WASHINGTON – The United States Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said on Sunday after a series of shoot-downs of unidentified objects that he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation yet, deferring to US intelligence experts.

Asked whether he had ruled out an extraterrestrial origin for three airborne objects shot down by US warplanes in as many days, General Glen VanHerck said: “I’ll let the intel community and the counter-intelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.”

Gen VanHerck, head of the US North American Aerospace Defence Command and Northern Command, said: “At this point we continue to assess every threat or potential threat, unknown, that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it.”

Gen VanHerck’s comments came during a Pentagon briefing on Sunday after a US F-16 fighter jet shot down an octagonal-shaped object over Lake Huron on the US-Canada border.

The incidents over the past three days follow the Feb 4 downing of a Chinese balloon that put North American air defences on high alert.

US officials said that the balloon was being used for surveillance.

Another US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military had seen no evidence suggesting any of the objects in question were of extraterrestrial origin.

Gen VanHerck said the military was unable to immediately determine the means by which any of the three latest objects were kept aloft or where they were coming from.

“We’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason,” added Gen VanHerck.

The incidents come as the Pentagon has undertaken a new push in recent years to investigate military sightings of unidentified flying objects – rebranded in official government parlance as “unidentified aerial phenomena”, or UAPs.

The government’s effort to investigate anomalous, unidentified objects – whether they are in space, the skies or even underwater – has led to hundreds of documented reports that are being investigated, senior military leaders have said.

But the Pentagon says it has not found evidence to indicate earthly visits from intelligent alien life.

Analysis of military sightings are conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a newly created Pentagon bureau known as AARO, short for the cryptically named All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

Their first report to Congress in June 2021 examined 144 sightings by US military aviators dating to 2004.

That study attributed one incident to a large, deflating balloon, but found the rest were beyond the government’s ability to explain without further analysis.

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued in January cited 366 additional sightings, mostly things like balloons, drones, birds or airborne clutter. But 171 remained officially unexplained.

“Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis,” the office said in the report.

Sill, Mr Ronald Moultrie, under-secretary of defence for intelligence and security, told reporters in December that he had not seen anything in the files to indicate intelligent alien life.

“I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash or anything like that,” said Mr Moultrie. REUTERS