The U.S. military shot down another “high-altitude object” that was flying over Alaska airspace, National Security Council official John Kirby told reporters at the White House.
“The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight,” Kirby told reporters during the White House briefing. “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object, and they did.”
Kirby said President Joe Biden gave the OK to shoot down the fast-moving object, which hasn’t yet been identified as a balloon after the U.S. Department of Defense tracked it over the last 24 hours.
Kirby said the high-altitude object, which officials confirmed was unmanned, “came inside our territorial waters and those waters right now are frozen.” According to Kirby, fighter aircraft from the U.S. Northern Command took down the mysterious object over Alaskan waters between 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. ET.
Kirby said this object was “much, much smaller” than the Chinese spy balloon the U.S. military shot down off the coast of South Carolina last Saturday, but there are no indications as to whether or not it contained surveillance equipment. “The way it was described to me,” Kirby said, “was roughly the size of a small car as opposed to a payload that was two or three buses sizes.” He continued: “No significant payload.”
At a Pentagon briefing later, spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the unknown object was shot down by a F-22 fighter jet at 1:45 pm ET over northeast Alaska. When pressed by reporters about whether the object was a balloon, Ryder said he didn’t want to “characterize” it yet. He said “we don’t know origin of this object,” but that, based on a “reasonable threat to civilian air traffic,” the decision was taken to take it down.
He said the “high-altitude object” shot down near Alaska Friday was not similar in size to the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down last weekend.
It was the second time in six days that the U.S. military eliminated a mysterious object, after an F-22 shot down a Chinese spy balloon last Saturday.
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