US shoots down ‘unidentified object’ over Lake Huron near Canadian border

US President Joe Biden ordered U.S. fighter jets to shoot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Earlier Sunday, U.S. and Canadian officials had restricted airspace over the lake, which is located along the border of the two countries, as military planes were sent to try to identify the object.

The object is believed to be the same one that had been detected over Montana on Saturday, the Pentagon said. It is the fourth object shot down this month.

U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin, who represents a district in Michigan near where the incident occurred, tweeted that “the object has been downed by pilots from the U.S. Air Force and National Guard.”

Slotkin tweeted that she had been contacted about the development by the Department of Defense.

Meanwhile, U.S. national security officials said they believe two other high-altitude objects shot down over the northern reaches of the United States and Canada were balloons, but much smaller than a Chinese spy balloon shot down over the Atlantic Ocean more than a week ago, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” show that he had been briefed Saturday night by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan about the initial findings about the objects, one shot down over frozen waters near the state of Alaska on Friday and a second one Saturday over Canada’s Yukon region.

Schumer did not say where the balloons originated. But he said both were shot down by U.S. fighter jets, the second on authorization from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after both were spotted on radar at about 12,000 meters (40,000 feet) above the Earth and were considered a threat to commercial aircraft that fly at a similar altitude.

“You can be sure that if any American interests where people are at risk, they’ll take appropriate action,” Schumer said.

(VOA)