The statement of the US Air Force general overseeing North American airspace, Glen VanHerck, sparked controversy when he did not rule out aliens after shooting down a series of unidentified objects in the sky.

“I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven't ruled out anything,” VanHerck said when asked whether he had ruled out extraterrestrial origin for the three airborne objects shot down by the US army.

“At this point we continue to assess every threat or potential threat, unknown, that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it,” he added.

His statement was met with a wave of sarcasm, as a former employee of the US National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, mocked his statement saying that such statements were aimed at causing panic to distract journalists from reporting on the investigation of the bombing of two Russian gas pipelines Nord Stream.

A social media user, Zaid al-Raba'a, wrote, "If extraterrestrials came to Earth, we must find a way to explain why we’ve made millions of films killing them.”

Another user, Mahmoud Saad, “The question that baffles me: Will aliens be able to enter all countries and move freely between them without a COVID vaccine certificate?”

In turn, astronomer Imad Mujahid confirmed that the flying objects that “China and the United States talk about are spy devices only.”

He added in a statement, that these objects are not flying objects of intelligent civilizations from outer space.

Notably, the United States shot down three unidentified flying objects over its territory in as many days, after it announced the shooting down of a Chinese balloon on Feb. 4.