The United States has shot down a second “high altitude object” flying over Alaska, the White House confirmed on Friday.
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” said White House spokesman John Kirby, adding, “we don’t know what entity owns this object.”
It was confirmed that the craft was flying at around 40,000 feet in altitude and was the size of a small vehicle. By comparison, the Chinese spy balloon was flying 50,000 feet and was the size of three buses.
From CNBC:
The object was destroyed by a missile from a U.S. fighter plane “off the very, very northeastern part of Alaska, near the Alaska-Canada border,” said Kirby, speaking at a White House press briefing.
Kirby said the U.S. military first became aware of the object on Thursday night. On Friday morning, President Joe Biden gave the order to shoot it down, and his order was carried out shortly after noon.
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This latest object did not appear to possess any maneuverability, Kirby said.
The latest incident also differed significantly from the prior one in that this floating object was shot down within hours of its detection.
The larger, previous balloon was permitted to float across the United States for a week before Biden gave the order to shoot it down.
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