According to the commander who is responsible for shooting them down, mysterious flying objects suddenly appear all over the place.

The commander of the US Air Force command charged with protecting US and Canadian airspace said that mysterious flying objects suddenly appear all over the country. The military is now looking for them differently.

In the space of about one week, four objects were shot down, including one Chinese surveillance ballon and three smaller objects. The head of military commands involved in shooting these objects down over the US and Canada explained in a briefing Sunday, that discovery and engagement have increased following a tweak to radar filters that was made after the Chinese spy ball drifted across the continent of the US earlier in the month.

General Glen VanHerck is the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (US Northern Command). He stated that NORAD began searching for smaller, slower-moving flying objects and made adjustments to filtering based on altitude. NORAD’s radar detection is typically focused on fighter jets and bombers that move at high speeds.

VanHerck stated, “What we are seeing is very,very small objects that produce very, very low radar crosses-section.” These objects are moving at the speed of wind, so they are slow.

VanHerck stated that he believes radar adjustments have increased the detection of these objects and that operators are “heightened alert” and searching for smaller, slower objects. Fighter jets have also taken out three other airborne objects since the Chinese balloon was shot down by the US Air Force in February.A stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft, the F-22 Raptor was able to fire a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile air-to-air to bring down the Chinese surveillance balloon off South Carolina’s coast on February 4,. The large system fell over 60,000 feet into Atlantic Ocean.

A few days later, the F-22 used an AIM-9X on February 10, to down an unidentified object above Alaska. The object was at an altitude over Alaska of 40,000 feet, according to US officials. February 11 was the day that an F-22 launched an AIM-9X to down an object in northern Canada.

After nearly two decades of service, the F-22 was finally retired. An F-16, still using the AIM-9X, took down an object flying over Lake Huron at a low altitude, 20,000 feet. This is well below the cruising altitude for many commercial aircraftliners.

The US identified the first object in the incident as a high-altitude Chinese surveillance ball. However, North American militaries are yet to explain what the other objects are publicly. They have only provided some details about their size and shapes and what they do.

Melissa Dalton (assistant secretary of defence for homeland defence and hemispheric matters) stated that even though the US could not identify the objects from the weekend, the decision not to shoot them down came out of “abundance caution to protect our security interests and interests.”

She stated that although the objects were not a “kinetic military threat”, they were moving in close proximity to US military sites that are “sensitive”.

Dalton stated that “we have been more closely monitoring our airspace at these altitudes, and including enhancing radar which may at minimum partially explain the increase of objects we’ve detected over this past week.” “We know that objects are being operated at these altitudes by a variety of entities including companies, countries, and research organizations for legitimate purposes, such as research.”

It’s unclear where the debris came from as recovery teams attempt to recover it. Brig. At a Wednesday briefing, Gen. Pat Ryder stated that China has a global network of surveillance balloons. However, it was not clear if any of the objects that were destroyed in the wake the Chinese spy balloon are also Chinese.