The United States shot down, on the orders of President Joe Biden, an object flying at high altitude over Alaska, a White House spokesman said Friday, without giving details about the nature or origin of the object.
This “object,” which he said was “the size of a small car” and flying at an altitude of about 12,000 meters, posed “a threat to air traffic safety,” maintained John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
“We don’t know who it belongs to, whether it belongs to a state or a company. We don’t understand the purpose,” he added.
Biden gave the order to destroy it “this morning,” and it was shot down in the early afternoon (Washington time), he said.
The object was “much smaller” than the Chinese balloon the U.S. destroyed last Saturday.
The U.S. administration became aware “last night” of the presence of this object whose wreckage fell on icy waters in northern Alaska, near the Canadian border, Kirby said, indicating that the United States will try to recover the wreckage.
The spokesman also said that unlike the Chinese balloon, this object does not appear to have a propulsion system or controls that allow it to move.
An aerial reconnaissance mission conducted around the object before it was destroyed established that it was not occupied, he said.
– “We don’t know” –
Washington on Saturday shot down a Chinese balloon off its Atlantic coast that had flown over sensitive military sites and had been described by Beijing as a “civilian aircraft used for research purposes, primarily meteorological.”
Images captured by U.S. military aircraft show that the balloon was equipped with spying tools, not designed for weather.
“It had multiple antennas to include an array probably capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” a senior State Department official said Thursday, linking the balloon to China’s People’s Liberation Army.
U.S. authorities continue to pick up the wreckage of the balloon in the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina.
Beijing rejected the U.S. accusations and claimed that the device had accidentally entered U.S. airspace.
The diplomatic incident prompted U.S. chief diplomat Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China.
China on Saturday rejected U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s proposal to hold a telephone conversation on the issue.
“The U.S. insisted on using force to attack the aircraft, which seriously violated international practice and set a bad precedent,” the Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement.