Pentagon Shoots Down Unidentified Flying Object Over Alaska and It’s Still A Mystery

President Joe Biden ordered the military to down an unidentified flying object ‘the size of a small car’ in a remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday, less than one week after shooting down a Chinese surveillance balloon.

Although it’s unclear at this point if the object was another balloon, National Security Council Coordinator spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday, “We’re calling this an ‘object’ because that’s the best description we have right now.”

He added that Biden ordered to down it “out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon.” Kirby explained that the unmanned object was spotted at an altitude of 40,000 feet, meaning it “posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.” (The spy balloon flew at an altitude of around 60,000 feet, well above where commercial aircraft fly.)

“At the direction of the president of the United States, fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully took down a high-altitude airborne object off the northern coast of Alaska at 1:45 Eastern Standard Time today within U.S. sovereign airspace over U.S. territorial water,” Pentagon press secretary Brig Gen. Pat Ryder said in a separate briefing on Friday.

Most aspects of this object, however, are still unknown, but what we do know seems markedly different from last week’s spy balloon. Not only was it much smaller than the surveillance balloon, Kirby said, but, “We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned.”

Last Saturday, the President ordered the military to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon with a Sidewinder missile off the Carolina coast that had first been spotted over Montana last Wednesday. According to a State Department official, the spy balloon floated over the country for eight days, and had “multiple antennas” capable of gathering intelligence. The surveillance balloon’s presence prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his trip to China, causing some tension.

According to the Pentagon, an F-22 fighter aircraft based at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson shot down the object on Friday using an AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile, the same type used to take down the balloon nearly a week ago.

The president’s recent response came in sharp contrast to his response to the spy balloon; he was lambasted for not downing the surveillance balloon sooner. One notable difference, Pentagon officials pointed out, was that Friday’s object was floating over water, so it didn’t pose the same risks as the spy balloon, which spent days flying over populated areas across the country.

The New York Times reported that Defense officials are still unsure as to how to categorize the object because it shattered when it hit the frozen water, making it difficult to determine whether it was a drone or a balloon, or something else entirely.

After the object was downed on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showed his support in a tweet: “This afternoon, an object that violated American airspace was brought down. I was briefed on 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.”

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski also praised Biden’s action against the unidentified object: “I commend the men and women serving in the Alaska NORAD region, the 11th Air Force, and the Alaska Air National Guard. They did their job quickly, professionally, and with great precision to take down an unidentified aerial object in Alaska territory.”

However, she also criticized the response to the spy balloon, adding: “I say it time and time again, Alaska is on the front lines of defense for the United States of America.” The senator expressed concern that downing the spy balloon on the East coast, signaled a prioritization of other parts of the country. “It sends a message to China that if you want to send something to surveil part of the United States of America, Alaska is your place,” she said.