US jet shoots down fourth flying object after Pentagon says it flew near sensitive military sites and was risk to civilian aircraft

Published

2 years ago

February 13, 2023

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The US has shot down another unidentified object that it says flew near sensitive military sites and could have been used for spying.

It was downed over Lake Huron in Michigan at 2.42pm local time on Sunday on President Joe Biden‘s orders.

A US F-16 jet fired a missile at about 20,000ft amid concerns that its altitude and flightpath could endanger civilian planes.

Spy balloons and US tensions with China – join our live Q&A

It is the fourth incident in just over a week – and the third in as many days – after objects were shot down in Alaska and Canada on Friday and Saturday,

A senior US official, speaking anonymously, described the latest object as having “an octagonal structure with strings hanging off but no discernible payload”.

The four flying objects

On Friday 4 February, the US military downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it said had traversed sensitive military sites across North America.

On Friday 10 Friday, a second “car-sized” object was shot down over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska.

On Saturday 11 February, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered a US warplane to shoot down a third unidentified object that was flying high over the northern Canadian territory of Yukon.

On Sunday 12 February, a fourth unidentified object was shot down with a missile by US fighter jets over Lake Huron on the US-Canada border.

Authorities restricted airspace over the lake, near the Canadian border, before both US and Canadian jets were sent to intercept it.

Jets were also scrambled on Saturday after radar detected an object over Montana, but it could not be located and it was thought it could be an error.

However, the signal was picked up again by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) on Sunday, the Pentagon said.

“Based on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive DOD [Department of Defense] sites,” said a statement.

“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.”

Teams are trying to recover the object from the lake.

US Air Force general Glen VanHerck admitted he did not know what the last three objects shot down were or how they stay aloft.

However, he told reporters they were not the same as the Chinese “spy” balloon downed near South Carolina a week ago.

“We’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason,” he said – also refusing to rule out any explanation when asked if they could be extra-terrestrial.

A National Security Council spokesperson earlier on Sunday said the unidentified objects shot down over Alaska and Canada were “much smaller” than the Chinese balloon.

‘Object was cylindrical’

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said teams were searching for the object shot down over his country.

A US F-22 stealth jet brought it down on Saturday over the sparsely populated Yukon territory in the northwest.

“Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyse the object,” Mr Trudeau told reporters.

“There’s still much to know about it. That’s why the analysis of this object is going to be very important.”

Canada’s defence minister Anita Anand described it as cylindrical but smaller than the Chinese balloon.

It was flying at 40,000ft and posed a risk to civilian planes when it was brought down about 100 miles from the border at 3.41pm EST (8.41pm GMT), said Ms Anand.

The Pentagon said NORAD had spotted the object over the coast of Alaska late on Friday.

Jets were scrambled from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and joined by Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft after the object crossed the border.

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The Pentagon said the US F-22 shot down the object using an AIM 9X missile “following close coordination” between the countries.

Mr Trudeau said the military would recover the wreckage and that he had spoken to President Biden and thanked NORAD for “keeping the watch over North America”.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said the UK will conduct a security review following the latest development.

Analysis: China meets insinuations with accusations

Neither America nor Canada has officially confirmed where the shot down “unidentified objects” are from, but the insinuation that China is responsible feels pretty clear.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader no less, has said he thinks that’s “likely”

The Chinese are well aware of the accusations and thus there were a lot of questions today, not least how they would respond?

The answer was with defiance but no clear denial.

At a routine press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the spokesperson Wang Wen Bin was asked multiple times whether he would confirm or deny that the crafts were Chinese.

He would not be drawn either way, his answer instead was an accusation.

An accusation that it is, in fact, America that’s the world’s most aggressive surveillance power, that it’s America that has questions to answer about illegal spying and, most notably, an accusation that America has sent more than 10 such spy balloons over Chinese territory since January 2022.

Such a claim is hard to assess as there was no further detail about when and where these alleged incursions happened and how China responded at the time, but the accusation alone is a clear sign that China feels hard done by over this issue.

Another sign of pressure, perhaps, are reports that China is preparing to shoot down an unidentified object over its airspace.

Such an action would no doubt raise eyebrows given the resolute condemnation of the American response as “trigger-happy” and “an obvious overreaction”.

