US shoots down new high-altitude flying object over Great Lakes

US military forces shot down another high-altitude flying object this Sunday, this time over Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes in the northeastern United States. The United States Department of Defense has confirmed this new incident in which it marks the third consecutive day in which unidentified objects have been shot down over North America. “Today at 2:42 p.m. (local time) (…) an F-16 fired an AIM9x missile to successfully shoot down an airborne object flying at approximately 20,000 feet – about 6,000 meters – altitude in United States airspace over Lake Huron in the state of Michigan,” a Pentagon statement read.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (CONAD) detected the object this Sunday morning and maintained visual and radar tracking of it until it was able to shoot it down over the Upper Michigan Peninsula. when there was no longer any danger to people. To do this, the US and Canadian authorities had to restrict flights in the area and sent fighter planes to identify the object. “We did not assess that it was a kinetic military threat at all on the ground, but we did assess that it was a flight safety hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities. Our team will now work to recover the object in an effort to learn more,” the Defense Department said in its letter.

The object was shaped like an octagon with several loose strings and no type of cargo that could be distinguished, as reported by a source familiar with the matter to CNN. The downing of this new object takes place just one day after an American F-22 fighter fired at another unidentified object over the Yukon Territory in western Canada, while another object was shot down in space on Friday. Alaska Air. Likewise, last Sunday a Chinese spy balloon was shot down by the US Army over the Atlantic after crossing all of North America. Washington claims it was a Chinese spy balloon, but Beijing maintains it was a weather balloon that accidentally went astray.

Given this, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Melissa Dalton, has detailed that still it has not been possible to assess what the objects are or to which country they belong. Nor has it been possible to detail how they stay in the air, because it is not certain that they are hot air balloons. “China’s spy balloon was, of course, different in the sense that we knew exactly what it was. These newer objects do not pose a kinetic military threat, but their path in proximity to sensitive Department of Defense sites and altitude at the one they were flying could be a hazard to civil aviation and therefore raised concern,” Dalton said.

This Sunday the spokesman for the Democratic Party in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has revealed that the two objects shot down on Saturday and Friday were balloons, though much smaller than the one shot down a week ago. “I think the Chinese have been caught in their lies and I think it’s a real step backwards for them,” she told ABC. “They’re probably going to have to get rid of it or something because they’re so bad. And they’re not just doing it in the United States. There’s a whole fleet of balloons. We’ve sighted one in South America. They’re probably all over the world,” he said. pointed. Schumer has acknowledged that the first balloon probably got some intelligence, but has defended its demolition because it has been “a big blow” because the United States will get valuable information for the secret services.