The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office: Reports of Unidentified Phenomena in the Air, Ground, Sea and Space

Officially, the reports being investigated are of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), as opposed to the earlier iteration of unidentified aerial phenomena, which only focused on objects are observations in the air. Now the effort is looking at reports from air, ground, sea or space, though Kirkpatrick said most of the cases are still aerial in nature.

“We have not seen anything that would lead us … to believe that any of the objects we have seen are of alien origin, if you will,” said Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Established in July, the office – officially known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office – has received “several hundreds” of reports of unidentified objects to examine, including some that go back years, said Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the effort. The initial 144 cases were looked at by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Neither official would say how many of the cases had been analyzed and resolved. Many of these cases will not be considered to be dangerous and may end up being things like balloons and copters which are used for other purposes than intelligence collection.

Still, when asked if any of the reports were indicative of something that may pose a threat to national security, to a military facility or to US personnel, Kirkpatrick answered, “Yes.”

Moultrie said that they need to take that seriously since they’re assuming that it might be hostile without being able to resolve it.

One of the big issues the Pentagon faced as it began to look more seriously at the issues of UAPs was the stigma around reporting. The stigma associated with reporting sightings has been greatly reduced.

Reports on the 2016 Subic Bay US Navy Boat Detection and Detention in the Near-Atlantic Collision

In May, Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence Scott Bray told members of the House Intelligence Committee that their database had grown to 400 reports since the release of the June 2021 report. The reports have kept coming in.

“There’s not a single answer for all of this, right?” Friday, Kirkpatrick asked rhetorically. “There’s going to be lots of different answers and part of my job is to sort out all of those hundreds of cases on which ones go to which things.”

Editor’s Note: Beth Sanner is a former deputy director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration, a position where she oversaw the elements that coordinate and lead collection, analysis, and program oversight throughout the Intelligence Community. She also worked as the president’s intelligence briefer. She works as a CNN national security analyst and is a professor at the University of Maryland. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

Washington believes the balloon shot down over the Atlantic on Saturday is part of an extensive Chinese surveillance program – but that Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, may not have been aware of the mission.

The Chinese seized a US Navy underwater vehicle in late 2016 in the international waters of the South China Sea just 50 nautical miles from Subic Bay in the Philippines. The US Navy base in Subic Bay was the largest in Asia until it was taken down in 1992 due to disagreements over lease costs. The incident was widely believed to have been a message to President-elect Donald Trump, just two weeks before his inauguration and several weeks after he angered Beijing by taking a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s president. Beijing apologized for returning the craft three days later, but did not apologize for accusing the US of espionage.

The greatest example was during the presidency of George W. Bush. The Chinese fighter jets harassed the US Navy plane as it flew over international waters. One crashed after colliding with the other. The pilot of the plane managed to regain control of the aircraft and make an emergency landing on the island. The 24 US crew members were held for 11 days, and some were repeatedly interrogated before US officials negotiated their release.

Chinese authorities would have blamed the US if there was damage or loss of life after China downed the US craft. Protests would have erupted in front of the US Embassy and China’s Ambassador to the US swiftly withdrawn.

The administration officials argued in the briefings that the US didn’t shoot down the balloon earlier because there were fears it would cause a military conflict with China. Biden ordered the Pentagon to shoot down the balloon if it was safe to do so and then the Pentagon made the decision to shoot it down, according to sources.

Peter Bergen: The Cost of Chaos: The Arizona State University Professor of Practice and the Vice President for New America. He retired in 1954 and went on to become an Air Force Spyballist

Let’s create a more strategic plan to hold China accountable and allow room for needed dialogue. It will be difficult to avoid the military conflict with China if we follow Beijing’s lead.

Peter Bergen is a professor of practice at Arizona State University and a vice president at New America. Bergen is the author of “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has a lot of opinion on it.

When my father was in the US Air Force he worked on a program to send balloons into the Soviet airspace, which is why this reminded me.

In 1954 he was assigned to Headquarters Air Material Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. He worked on the “Grand Union” project, which used balloons to send cameras over the soviet union. Those spy balloons were launched from Turkey.

My dad didn’t talk about this part of his career much, likely because the work was secret, but the program has long since been declassified since it happened around seven decades ago.

F-35 theft: Where was the ball? China’s spy satellites vs. US officials in the wake of Kirby’s death

Unlike the Chinese spy balloon – which the U.S. knew was a surveillance asset – Kirby said it’s unclear what this object was doing over Alaska. This new object was at a much lower altitude than the spy balloon, which was at 65,000 feet.

