US Military Shoots Down Unidentified Object Over Alaska

On Friday, a US fighter jet shot down an unidentified object found flying over Alaska. US President Joe Biden ordered the military to shoot down the object, which was flying at a high altitude.

The discovery and subsequent shooting down of the unidentified aerial object come just days after the US military took out a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon caught flying across American airspace.

It is unclear what the object was or who it belonged to.

US fighter jet neutralizes unidentified object

“The president ordered the military to down the object,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Kirby described the high-altitude object as being “the size of a small car”. It was detected flying over Alaska at 40,000ft (12,000m) and posed a “reasonable threat” to civilian aircraft.

US intelligence officials became aware of the object on Thursday evening. Kirby did not comment on where it was spotted but based on the decision of the Federal Aviation Administration to close airspace in the area of Deadhorse in northern Alaska, it was here that the object is believed to have been flying over.

On Friday, a US fighter jet approached the high-altitude object and assessed whether humans were on board. After determining that it was unmanned, the pilot was ordered to neutralize the object by President Biden.

What was it?

Following the discovery of an alleged Chinese spy balloon last week, speculation is mounting as to whether the object that was shot down today was also involved in espionage.

However, Kirby insisted “We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned.” He also corrected a reporter who misidentified the object as a balloon.

Kirby added that the debris field created by the recently discovered high-altitude object was “much, much smaller” than that of the balloon which was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last week.

This is a developing story.