WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday on orders from President Joe Biden. It was the fourth such downing in eight days and the latest military strike in an extraordinary chain of events over U.S. airspace that Pentagon officials believe has no peacetime precedent.
Part of the reason for the repeated shootdowns is a “heightened alert” following a spy balloon from China that emerged over U.S. airspace in late January, Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said in a briefing with reporters.
Since then, fighter jets last week also shot down objects over Canada and Alaska. Pentagon officials said they posed no security threats, but so little was known about them that Pentagon officials were ruling nothing out — not even UFOs.
“We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase,” said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense.
U.S. authorities have made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them. But the unusually assertive response was raising questions about whether such use of force was warranted, particularly as administration officials said the objects were not of great national security concern and the downings were just out of caution.
VanHerck said the U.S. adjusted its radar so it could track slower objects. “With some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now,” he said, “and that’s why I think you’re seeing these, plus there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.”
He added: “I believe this is the first time within United States or American airspace that NORAD or United States Northern Command has taken kinetic action against an airborne object.”
Asked if officials have ruled out extraterrestrials, VanHerck said, “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”
The Pentagon officials said they were still trying to determine what exactly the objects were and said they had considered using the jets’ guns instead of missiles, but it proved to be too difficult. They drew a strong distinction between the three shot down over this weekend and the balloon from China.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted that airmen in the 148th Fighter Wing, an Air National Guard fighter unit in Duluth, shot down the object over Lake Huron.
Related Story: US on ‘heightened alert,’ increasing scrutiny of airspace after downing ‘unidentified object’ over Lake Huron
The extraordinary air defense activity began in late January, when a white orb the officials said was from China appeared over the U.S. and hovered above the nation for days before fighter jets downed it off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That event played out over livestream. Many Americans have been captivated by the drama playing out in the skies as fighter jets scramble to shoot down objects.
The latest brought down was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana, but it was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was going over Lake Huron, Pentagon officials said Sunday.
U.S. and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object. According to a senior administration official, the object was octagonal, with strings hanging off, but had no discernable payload. It was flying low at about 20,000 feet, said the official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials were still trying to precisely identify two other objects shot down by F-22 fighter jets, and were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalated about what Washington said was Beijing’s large-scale aerial surveillance program.
An object shot down Saturday over Canada’s Yukon was described by U.S. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the balloon — the size of three school buses — hit by a missile Feb. 4. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.
Both were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin.
The three objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike.
The officials said the other three objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that U.S. officials were working quickly to recover debris. Using shorthand to describe the objects as balloons, he said U.S military and intelligence officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information, then compiling a comprehensive analysis.
“The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the spy program that the administration has linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”
Eight days ago, F-22 jets downed the large white balloon that had wafted over the U.S. for days at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. U.S. officials immediately blamed China, saying the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals and could maneuver itself. White House officials said improved surveillance capabilities helped detect it.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course. Beijing said the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down.
Then, on Friday, North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined U.S.-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected and shot down an object near sparsely populated Deadhorse, Alaska.
Later that evening, NORAD detected a second object, flying at a high altitude over Alaska, U.S. officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday and was over the Yukon, a remote territory, when it was ordered shot down by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In both of those incidents, the objects were flying at roughly 40,000 feet. The object on Sunday was flying at 20,000 feet.
The cases have increased diplomatic tensions between the United States and China, raised questions about the extent of Beijing’s American surveillance, and prompted days of criticism from Republican lawmakers about the administration’s response.
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Michael Balsamo, Ellen Knickmeyer and Tara Copp contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Sounds like a good excuse to cease all economic ties with China and cut off all trade that currently sends about a trillion more dollars to enrich the Chinese every year than what we send over and sell to China. If they are stealing our military and technolgical secrets, just who is so stupid to want to trust them enugh to do honest business that is equally bneficial to BOTH. Right now it seems our bought and infiltrated politicians get richer while the taxpayers spend hundreds of billions in self-defense that under Biden can only React,,,never proact. Reactive is always more expensive than proaction,,,many times paid in the currency of both blood and treasure. Joe now will HAVE to run for re-election just to keep some control of the impending criminal investigations that will reveal both his incompence, malfeasance and treason that made his crime family rich, while the American taxpayers get financially bled out.
You assume they have a SPINE to follow through with something like that.
Either the media are generating these narratives to cover up and distract from other more pressing and interesting stories, or this is really happening at an unprecedented rate.
In either case, the entire world knows that American leadership is weak, compromised, and clueless. Sad and dangerous times.
OR the govt is deliberately sending things up TO SHOOT DOWN, to make joe and the DOD look good.
Lots of questions, no answers. Is this an unprecidented number of slow moving objects in US airspace or is the administration nervous about the reaction of the US people and thus hunting them down and getting rid of them to look as if they are doing something? Just because it doesn’t seem like the types that China uses does that automatically mean it isn’t them? (I’d say a big no). So the one taken down over Lake Huron had just cords coming off it…is it possible that a payload was dropped and this was the balloon coming down after doing it’s task?
The CCP is going to lie consistently. There is a good chance Biden has been compromised by the CCP for years now. It is possible this is a smoke screen to cover other things going on and we ought to be watching for that. Or, it is possible that it is the beginning of some sort of attack or action by China. One of my astute kids was skeptical of the mass shootings in CA by two Chinese people at the Lunar New Year that seemed off. Was that a part of a larger plan too?
Poor leadership brings poor results. We sure seem to have a lot of poor results all around us lately. IMO
We;;, we’ve been chasing Bigfoot, The Lochness Monster, and sightings of Elvis for years. Now, we have high-altitude objects to give a little “credibility” to the supernatural.
From the article: Asked if officials have ruled out extraterrestrials, VanHerck said, “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”
I thought that was the most remarkable comment of the weekend. Can you imagine an American general from previous times saying that, especially when there is great uncertainty in the country?
I have no trust in this president or anyone in his administration. I think it’s more likely that he sold a flyover pass to the Chinese than not. After all, he needs money for defense lawyers and it was reported that he took out a mortgage on one of his houses. I don’t recall ever hearing that a sitting president mortgaged his house while in office. Anyone?
I have no trust in any of our armed services anymore. NORAD and the US Air Force used to be the gold standard. Apparently not anymore. Knowing that our intelligence services are mixed up in all this makes me trust them about the same as I trust Joe Biden, not at all.
I’d rather trust the tooth fairy…
If even one of these “UFOs” had been carrying a deadly payload many Americans would be dead. All thanks to a government that refuses to protect its own people, in the air, on the ground, anyplace and a population that let them get away with it! Who is at the greater fault here?
I can see the CCP thinking “lets release the next bio attack VIA one of these baloons!”
Still no comment from the senile pretend president. Why are they hiding him?
No gun video of any of the last 3 shootdowns? Did they really shoot something down?
John Kirby, White House flunky, came out and talked for a long time but really answered nothing. What the hell is going on?
Being able to detect these things is good. Being able to discern what they might have dropped into our water supply or sprayed into the atmosphere over one of our cities would be better.
As was noted in the article at least one of the objects had “strings” (ropes?) attached to it but no payload. Where did the payload go?
Wag the dog.