OTTAWA/WASHINGTON –
The U.S. military shot down a flying object over Lake Huron near the U.S.-Canada border, U.S. officials said Sunday, in the fourth such intercept by U.S. warplanes in the past year. this month.
Two unnamed US officials told Reuters that the military shot down the object.
Separately, US Representative Jack Bergman said one subject was “deactivated”.
Meanwhile, Canadian investigators are searching for the debris of an unidentified flying object that was shot down by a US jet over the Yukon territory on Saturday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Sunday: “Rescue teams are on the ground, trying to find and analyze this object.
“Citizens’ security is our top priority and that’s why I made the decision to shoot down that unidentified object,” he said, adding that it posed a danger to the machine. civilian flight.
North America has been put on high alert for airborne incursions following the appearance of an eye-catching white Chinese airship over the US earlier this month.
The 200-foot (60-meter) hot air balloon – which the Americans accused Beijing of using to spy on the United States – caused an international incident, prompting Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a scheduled trip to China just a few hours. before he prepared to depart.
The fear of surveillance seems to keep US officials on high alert.
Twice within 24 hours, US officials closed the airspace – only to reopen it quickly. On Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration briefly closed the space above Lake Michigan. On Saturday, the US military deployed fighter jets in Montana to investigate radar anomalies there.
U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat representing a Michigan county, said the military had “looked very closely” at an object above Lake Huron, east of Lake Michigan on the US border- Canada.
Canada also closed its airspace on Sunday near Tobermory, Ont., located on Lake Huron near the US border, according to Nav Canada, a private nonprofit that operates Canada’s air traffic control system.
China denies the first balloon was used for surveillance and says it was a civilian research vehicle. It condemns the United States for shooting it down off the coast of South Carolina last Saturday.
With new military and intelligence officials focused on aerial threats, at least two other flying objects were destroyed in North America.
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told US broadcaster ABC that US officials think the two newest objects are also balloons. The original hot air balloon was brought down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. One second was shot down
over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska, on Friday. The third was destroyed on the Yukon on Saturday.
“They believe they are (balloons), yes, but much smaller than the first one,” Schumer said.
The White House said only that the recently downed objects “do not closely resemble” the Chinese balloons, echoing Schumer’s description of them as “much smaller”.
“We won’t be able to characterize them until we are able to recover the debris that we are studying,” a spokesman said.
Schumer said he is confident that US investigators scouring the ocean off the coast of South Carolina to recover debris and electronics from the original balloon will find its intended use.
FABRIC IN REMOTE LOCALS
Canadian partners trying to piece together what was shot down on the Yukon may have their own set of challenges. This territory is a sparsely populated area in the far northwest of Canada, bordering Alaska. The weather can be very cold in the winter, but unusually mild temperatures this time of year could dampen recovery efforts.
Speaking to Fox News, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said the balloon that was shot down on the coast of South Carolina was on a mission to collect images of sensitive US nuclear facilities.
“They want pictures, intelligence about our military capabilities, especially nuclear,” McCaul said. “And they’re building a nuclear stockpile themselves.”
Republican lawmaker Mike Turner, who serves on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, thinks the White House may be overcompensating for what he describes as previous lax oversight of the government. with US airspace.
Turner told CNN on Sunday: “They seem a little bit excited about the activation. “I want them to be fun to activate rather than permissive.”
Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for its handling of the alleged Chinese spy balloon’s intrusion, saying it should have been shot down much sooner.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; writing by Raphael Satter; Editing by Ross Colvin, Andrea Ricci and Lisa Shumaker)
