- US fighter aircraft shot down an object threatening airspace over Alaska on Friday.
- F-22 pilots who saw the object said it “interfered with their sensors” and had no propulsion system.
- On Saturday and Sunday, additional objects were shot down over Canada and near the US border.
A week after shooting down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that floated over the country, F-22 jets shot down an unidentified object threatening flights over Alaska on Friday. Reports offer conflicting details about the object’s capabilities and origin, and US intelligence officials have released limited information about its design or intended purpose.
Recently, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena have been observed not just over the United States, but floating above Canada, Colombia, and Costa Rica.
It’s been an extraordinary week for UAPs in North America
In addition to the first surveillance balloon seen over the country beginning January 31, a second balloon was spotted floating over Latin America on February 4, and two unidentified objects were shot down over Alaska and Canada on Friday and Saturday.
An additional object was shot down on Sunday over Lake Huron, in Michigan near the US-Canadian border, prompting a brief closure of the airspace around Michigan to “support Department of Defense activities.”
Airspace over Montana was also briefly restricted on Saturday after reports of radar anomalies in the region, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement posted to Twitter, but after an investigation, no additional object was found.
A Sunday statement from the Pentagon suggested that the radar anomalies detected in Montana on Saturday were related to the object shot down less than 24 hours later in Michigan.
“Based on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive DOD sites,” the statement read.
According to the Pentagon, China has a global operation of surveillance balloons collecting data on military bases, including the balloon downed last week, but the object shot down Friday has not been confirmed to be linked to Chinese officials — or anyone else.
Here is what we know about the objects shot down over the weekend.
3 UAP were at an altitude that conflicted with civilian flights
“I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at a Friday briefing. “The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.”
The balloon seen floating above the country last week hovered at around 60,000 feet, according to the Pentagon — which is well out of the general cruising altitude of commercial aircraft, which normally operate between 33,000 and 42,000 feet.
The Wall Street Journal reported the object shot down on Sunday, the third shot down in three days, was shaped like an octagon and hovered at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Pentagon officials said in a Sunday statement it also posed a “hazard to civilian aviation.”
Officials haven’t confirmed the origin of the objects
Kirby said officials first became aware of the Alaskan high-altitude item on Thursday night, but even after shooting it down could not confirm its origin, saying: “We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned. We just don’t know.”
“If it was another Chinese spy balloon, that indicates that China is either incompetent in operating these platforms or potentially deliberately provoking the US,” Michael P. Mulroy, a former Pentagon official, told The New York Times. “It is also important for the US and China to maintain direct communications during times like this. Especially between the militaries.”
Officials confirmed the origin of last week’s Chinese surveillance balloon two days after it was first sighted. Chinese officials have acknowledged the first balloon came from their country, but maintain it was a civilian airship used mainly for “meteorological research.”
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” Kirby said Friday.
China has not made any claims regarding the objects shot down in Canada and Alaska, but authorities in the eastern Shandong province said Sunday they had also seen an “unidentified flying object” near the Yellow Sea and planned to shoot it down, according to China’s state-affiliated tabloid, The Global Times.
During a Sunday interview with ABC News, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he had been briefed on the objects shot down on Friday and Saturday and had been told they were likely balloons.
“But much smaller than the first one,” Schumer said, reiterating that the object’s altitude could have interfered with commercial airspace, prompting the decision to bring it down immediately. “The first balloon, there was a much different rationale, which I think was the appropriate rationale. We got enormous intelligence information from surveilling the balloon as it went over the United States.”
Schumer did not confirm whether the objects shot down Friday or Saturday had come from China. The interview aired prior to the third object being shot down on Sunday.
Source: I N S I D E R
Recent Comments