Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that on his order a U.S. fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the U.S. took the same motion over Alaska.
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the combined U.S.-Canada organization that gives a shared defense of airspace over the 2 nations, said it had detected an object flying at a high altitude over northern Canada. It wasn’t immediately clear how high up it was flying or what it was.
Trudeau said he also spoke with President Joe Biden, who himself ordered the downing of an unidentified object over distant Alaska on Friday.
“Earlier today, President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Trudeau on the unidentified, unmanned object in North American air space,” based on a press release from the White House. “The article was closely tracked and monitored by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) over the past 24 hours and the President has been continually briefed by his national security team for the reason that object was detected.”
Each Biden and Trudeau authorized shooting down the article each “out of an abundance of caution and on the advice of their militaries,” the statement said.Â
“A U.S. F-22 shot down the article in Canadian territory using an AIM 9X missile following close coordination between U.S. and Canadian authorities, to incorporate a call today between Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Minister of Defence Anita Anand, based on Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder. “As Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations to assist our countries learn more concerning the object, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can be working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”
A NORAD spokesman, Maj. Olivier Gallant, said the military had determined what the article was but wouldn’t reveal details.
F-22 fighter jets have now downed three objects within the airspace above the U.S. and Canada over seven days, a surprising development within the skies that’s raising questions on just what, exactly, is hovering overhead and who has sent them.
A minimum of one in every of the objects downed was believed to be a spy balloon from China, but the opposite two haven’t yet been publicly identified. Trudeau said that Canadian forces would get well the wreckage for study. The Yukon where it was shot down is the westernmost Canadian territory and the among the many least populated a part of Canada.
The downing got here a day after White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said an object roughly the dimensions of a small automotive was shot down in distant Alaska. Officials couldn’t say if it contained any surveillance equipment, where it got here from or what purpose it had.
Kirby said it was shot down since it was flying at about 40,000 feet (13,000 meters) and posed a “reasonable threat” to the security of civilian flights, not due to any knowledge that it was engaged in surveillance.
In accordance with U.S. Northern Command, recovery operations continued Saturday on sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska.
In a press release, the Northern Command said there have been no latest details on what the article was. It said the Alaska Command and the Alaska National Guard, together with the FBI and native law enforcement, were conducting search and recovery.
“Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow, and limited daylight, are a think about this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to keep up safety,” the statement said.
Last Saturday, U.S. officials shot down a big white balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
The balloon was part of a big surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said. The U.S. has said Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of nations across five continents in recent times, and it learned more concerning the balloon program after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina.
China responded that it reserved the fitting to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”
The Navy continued to survey and recovery activities on the ocean floor off South Carolina, and the Coast Guard was providing security. Additional debris was pulled out Friday, and operations will proceed as weather permits, Northern Command said.
—CNBC contributed to this report.
