New unidentified ‘high-altitude object’ shot down over Canada NORAD and military aircraft had spotted and tracked the latest craft, as search continues off Alaska for latest downed balloon

By Dan Lamothe February 11, 2023 at 5:07 p.m. EST

A new “high-altitude airborne object” has been spotted and shot down over Canada’s Yukon territory, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday, as U.S. personnel continued efforts to recover the remnants of two other craft shot down over Alaska and South Carolina within the last week. Trudeau said in a tweet that Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled to respond in the latest incident, with a “U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object.” The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had said earlier in a statement that it had “positively identified” the latest object, but offered few additional details. The organization includes both U.S. and Canadian military officials, and protects the skies over North America. The disclosure came as U.S. military officials said searches continued Saturday near the Alaskan town of Deadhorse for an object shot down Friday just off the coast, and last week for a suspected Chinese surveillance airship that made a cross-country journey ending with its shootdown off the coast of South Carolina. “Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow, and limited daylight, are a factor in this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety,” U.S. military officials said of the object shot down over Alaska. “Recovery activities are occurring on sea ice." Military officials said they had no new details to provide about that object’s origin, capabilities or intended purpose. The object in Alaska was shot down over the state’s North Slope on Friday at 1:45 p.m. Eastern by an AIM-9x Sidewinder missile fired from an F-22 Raptor, one of the U.S. military’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Defense officials said its remnants landed in a mix of snow and ice near Prudhoe Bay, a community of about 2,000 that is home to North America’s largest oilfield. Military personnel in helicopters and an HC-130 search-and-rescue plane immediately began looking for pieces. While the object, described as about the size of a small car, came down off Alaska’s northern coast, the water was frozen, complicating any effort to recover the craft by boat. The object was first spotted Thursday at an altitude of about 40,000 feet and traveling northeast across the state, Pentagon officials said. Two F-35s from Eielson Air Force Base in central Alaska were dispatched to assess what the object was, and two F-22s from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage were sent up Friday to shoot it down. John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said President Biden was notified of the situation Thursday night and, on a recommendation from the Pentagon, ordered it to be shot down Friday. At such an altitude, he said, it posed a risk to civilian air travel. Friday’s encounter bookended a week in which the Biden administration faced scrutiny over its decision to allow a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon to traverse the continental United States before shooting it down Feb. 4 off the South Carolina coast. The balloon — roughly the size of three buses and soaring at an altitude above 60,000 feet — was first spotted by the U.S. government off the coast of Alaska on Jan. 28. Gen. Glen VanHerck, who oversees the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said in the aftermath of that incident that he did not initially shoot the balloon down because it showed no hostile intent. The Chinese airship shot down Feb. 4 was first detected near the Aleutian Islands. It crossed above mainland Alaska and into Canada before appearing over the continental United States, first in northern Idaho on Jan. 30 and then in Montana the following day. The administration weighed shooting it down then, and even temporarily imposed a stoppage on flights in and out of the airport in Billings. Biden has said that his advisers talked him out of shooting down the craft in Montana, fearful that falling debris could harm civilians and property on the ground. Administration officials also have said that by allowing the Chinese craft to traverse the country, military officials had days to observe it and gather intelligence that has informed their understanding of what they now say is a sprawling surveillance program overseen by the People’s Liberation Army. The shootdown over water, they said, also would aid in collection, rather than dealing with challenging mountainous terrain. Those explanations have not appeased lawmakers, however. At a Senate hearing this week, Republicans and Democrats pressed senior defense officials about why they had not acted sooner to thwart the Chinese balloon incursion and whether they have taken appropriate measures to enforce the boundaries of U.S. airspace. “I don’t want a damn balloon going over the United States when we could have taken it down over the Aleutian Islands,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D.-Mont.) The balloon shot down last weekend fell into the Atlantic Ocean, landing in relatively shallow water measuring about 50 feet deep. Salvage efforts, U.S. officials said, are ongoing. This is a developing story.