White House: You Haven’t Heard of any More Aerial Objects Because Protocols Changed So We Don’t Worry about Non-Threatening Objects

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby stated that we haven’t seen any more incidents involving unidentified objects because, since the previous incidents, there have been “additional protocols to help us weed out and discriminate what needs to be worried about and what doesn’t need to be worried about.”

Host Peter Alexander asked, “We haven’t heard a lot about any more balloons recently. Are you tracking any more right now? And if so, why haven’t any others been shot down?”

Kirby responded, “I’m not aware that the Pentagon is tracking any other unidentified balloons or aerial objects at this time, Peter, but obviously, we’re going to continue to monitor–.”

Alexander then cut in to ask, “Because we saw so many, right John? For a while, you said when you fixed the radar, you saw so many. But even after fixing the radar, there haven’t been any that you’re aware of since?”

Kirby answered, “Well, remember, what’s different now though, Peter, is we put in place some additional protocols here. They’re in a classified setting, but some additional protocols to help us weed out and discriminate what needs to be worried about and what doesn’t need to be worried about. So, I can’t speak for what NORTHCOM is doing…I understand that they have not made any changes to their radar parameters. But what has changed is a new set of protocols to help us discriminate what is a threat from what is not a threat.”

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