Some 80,000ft above our heads a high-tech tussle is under way, with our most closely guarded secrets and our national security at stake. It is a story that, at first sight, seems closer to the fictional X-Files than mundane life down here on earth.
Four mysterious aircraft have been shot down in just nine days over North America, three by the US Air Force and one by the Royal Canadian Air Force.
An American general sparked a storm of speculation when he said that he was not excluding extra-terrestrial origin for these intruders. ‘I haven’t ruled out anything at this point,’ General Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defence Command, replied when asked about the possibility of aliens.
For these are – literally – unidentified flying objects. The language used to describe them recalls the unexplained sightings that for decades have puzzled even seasoned observers while thrilling UFO enthusiasts. (The Pentagon in 2021 set up the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronisation Group to investigate over 100 incidents.)
One of the aircraft, downed on Friday over Alaska, was described as ‘cylindrical and silverish gray’, about the ‘size of a small car’ and with ‘no identifiable propulsion system’. Another, brought to earth on the US-Canadian border, was a ‘small, cylindrical object’.
Such intruders may also have crossed British territory, says transport minister Richard Holden. Rishi Sunak, newly enthused by military matters, says we can and will shoot them down if necessary.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has ordered a review. For now, the questions outnumber the answers. Are they Chinese? Probably. The regime in Beijing has protested about the downing of two of them – just peaceful weather balloons, it insists.
Officials in the West now say that China’s stratospheric surveillance programme has operated for years, over five continents. It is the brainchild of the Strategic Support Force, a secretive part of the People’s Liberation Army. So why have we not noticed this before?
The short answer is that we weren’t looking. These balloons and drones move slowly at great heights. Our air-defence radar works at lower altitudes. Our missile-defence systems track fast-moving rockets. American officials are now scouring data collected in previous years for signs of intrusions that they may have missed. So far, the Pentagon says, four previous instances have been identified.
But malevolent intruders can in any case easily be missed amid the thousand innocent weather balloons launched every day. Gathering meteorological data provides perfect cover for secret missions. China now claims that the US has repeatedly sent spy balloons into Chinese airspace. The Americans deny this.
But why would China invest so much in these missions when it has more than 260 spy satellites? Being only 15 miles above the earth’s surface – satellites are seven times higher – may give them an edge in taking photos and sucking up electronic information, such as on the ultra-sensitive ‘friend-or-foe’ systems that prevent us shooting down our own warplanes.
They can loiter over sensitive military installations, such as top-secret RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, used by American spy planes. Gathering information about the temperature and density of the air at high altitudes could also give a crucial advantage to missile-guidance systems. These spycraft may also be sent to test national defences.
Most worryingly, China published in 2018 a video showing a balloon being used as a platform to launch hypersonic weapons. These can travel vast distances at high speed, evading our defences and delivering either nuclear warheads, or electro-magnetic pulse blasts that devastate all electrical and electronic devices.
So far nobody is saying anything about what keeps these machines aloft and on course, thousands of miles from home.
Some clues may come from here in Britain. We have Stratospheric Platforms, a company offering internet access from a drone that can stay in the atmosphere for a week at a time, powered by a hydrogen engine. Another British start-up, Avealto, has a solar-powered craft targeting the same market.
But speculation abounds about even more advanced technologies. Aviation geeks are eagerly awaiting news from the wreckage of the devices.
Could, for example, the Chinese have cracked the difficulties of ‘ion propulsion’, which uses blasts of electrically charged air to stay aloft, and requires no combustion or moving parts like propellers or jets?
Prototypes of aircraft using this technology already fly, but they use too much electricity to be viable. Or so we think.
Whatever the case, the wreckage will be eagerly inspected by American military technologists hoping to gain an edge for their country in its own spy wars in the sky. The results will be top secret. Why give clues to the enemy?
But one thing in this extraordinary story is clear. These balloons are far from innocent and have caught the guardians of our security napping. Let us hope they will be more vigilant in future.
- Edward Lucas is author of Spycraft Rebooted: How Technology is Changing Espionage
