A Chinese balloon sent into United States airspace on Jan. 31 caused an “inflated” sense of urgency across the country. The concern increased when three new objects were seen over North America between Feb. 10 and 12. 

The first balloon entered U.S. airspace in Idaho and remained airborne for four days until it was shot down by F-22 fighters off the Carolina coast. After its removal, President Joe Biden said that the government deliberately waited until the balloon was over water before firing. However, many Americans are displeased with the government’s lack of urgency in dealing with the balloon, which was equipped with surveillance technology during its flight over strategic military and communication sites throughout the U.S.

“The admin should have taken care of this before it became a national security threat,” Texas Republican Representative Micheal McCaul said on Twitter.  “I hope we will be able to recover the wreckage to help determine what intelligence the CCP collected while its spy balloon was over our country for days. I will be demanding answers and will hold the admin accountable for this embarrassing display of weakness.”

Since then, the government has taken increased precautions, which is seen in the handling of the three most recent objects shot down over North America. The first unidentified object was shot down on Feb. 10 over Alaska. Then next was shot down on Feb. 11 over the Yukon territory in Canada, and the most recent was shot down off the coast of Lake Huron on Feb. 12. The government’s urgent response to these objects has been applauded by politicians, but there are still many unanswered questions.

“The increasing incidents of unidentified objects, the latest over Lake Huron in Michigan Airspace, are disturbing.” Michigan Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell said in a statement released after the most recent balloon was shot down. “We need the facts about where they are originating from, what their purpose is, and why their frequency is increasing.” 

China acknowledged that the balloon launched within its borders, but did not comment on the surveillance devices that the object was equipped with. Despite countrywide inquiry, President Biden said that the government still does not know the origins of the most recent objects that were shot down, reporting that they most likely had no connection to the previous balloon.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently met with the director of China’s Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, during a security conference in Munich. Blinken is worried that the significance of these balloons runs deeper due to the nation’s unofficial alliance with Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“We are very concerned that China is considering providing lethal support to Russia in its aggression against Ukraine,” Blinken said in an interview with NBC after the conference. “I made clear that that would have serious consequences in our relationship [with China].”

With very little information to go on and more questions than answers, the White House has established an interagency team in order to better understand the “unidentified aerial objects.” Still, tensions are high between the world’s two most powerful countries.