Some form of face-saving retaliation is not out of the question but, for now at least, it’s a topic that China doesn’t want to engage with.

Multiple attempts to ask were met with a “referral to previous statements”, in other words, “no comment”.

He said: “The UK and her allies will review what these airspace intrusions mean for our security. This development is another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse.”

Earlier this week, Beijing admitted that the balloon shot down off South Carolina had come from China but insisted it was a “civilian airship”.

It said it had strayed into US airspace and was for meteorological and other scientific research.

US

At least 51 people killed in Texas flooding as authorities face scrutiny over response

Published

1 hour ago

July 6, 2025

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At least 51 people killed in Texas flooding as authorities face scrutiny over response

At least 51 people have died after heavy rain caused flash flooding, with water bursting from the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas.

The overflowing water began sweeping into Kerr County and other areas around 4am local time on Friday, killing at least 43 people in the county.

This includes at least 15 children and 28 adults, with five children and 12 adults pending identification, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference.

In nearby Kendall County, one person has died. At least four people were killed in Travis County, while at least two people died in Burnet County. Another person has died in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County.

An unknown number of people remain missing, including 27 girls from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River.

Rescuers have already saved hundreds of people and would work around the clock to find those still unaccounted for, Texas governor Greg Abbott said.

But as rescue teams are searching for the missing, Texas officials are facing scrutiny over their preparations and why residents and summer camps for children that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.

AccuWeather said the private forecasting company and the National Weather Service (NWS) sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before the devastation, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.

The NWS later issued flash flood emergencies – a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.

“These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,” AccuWeather said in a statement that called Texas Hill County one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the US because of its terrain and many water crossings.

But one NWS forecast earlier in the week had called for up to six inches of rain, said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.”It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.

Officials said they had not expected such an intense downpour of rain, equivalent to months’ worth in a few short hours, insisting that no one saw the flood potential coming.

One river near Camp Mystic rose 22ft in two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29.5ft.

“People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,” Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said in a statement.

“We know we get rain. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official. “But nobody saw this coming.”

Judge Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the Guadalupe River that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because “the public reeled at the cost”.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was asked during a news conference on Saturday whether the flash flood warnings came through quickly enough: “We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that is why we are working to upgrade the technologies that have been neglected for far too long.”

Presidential cuts to climate and weather organisations have also been criticised in the wake of the floods after Donald Trump‘s administration ordered 800 job cuts at the science and climate organisation NOAA, the parent organisation of the NWS, which predicts and warns about extreme weather like the Texas floods.

A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress.

Professor Costa Samaras, who worked on energy policy at the White House under President Joe Biden, said NOAA had been in the middle of developing new flood maps for neighbourhoods and that cuts to NOAA were “devastating”.

“Accurate weather forecasts matter. FEMA and NOAA matter. Because little girls’ lives matter,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a national security and intelligence analyst at Sky’s US partner organisation NBC News.

US

Elon Musk says he’s created his own political party – the ‘America Party’

Published

12 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Elon Musk says he's created his own political party - the 'America Party'

Elon Musk says he has created a new political party – the America Party –
after asking his followers if he should do so in an online poll.

It follows his public falling out with Republican President Donald Trump.

On Friday, the billionaire had asked his followers on X whether a new US political party should be created.

On Saturday evening he wrote on the same platform: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!

“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.

“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

The world’s richest man made the announcement just one day after President Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk had fiercely opposed.

Musk had previously said we would form and fund a new political party to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.

From bromance to bust-up

The Tesla boss backed Trump’s election campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, later rewarded with a high profile role running the newly created department of government efficiency (DOGE).

But observers of the two men, both with huge wealth and reputations, wondered how long the bromance would last.

In May Musk left the role, still on good terms with Trump but criticising key parts of his legislative agenda.

After that, the attacks ramped up, with Musk slamming the sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and Trump hitting back in a barbed tit-for-tat.

Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billion-dollar federal subsidies that flow to Musk’s companies, and said he would even consider deporting him.

US

Is this the most powerful Trump’s been?

Published

16 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ has passed and he’s due to sign it into law on Independence Day. Mark Stone and David Blevins discuss how the bill will supercharge his presidency, despite its critics.

They also chat Gaza and Ukraine, as Donald Trump meets with freed Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander and talks to Vladimir Putin.

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