People have often wondered how humanity would react to the arrival of extraterrestrials. Would we muster a united, world welcome party? Would we send a message of peace and love?

In recent days we got our answer: We deploy fighter jets to blow it out of the sky.

No fewer than three UFOs have been sighted and tracked in North American airspace in recent days. None survived subsequent meetings with F-16 fighter jets. 

Now the American government is looking for answers and, while most believe they will be found in China, the US Air Force ‘haven’t ruled out anything’.

What are these flying objects?

The short answer is that we don’t exactly know. The first was actually sighted on February 4 and was shot down over South Carolina on February 3. This one has been cleared up and claimed by China as an innocent weather balloon. On February 10, another object was spotted and shot down, this time over Deadhorse, Alaska. The following day another ‘car-sized object’ was shot down over the Yukon and, on February 12, a fourth was shot down over Lake Huron, Michigan. Interestingly, the US has not been able to determine what they are, where they came from or even how they ‘flew’. The Air Force is referring to them as ‘objects, not balloons for a reason.’

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But ‘the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one they said?’

General Glen VanHerck, the man in charge of that particular stretch of air space, said he’ll ‘let the intel and counter-intelligence community’ figure out the answer when directly asked about alien involvement. However, he then added: ‘I haven’t ruled out anything’. This led to a quick follow up from a defence official emphasising that they had not seen any evidence that the object was extraterrestrial.

What did they find in the wreckage?

Well, that’s the tricky part. One was downed in a remote area of the Yukon wilderness and they are now trying to get to it. The others were downed over water and divers are currently out there, searching the murky depths. Only one has been recovered, the weather balloon already claimed by China.

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And how did that look?

Not quite as innocent as the Chinese claim with the Pentagon finding evidence of equipment which they believe could be used to jam communications. The US are now trying to keep a lid on some of the more sensational rhetoric and have shot down Chuck Schumer, leader of the democrats, who claimed that China had been ‘caught lying’ and ‘humiliated’.

Will America now deploy Donald Trump’s much vaunted Space Force?

The former US president described space as ‘the world’s newest war-fighting domain’ when he launched Space Force in 2019. But, beyond his initial announcement, we have seen little in the way of progress. The unveiling of a Death Star is still a galaxy (far far) away.