In Sudden Narrative Shift, Pentagon Admits Mystery Objects ‘Probably’ Private Craft Not Tied To Spying

Edward Snowden called it (and so did we)… just a day ago, as we reported: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden says the hysteria over UFOs being shot down over America and Canada is a distraction from Seymour Hersh’s story about the U.S. being responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

Less than 24 hours later, on Tuesday, Bloomberg reports that “The US government has assessed that three unidentified objects downed since last Friday were likely for commercial use and not foreign intelligence gathering.”

A 24/7 hyped news cycle, with breathless US defense official press briefings and reporters asking about aliens and UFOs, and just like that… the public is casually informed they were probably just “balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday: “Given what we’ve been able to ascertain thus far, the intelligence community’s considering, again, as a leading explanation, that these could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose.”

Additionally, coming off the alleged Chinese ‘spy’ balloon shootdown off South Carolina on Feb.4 – which started this sensational trend of Pentagon jets taking potshots at floating unknown small objects in skies over North America with Sidewinder missiles that cost the taxpaying public $400,000 a pop, Kirby admitted: 

“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 spy balloon program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” Kirby said.

And what’s more, with the “China balloon threat” new read scare over American skies narrative now apparently being walked back, the Pentagon says it may never know with certainty, as Axios reports further of Kirby’s briefing: 

• Asked whether there was a possibility that the debris would never be recovered, Kirby acknowledged that it was a “difficult question” but said, “we’re taking this day by day and doing the best we can to try to locate the debris and then develop a plan to recover it.”
• “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 spy balloon program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” Kirby said.
• The objects did not appear to have been operated by the U.S. government, per Kirby.

He also underscored that no individual or entity has yet come forward to identify themselves as owners or operators of the objects.

it’s not aliens

i wish it were aliens

but it’s not aliens

it’s just the ol’ engineered panic, an attractive nuisance ensuring natsec reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings (à la nordstream)

until next time

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 13, 2023

But the Pentagon has stuck by its assertions that the objects remained a threat to civilian aviation and so had to be dealt with.

All of this raises an important question: maybe China was right all along?

REPORTER: “Has the White House had conversations with Beijing about this?”

KIRBY: “They claimed it was a weather balloon. We know it’s not.” pic.twitter.com/tk0Z8If31O

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 13, 2023