WASHINGTON — The US military shot down a “high-altitude object” flying over Alaskan airspace that the Department of Defense had been tracking for the past 24 hours on Friday afternoon, the Defense Council official confirmed at the White House. Homeland Security John Kirby.
“The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flights. Out of an abundance of caution and on the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to shoot down the object, which they did. and it entered our territorial waters and those waters are frozen right now,” Kirby told reporters at the White House briefing.
Fighter jets assigned to US Northern Command shot down the object “within the last hour,” Kirby said around 2:30 p.m. ET.
The Pentagon will have more to say on the situation later in the afternoon, Kirby said. A press conference is scheduled for 3 pm ET.
Kirby made it clear that the US does not know who owns the object and would not call it a balloon, like the one that supposedly belongs to the Chinese government and was shot down by the US military last weekend.
“We call this an object because that’s the best description we have at the moment,” Kirby said. “We don’t know who owns it, whether it’s state, corporate or private. We just don’t know.”
Officials did not understand the full purpose of the object, Kirby added, saying the United States hopes it can recover the debris because it fell on what they believe to be frozen water. “There will be a recovery effort and we are hopeful that it will be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it,” she said.
The object was described as “about the size of a small car,” Kirby said.
This is a developing story. Please check for updates.
