US shoots down fourth flying object over North America
A fourth flying object has been shot down by the US over North America – the fourth of its kind this month.
US president Joe Biden ordered the object to be shot down near Lake Huron, close to the Canadian border, on Sunday afternoon.
The Pentagon released a statement suggesting the object was shot down over fears it could have interfered with commercial air traffic as it was travelling at 20,000 ft.
The object was detected above military sites in Montana on Saturday, the Pentagon statement added.
The still unidentified object has not been deemed a military threat and has been described by defence officials as an unmanned “octagonal structure” with strings attacked to it.
It was downed by a missile fired from an F-16 fighter jet at 14:42 local time.
Suspected Chinese spy balloons
A suspected Chinese spy balloon was the first of the four objects shot down. The balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina on 4 February after flying over the US for several days. Officials said it came from China and had been used to monitor sensitive sites.
China rejected claims the balloon was for spying and said it was a weather monitoring device that had blown astray.
The spy balloon further strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
Since then, the US has shot down three more high-altitude objects in as many days.
One of the objects was shot down over northern Alaska on Friday, and on Saturday a similar object was shot down over the Yukon in north-western Canada.
Officials have not yet publicly identified the origin or purpose of these objects and both Canada and the US are still trying to recover the objects, but the search in Alasja has been slowed by poor weather conditions.
“These objects did not closely resemble and were much smaller than, the [4 February] balloon and we will not definitively characterise them until we can recover the debris,” a White House National Security spokesperson said.
US won’t rule out UFOs
The US Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said it’s not clear how the objects were being propelled through the air or where they were coming from.
He also said he will not rule out any explanation – including extraterrestrial life. “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out,” Gen Glen VanHerck told reporters when asked about the possibility.
A senior official told ABC News that the three most recent objects shot down were likely weather devices and not UFOs or spy balloons.
But Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had told the broadcaster that officials believed the objects were spy balloons.
