Ret. US Navy Predominant says unidentified objects are a be-cautious name for US

U.S. fighter jets being scrambled and shooting down three mysterious flying objects in just the last three days alone. The White House and Pentagon are now facing growing pressure to answer just basic.

But burning questions. What are these objects? Who sent them? They were all different shapes and sizes. According to officials. They were flying at different altitudes. We're told that the latest object was shaped like an octagon and shot down over Michigan near.

Lake Huron. It was only flying 20,000 feet up much lower than the objects that were shot down over Alaska and Canada on Friday and Saturday, respectively. It was at a lower than cruising the cruising altitude.

Of a commercial airliner. The suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US was 60,000 feet in the air for comparison's, a lot higher than the other objects we've been seeing in recent days. But lawmakers from both sides of.

The aisle are demanding more details from the White House, including the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner. They prefer them to be trigger happy than to be permissive. But we're going to have to see whether or not.

This is just the administration trying to to change headlines. What we're seeing here is a number of announcements by the administration without any real information being given to Congress. This could be because they don't have any information.

Our national security correspondent Kelly Ayotte is at the State Department. And I think that's a good question. What do they know? Do they know something that they're holding back or is it they're not saying a lot publicly because they don't really know a lot. Caitlin, it's pretty clear.

That they just don't know a lot right now. We spoke with some Pentagon officials on the phone last night, and they put it pretty blatantly when they said one of them that they believe that this is the first time.

That US Northern Command has used kinetic action, the military, to take down an airborne object in U.S. airspace. So this is pretty unimpressive dented. They are still trying to figure out a lot of the questions that lawmakers have answers to now.

Over the weekend. President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and they spoke after that object was downed over Canada. They both authorized the downing of that object. What they focused on.

Was the need for recovery to a better understand the origin and the purpose of that object. But as you noted, just out of the front there, there were three objects that were downed over the course of three days.

On Friday, there was an object downed over US coastal waters around Alaska, then the one over Canada on Saturday. On Sunday, another object down by U.S. fighter jets over Lake Huron. Now, there is no clear connection to any of these. And that Chinese spy balloon.

That was down off the coast of South Carolina just last weekend. But the recovery efforts here are what U.S. officials are really looking at to try and learn more about where these objects came from, what they were doing in U.S. airspace. And we heard last night.

From the commander of Northern Command, however, that recovery efforts for that object that was down over the coastal waters around Alaska hasn't even begun. Because the teams are still working to locate that object. Yeah, we'll see what happens when they do finally located.

Kylie Atwood, thank you. There's lots to discuss now. Joining us now, CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger and retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons. Good to see both of you. Thank you very much. So I'm interested in what you have to say.

About this. Mike Lyons, because you are saying that this is a wake up call. What why do you say this is a wake up call? No, I think it is. It puts the United States on notice.

For this great power competition between us and China. This one at 60,000 feet potentially. This is high altitude airspace that in the past that the Chinese have encroached on before in other nations as well.

And we've just kind of ignored it. And now we're going to have to put the resources towards looking over the horizon, especially in areas in the north in Alaska, so to speak, if we're going to protect our country in a post-9-11 world.

I'm just still shocked that we don't have control of this airspace from 60,000 to 40,000, especially that FAA space with regard to what we know is going in there. David, you have covered the national security space.

Has the when was the last time the US scrambled fighter jets to shoot something down in U.S. airspace? Gee, I can't remember one, Kaitlin. In fact, when NORAD's took down that balloon on Saturday.

Or what has been described now as a balloon. I think it was the first time that Norway had actually fired in a real live situation, not training in North American airspace, which which gets to the point of how unusual this is. But, you know, this.

A big distinction between the first balloon, the one that clearly came from China and the three that we've seen now for the first one. The US actually tracked it as it was leaving Hainan Island in China and saw it go up over the Aleutians.

And then, of course, warn the president and they made the decision right or wrong, to track it across the United States. These other three, there's no indication right now that they came from China Their small size suggests.

That they may have been much more local. We don't know if they were foreign powers, balloons at all. And so that tells you that we've sort of got two separate issues going on here. The first is how well we actually track.

These as they come into US airspace. And understand what the sensitivity of our sensors are. Clearly, that sensitivity has been turned up in recent times. The way you might turn up a magnetic reader in an airport. And then the second is.

What are the conditions under which you shoot them down? And it's not clear right now that these posed these latest balloons posed a major threat other than to commercial air traffic. Well, it's interesting that a major general on from Norway.

Who said, look, these have been happening for a while now or that maybe it always happened, but they've just tweaked the system that is able to track them. My question is, though, obviously, the fascination is because it's.

Balloons, right? And it's flying in spaces with commercial aircraft that is very dangerous. But China has said that the US has a legally flown, high altitude balloons into China's sovereign airspace without Beijing's consent.

For more than ten times in 20, 22. We spy on China. They spy on us. So what gives? What's new here, Mike Lyons? Well, I think first and foremost, we likely do that. We'd likely put these balloons up there. We're always looking for an advantage.

When it comes to communications. You know what the balloons provide. The military is kind of skipping off this instead of a satellite from the Earth's atmosphere. You get better communications if you can do this.

So there's no question that it doesn't surprise me at all that we've been doing that. It's looking to get an advantage on our side. Whether they're spy balloons really remains to be seen because we have the kind of technology that could read literally.

Somebody's nametag in a foxhole down from space if we had to do that. So, again, it's important that we're in high altitude. It's important that we're in that space and we can use it to our advantage. But what does it say to you that they're they called the first in a balloon?.

As David said, they're they're not referring to these as balloons. They're referring to them as objects. So so what are they doing? Are they emanating pulsing signals? Are they relaying communications signals? What exactly is the point? We don't really know what they are yet.

I'm sure the first balloon, for example, part of the reason why they are allowed to track it, because they really wanted to get inside of it. It was likely inoculated. It didn't harm the United States. It didn't do anything. And they use,.

You know, made a science experiment out of it, basically, which is why they convince the administration to track it for all that space. It seems. It seems that it is. David Sanger. More transparency rather than more incidents. Right.

It's like the incidents you see on cell phones. They're more cell phones now. So people are able to to to track them more, to see it more. So this should we be more concerned about these developments or is this good that we're at least getting more.

Transparency now? Well, Don, you're absolutely right. Know, it's one of the cardinal rules of intelligence is that if you focus your systems on looking for a certain kind of thing, you're going to find more because things that sort of.

You ignored along the way. And I think there's a good deal of that happening. So we have to fine tune the system now to both pick up what we really care about. Not pick up what we don't care about. And I think probably have a little bit better sense.

Of what we really need to go shoot down because these are is a pretty dramatic weekend Super Bowl aside of of the shoot downs. Should we be more concerned? I think that if we're right to focus right now more on this,.

Because the Chinese government clearly has put together a very comprehensive surveillance system of which the balloons are just a small part. But I'm not sure we should necessarily panic about the smaller incidents. Big questions still remaining about it,.

But No. Two better to people to speak about it with David Sanger. Major Mike Lyons, thank you both. Good to see both of you. Thank you very much.

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