The president of United States, Joe Biden, ordered to shoot and shoot down an “object” that was flying over the state of AlaskaJohn Kirby, one of the White House spokesmen, reported this Friday at a press conference.
Kirby explained that, in the last 24 hours, the Pentagon detected a “high-altitude object” over the state of Alaska and in the last hour Biden gave the order for a fighter plane associated with the US Northern Command fired on it and shot it down.
The “object”, in principle, seems to be different from the Chinese “spy balloon” that the United States shot down last Saturday after it flew over various parts of the country, the spokesman said.
Specifically, Kirby explained that the downed “object” was much smaller: it was the size of a “small vehicle”while the proportions of the “spy balloon” were “two or three buses”.
In addition, the Chinese “spy balloon” had the ability to maneuver, but the “object” that was shot today did not have that ability and I was at the mercy of the winddetailed the spokesman.
It was flying at 40,000 feet (12km)
When giving the order to shoot down the “object”, one of the factors that worried Biden was the altitude at which it was flying, from 40,000 feet high (about 12 kilometers) and what placed him at a height in which could interfere with the trajectory of civilian aircraftKirby detailed. Unlike the shot down “object”, China’s “spy balloon” it was flying at about 65,000 feet (20 kilometers).
The “object” has been shot down on some waters that are frozen in the state of Alaska and, now, the fragments of the downed entity are being collected to determine exactly what it was, Kirby explained.
Earlier today, the US shot down an unidentified object over Alaska that was flying at ~40,000 feet (well within the range of commercial flights).
A US Air Force HC-130J is now flying off the Alaskan coast, flying as low as 725 feet at times. https://t.co/AbHcysFugz pic.twitter.com/AxJ9FzRWo8
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 10, 2023
USA has accused the Chinese government of having developed, with the involvement of the Armed Forces, a balloon “program” for espionage work and which have already flown over more than 40 countries on five continents. Beijing defends that the balloon that Washington shot down on Saturday was a weather device that “deviated from its original course” due to “force majeure”.
The discovery of these “spy balloons” has triggered a new diplomatic crisis between the United States and China and led to the suspension of a trip that the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had planned to make to the Asian country.