If it wasn't aliens or Chinese spies, what were the UFOs shot down over Canada and US?

Authorities in the United States are still trying to figure out the origin of several unidentified flying objects that were shot down over the country and Canada. However, according to The New York Times, we know two things for sure: they aren't from outer space or Chinese spy balloons.

A commission has been put in charge of investigating the remains of the UFOs, which were promptly shot down. However, unlike the Chinese air balloon shot down last week (pictured here), the UFOs have yet to be recovered. The current theory regarding the UFOs is that they are flying objects owned by civilians and most likely were not a threat to national security.

President Biden, meanwhile, seems to be trying to swing this weird situation in his favour. On February 13, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House: "These unidentified aerial phenomena have been reported for many years, without explanation or deep examination by the government. President Biden has changed all that. We are finally trying to understand them better."

Lately there has been talk of UFOs, in the most literal sense: Unidentified Flying Objects. Between Friday, February 10, and Sunday, February 12, three of those unidentified objects that were flying over the airspace of the United States and Canada were shot down. And the authorities had no explanation about their origin. Authorities haven't ruled anything and there are even some in the military who aren't willing to rule out the alien hypothesis.

When General Glen VanHerck was in a press conference and asked if the unidentified flying objects were extraterrestrial in origin, VanHerck replied "I haven't ruled out anything at this point," according to the New York Times. 

Hours later, from the White House, spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre corrected herself by assuring that "there is no — again no indication — of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns,” according to The New York Times.

Just days after American President Joe Biden ordered the downing of a Chinese spy balloon that had flown over the United States, something weird started to happen. 

Not one, not two, but three separate UFOs were caught flying over Canada and the United States and we still don’t know what they were or why they had intruded into North American airspace.

The first UFO was spotted flying at 40,000 feet near the North Pole on February 9th and the United States Air Force shot it down off the waters of Alaska on February 10th.

“It was much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told the media. 

“The way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car, as opposed to a payload that was like two or three buses sized,” Kirby continued. 

While the origin of the object was unclear, Kirby noted that he wasn’t sure if it had surveillance capabilities nor any markings to indicate where it might have come from according to the New York Post.

“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” Kirby said. “We do not know who owns it.”

"We do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell not only within our territorial space but on what we believe is frozen water,” Kirby added.  

The incident put American and Canadian officials on high alert, however, and it wasn’t long before the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) spotted another unidentified flying object. 

Less than twenty-four hours after the downing of the UFO in Alaska, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the downing of a UFO over Canada’s Yukon territory. 

“Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyze the object,” Trudeau told reporters before departing for a curiously well-timed, and previously scheduled, fund-raising event in Canada's Yukon territory…

Canadian recovery teams have yet to recover any debris from the UFO's destroyed wreckage. But if they had, it is unlikely they would immediately share that information with the public.

"The security of citizens is our top priority and that's why I made the decision to have that unidentified object shot down," Trudeau told reporters on February 12th just before a third UFO was identified over Lake Huron. 

U.S. jets were called once again and the unidentified flying object was shot down at roughly 2:42 pm local time on February 12th according to a statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Patrick Ryder.

"We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but [assessed] it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities," Ryder said.

The object in question was described by the Wall Street Journal as having an octagonal appearance and was flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet, which means it could have posed a serious risk to civilians in the areas it traveled over. 

What these crafts are is still unknown. There are lots of theories but no real answers according to the New York Times: “If the truth is out there, it certainly is not apparent yet."