Michigan, USA.- US President Joe Biden ordered the shooting down of an “unidentified object” with a missile fired by fighters over Lake Huron, believed to be the same one that was detected the previous night in the state of Montana, officials said. feds.
The operation came after similar objects were shot down over Alaska and Canada because they were flying at altitudes that posed a threat to commercial aircraft, according to the officials, who were aware of the downings and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition that they spare the anonymity to be able to testify about the delicate operations.
It is extraordinary that four objects were shot out of the sky by US warplanes in a period of eight days. Pentagon officials have said they do not know when previous shootdowns of unknown or unauthorized objects occurred over US soil.
The latest downed object was first detected Saturday night over Montana, but was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday as it hovered over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and was moving over Lake Huron.
US and Canadian authorities had restricted some of the airspace over the lake hours earlier after fighter jets took off to intercept and try to identify the object. It was octagonal, with ropes dangling, but had no discernible payload. It was flying low, at about 20,000 feet (6,000 meters), according to a senior US official.
The news comes at a time when federal officials are still trying to pinpoint the other two objects shot down by F-22 fighters in the past two days, and are working to determine whether China sent them.
US officials said the object shot down over the Canadian province of Yukon on Saturday was a significantly smaller balloon than the one that was shot down on February 4 off the coast of South Carolina after traversing the United States. A flying object shot down on Friday over the remote Alaskan coast was more cylindrical and was said to be some kind of aerostat.
Both are believed to have had a payload either attached to or suspended from them, according to the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on the ongoing investigation. Officials could not say who threw the objects, and are trying to figure out where they came from.
