The U.S. military shot down an unidentified flying object over Michigan Sunday – the third in three days and fourth since downing a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4.
Sunday’s shoot down occurred hours after airspace had been temporarily closed over Lake Michigan by the Federal Aviation Administration and NORAD. Fighter jets had scrambled to investigate a radar finding there but did not find an object, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment.
It wasn’t immediately clear where in Michigan the debris from Sunday’s object had landed, the official said.
An F-16 shot down the object at 2:42 p.m. ET Sunday at the direction of President Joe Biden, according to a statement from the Pentagon. The pilot fired an AIM 9X sidewinder missile, the same weapon used in the previous instances.
The object had been flying at about 20,000 feet over Lake Huron in a path and altitude that raised concerns about it being a hazard to civilian aviation, the statement said. Shooting it down over the lake minimized the chances of injuring people or damaging property. There are no indications anybody was hurt.
The object is likely the same one whose radar signal prompted the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Montana Saturday night, the statement said. It flew close to “sensitive DoD sites there.”
The Pentagon operates nuclear missile siloes in Montana.
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“We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but assess it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities,” the statement said, indicating the possibility that it is another spy balloon.
Raptor warplanes shot down the previous objects and the spy balloon.
U.S. and Canadian troops are seeking to recover debris from the objects downed in Alaska on Friday and Canada on Saturday. It’s not clear what the objects are, officials have said.
F-22 Raptor warplanes shot down the previous objects and the spy balloon.
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Fighter pilots observe the object and confer with headquarters before taking a shot, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“There is never a ‘shoot-on-sight’ mentality except if there is an ongoing hostile act occurring,” Deptula said. “The intercepting aircraft will relay observed information, that will be digested, evaluated and then a decision made based on the situation.”
