If you believe Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the three unidentified flying objects shot down over the last three days are nothing new. In a tweet on Sunday, he said the phenomenon of “unidentified aircraft routinely operating over restricted U.S. airspace” has been happening “for years.” Rubio said this is the reason he moved to create a “permanent UAP [unidentified aerial phenomenon] task force” in 2021. At the time, Rubio was joined by Democrats Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Ruben Gallego in creating a task force under the jurisdiction of both the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence. Though Rubio did not point to any specific examples of UAPs, his concerns were echoed by Chris Mellon, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who claimed in a tweet that “people who are surprised by the presence of these objects haven’t been paying attention.” The three unidentified objects were shot down over Alaska, northern Canada, and Lake Huron in Michigan, and they come in the wake of the takedown of a Chinese spy balloon last week.