Strange are the questions a world transfixed now asks: is it China again, is it Russia, is it an unidentified intelligence double-deep-fake; is it extraterrestrial?

Four aerial objects have now been shot down by U.S. fighters in Canadian and U.S. skies.

We know the first one was Chinese. That one mesmerized the nation for the better part of a week, a balloon that moved over a sensitive nuclear-missile site and other potentially strategic areas, before it was brought down just off Myrtle Beach, South, Carolina.

They are currently analyzing it.

Then, on Friday, was the second, over the Arctic waters near Alaska, again in U.S. airspace, source allegedly as yet unknown; unlike the first — the balloon — it was shaped like a “cylinder,” as was the third on Saturday, over the Yukon Territory of Canada at 40,000 feet.

The fourth — Sunday — is said to have been shaped like an octagon. It was at 20,000 feet over cold, sullen Lake Huron. “The latest turn in the aerial show taking place in the skies above North America comes after a helter-skelter weekend involving what at times seemed like an invasion of unidentified flying objects,” said The New York Times.

“The incursions seemed to become so common that Biden administration officials have found themselves issuing private assurances that there is no evidence that they involve extraterrestrial activity. But officials also acknowledge privately that the longer they are unable to provide a public explanation for the provenance of the objects, the more speculation grows.”

Is someone trying to provoke a war?

Is more than one country involved — or at least, more than one organization?

“UFOs” as in flying saucers didn’t seem the best match. The first was clearly a balloon, seen in plain sight in many parts of the U.S. and three times the size of a bus. Or are they UFOs?  “The number of UFO sightings significantly increased between March 2021 and August 2022, during which time 247 new sightings were reported, mostly by US Navy and Air Force pilots and personnel,” says a report. “That’s almost double the 144 UFO sightings reported in the 17-year period between 2004 to 2021.”

While it can be argued that Air Force officials also tried to explain away the famous Roswell UFO “crash” as a balloon (a weather type), this time it was widely observed to be just that — a balloon (albeit this time a bizarre, surveillance type) by ordinary citizenry.

And now three more? Staying on the same course all night (which is unUFO-like)? Is it possible China would be so bold as to continue such surveillance, or — if it is a provocation — might Russia’s military and intelligence agencies be trying to capitalize on the first event, setting the U.S. and China against each other and distracting the world as it prepares for what is expected to be a massive offensive against Ukraine?

Is one of these two nations trying to intimidate, or be so mad as to want a conflict?

Easy questions but impossible (seemingly, for anyone, at this stage) to answer.

UFOs?

“Some of the fighter pilots who got up close to the not yet publicly identified object shot down over Alaska this week ‘said that this object was actually interfering with the sensors of their aircraft and they couldn’t figure out why, because there was no identifiable kind of surveillance equipment,’” reported CNN.

Those comments, and the rest of that report, set off a frenzy in viral tweets as both the terms “‘UFOs’ and another ‘UFO’ became huge trending topics after a third ‘high altitude’ object was identified by NORAD and shot down,” reported Mediaite.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-acosta-and-bertrand-get-ufo-twitter-trends-fired-up-after-latest-flying-object-shot-down/

It also had no immediately apparent means of propulsion. Some pilots flying by could not figure out how it was staying in the air cruising at that altitude.

The UFO report by U.S. intelligence entities found “that a large number of those sightings, 163, were balloons or ‘balloon-like entities,’ while 26 were unmanned aircraft systems, i.e., drones. An unspecified number of sightings were ‘attributable to sensor irregularities or variances, such as operator or equipment error,'” says another report.

Now, let us recall that similar mysteries were provoked by reports by U.S. Navy pilots who took cockpit videos of small objects over the Pacific off San Diego and the Atlantic off Jacksonville in 2004 and 2015, respectively. Those also were described by the pilots as functioning via no known means of propulsion.

But they were different — far faster (no one shot these down), making incredible, hairpin turns and other maneuvers unlike any the pilots had ever seen.

Many now believe they were observing next-generation drones flown by China, Russia, or by an above-top-secret project based somewhere like Area 51, a test by U.S. scientists and intelligence-military officials.

Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Jim Slaight, on a routine training mission in F/A-18F Super Hornets in preparation for deployment to the Persian Gulf, spotted one. It seems the object, whitish, shaped like forty-foot Tic-tacs, darted erratically, even doing tumbling maneuvers, did at least one object: appearing suddenly at less than a hundred-thousand feet as if to materialize and then hurtle toward ocean waters, before stopping twenty-thousand feet above frothing waves where at least one hovered before disappearing from radar.

How possibly could anything known to current engineers, even the most advanced, do that?

“Worm homes”? “Warp drives”? It got fanciful.

The radio operator commanded them to investigate.

And as they neared the objects, it seems, Fravor peered down to the sea and noticed that beneath a hovering craft the ocean looked like it was boiling — with waves breaking over another strange object that was just below the surface. Whatever this was, down there, underwater, was causing the water to churn! One of the pilots reportedly said, “The disturbance appeared to be fifty to a hundred meters in diameter and close to round. It was the only area and type of whitewater activity that could be seen and reminded him of images of something rapidly submerging from the surface like a submarine or a ship sinking.”

Littered throughout the report were certain other eerie findings, including the conclusion that the object “was no known aircraft or air vehicle currently in the inventory of the United States or any foreign nation,” one that “possibly demonstrated the ability to ‘cloak’ or become invisible to the human eye or human observation,” and it “possibly demonstrated a highly advanced capability to operate undersea completely undetectable by our most advanced sensors.”

As they tried to get a closer look, the hovering object began to rise toward the Navy jets, almost as if to greet them. But then it speeds away. It had no plumes, no wings, no rotors. At one point it covered forty miles in less than a minute. “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Commander Fravor told The Times, adding that he had been “pretty weirded out.”

As far as we know, the latest objects did not display any such speeds or maneuverability. If they are extraterrestrial, certainly the debris will indicate this; surely metals from another civilization would not be exactly like ours.

But weird.

Yes, definitely that.

Stay tuned…

[resources: Lying Wonders, Strangest Things]