On this Friday, an unidentified object which was the size of a small car was shot down by a US fighter jet. It was flying at a height of about 40,000 feet off the northern coast of Alaska. This decision was directed by President Joe Biden, the officials said.
Under American airspace, the object, whose origin is still unknown was first detected on Thursday according to U.S. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson. It posed a ”reasonable threat to civilian air traffic”, he added.
An F-22 fighter jet deployed an AIM-9X missile to take down the object and the US Northern Command is also beginning recovery operations now, added Ryder.
”The news of the shooting down of the unidentified object was first announced by the White House.
Recovery teams have mapped the debris field and are in the process of searching for and identifying debris on the ocean floor. Debris that’s been recovered so far is being loaded onto vessels, taken ashore, catalogued, and then moved onwards to labs for subsequent analysis,” Ryder said.
This incident happened almost a week after the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean. The balloon roamed over continental America for several days after entering the US airspace on January 30 in Montana.
China accepted that the balloon was theirs but denied that the balloon was for surveillance purposes. They said it was for weather monitoring and it just drifted in the wrong direction.
