News/Commentary

UFO Twitter stirred by ‘conflicting accounts’ of flying object downed over Alaska; Montana airspace closes, reopens over ‘anomaly’

February 12, 2023 | | Print Article

The military shootdown of a flying object over Canada on Saturday along with the brief shutdown of airspace over Montana fueled much speculation of a close encounter of the third kind with UFO enthusiasts on Twitter.

An otherwise slow news day suddenly became enormously consequential when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he had “ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace” after it had been picked up by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), leading to the shooting down of the object by a U.S. F-22 fighter jet.

The shooting down of the object along with some reports of additional flying objects came the day after another flying object was shot down by the U.S. military over Alaska and a week after a Chinese spy balloon was blown out of the sky after it had traversed half of the country.

As the chaotic situation unfolded on Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it had temporarily closed down a section of airspace over Montana where some of the nation’s nuclear launch sites are located due to a “radar anomaly.”

“The FAA closed some airspace in Montana to support Department of Defense activities,” the FAA said in a statement, air traffic was allowed to resume after the short restriction.

“NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to investigate,” NORAD said in a press release regarding the temporary shutdown of airspace.

CNN national security reporter Natasha Bertrand discussed the shocking developments, providing further material for UFO Twitter with her remarks about the nature of the craft over Alaska and the accounts by the pilots that suggested that it was unlike anything that they’d seen before.

(Video: CNN)

“So when the U.S. first detected this object over Alaska on Thursday, they sent up F-35 jets to kind of look at it and see what was going on. And these pilots reported back very conflicting accounts,” she said.  “Some of them 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 on the object. There was nothing that appeared readily able to interfere with that communication system.”

“And then other pilots were saying that they did not see anything on the object that appeared able to propel it, that it seemed like there was no way that this was actually able to stay in the air,” she added, noting “these jets fly very fast” so it was “possible that these pilots just didn’t get a good look at it.”

“But that is part of why the Pentagon has been so reluctant to come out and say more about what this object actually is,” Bertrand later added, a cryptic remark that further contributed to the air of mystery.

Bertrand’s comments were amplified after they were boosted by Twitter user Acyn who tweeted out a clip from her live coverage with CNN’s Jim Acosta to the account’s 358.2 K followers.

Reactions came hot and heavy with many raising the possibility of an actual extraterrestrial sighting, the possible precursor to an alien invasion as UFO’s trended on Twitter.

Others expressed skepticism.

“The object was closely tracked and monitored by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) over the last 24 hours and the President has been continually briefed by his national security team since the object was detected,” the White House’s readout of the call said. “Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of their militaries, President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau authorized it to be taken down,” the White House said in a statement.

“President Biden authorized US fighter aircraft assigned to NORAD to conduct the operation and a US F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory in close coordination with Canadian authorities,” the statement continued. “The leaders discussed the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin,” the statement read.

Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE

Chris Donaldson
Latest posts by Chris Donaldson (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles