NATIONAL SECURITY

ABOVE our heads – some 80,000 feet up – a high-tech tussle is under way, with our most closely guarded secrets and our national security at stake. The shooting down of a number of intelligence balloons in recent days seems closer to a fictional tale rather than the serious threat they pose.

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.

The fictional perspective was primed when an American general sparked a storm of speculation when he said that he was not excluding extra-terrestrial origin for these intruders. General Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defence Command, when asked about the possibility of aliens, said: “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”

For these are – quite literally – unidentified flying objects. The language used to describe them recalls the unexplained sightings that, for decades, have puzzled even seasoned observers. UFO enthusiasts are enthralled. In 2021, the Pentagon set up the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronisation Group to investigate more than 100 incidents.

One of the aircraft, downed last week 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. 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 are multiplying. Are they Chinese? The West seems to think so. The regime in Beijing has protested about the downing of two of them – just peaceful weather balloons, it insists.

Security officials in the West say that China’s stratospheric surveillance programme has operated for many years, and over five continents. It is the brainchild of the Strategic Support Force, a secretive component of the People’s Liberation Army. So, why now? Why have we not noticed this before?

The short and probable answer is that we weren’t looking. These balloons and drones move incredibly slowly at great heights. Our air-defence radar works at lower altitudes. Our missile defence-systems track fast-moving rockets. US 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.

In any case, malevolent intruders can easily be missed amid the thousand of innocent weather balloons launched every day. Gathering meteorological data provides perfect cover for covert missions. China counteracts claiming that the US has repeatedly sent spy balloons into Chinese airspace. The Americans deny this.

THREATENING

THE question looms as to why China would 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 – gives them a clear edge in taking photographs and hoovering up electronic information, such as the ultra-sensitive “friend-or-foe” systems that prevent us shooting down our own warplanes.

These satellites can loiter over sensitive military installations, such as the RAF base at 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 electromagnetic pulse blasts that devastate all electrical and electronic devices.

What keeps these machines aloft and on course, thousands of miles from home, nothing is said.

Some clues, however, may come from here in Britain. We have Stratospheric Platforms, a company that offers 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 in orbit that targets the same market.

Speculation abounds about even more advanced technologies. Aviation experts are eagerly awaiting news from the wreckage of the recent devices shot down.

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 recovered from the recent incidents’ will be eagerly inspected by American military technologists hoping to gain an edge in the battle against spy wars in the sky. The results of their investigations will be classified secret. Why give clues to the enemy?

One thing in this extraordinary story is clear. These balloons are far from innocent and have caught the guardians of our security napping. Vigilance has been poor.