On President Biden’s orders, the Department of Defense shot down an unidentified object that had flown over Alaska, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The object’s arrival follows the recent event of a Chinese spy balloon flying above U.S. territory, which was shot down over the Atlantic last week.
Though very little information is known about the object at this time, the Pentagon swiftly took action against the potential threat. Any relationship to military operations has not been confirmed, but at 40,000 feet in the air, the object posed risks to civilian aircraft, according to government officials.
Pilots confirmed that the object was unmanned before it was brought down over the Arctic Ocean by the northeast border of Alaska and Canada.
White House spokesman John Kirby said that an attempt to recover the debris will be conducted. Current knowledge of the situation indicates that the object’s payload was “roughly the size of a small car,” which is significantly smaller than that of the Chinese balloon.
Informed by last week’s situation, President Biden issued his orders out of an “abundance of caution.”
Michael Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, expressed his support for the president’s decision. He said that if the object is another Chinese spy balloon, it could indicate an effort to deliberately provoke the U.S.
He also stressed the necessity of communication between the U.S. and Chinese governments in these scenarios.
