Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
- The White House said that three objects shot down over the weekend might have posed no threat.
- A leading explanation is that they were used for commercial or research purposes, a spokesperson said.
- There's also no indication that the objects were linked to China or spying, they added.
The three unidentified objects shot down over North America last weekend may have just been used for commercial or research purposes, the White House said on Tuesday.
US authorities have also found no evidence linking the objects to Chinese spying, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at a White House briefing.
"We haven't seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the PRC's spying program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts," Kirby said.
Kirby said a "leading explanation" in the US intelligence community is that the objects were "balloons that were simply tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign."
No one has stepped forward to claim ownership of the downed objects, he added.
When asked why the US decided to shoot down the unmanned objects if they may have been benign, Kirby said they posed a risk to civilian flights because they were hovering at 20,000 and 40,000 feet.
"Because we assessed that they weren't manned and weren't being controlled, and therefore left to atmospheric conditions, the real risk to safety was a problem," he said. Commercial planes, especially ones on transcontinental flights, typically cruise at between 33,000 and 38,000 feet.
Kirby added that even though the US hadn't determined that the objects were used for spying, authorities couldn't rule that possibility out.
"You want to err on the side of safety here in terms of protecting our national security," he said.
The US recently brought down four mysterious flying objects in total, with the latest three being destroyed from Friday to Sunday.
Most recently, authorities used a Sidewinder missile to take out an object above Lake Huron on Sunday. The F-16 that fired the missile missed its first shot, but hit the second, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday.
The wreckage from the three objects has not yet been recovered, but the first object shot down — a Chinese balloon the Pentagon says was used for surveillance — was pulled out of the Atlantic Ocean by the US Navy. It was downed on February 4 off the coast of South Carolina.
Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Thompson/U.S. Navy via Getty Images
China on Tuesday criticized the US for taking down the four objects, saying the destruction of unmanned airships with missiles was a "trigger-happy overreaction."
"Many in the US have been asking: what good can such costly action possibly bring to the US and its taxpayers?" Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.
When asked if the objects belonged to China, Wang said he had no information on such claims. "We believe that no irresponsible comments should be made when there is no clear evidence. And we are absolutely opposed to made-up stories and smears against China," he said.
As US-China tensions continue to mount over the flying objects, Beijing's top diplomat, Wang Yi, is set to visit Russia as part of an eight-day Europe tour.
It will be the first time a Chinese official of such rank has visited Moscow since Russia launched its unprovoked war with Ukraine.