The American public will likely never know the actual purpose of the three unidentified flying objects shot down over North America due to "tough conditions," National Security spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
"We'd like nothing better" than to offer a more thorough explanation of the objects, Kirby said during a press briefing.
"But I can't sit here and promise we'll get to that level of fidelity and detail. A lot of it is going to depend on an ability to recover these three objects and just to remind you, one is on sea ice in the north of Alaska in Arctic conditions."
Kirby earlier this week said the U.S. does not believe that the objects were from China or posed a threat to national security. A Chinese spy balloon was shot down on Feb. 4 just off the coast of South Carolina, one week before the other objects were spotted.
"We don't see anything that points right now to being part of [China's] spy balloon program," Kirby told reporters. It's unlikely the objects were used in "intelligence collection against the United States of any kind — that's the indication now," he added.
They could be "tied to some commercial or benign purpose," he said.
Two of the objects were shot down over the Yukon and Lake Huron.
"So pretty tough conditions," he said Friday. "It's going to be very difficult to find them. Let alone once you find that debris, be able to do the forensics to identity it. So, I can't promise you definitively that we'll know one way or another."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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