President Joe Biden stated on Thursday that the United States has no evidence that the three objects shot down in North American airspace were associated with China's spy balloon program and that they are likely from private entities.
The president announced that he has instructed his team to develop "sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects moving forward, distinguishing between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not."
"We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were but nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country," Biden said.
"The intelligence community's current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research."
Four days after the last known object was shot down, Biden addressed the issue in a speech at the White House. The president was under increasing pressure in Washington to be more forthright about the situation and his decision-making as commander-in-chief.
Biden noted that there had been no indications of a "sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky."
In addition, the president stated that he has instructed national security advisor Jake Sullivan to head a "government-wide effort" to address potential sightings with comparable high-altitude objects.
Specifically, the administration will improve the inventory of unmanned airborne objects above American airspace, implement additional measures to detect the objects, update the rules and regulations for encounters with these types of objects above U.S. skies, and establish global standards for similar encounters.
The president stated that he intends to talk about the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping and keep allies and Congress updated.
"And I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon," he added.
The Chinese surveillance balloon that crashed off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month, according to federal sources, was capable of conducting signals intelligence collecting operations and carried a payload about the size of three school buses. The remaining objects, which have not been assigned to a particular country or entity, are believed to be considerably smaller.
This week, new procedures for how the United States will handle similar unidentified objects in the future are expected to be announced.
Canadian officials admitted earlier this week that the recovery of wreckage from high-altitude objects shot down over Canada and the U.S. might still take days or weeks, and there is no assurance that the debris will be recovered.
