Spotted any faraway balloons or U.F.O.s lately? For this visual series, we asked four photographers to do what some of us have been doing more frequently: looking up. March 25, 2023 Balarama Heller When Balarama Heller got married last month in Tepoztlán, Mexico, a town known for reported U.F.O. sightings, he noticed one night a […]
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First, because this is how its own enthusiasts talk. Here’s Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of the most accessible online writers on issues related to computer intelligence, on his own reaction to the new chatbots: An alien has awoken — admittedly, an alien of our own fashioning, […]
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DEADHORSE, Alaska — Really? That’s it? The United States military is capable of many things, but finding the remnants of an unidentified flying object scattered across a blinding expanse of Arctic ice in minus-30-degree weather using six available hours of daylight is not one of them. The search for a downed U.F.O. began and ended […]
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DEADHORSE, Alaska — The United States has called off the search for two of the unidentified flying objects that the military shot out of the sky this month, raising the possibility that the devices will never be collected and analyzed, a U.S. official said Friday. The floating craft above North America have become a source […]
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“The Chinese military has written about a range of potential applications for balloons and drones in near space,” he added. “You can intercept communications that you can’t capture from space. You can loiter for longer periods of time over targets, study or interfere with an adversary’s radar, target enemy satellites and help guide strategic weapons.” […]
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Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible […]
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These are not safe times to be a weather balloon. Until a couple weeks ago, the high altitude weather and research balloons we all know are up there doing all sorts of nonnefarious things were not even on the public’s risk radar screens. But now they’re certainly a bright pulsing blip on the screen of […]
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Sometime very soon, one hopes, the Biden administration will attempt to explain to the American people what they think our fighters shot down over Lake Huron and northern Canada and off Alaska, be they balloons or drones or something somewhat stranger. If that happens, we will take a meaningful step toward solving a longstanding, conspiracy-shadowed […]
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It’s easy to let your imagination run wild when it comes to the unidentified flying objects now making frequent appearances over North America. At least one object was reported to be cylindrical, eerily suggestive of past imagined visitors. “The cylinder was artificial — hollow — with an end that screwed out!” wrote H.G. Wells in […]
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WASHINGTON — A top White House official said on Tuesday that three unidentified flying objects shot down in the past several days might turn out to be harmless commercial or research efforts that posed no real threat to the United States. John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said investigators had not […]
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Julian Barnes contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, […]
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U.S. agencies are still investigating the origins of the three mysterious objects that U.S. fighter jets shot down between Friday and Sunday on the orders of Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. Debris recovery efforts are underway at the sites in Alaska, the Yukon Territory in Canada and the Canadian side of […]
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In a move that may have confused Americans and Canadians alike, the second of the three unidentified flying objects shot down in the past few days was downed over Canada, on the orders of the Canadian prime minister — by a United States F-22. The questions came quickly: How could Canada issue an order to […]
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The U.S. military shot down at least three unidentified flying objects over the weekend after a Chinese spy balloon that had invaded American airspace was downed on Feb. 4, setting off a diplomatic crisis. There are certainly more questions than answers at this stage, including what the objects were, their purpose and who sent them. […]
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In the latest jab over aerial surveillance, China said on Monday that high-altitude balloons from the United States had flown over Chinese airspace without permission more than 10 times since the start of last year. China’s claims could not be immediately corroborated. But Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesman, said that it was a “common […]
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The object spotted approaching Lake Huron on Sunday was flying at 20,000 feet and presented a potential threat to civil aviation, so President Biden ordered it shot down, U.S. officials said. It had an octagonal structure with strings hanging off but had no discernible payload, they added. U.S. and Canadian officials say the objects shot […]
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WASHINGTON — An American fighter jet, acting on the orders of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, shot down another unidentified flying object on Saturday, Canadian and American officials said, in the latest twist of the ongoing drama playing out over the skies of North America. “I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that […]
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WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” […]
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WASHINGTON — The Chinese spy balloon floating over the continental United States generated deep concern on Capitol Hill in part because it came on the heels of a classified report to Congress that outlined incidents of American adversaries potentially using advanced technology to spy on the country. The classified report to Congress last month discussed […]
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