Canada and the United States are on high alert for the presence of unidentified flying objects that, apparently they invaded North American airspace and were shot down over the weekend.
This Sunday, the United States Army affirmed that it shot down a flying object while it was flying over Lake Huron, in the north of the country.
As explained by the Department of Defense in a statement, by order of President Biden, an Air Force F-16 shot down at 2:42 p.m. (7:42 p.m. GMT) this new device that was at 20,000 feet, just over 6,000 meters. altitude, flying over Lake Huron in the state of Michigan.
“Its path and your altitude raised concerns, including that it could pose a danger to civil aviation,” said the Pentagon, which also explained that the demolition was decided in an area where it was possible to prevent the debris from harming anyone. and at the same time makes it possible to collect them.
There are no indications that any civilian has been affected by the demolition of this device detected by the North American Air Defense Command (Norad) in the morning.
It is then the third “object” neutralized in the last three days in North America. On Friday, US warplanes shot down another object off northern Alaska.
(You can read: They shoot down another mysterious object that flew to the north of Canada)
FBI examines pieces of the Chinese balloon that the United States shot down a week ago.
The military noted that it was “within the sovereign airspace and over the territorial waters of the United States” and that the object lacked any propulsion or control system.
Then a US F-22 aircraft, acting on Canadian and Canadian orders, shot down a “high-altitude airborne object” on Saturday over central Canada’s Yukon Territory, about 100 miles from the US border. considering that it represented a threat to civil aviation.
Canada described it as a “cylindrical” object that flew over the northwest of the country at about 12,000 meters high.
The Canadian prime minister revealed on Saturday that the trajectory of the object shot down over Yukon had been monitored by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) for 24 hours.
Government sources quoted by the Canadian public broadcaster, CBC, indicated that the object entered Canadian airspace after passing through Alaska.
For their part, US officials described the two new objects as the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
Why do they cause alert?
And it is that the incidents with flying devices began at the end of January, when a giant Chinese balloon, which Washington officials branded a spy, drifted for days in American skies before being shot down.
While China insisted that the balloon was conducting meteorological research, the Pentagon claimed that the device was carrying out intelligence-gathering tasks.
In fact, US officials say that images of the first balloon show that it consisted of surveillance equipment that could intercept telecommunications.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said his mission was to “monitor strategic sites in the continental United States.” While a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, suggested that China, or some members of its military leadership, were intentionally seeking to undermine Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to Beijing.
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Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, denied that the first balloon shot down was from surveillance.
According to government sources, as a result of said balloon The United States raised controls in its airspace, which may explain the repeated detections aircraft flying over the country in recent days.
However, there are many more doubts than certainties about the recently demolished objects. Some analysts say this may be the start of a major Chinese surveillance effort aimed at analyzing foreign military capabilities in anticipation of possible tensions over Taiwan.
In this sense, the Government of Joe Biden accuses China of having developed, with the involvement of the Armed Forces, a balloon “program” for espionage work and that they have already flown over more than 40 countries on 5 continents.
It may be the start of a major Chinese surveillance effort.
However, it is not clear if the three objects shot down in the last few days are also Chinese property. In fact, Canadian search teams were working this Sunday to recover the remains of the flying object shot down on Saturday while the government refused to speculate on the origin of the device when asked if it was a device from Beijing.
But this Sunday, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, revealed in an interview with ABC that President Joe Biden’s team thinks that these last three flying objects shot down in North America were balloons, although smaller than the alleged spy balloon. China that raised tensions between Washington and Beijing since late January.
Although China has not reacted to the last three demolitions, the Europa Press agency reported this Sunday that Beijing had also detected a flying object in the province of Shandong.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
TIME
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