US senators from both parties demanded the Biden administration publicly provide more information on unidentified aircraft downed over the weekend, partly to tamp down fears of more Chinese spy balloons.
(Bloomberg) — US senators from both parties demanded the Biden administration publicly provide more information on unidentified aircraft downed over the weekend, partly to tamp down fears of more Chinese spy balloons.
The US government still hasn’t determined the purpose of three flying objects shot down since last Friday, senators said Tuesday following a classified intelligence briefing.
But Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat and a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that based on the classified briefing, “it certainly doesn’t appear that these objects were threats.”
“The American people need to know more so they’ll have more confidence in our national security,” said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. “Our adversaries often know what we know. We know they know, the American people are the ones who don’t know and they deserve to know more.”
Briefers told senators authorities still haven’t been able to recover debris from those craft, complicating efforts to investigate what they were or why they were in North American airspace, several senators said afterward.
Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas called on President Joe Biden to address the nation to assure the objects don’t present a threat.
“The president needs to find the courage to get up in front of the American public and tell them what he knows,” Marshall said.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters earlier Tuesday that “a leading explanation” the intelligence community is considering is that the three objects were being used for private commerce or some other benign purpose.
“They could be, but what’s interesting to me is that if it’s commercial why wouldn’t whoever launched it simply resolve the issue,” North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis said. “I’m not aware of any public reports of any civilian or commercial entity claiming responsibility for it.”
Murphy said he expected the military would seek funding increases to improve their abilities to detect objects in US airspace.
–With assistance from Tatyana Monnay and Mike Dorning.
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