by WASHINGTON — The US military shot down a “high-altitude object” flying over Alaskan airspace and Arctic waters Friday afternoon, National Security Council official John Kirby confirmed at the White House.
Kirby said the United States does not know who owns the object and would not call it a balloon, like the one allegedly owned by the Chinese government and shot down by the US military on Saturday.
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” Kirby told reporters during the White House briefing. “We do not know who the owner is, if it is state, corporate or private. We just don’t know.”
The Pentagon had been tracking the object for the past 24 hours, he said.
“The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight,” Kirby told reporters during the White House briefing. “Out of an abundance of caution, and on the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to shoot down the object and they did and it entered our territorial waters and those waters are now frozen solid.”
Fighter jets assigned to US Northern Command shot down the object “within the last hour,” Kirby said around 2:30 p.m. ET. The pilots were able to determine that it was unmanned before it was shot down, he added.
President Joe Biden commented briefly on the matter in response to a question from reporters at the White House. “Success,” the president said of the demolition of the object.
The pilots shot down the object near the northeastern part of Alaska, near the Canadian border, over the Arctic Sea, Kirby said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that he had been “informed of the matter and supported the decision to take action. Our military and intelligence services will always work together, including through @NORADCommand, to keep people safe.”
US officials did not understand the full purpose of the object, Kirby said, adding that the United States hopes it can recover the debris. “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, which the United States learned of late Thursday, was described as “about the size of a small car,” Kirby said.
Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder provided additional details in a briefing with reporters, noting that the object was shot down at 1:45 p.m. ET.
The United States initially detected the object. on ground radar and investigated it further using aircraft, Ryder said. An F-22 fighter jet shot down the object using an A9X missile, she added.
US Northern Command coordinated the operation with assistance from the Alaska Air National Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI, Ryder said.
The debris recovery process is carried out in the midst of a mix of ice and snow, and the response has involved Alaska-based units under the direction of the US Northern Command, along with the Alaska National Guard, the Pentagon said late Friday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, told NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” that the incident was “a threat to our sovereignty.”
“We need to be clear … that we do not tolerate this, period,” Murkowski said, noting that he had received classified information on the matter.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said senior Pentagon officials briefed him on the object and he said the US would like to.”
“That has to stop. The best way to do this is through the type of actions we have taken today in Alaska and publicly reiterate that we will shoot down any and all unknown aircraft that violate our airspace,” said Sullivan, a member of the Senate Armed Forces. Services Committee, in a statement. “We also need to properly equip our military in Alaska with the necessary sensors and aircraft to detect and, if necessary, destroy everything from slow-moving balloons to hypersonic missiles.”
In an interview on Fox News, Sullivan later said the object had been shot down over Deadhorse, Alaska, near the Prudhoe Bay oil fields.
The Pentagon said the object had been traveling in a northeasterly direction across Alaska when it was first discovered.
Asked why the United States appeared to take more immediate action to shoot down the object compared to last week’s response to the alleged Chinese spy balloon, Ryder said: “In this particular case, given the fact that it was operating at a altitude that posed a reasonable threat. to civilian air traffic, the determination was made and the president gave the order to shoot it down.”
Civil aircraft, he added, typically operate between 40,000 and 45,000 feet, and therefore the object presented a “potential threat or hazard to civilian air traffic.”
The Pentagon determined that the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down last week was traveling at an altitude of approximately 60,000 feet.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., tweeted that he was “glad to see the president act quickly on this new intrusion into our airspace.”
“I look forward to more details being made public as the recovery and investigation continues,” Warner said.
Kirby said the object in Alaska did not appear to have the ability to maneuver independently like the Chinese balloon that flew over the United States for eight days before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina.
“The first one was able to maneuver and loiter, slow down, speed up,” Kirby said. “It was very useful”.
While the Pentagon said last week that the balloon posed no physical or military threat to the US, it raised concerns about the possibility of collecting sensitive information and further escalated tensions between Beijing and Washington.
The balloon flew near prominent sites related to the US nuclear arsenal, according to numerous sightings. A senior State Department official revealed Thursday that it was carrying “multiple antennas” capable of collecting intelligence signals and solar panels to power its “multiple active intelligence-gathering sensors.” US officials have maintained that the balloon’s ability to collect more information than Chinese satellites was limited.
Under Biden’s authority, the balloon was shot down by an F-22 Raptor with a Sidewinder missile. Since then, the Navy has led an effort to collect its debris, which is being analyzed at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
The balloon affair prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his planned trip to Beijing, which would have been the first by a US secretary of state since Mike Pompeo’s visit in 2018. The hope was to reduce recent turmoil among two countries. Instead, China and the US have clashed over the alleged spy balloon program.
It has also created a political storm in Congress, as Republicans and Democrats have demanded answers from the Biden administration about why it chose to respond to the balloon so late, and why similar Chinese balloon raids in previous years were recently discovered.
“Do we have a plan for the next time it happens and how are we going to deal with it?” Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., asked defense officials who testified Thursday on Capitol Hill about the alleged spy balloons. “Because, frankly, I’ll just tell you: I don’t want a fucking balloon to go through the United States.”
