About the sanctity and safety of our skies

"The question now begs to be asked - how safe are our skies? Are there things in our skies which should not be there? Sky devices? Drones? What then? We need to have a bit of honesty coming from our military and elected officials."

As my wife and I were out and about yesterday, we were listening to Fox News on the radio. John Kirby (former Admiral) was on the radio as a spokesperson for the administration. While he was talking about the salvage mission on the Chinese spy balloon, which is resting in 40 feet of water off the VACAPES area, some reporter asked Kirby an unrelated question. "Is it true we just shot down another unidentified flying object over Alaska?" Kirby answered to the affirmative. I looked at my wife and said, "Kirby just made breaking news!"

I started to think - this thing which is now disclosed that we shot down, is not anything like the 200 feet tall Chinese spy balloon. So what was it? Where did it come from? What is it doing in our air space? Last summer, there was a dust up about all the UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) that have been seen by the US Navy in our airspace or in their operating environment. We don't know what those things are either. 

The question now begs to be asked - how safe are our skies? Are there things in our skies which should not be there? Spy devices? Drones? What then? We need to have a bit of honesty coming from our military and elected officials. If Kirby had not been asked that question by a reporter on the second device being shot down, would he have disclosed it? I wonder.

Here is my take. Because right now we don't have a clue as to what we shot down, the government wanted to investigate the wreckage before disclosing the incident. However, since the unidentified object was flying at 40,000 feet, the FAA needed to clear the airspace for the safety of commercial aircraft. When that happens, the cat is out of the bag. Will we know what it was once the investigation is over? Maybe. Or maybe it is something the government wants to keep on the downlow until the time is right for disclosure.

Keep an ear on this one folks. This one might be a whole lot more interesting than China's giant spy balloon. Or - if might just be a nothing burger. We do know this much - it is something the size of a car, that one of our Sidewinder Missiles blew to smithereens.

Maybe we will learn more this weekend. Or not.