WASHINGTON: On Sunday, the US destroyed yet another unidentified flying object. Joe Biden, the president, gave the order to bring it down close to Lake Huron and the Canadian border. It was the latest military strike in an extraordinary string of events over American airspace that, according to Pentagon officials, has no precedent during peacetime. It was the fourth such downing in eight days.
The most recent brought down was initially assumed to be an oddity when it was discovered on Saturday night over Montana. According to Pentagon authorities, radar picked it up again on Sunday while it was moving over Lake Huron and lingering above the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
As jets raced to intercept and attempt to identify the object early on Sunday, U.S. and Canadian authorities blocked certain airspace over the lake. The object, according to a senior administration official, was octagonal and had strings dangling off of it, but there was no obvious cargo. According to the official, who spoke to The Associated Press under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, it was flying low at approximately 20,000 feet.
According to Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of NORAD and the U.S. Northern Command, a spy balloon from China that appeared over American airspace in late January triggered a "heightened alert" that contributed to the repeated shootdowns.
Fighter jets have since last week also downed targets over Canada and Alaska. Despite the fact that the Pentagon was ruling nothing out, including UFOs, because so little was known about them, officials there claimed they presented no threats.
"We have been more carefully monitoring our airspace at these altitudes, including improving our radar, which may at least partially explain the uptick," said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense.
Authorities in the United States have made it apparent that they are continuously on the lookout for mysterious radar blips, and that it is common practice to close airspace while investigating them. However, given that administration officials said the targets posed little threat to national security and that the downings were just done out of prudence, doubts were being raised about whether the unusually forceful response was justified.
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