Et was the third incident in eight days when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced early Saturday evening that the American military had shot down another flying object – this time on his orders over Canada. The “unidentified object” violated Canadian airspace, Trudeau wrote on Twitter. That is why it was shot down over the Yukon in northwestern Canada by an American F-22 fighter jet from the North American Air Defense Command Norad.
The debris would be examined in consultation with US President Joe Biden in Canada. A White House statement on Saturday said they agreed on the “importance of recovering the object in order to learn more about its purpose and origin.”
A message from the Americans sounded very similar a good 24 hours earlier. The government announced on Friday afternoon that it had shot down an unidentified flying object at noon off the northern coast of Alaska near the Canadian border. The origin? So far unknown. The size? Kind of like a small car. Equipment? Probably no surveillance technology. The reason for the downing? A “serious threat” to civil aviation. Accordingly, the object was at an altitude of 12,000 meters – passenger aircraft usually fly at an altitude of between 10,000 and 15,000 meters. According to the Pentagon, there were “no further details about the object” on Saturday either.
The Canadian Minister of Defense said late on Saturday evening that the flying object over Canada had a “cylindrical shape” and posed a danger to air traffic because of the flight altitude. According to a Pentagon spokesman, the object was spotted over Alaska on Friday evening and entered Canadian airspace on Saturday morning. Both Canadian and American fighter jets “watched it closely” and took the time to study it more closely.
Chinese spy balloon connection?
So far it is not clear whether or to what extent the two most recent incidents are connected to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic by the American military. This took place on Saturday last week and led to serious upheavals between the United States and China. The balloon was able to intercept communications signals, according to the White House. The equipment was “clearly used for surveillance by the secret service”. Accordingly, sanctions against China are being considered. Beijing, on the other hand, had spoken of a civilian research balloon that had gone off course.
The white balloon, which was flying at an altitude of around 18 kilometers, was spotted by civilians over the US state of Montana. The American military observed it for days and, according to the government, only shot it down over open water when there was no longer any danger to people or possible damage to the ground. Republican congressmen have criticized Biden’s inaction over a violation of American sovereignty.
Nothing was known about the course of the shooting down over the Yukon area on Saturday evening. In the case of the second flying object over Alaska, however, President Biden ordered the shooting down much more quickly.
The object was discovered on Thursday evening and observed from then on, said John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, on Friday afternoon. The launch took place at 1:45 p.m. EST on Friday – after pilots in fighter jets ensured that the aircraft was unmanned. According to the Pentagon, the recovery of the debris from the object, which fell over frozen water, began on Friday. According to initial findings, it should not have been able to maneuver itself.
On Friday, the Pentagon rejected the question of whether action was taken so quickly in the case of the object over Alaska because it took too long in the case of the Chinese balloon. Spokesman Pat Ryder said: “Whenever we discover something, we will first observe and then make an appropriate decision.”
A few hours after the announcement of the downing in Canada, the American air traffic control authority closed part of the airspace over the state of Montana late on Saturday evening, where the Chinese balloon was first sighted. However, the ban was lifted a short time later. After a “radar anomaly”, a fighter plane was sent out, the American military said – but no “object” matching the data had been identified. In the case of the first two launches over the Atlantic and in Alaska, the airspace in the respective area had previously been blocked.
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