On Friday, the US military shot down an object “the size of an average car” that flew into the airspace over Alaska. It comes just days after a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off South Carolina, the White House confirmed this afternoon.
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said the Department of Defense observed a “high-altitude object” over Alaska at 40,000 feet (about 12.2 kilometers ) that posed a “reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight”.
“I can confirm that the Department of Defense has been tracking a high altitude object over Alaskan airspace for the past 24 hours. The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and was a real threat to the safety of civilian flights. For security reasons and on the advice of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to shoot down the object. And they did. And it entered our territorial waters said Kirby.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder provided some details about the incident during an urgent press briefing. According to him, a plane of unknown origin, the size of an average car and “unwieldy”, was shot down off the northern coast of Alaska at 1:45 a.m. on February 10.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command located the object on ground radar Thursday, Feb. 9, and identified the object with fighter jets.
In this case, considering that [объект] was at an altitude that posed a real threat to civil aviation, a decision was made: the president gave the order to shoot it down,” Ryder said, explaining that civilian aircraft typically fly at an altitude of 12 13km away.
The object was shot down by an F-22 fighter that took off from Joint Base Elmendorf in Alaska. The operation was coordinated by the Northern Command
Its origin can only be judged once the military was able to recover the downed object from the ocean.