Now the United States and its rivals have these new-fangled gizmos called “spy satellites,” which can take photos! They are able to do full-motion video. They can take thermal imagery that detects individuals moving around at night! When the skies are clear, they can spy on pretty much anything, with a resolution of centimeters.

Indeed, commercial satellite imagery is now getting so inexpensive that you can go out and buy your own close-up images of, say, a Russian battle group in Ukraine. Just ask Maxar Technologies; they have built up a rather profitable business on this model, which was just acquired two months ago for $6 billion by a private equity firm.

It may help to explain, at least in part, an aspect of a report published by the US Office of Director of National Intelligence last month.

The revelation that the intelligence community only developed a reliable way to track China’s balloon fleet within the last year helps explain why officials have claimed to have had no knowledge of the three alleged flights over US territory.

But China has arguably done much worse. US officials have accused it of benefiting from the work of hackers who stole design data about the F-35 fighter aircraft as China builds its own new generation of fighters – and of sucking up much of the personal information of more than 20 million Americans who were current or former members of the US government when they reportedly got inside the computers of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 2015. The F-35 theft report has been called baseless by China.

Roughly half a dozen of those flights have been within US airspace – although not necessarily over US territory, according to one official familiar with the intelligence.

According to one of the sources familiar with the intelligence, not all the balloons seen around the globe are the same as the one that went down in South Carolina. These people said there were multiple variations.

The Washington Post reported that the scope of the program was discovered before the balloon was seen last week.

The intelligence community will be interested in learning the nature of the equipment on the Chinese balloon as the Chinese government has been aggressive in stealing American defense secrets.

“While I won’t go into specifics due to classification reasons,” Ryder said, “I can say that we have located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to our further understanding of this balloon and its surveillance capabilities.”

On January 28, after entering Alaskan airspace, officials came to believe the balloon was on its way to spy on the US mainland.

The vessel that was taken down by the US as a weather balloon was thrown off course but China still offered a rare expression of regret.

While officials have given no indication so far that the object shot down over Alaska is at all related to the Chinese spy balloon, details have been scarce.

This elite team consists of agents, analysts, engineers and scientists, who are responsible for both creating technical surveillance measures and analyzing those of the US’ adversaries.

OTD personnel are responsible for managing court-authorized data collection and work to prevent foreign intelligence agencies from penetrating the US, even if they are using surveillance devices to target national security threats.

But, according to one member of the House Intelligence Committee, “there’s number of reasons why we wouldn’t do that. We want to collect off it, you want to see where it’s going and what it’s doing.

A defense official said the US has procedures – akin to a kind of digital blackout – to protect sensitive locations from overhead surveillance, typically used for satellite overflight.

The “tipper” sent by the DIA also goes out across government channels routinely, and although US officials have access to these reports, whether they read them or whether those reports are included in briefings to senior policymakers is a matter of discretion.

The Defense of the Blast-Up: Investigation of the Chinese Surveillance Balloon During the January 31, 2001 RHIC DIA Report

Instead of treating it as an immediate threat, the US moved to investigate the object, seeing it as an opportunity to observe and collect intelligence.

Officials familiar with the original DIA report conceded Rubio’s point that they didn’t see the balloon as an urgent threat until it was already over US territory –  even as fresh revelations have emerged about what the US knew about Chinese spy balloons.

The Biden administration came under fire for not shooting down the balloon before it crossed into the continental US either while it was over Alaska or sooner.

It is a question of control over the balloon’s path. Although the balloon was equipped with propellers and a rudder that allowed it to turn “like a sailboat,” according to the senior US official, it largely rode the jet stream – one of the reasons US officials were able to predict its path across the US in advance.

Two F-22 fighter jets were sent to Alaska to help monitor the object after it was identified by NORAD.

Military officials said it is not necessarily surprising that the president was not briefed until January 31, given the expectations for the balloon at the time.

Congress is interested in the information about the decision-making process on the balloon.

A Senate Republican aide said there were still questions to be asked about Alaska. It’s okay to transit Alaska, without anyone knowing, but the continental US is different.

There was not a significant concern about damage to people or property if the object was shot down, which was the primary reason the Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to traverse the continental US last week.

The Launch of the China Bell Balloon and the Recovery of the American Flag: State Department Officials and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Yin Cheng-Mills

One pilot took a selfie in the cockpit that shows both the pilot and the surveillance balloon itself, these officials said – an image that has already gained legendary status in both NORAD and the Pentagon.

A senior State Department official Thursday said that the balloon is capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations and is part of a fleet that has flew over more than 40 countries across five continents.

