The object was flying at 40,000 feet and “posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight,” National Security Council official John Kirby said. Biden ordered the military to shoot it down.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Friday afternoon shot down a “high-altitude object” flying over Alaskan airspace and Arctic waters, National Security Council official John Kirby confirmed at the White House.
The Pentagon had been tracking the object over the last 24 hours, he said.
“The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight,” Kirby told reporters during the White House briefing. “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did and it came inside our territorial waters and those waters right now are frozen.”
Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object “within the last hour,” Kirby said around 2:30 p.m. ET.
The pilots were able to determine that it was “unmanned” before it was shot down, he added.
The Pentagon will have more to say about the situation later in the afternoon, Kirby said. A news conference is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.
Kirby made clear the U.S. does not know who owns the object and he would not call it a balloon, like the one allegedly owned by the Chinese government that the U.S. military shot down last weekend.
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” Kirby said. “We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned. We just don’t know.”
Pilots shot the object down just off the northeastern part of Alaska, near the Canadian border, over the Arctic Sea, Kirby said.
Officials did not understand the full purpose of the object, Kirby added, saying the U.S. expects that it will be able to recover the debris. “A recovery effort will be made and we’re hopeful that it’ll be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it,” he said.
The object, which the U.S. learned about on Thursday evening, was described as “roughly the size of a small car,” Kirby said.
He also said it didn’t appear that it had the ability to independently maneuver itself like the Chinese balloon that flew above the U.S. for eight days before the U.S. downed it off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.
“The first one was able to maneuver, and loiter, slow down, speed up,” Kirby said. “It was very purposeful.”
A senior State Department official said Thursday that the spy balloon had proven ties to the Chinese military and included “multiple antennas” capable of collecting signals intelligence.