"What goes up must come down," as they say.
But exactly where something comes down is proving to be a baffling problem for the big, expensive brains at the Pentagon.
The Washington Times reports the Pentagon had a meeting with senators to explain all the fireworks over the continent the last week.
"Lawmakers said they were told efforts to recover the debris from the austere northern coast of Alaska, Canada’s Yukon territory and Lake Huron are ongoing. The White House confirmed on Tuesday that those efforts have been challenged by harsh weather conditions preventing the Pentagon from recovering the downed objects."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was not impressed by the briefing.
"They don’t know whose it is. They don’t know what it is. They can’t even tell you what it looks like. The most important question we have to answer now is 'what are these things'?
"Who sent them here and what are they doing here? And the only way you’re going to get answers to that is to retrieve whatever is left over."
We suppose it would have been too much to ask to dispatch two planes on the mission.
One to shoot down the mystery object, and the other to watch where it fell. Failing that, does the Pentagon have a balloon-sniffing dog that could be dispatched to the area?
We also have a theory about the Search for the lost debris, but more on that later.
Aviation Week magazine thinks the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade might be able to clear up some of the mystery for the Pentagon "experts."
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade’s silver-coated, party-style "pico balloon" [think Dollar Store "Happy Birthday" balloon] reported its last position on Feb. 10 at nearly 40,000 ft. off the west coast of Alaska.
"Projections showed that the object would be floating over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11 – the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object in the general area."
Then Aviation Week went into detail regarding the balloons and payload and the story doesn’t get any better for our extremely alert defenders, "Small pico balloons range between $12 and $180 and are naturally buoyant above 43,000 ft.
"These objects carry an 11-gram tracker, with HF and VHF/UHG antennas to update their positions around the world."
The magazine concluded "the shape, altitudes and payloads of small pico balloons matched the descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down between Feb. 10 and Feb. 12."
So the cost benefit ratio looks something like this. Four Sidewinder missiles = $1,600,000.00. Versus three Bottlecap Balloon Brigade balloons at about $500.00. Total.
Like King Pyrrhus of Epirus said, "One more such victory and we are undone."
Which brings us back to our theory on the balloons and why we know so little.
Sen. Rubio concluded, "I do think that when you shoot things down over the airspace of this country for the first time in the 65-year history of NORAD, you owe the American people more than some hurriedly called press conference in the middle of the Super Bowl."
We think the powers that be already have the wreckage and they know exactly that they spent a fortune to shoot it down.
Releasing that knowledge to the public would make them even more of a laughingstock than they are currently.
That’s why the White House announced "an interagency team" had been established "to assess the broader implications of the unidentified objects."
Once it figures out how to keep the embarrassment to a minimum, a very slow process we assume, a few facts will be allowed to dribble out to a public that has probably forgotten all about the Great Balloon Dogfight.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.