The Chinese balloon’s electronic technology was capable of monitoring the US communications, according to a Biden administration official.

The lawmakers were told Thursday that the order to dispatch the balloon was not known to the Chinese president.

Only evidence that was on the surface of the ocean has been delivered to FBI analysts so far, one official said, which includes the “canopy itself, the wiring, and then a very small amount of electronics.” The official said analysts have not seen the load, which would mean the lion’s share of electronics.

“We did not assess that it presented a significant collection hazard beyond what already exists in actionable technical means from the Chinese,” said Gen. Glenn VanHerck, the commander of US Northern Command and NORAD, on Monday.

The House briefing Thursday morning was tense, the sources said, with several Republicans railing against the administration, including GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who said that the Pentagon made the president – whom she noted she doesn’t like – look weak by their actions.

The Pentagon was telling us they were able to mitigate in real-time as this was happening and I think that’s correct.

The president, the military, and the intelligence agencies acted skillfully and with care. Their capabilities are extraordinary at the same time. Was everything done 100% correctly? I can’t imagine that would be the case of almost anything we do. Romney said Thursday he came away more confident.

Pentagon briefing on the Pentagon probe of the Chinese surveillance: Sen. Jon Tester meets with Defense officials at an Appropriations hearing on Thursday

Senators pushed defense officials at an Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday over the military’s assessment of the Chinese surveillance, with Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana telling officials that he did not know how they could unequivocally say it was not a military threat.

You guys have to help me understand why this baby wasn’t taken out long before, and I want you to know I told you that this isn’t the last time. We’ve [seen] brief incursions, now we’ve seen a long incursion, what happens next?,” said Tester, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.

The balloon gathering intelligence over Alaska is not a concern for the Defense Department as it is not close to sensitive sites, according to Pentagon officials.

The parts of the balloon recovered on the surface of the ocean have been delivered so far, while recovering additional pieces of the balloon that sunk has been complicated by bad weather, officials said.

It’s not yet clear where the balloon’s parts were manufactured, the officials said, including whether any of the pieces were made in America. Because analysts have yet to look at the bulk of the equipment on the balloon, the officials said that there has not been a determination as to everything the device was capable of doing and its specific intent.

Analysts did not identify any bomb-making material that would pose a threat to the American public.

There was English writing on parts of the balloon that were found, one of the sources familiar with the congressional briefings said, though they were not high-tech components. The source declined to provide detail on what specific parts of the balloon contained English writing.

The Shootdown of a “High-Altitude Airborne Object” Over Alaska on Saturday: Secretary of State Antonio Blinken and President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden suggested Wednesday that bilateral relations with China had not been affected by the balloon fallout, but China reacted angrily to the shootdown, refusing a call with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a high-stakes trip to Beijing on Friday. New sanctions in response to the balloon would likely further inflame tensions.

The official said that based on China’s public comments, it is clear that they have been scrambling to explain why they violated US sovereignty and have found themselves on their heels.

“As we saw with the second balloon over Central and South America that they just acknowledged, they also have no explanation for why they violated the airspace of Central and South American countries,” the official said. It will be harder for the PRC to use the program if it continues to be exposed.

Biden officials expressed the belief that both the senior leadership of the People’s Liberation Army and Chinese Communist Party, including Xi, were also unaware of the balloon mission over the US, and that China is still trying to figure out how this happened, a source familiar with the Thursday briefing to Congress told CNN.

President joe Biden told CNN that the shoot down of a “high-altitude object” hovered over Alaska on Friday “was a success.” Soon after, American national security officials said that the commander in chief gave the US military approval to take the action.

The object shot down Saturday marks the third time in one week that US aircraft have shot down an object in North American airspace. Saturday’s incident follows the downing of another unidentified object on Friday over Alaska, and the shoot-down of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon on February 4 by a US F-22 fighter jet.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said earlier Saturday it was monitoring “a high altitude airborne object” over northern Canada, and military aircraft were operating in the area from Alaska and Canada, according to a news release from the agency.

The White House’s Kirby said during the press briefing that the high-altitude object was a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.

Kirby told reporters that the first fly-by of US fighter aircraft happened Thursday night, and the second happened Friday morning. Both brought back limited information about the object.

The order to shoot it down was made before fighter aircrafts could get to it, with the pilots assessment that it was not manned.

The object was thrown off the northeastern part of Alaska near the Canadian border, according to Kirby. He believes that ice may make it easier to recover the debris.

