A series of UFO incidents (not necessarily of extraterrestrial origin) have the governments of the United States and Canada worried. And tensions are rising with China.
A US Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet shot down an unidentified flying object over Canada on Saturday afternoon , Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Twitter.
This comes shortly after the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) warned of a “high-altitude aerial object” flying over northern Canada.
“I have ordered the shootdown of an unidentified object violating Canadian airspace. NORAD shot down the object over the Yukon . Canadian and US aircraft were deployed and a US F-22 successfully fired on the object,” Trudeau said in a statement on Twitter.
He continued: “I spoke with President Biden this afternoon. The Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the remains of the object.”
A senior government source with direct knowledge of the situation told CBC News that the Canadian government was first alerted to the object on Friday while it was still travelling through Alaska.
According to this same source, the object crossed into Canada on Saturday morning and Prime Minister Trudeau ordered the country that arrived first to shoot it down.
Maj. Olivier Gallant, a NORAD spokesman, told The Associated Press that the Pentagon had determined what it was but would not release details.
It is the second object to be shot down over North America in the past two days, and the third in less than a week. On Friday, the White House announced that an unidentified object posing a “reasonable threat” had been shot down over Alaska.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the incident, saying only that the object was the size of a small car, was unmanned and its flight altitude was that of commercial aircraft.
In this regard, NORAD indicated on Saturday that it “did not have further details at this time about the object, including its capabilities, purpose or origin.”
The Chinese weather balloon was a spy balloon.
As previously reported, a US warplane shot down a suspected Chinese weather balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4 after it spent several days crisscrossing the country.
China acknowledged the existence of the downed balloon last week but claimed it was purely “civilian in nature” and had veered off course due to unexpected weather conditions.
However, Pentagon sources indicated that the antennas and cameras carried by the balloon did not match the sensors that a weather balloon typically carries.
According to the Biden administration, the Chinese balloon was part of a military-led espionage program that spanned more than 40 countries, including Taiwan , Japan and some Latin American countries.
This event caused a diplomatic crisis between the United States and China .
Alaska UFO Mystery
On Friday, the US government shot down a “high-altitude unidentified flying object” over Alaska after it was determined to pose a “reasonable threat to civil air traffic” as it was flying at 40,000 feet, or 12,000 m.
The UFO, which was NOT characterized as a balloon , was shot down by fighter jets assigned to the US Northern Command and President Biden referred to the operation as a “success.”
F-35 fighter jets were deployed to the area where the object was spotted on Thursday night and a second on Friday morning. Both brought back “limited” and conflicting information about the object.
As reported by CNN, some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on board , but not all pilots reported experiencing such an issue.
Others claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion system on the object and therefore could not explain how it remained aloft, cruising at an altitude of 12 kilometers . These accounts explain the Pentagon’s secrecy about the object.
At this moment, special teams are trying to recover the remains of the object, which lies in the frozen sea above the territorial waters of the United States, with great effort due to adverse weather and environmental conditions.
Last moment
On Saturday night, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a NOTAM (NOtice To AirMan) classifying the airspace around Havre, Montana (near the Canadian border) as “national defense airspace.”
Pilots who fail to comply with the following procedure may be intercepted, detained and questioned by security force personnel.
At the time of writing, the airspace over Montana had been reopened . NORAD reported that fighter jets sent to intercept the echoes shown by U.S. airspace surveillance radar did not identify any objects to correlate with the radar information .
Clearly the situation is concerning for those responsible for airspace safety and national security in both the United States and Canada.
