Page 56 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2023 Edition

56 Chinese Balloons Classified As UFOs
Previous Chinese Spy
Balloons Over US Were
Classified As UFOs:
Report
We may now know how some Chinese
spy balloons managed to fly into U.S.
airspace under the radar.
A Chinese surveillance balloon drifted
through American skies for about a week
before an F-22 fighter jet shot it down off
the coast of South Carolina on Saturday
(Feb. 4).
That same day, the U.S. military revealed
that similar Chinese balloons had
intruded on U.S. airspace at least three
times during the administration of
President Donald Trump, which ran from
January 2017 to January 2021.
Those previous incursions didn't make
the news. Indeed, it took a while even for
top American military officials to learn
about them, according to a report in The
New York Times (opens in new tab), at
least in part because some incidents were
initially classified as unidentified aerial
phenomena (UAP), as UFOs have
recently been branded.
"Balloons account for many of the
unexplained incidents the Navy and other
military services have tracked in recent
years. The previous incidents, like other
unexplained events, were handed over to
a Pentagon task force charged with
investigating UFOs and other aerial
phenomena," The Times wrote in the
story, which was published on Tuesday
(Feb. 7). "As the Pentagon and
intelligence agencies stepped up efforts
over the past two years to find
explanations for many of those incidents,
officials reclassified some events as
Chinese spy balloons."
"It is not clear when the Pentagon
determined the incidents involved
Chinese spying. When the determination
was made, officials kept the information
secret to avoid letting China know their
surveillance efforts were uncovered,"
The Times added, citing multiple U.S.
officials who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)
has taken a greater, and much more
public, interest in UAP over the past few
years. In May 2021, for example, the
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude Chinese
surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Feb. 5, 2023.
Pentagon announced the creation of a Chinese officials, for their part, have
UAP task force. The organization's chief apologized for the recent balloon
goal is "to detect, analyze and catalog incursion. But they've claimed that the
UAPs that could potentially pose a threat airship was a benign scientific vessel
to U.S. national security," Pentagon collecting meteorological data that was
officials said in a brief statement (opens blown off course over the U.S.
in new tab) released a few months later.
That explanation doesn't wash with the
Then, in July 2022, the DOD created the U.S. military, however.
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
(AARO), to track UAP in space and in "This was a PRC [People's Republic of
the air (and even under water, if some China] surveillance balloon," an
venture into that domain). unnamed DOD official said in an update
released by the Pentagon on Saturday
Last month, DOD's Office of the (opens in new tab). "This surveillance
Director of National Intelligence released balloon purposely traversed the United
a highly anticipated and long-delayed States and Canada, and we are confident
report on UAP, which was mandated by it was seeking to monitor sensitive
the 2022 National Defense Authorization military sites." []
Act.
DEBUNKED: UFO Was
The unclassified report delves into 510
UAP sightings, using information Caught “Refueling” At The
gathered by a variety of intelligence Sun.
agencies and military branches, along
with the Federal Aviation
Administration, the National NASA has a fleet of sun-gazing spacecraft
Oceanographic and Atmospheric that keep an eye on space weather,
especially during solar eruptions. In 2012,
Administration, the Department of telescopic images appeared to show
Energy and NASA. something in the shadows. On YouTube,
some viewers said this could be a UFO that
About one third of those 510 sightings — was refueling by using the solar
171, to be precise — remain plasma.However, NASA pointed out that
"uncharacterized and unattributed," the feature is actually something called a
according to the report. But nearly as "prominence," which has cooler and denser
plasma than the outer atmosphere of the
many, 163, were identified as balloons or sun, or the corona. Scientists are still trying
"balloon-like entities." How many of to figure out how solar prominences
those may have been foreign surveillance develop, but they're pretty sure it has
craft is unknown. nothing to do with aliens.