The US Northern Command and units from the Alaska National Guard are all taking part in the effort to recover the object.

“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now. We don’t know who owns it, whether it’s state-owned or privately-owned.

The object came to the attention of the US government. The Pentagon had enough information for Biden to be briefed as soon as possible.

Xi’s Fallout of the Deadhorse Mission Revisited: The Failure of Coordination in the Chinese System

This thing didn’t appear to be self-maneuvering and so at the mercy of prevailing winds, it was much less predictable. The president just wasn’t willing to take that risk,” he said.

The FAA put a temporary flight restriction in place around Deadhorse as the military took action against the object.

The president has stood by how he and his administration handled the balloon but has faced backlash from Republicans for permitting it to fly over the nation before it was shot down.

It was tough for the pilots to get a lot of information with the small size and the fact that the aircraft were flying so fast.

The assessment was communicated to American lawmakers in briefings Thursday, according to CNN reporting – and if true, could point to what analysts say would be a significant lack of coordination within the Chinese system at a fraught period of China-US relations.

It could mean that Xi and his top advisers underestimated the potential gravity of the fallout of the mission and the possibility it could imperil Blinken’s visit, which would have been the first from the most senior US diplomat since 2018 and had been welcomed by Beijing as a path to easing strained ties.

Beijing, in a statement last weekend, appeared to link the device to “companies,” rather than the government or military – though in China the prominence of state-owned enterprises and a robust military-industrial complex blurs the line between the two.

Drew Thompson, a Singapore based analyst, said that such a situation could have been worse because of the extent of control wielded by the leader of the Communist Party, who entered a precedent breaking third term last fall.

That means that lower-level officials who may have the capacity to more closely monitor such missions may not be empowered to do so, or not be equipped to make political judgments about their impact, he said. Power struggles between higher ranking officials and the lower ranking officials could cause communication problems.

“There is a tension throughout the Chinese system – it’s a feature of Chinese governance, where lower levels fight for their own autonomy, and upper levels fight for greater control,” he said.

There have been a lot of crises in China, including the outbreak of the swine flu in 2002-2003 and the more recent Covid-19, where delayed reporting slowed the response to the problem. Some blamed local officials who were afraid of repercussions because they were accustomed to the system where information flowed from the top down.

A political scientist at the University of Chicago said that balloon launch operations could fall into a gap in which they weren’t managed and monitored the same way as space missions.

In this case, entities launching balloons may have been given little or no resistance from other countries and they have been seen as routine based on weather conditions and at modest costs.

The leaders of these programs have become more embolden over time to test new routes, and it is likely that they did not get top priority attention from the perspective of political risk.

The Xi Jinping-Jansky incident in Alaska revisited as a possible probe of the US-DoJapan response to global economic crisis

After the Pentagon announced it was looking at a suspected balloon, the Foreign Ministry of China quickly issued its first explanation of the incident, more than 12 hours later.

“Because of his personality, he wants 100% (control),” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor, also at the NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “I don’t think Xi Jinping allows for that kind of autonomy.”

Instead, Xi may have been comfortable with an incident that diverted the attention of a public frustrated amid a faltering economy after years under the recently dismantled zero-Covid policy – but underestimated the US domestic response that resulted in the postponed talks, Wu said.

Meanwhile, Washington may be offering its message that Xi wasn’t aware of the situation as it seeks to “continue the dialogue” started during a meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali, according to Wu.

There have been at least three times in a week that US fighter jets shot down objects in North American airspace.

“Monitoring continued today as the object crossed into Canadian airspace, with Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joining the formation to further assess the object,” Ryder’s statement said.

Officials have given no indication so far that the object is at all related to the Chinese surveillance balloon downed last weekend, debris of which is still being recovered on the Atlantic Ocean floor.

Ryder said on Friday that recovery teams have “mapped the debris field” and are “in the process of searching for and identifying debris on the ocean floor.”

When asked Friday if lessons learned about China’s balloon assisted in detecting the object shot down over Alaska, Ryder said it was “a little bit of apples and oranges.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will be working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations to help learn more about the object.

Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand tweeted Saturday that she had discussed the incident with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “and reaffirmed that we’ll always defend our sovereignty together.”

On the nature of the photon shoot-down at the New York Naval Air Base Baseline in AK47A9+34A+38A

“Recovery activities are occurring on sea ice,” the statement said. “We have no further details at this time about the object, including its capabilities, purpose, or origin.”

The White House stated that the shoot down was approved by both US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.

A source briefed on the intelligence said that some pilots claimed it interfered with their sensors but others said it didn’t.