Silke Jasso
The White House announced on Friday that President Biden ordered the military to shoot down a high-altitude object located over Alaska due to safety concerns for civilian flight. The object was reportedly the size of a small car and was flying at 40,000 feet, but its origin has yet to be determined. Biden went on to call the operation a “success” in response to reporters’ questions. Spokesman John Kirby stated that the shootdown was carried out on the recommendation of the Pentagon.
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Martha Raddatz, ABC News’ Chief Global Affairs Correspondent, reported that the object shot down was cylindrical and had a silver color.
“It came in, inside our territorial waters, those waters right now are frozen, but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters. Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object within the last hour,” Kirby stated.
US Shoots Downs Second High-Altitude Object Over Alaska
“We don’t know who owns this object,” he noted. The object came to U.S. attention Thursday evening, Kirby said. It didn’t appear to have maneuverability capability, he continued.”It was virtually at the whim of the wind.”
Fighter aircraft confirmed that the object was unmanned after they checked it.
“It was difficult for the pilots to glean a whole lot of information,” he added, “There was a limit to how much they could divine.”
The fighter aircraft first spotted the small, high-speed object last night and conducted another flight early in the morning to gather more information, which ended in a shootdown, according to Kirby. Biden ordered the shootdown this morning, citing the safety of flights at that altitude and the unpredictability of the object’s flight path due to prevailing winds as the primary reasons. The president deemed the risk too great to not take action.
“We do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell not only within our territorial space, but on what we what we believe is frozen water, ” Kirby notted. “So. a recovery effort will be made, and we’re hopeful that it will be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it.”
Brig Gen. Patrick Ryder at the Pentagon reported that the object was first detected by ground radar and was shot down at 1:45 p.m. ET.
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