A laser that can be directed into an airliner flying almost 2 miles above US cities must be technologically sophisticated.

The CBS and NBC news organizations announced that these 'events' were likely the result of 'kids' able to obtain lasers from catalogs, playing pranks.

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[There] exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.

— Senator Daniel K Inouye

In the councils of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex.. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together

— President Eisenhower – January 1961