Damage to the Nord Stream pipelines sent gas bubbling to the surface of the Baltic Sea, 26 September 2022 (Reuters)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday announced that he has ordered the "takedown of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace." The US Defense Department confirmed on Friday that a "high-altitude object" was shot down over Alaska after assessing that it could pose a "threat to civilian aircraft."

The unidentified object was first seen on Thursday night, and US President Joe Biden ordered the shooting down early Friday. Questions began to arise especially after the Chinese balloon incident.

An ulterior motive

Former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, insists that the panic over the possible alien or extraterrestrial origin of flying objects downed above the United States and Canada is designed to distract journalists from investigating Nord Stream pipeline blasts.

Snowden mocked the US' engineered attempt to raise panic as they refer to the object as extraterrestrial.

it's not aliens
i wish it were aliens
but it's not aliens
it's just the ol' engineered panic, an attractive nuisance ensuring natsec reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings (à la nordstream)
until next time
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 13, 2023

He focuses on the idea that this scam was masking an even bigger scam the US is attempting to pull.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh earlier published a report stating that in the summer of 2022, US Navy divers planted explosives during NATO Baltops exercises to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines. He says that Norway activated these explosives months later they had been planted.

He added that after almost nine months of secret discussions with the national security team, President Joe Biden chose to sabotage the pipelines.

The White House responded and dismissed the claims as "false and complete fiction."

Russia accuses the US, says circumstancial evidence more than enough

Separate investigations were launched by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden into the suspected sabotage, with German media reporting trust issues among the three EU nations. The Russian prosecutor's office announced an investigation into possible international terrorism.

However, Denmark and Sweden have barred Russia from investigating the attack. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this exclusion highlighted the West's double standards.

Moreover, the German investigators probing the explosions that hit Russia's Nord Stream pipelines do not have any evidence at hand proving that Russia is behind the catastrophic blasts that took place in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, German Attorney General Peter Frank said on Saturday Die Welt reported.

Last week, Russia requested that NATO convene an emergency meeting to discuss the recent findings regarding the September explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

"There are more than enough facts here: the explosion of the pipelines, the presence of a motive, circumstantial evidence obtained by journalists," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.