The US military shot down a “high-altitude object” above Alaska on Friday, White House spokesperson John Kirby said, roughly a week after it downed a Chinese spy balloon.
The object was shot down in the past hour, he said, and had entered US airspace in the past 24 hours. The US military will release additional information later on Friday.
“The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Joe Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did,” Kirby said.
“We do not know who owns it,” he said, adding that the US does not know if it was state-owned or what purpose it was serving.
“It was much much smaller than the spy balloon we took down last Saturday,” Kirby said, referring to the Chinese balloon that was shot down just off the Atlantic coast on February 4 after spending several days in US airspace.
The latest object was “roughly the size of a small car”, he added, and unlike the balloon shot down last weekend, it did not have a “significant payload”.
The US expects to be able to recover the debris, which fell into territorial waters.
Biden’s primary motivation in ordering the object to be downed was a possible threat to civilian flights. The spy balloon shot down last week was flying at 65,000 feet, which did not threaten air traffic in the same way, Kirby said.
“This one at 40,000 feet could have posed a threat to civilian aircraft,” he said. The US first learned of the object on Thursday evening, Kirby added.
“I am not classifying it as a balloon right now. It’s an object. We’re still trying to learn more right now.”
This is a developing story
