When President Joe Biden finally deigned to fill the American people in on why his administration had turned the skies above North America into a live-fire zone over the course of two weeks in early February, the backdrop against which he delivered his address was widespread confusion. In lieu of new or relevant facts and seemingly aware that an inexplicable rain of fiery debris descending across the continent can become a political liability, however, the president approached the lectern armed only with defensive bravado.
Biden began by informing the nation that his Pentagon had responded to the incursion of a Chinese surveillance balloon, which U.S. forces neutralized on February 4, with enhanced scrutiny of the skies over North America. That survey was alarmingly productive, turning up at least three unidentified objects that were shot out of the sky in as many days. This course was taken “out of an abundance of caution,” Biden said, in part because the objects were flying at altitudes shared by commercial air traffic but also “because we could not rule out the surveillance risk of sensitive facilities.” The president did, however, note that the unidentified objects remain unidentified, and there was “nothing” to indicate that the vehicles were related to foreign surveillance programs.
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