This is pretty strange, and I'd love to know more. They don't say that it's a balloon - they're calling it an aircraft. I was at 20k feet.
Flying ‘Octagon’ Shot Down Near U.S.-Canada Border On Sunday
Airspace at the U.S.-Canada border near Michigan was closed by the FAA on Sunday afternoon and another “flying object” was shot down, according to a Congressman from Michigan. In fact, the object was shaped like an octagon, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The octagon was flying at roughly 20,000 feet, which means it posed a potential threat to civilian aircraft, according to the Journal.
The octagon-shaped object had “strings hanging off,” according to New York Times reporter Edward Wong, and is apparently the same object identified as a “radar anomaly” in Montana last night. The incident marks the fourth time a strange floating object has been taken down in U.S. and Canadian airspace in the past week and a half.
“I’ve been in contact with DOD regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today. The US military has decommissioned another ‘object’ over Lake Huron,” Rep. Jack Bergman tweeted shortly before 3:30 PM ET on Sunday.
“I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots. The American people deserve far more answers than we have,” Rep. Bergman, who serves as Chairman of the House Armed Services Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee, continued.
There are no reports of “collateral damage” on the ground, according to NBC News reporter Monica Alba. The octagon-shaped object was shot down on the U.S. side of Lake Huron, roughly 14 miles from the Canadian border line that runs through the lake, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“The object has been downed by pilots from the U.S. Air Force and National Guard. Great work by all who carried out this mission both in the air and back at headquarters. We’re all interested in exactly what this object was and it’s purpose,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan tweeted Sunday afternoon.
“As long as these things keep traversing the US and Canada, I’ll continue to ask for Congress to get a full briefing based on our exploitation of the wreckage,” Slotkin continued.
The U.S. shot down the octagon-shaped object with an F-16 fighter jet deploying a Sidewinder air-to-air missile, according to the New York Times, which notes the Biden administration has privately assured reporters there’s “no evidence that [the objects] involve extraterrestrial activity.”
The news of this latest mission comes after several different aircraft and “objects” were spotted over the U.S. and Canada recently. A Chinese-operated spy balloon was first shot down on Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina, after it traveled across most of the U.S., and an object was shot down over the northernmost part of Alaska on Feb. 10. Just yesterday, NORAD also shot down an unidentified object over northern Canada, at the direction of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And then an “anomaly” was reported on Saturday night over Montana.
The “anomaly” reported on Saturday night was likely a flying aircraft, according to a new tweet from Rep. Matt Rosendale, a politician from Montana.
“I am in constant communication with NORCOM and they have just advised me that they have confidence there IS an object and it WAS NOT an anomaly. I am waiting now to receive visual confirmation. Our nation’s security is my priority,” Rosendale tweeted Sunday afternoon.
We now know, based on a report from a New York Times reporter, that the anomaly spotted in Montana on Saturday was the same object shot down over Lake Huron today.
China insisted the first aircraft that started this new national obsession with floating balloons was actually just for monitoring weather, a claim the Pentagon has denied. The balloon was used for collecting signals intelligence, according to several reports that have since surfaced, but it’s not clear that all three objects that have been shot down in the U.S. and Canada in recent days have had similar capabilities.
President Joe Biden received criticism in the week that it took the Chinese spy balloon to cross the U.S., leading to many Republicans insisting that President Donald Trump never would’ve let something like that happen. But, as it turns out, Trump did let it happen, the public simply wasn’t aware of the times spy balloons were monitoring U.S. military sites in California and Virginia.
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer gave an interview on ABC News on Sunday morning and insisted the U.S. military was “focused like a laser” on gathering intelligence about these aerial objects.
“You can be sure that if any... any... Americans interests or people are at risk they’ll take appropriate action,” Schumer said.
Making things even more complicated, the Chinese have reportedly spotted their own unidentified flying object near the port city of Rizhao in Shandong Province. The city is roughly halfway in between Beijing and Shanghai and the latest reports indicate the Chinese government planned to shoot it down.
