Why the sudden surge in UFO sightings after Chinese balloon saga?

The recent publicized spate of UFOs spotted over North America has left some wondering whether aliens are invading Earth — but the reason for the sightings is not so out-of-this-world, experts say.

“At any given moment, thousands of balloons” float thousands of feet above the ground, including many sent aloft by the US government and military and private entities, Paul Fetkowitz, president of Kaymont Consolidated Industries, a maker of high-altitude balloons in Melbourne, Fla., said to the New York Times.

While the objects have long been observed by pilots, military personnel and civilians, it only seems as if there are more at least partly because of the recent sightings being publicized, experts say.

“For years, you didn’t hear anything about balloons. Now, we’re on the lookout for any kind of flying object,” Terry Deshler, an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming, told the outlet.

US Air Force fighter jets recently shot down four suspicious objects in a little over a week — famously beginning with a Chinese spy balloon that was downed over the Atlantic Ocean after it traversed the entire country.

Three additional unidentified flying objects — one over Alaska on Friday, a “small, metallic balloon” over northwestern Canada on Saturday and a third, octagonal object over Lake Huron on Sunday — were then ordered shot down by President Biden.

The last three objects have not been linked to China, other countries or aliens, for that matter.

Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of US North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Northern Command (NORCOM), made sensational headlines Sunday when he said he couldn’t rule out little green men, forcing the White House to quickly issue a clarification the next day that the US has “no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity” tied to the objects.

A former NORAD commander suggested Monday that the most recently shot-down trio may have been launched by non-Chinese adversaries to test the US’s reaction.

The seeming proliferation of suspicious airborne objects could simply stem at least partly from focused attention on what the US government now refers to as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs — which have long been observed by pilots, military personnel and civilians, according to reports.

In recent days, the US also has sought to enhance its radars and atmospheric trackers to more closely monitor the nation’s airspace after the incident with the Chinese balloon.

Experts warn the move could result in a rash of false alarms about the objects.

There also is the psychological phenomenon known as the “frequency illusion” —  a type of cognitive bias that causes people to notice things more after first hearing about them, the Daily Beast noted.

In addition, the latest spotting of high-up objects comes as the Pentagon has undertaken a new push in recent years to investigate military sightings of UAPs.

This past summer, the Pentagon formed the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which has reviewed 366 reports of UAPs, finding them to be mostly items such as balloons, drones, birds or aerial clutter.

Still, 171 sightings remain officially unexplained.

Each year, the National Weather Service launches about 60,000 balloons into the stratosphere, which extends to a height of roughly 30 miles, according to the Times.

The agency’s balloons are designed to reach an altitude of 20 miles, far higher than any of the objects detected in the past few days.

By comparison, the typical commercial plane cruises between about 6 and almost 8 miles above sea level, according to USA Today.

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Fetkowitz said these weather balloons were designed to eventually burst and break into fine particles, though some might have been under-inflated and could remain intact as they float aimlessly because they never fly high enough to burst.

“A balloon launched in Denver might land in New Jersey,” he told The Times.

NASA also runs a program in Texas that has launched more than 1,700 balloons on lengthy scientific missions over the years with payloads weighing up to 4 tons, the outlet reported.

Another reason for the sharp rise in sightings may stem from the US government’s efforts to publicly “destigmatize the topic of UAP” and publicly note and “recognize the potential risks” they pose, both as an aviation hazard and “potential adversarial activity,” such as spying, NPR reported.