirm whether these 3 other objects are “balloons” — as the US military remains unsure exactly how they stay aloft.
Bad time to be a UFO
The National UFO Reporting Center, which is a non-governmental non-profit organization, has been collating public reports of unidentified flying objects for decades, with ~500 typically reported in any given month. Many of these reports imply something extra-terrestrial, and some are hard to take seriously or credibly — particularly when you consider that every July 4th, when fireworks are often filling the sky, reports tend to skyrocket (thanks to The Economist for this original finding).
But it’s not just your conspiracy-loving Uncle who has seen a UFO. In a 2022 report released last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, some 247 UFO sightings were reported between March 2021 and August 2022. These were mostly by US Navy and Air Force personnel and, interestingly, of the roughly half that were identified as having any distinguishable characteristics, a large majority were described as “balloon or balloon-like entities”.
