US shoots down ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska

A United States fighter jet shot down a ‘high-altitude object’ flying over Alaska on Friday.

Washington,UPDATED: Feb 11, 2023 02:15 IST

File picture of US President Joe Biden | Reuters

By Agence France-Presse: A US fighter jet shot down an unidentified object over Alaska on Friday, the White House mentioned, though it remained unclear what the aim or origin of the goal was.

“The president ordered the military to down the object,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned. The incident occurred inside the final hour, he mentioned at roughly 1930 GMT.

The object was a lot smaller than an enormous Chinese balloon that crossed the United States final week and was shot down by a US fighter jet off the Atlantic coast on Saturday, Kirby mentioned.

It was “roughly the size of a small car,” he mentioned, and was flying at about 40,000 ft.

It went down in northern Alaska close to the Canadian border and fell in frozen water, making restoration possible, Kirby mentioned.

“We do expect to be able to recover the debris, since it fell not only within our territorial space, but what we believe is frozen water, so a recovery effort will be made,” he mentioned.

Biden ordered the shoot-down as a result of the item posed “a reasonable threat” to aviation.

But Kirby underlined that nothing is but identified in regards to the object.

“We do not know who owns it, whether state owned or corporate owned,” he mentioned. “We don’t understand the full purpose.”

However, the US navy despatched a aircraft to look at the item earlier than it was shot down and “the pilot’s assessment was that this was not manned.”

Posted By:

Manisha Pandey

Published On:

Feb 11, 2023