The United States shoots down an “object” that was flying over Alaska on Biden’s order

US President Joe Biden ordered to shoot and shoot down an “object” which was flying over the state of Alaskareported this Friday at a press conference John Kirby, one of the White House spokesmen.

Kirby explained that, in the last 24 hours, the Pentagon detected a “high altitude object” over the state of Alaska and in the last hour Biden gave the order for a fighter plane associated with the US Northern Command fired on it and shot it down.

The “object” at first appears to be Unlike the Chinese “spy balloon” the US shot down last Saturday after it flew over various areas of the country, the spokesman said. Specifically, Kirby explained that the downed “object” was much smaller: it was the size of a “small vehicle”, while the proportions of the “spy balloon” were “two or three buses”.

In addition, the Chinese “spy balloon” had the ability to maneuver, but the “object” that was shot down today did not have that ability and was at the mercy of the winddetailed the spokesman.

When giving the order to demolish the “object”, one of the factors that worried Biden was the altitude at which he was flying, about 12 kilometers, which placed it at a height where it could interfere with the trajectory of civilian aircraft, Kirby explained. Unlike the downed “object”, the Chinese “spy balloon” was flying at an altitude of about 20 kilometers.

The “object” was shot down on some waters that are frozen in the state of Alaska and, now, the fragments of the downed entity are being collected to determine exactly what it was, Kirby detailed.

The Pentagon spokesman, General Pat Ryder, specified in a subsequent press conference that the object was shot down by the US Northern Command at 18:45 GMT this Friday over the northeast coast of Alaska.

shot down by a fighter

The gadget was detected on Thursday and shot down this Friday by a US F-22 fighter that left the joint base elmendorf in alaska with an AIM-9X air-to-air missile, because they considered that there was a “reasonable threat” to commercial aircraft when flying at a similar height as this type of aircraft.

Asked for the reason why this object was shot down so quickly upon detection unlike the Chinese spy balloon, which it was crossing the skies of EE.UU. for days, Ryder indicated that they study each case individually. This time, seeing that the object could pose a “reasonable threat” to civilian air traffic the decision was made to tear it down.

Ryder stressed that for now they do not know the origin of the artifact, although he specified that it was the size of a small car and that it was not similar “neither size nor shape” to the Chinese spy balloon.

The United States has accused the Chinese government of having developed, with the involvement of the Armed Forces, a “program” of balloons for espionage work and that have already flown over more than 40 countries on 5 continents. China defends that the balloon that brought down the US on Saturday it was a meteorological device that “deviated from its original course” due to “force majeure.”

The discovery of these “spy balloons” has triggered a new diplomatic crisis between the United States and China and led to the suspension of a trip that the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had planned to do to the Asian country.