WASHINGTON — An American fighter jet, acting at the behest of President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, shot down another unidentified flying object on Saturday, Canadian and US officials said, in the latest installment of the series taking place in the skies of North America.
“I have ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that has entered Canadian airspace,” Trudeau said in a statement. statement posted on Twitter. He said an American F-22 belonging to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, operated by the United States and Canada, shot down the object over the Yukon Territory.
As for the object Biden ordered to shoot down near Alaska on Friday, officials said they have yet to determine which object was blown up over the Yukon, which borders Alaska.
Mr. Trudeau said he spoke with Mr. Biden on Saturday afternoon. “Canadian forces will now recover and analyze the object’s wreckage,” he said in his Twitter post.
The White House said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau “discussed the importance of recovering the object to determine more details about its purpose or origin.”
Late Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration briefly closed an area near Havre, Mont., to air traffic. The agency had used the same term a week earlier, shortly before the United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. A joint statement by NORAD and US Northern Command later said NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter jets to investigate, but they did not find anything related. with radar collisions. Officials have acknowledged that heightened awareness can lead to false positives.
Pentagon officials said the object that was landed on the Yukon was detected on radar as it passed over Alaska late Friday. NORAD sent American fighters, soon followed by Canadian fighters, to track it down.
“Tracking continued today as the object entered Canadian airspace,” Brig said. General Patrick S. Ryder, Pentagon press secretary. General Ryder said the F-22 shot down the object over Canada with the same Sidewinder air-to-air missile that had been used to bring down two previous flying objects, General Ryder said, including the hot air balloon launched by the Air Force. scout China a week earlier.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin spoke by phone on Saturday with his Canadian counterpart, Anita Anand, General Ryder said. Speaking at a press conference that evening, Ms. Anand described object like cylinder and said it was smaller than the spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic last weekend.
The US shooting down an unidentified flying object is said to be rare. But tensions in the United States have been high since the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon over the United States about two weeks ago, prompting Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to cancel a planned trip to China. . The Chinese government admits that the remote is its own, although it says it’s used to study the weather. Beijing said a similar balloon was Found in Central and South America the same weekend is also for civilian use.
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American intelligence agencies have determined that China hot air balloon show is part of a global surveillance effort designed to gather information about the military capabilities of countries around the world, according to three US officials.
Some officials believe the balloon flights are part of China’s effort to hone its ability to collect data on US military bases – where it is most interested – as well as those of other countries. other countries in the event of conflict or rising tensions. . U.S. officials said this week that the hot air balloon program was active at multiple locations in China.
On Friday, US officials revealed that the army shot down an unidentified flying object over the Arctic Ocean near Alaska. John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said at a news conference that the object was shot down “out of an abundance of caution”.
U.S. Northern Command troops were working Saturday near Deadhorse, Alaska, along with Alaska National Guard units, the FBI and local law enforcement to recover the object and body determine its nature, Defense Department officials said.
With recovery operations taking place over sea ice, freezing temperatures and limited daylight, service members were forced to move slowly, officials said.
“We have no further details at this time about the object, including its capabilities, purpose, and origin,” the Pentagon said in a statement about the Alaska incident.
There are many theories in Washington about the origin of the objects, but some Biden administration officials warn that much remains unknown about the last two objects that were shot down. America has long watched UFO infiltrates US airspaceand officials believe that surveillance activities by foreign powers, weather balloons, or other airborne turbulence may account for the most recent incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena — how government talk about UFOs — as have happened many times over the years.
However, nearly all incidents are still not officially explained, according to one Report to be made public in 2021. Intelligence agencies are set to provide a classified document to Congress on Monday to update that report. The original document looked at 144 incidents between 2004 and 2021 reported by US government sources, mainly US military personnel.
The object that US military officials finally identified was a Chinese surveillance balloon for the first time discovered over Alaska on January 28, although it didn’t raise a red flag at the time. It then drifted into Canadian territory before reentering US airspace over Idaho on January 31. Military officials did not consider it a threat and, out of concern for civilians on the ground, waited. to shoot it down until it reached the Atlantic in February . 4.
Edward King contribution report.
