Homeland Security spokesman John Kirby said that “while we cannot definitely say what the artifacts were, we have not seen any indication so far that they were definitely involved in external intelligence-gathering efforts.”

However, the remains of these devices have not yet been recovered, due to bad weather conditions and the way in which they were shot down.

“We are doing the best we can to try to locate the fragments,” Kirby stressed, according to a report in The Hill newspaper, adding that they would be “of immense value in identifying the objects and finding out their provenance.”

The US Army shot down three artifacts in the last few days: the first last Friday, while flying over Alaska at high altitude; another in northern Canada on Saturday; and a third over Lake Huron, last Sunday.

One explanation could be that devices were balloons linked to a benign or commercial entity, but no company or person came forward to claim them, Kirby said.

The detection of those devices came a week after US warplanes shot down a Chinese research balloon that accidentally entered US airspace, prompting the White House to launch accusations of alleged espionage.

As clarified by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this was a civilian device that carried out meteorological investigations and deviated from the scheduled route, due to bad weather and its poor ability to self-direct.

China filed a protest with government institutions in this country, rejecting the shooting down of its balloon, and urged Washington to refrain from further exacerbating a situation that strained bilateral ties.

Authorities here stated that the recent objects differ from the Chinese balloon, as they flew lower and were smaller.

The day before, the White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, emphasized: “There are no indications of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent events.”

In turn, the executive mansion reported on the creation of an inter-agency team to study the objects.

ef/npg/cgc