Hear what pilots acknowledged about mysterious object shot down stop to Alaska

New this hour, dramatic new details about the unidentified object shot down by fighter jets just miles off the coast of Alaska yesterday. Unlike the Chinese spy balloon shot down last Saturday. This object demanded.

More immediate action yesterday. Officials say it was flying much lower at 40,000 feet, making it a dangerous potential threat to civilian aircraft. But now we are learning that U.S. military pilots who approach the craft have given conflicting accounts of what they saw.

This new reporting coming in now from CNN National security reporter Natasha Bertrand. Natasha, so this is interesting. This is kind of unusual that these pilots saw different things and that is sort of, I guess, adding to the mystery.

Of all this. Yeah. Not even the pilots apparently were really able to identify what they saw. Just to take you back for a sec. On Thursday, the the US defense official sent F-35 fighter jets off to try to figure out what this object was.

That was flying around near Alaska. Those pilots, we have learned, have given very conflicting accounts of what they actually experience with some pilot saying that the object interfered with the plane's sensors.

Other pilots saying that they didn't really experience that. Other pilots saying that when they looked at the object, they could identify no identifiable, identifiable propulsion system and they did not know how it was actually staying.

In the air, cruising at that altitude. Of about 40,000 feet. So this is all added to the Pentagon's wariness of describing in more detail what this object actually is until they can get more information through the debris that they are recovering right now.

And what do we know about the efforts to recover the wreckage of this second object? It looks like Nora had just put out an email a short time ago. And it sounds like they're trying to recover it. They did. And what we were told yesterday.

Is that the object was shot down over frozen water. So it landed on the ice, essentially. We don't know what kind of condition it's in, whether it is intact, for example. But recovery efforts have been launched. And according to the Defense Department, they have been able to recover a significant amount of debris now.

Notably, they still don't know what this object is, where it came from or even what direction it was headed in or what direction it came from. It is just all very murky at this point. But they do say that the FBI is going to be taking the lead.

On analyzing the debris. If that sounds familiar, it's because just last week we saw that another Chinese spy balloon. Another, I should say a Chinese spy balloon, because we don't know what this one actually is. Right.

Was shot down also being analyzed by the FBI. But right now, there are just so many more questions than answers, Jim. And as the hours go on, it gets more and more mysterious. All right, Natasha Bertrand, thank you very much.

Let's bring in former CIA operative Bob Baer. Bob, this is starting to sound like something out of The X-Files. I don't want to get carried away here, but what do you make of these different assessments coming in from the pilots.

Of what they saw Well, Jim, the speed of those airplanes f 35, it's no wonder they also saw different things. And as far as intercepting communications to that vehicle, it's very difficult. I don't want to get too technical, but it could be,.

You know, frequency hopping, you know, the propulsion It just there's so many questions out there that you're absolutely right. Not until they actually go through the debris and see what the what it's made of and what it looks like.

The communications, obviously, there was some sort of propulsion system that was driving that that vehicle. And don't forget, in our ED with Doppler radar is probably going back and looking at where it came from and see if they can track it back to, I don't know, China or Russia or wherever.

But it is it's a great mystery. I'm absolutely fascinated by this. Yeah. I mean, one U.S. official tells us there was no obvious surveillance equipment on board. You know, some of this is the initial information,.

Initial reporting that comes in and I suppose things change as they assess what they have on the ground or on the ice there. What does that tell you, if that is if that ends up being the case Well, there's a couple of things that I take away from this.

And if it's a foreign made object and it was sent from a place like China or Russia, it's some sort of provocation against us. I can't imagine a vehicle like this would give the Chinese or the Russians a real intelligence advantage of collecting photographs of signals or things like that.

But I think what bothers Norway and the White House is these these probes, we now know there was, what, a total of five balloons, Chinese balloons that have come over the United States. Why are the Chinese doing this? Who's ordering it.

And why would you do it? Right before Blinken, the secretary of state is on his way to Beijing? That makes no sense to me. Is the you know, with the balloon is it was the Chinese military did struck out on its own. So all of these questions,.

Analysts at the CIA and the White House are looking through this and trying to piece this together. Remember, there's these balloons are flying over 40 places across across the world, these Chinese balloons. And there are a lot of aerial vehicles I've been involved in before.

We've never been able to identify from radar one. We saw I remember I was involved in was going Mach six, which made no sense at all to anybody. And eventually it was just shelved and figured out.

Wow. And I guess, you know, the question that you're leading me to with the comments on China is that we have one of two situations, I suppose. One is they're just trying to provoke the US to see what the response might be.

The other would be that she and the military might not be on the same page, that the folks who want to try to conduct the diplomacy with the United States are not on the same page as the military. Could that be it? Exactly.

The People's Liberation Army is very army is very difficult to understand. And would they act in non accordance with was she? We don't know. I mean, is China close to some sort of military takeover with with all these COVID protocols that closed down the economy?.

These are very hard questions to answer. And for American intelligence, getting inside these circles is nearly impossible. It's always been impossible but it's certainly something the analysts are picking through right now.

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