What we know as the United States shoots down a third object over North America

A US fighter jet shot down an unidentified object over the Yukon in northwestern Canada on Saturday, the third such case in North America in just over a week.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that he had ordered the “dismantling of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace”.

Canadian and American planes were scrambled, Trudeau said, and it was an American jet that “succeeded in shooting the object.” The Canadian Forces “will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object,” Trudeau said.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected the object flying high over Alaska on Friday evening and it crossed Canadian airspace on Saturday, Brigadier General Pat said. Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, in a statement.

Ryder said the jets were scrambled following a call between Trudeau and President Joe Biden, who also ordered the object shot down. “A US F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory using an AIM 9X missile after close coordination between US and Canadian authorities,” Ryder said.

A wreckage recovery operation is underway involving the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Ryder said the Federal Bureau of Investigation will “work closely” on the investigation with the RCMP.

F-22 fighter jets destroyed three objects in airspace over the United States and Canada this month.

The first, shot down off the coast of Carolina on February 4 after passing through sensitive military sites across North America, is believed to have been a spy balloon from China, but the others have yet to be publicly identified. .

An unknown object was shot down over Alaska on Friday on Biden’s orders, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing.

Kirby described it as about the size of a small car, but officials didn’t say where it came from or whether it contained surveillance equipment. It was shot down because it was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a “reasonable threat” to civilian flight safety, Kirby said.

Wreckage recovery operations continued on the pack ice near Deadhorse, Alaska, the US Northern Command said in a statement on Saturday.

“Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow and limited daylight, are a factor in this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety,” the statement said. He added that there were no new details about what the item was, or its abilities, origin or purpose.

Meanwhile, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said it was too early to speculate where the object shot down over the Yukon came from on Saturday.

But she said it was “potentially similar” to the balloon that was shot down off the coast of Carolina on February 4, “although smaller in size and cylindrical in nature”.

The balloon was part of an extensive surveillance program China has been running for “several years,” the Pentagon said.