The White House said that the US Department of Defense (The Pentagon) shot down an unidentified object that was flying in US airspace off the coast of Alaska on Friday on the orders of President Joe Biden, without giving details about its nature or source.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said that this object flew at an altitude of 12,000 meters and that it was the size of a small car and posed a threat to the security of air navigation.
This is the second time in a week that the United States has dropped some kind of flying object over its territory, as last Saturday an American fighter shot down a Chinese balloon off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, which Washington said was for espionage purposes, and Beijing denied that.
Kirby indicated that there is no information yet about the body, explaining, "We do not know who owns it. We do not know, for example, whether it belongs to a country or whether it is private property (...) and we do not understand until now its purpose."
He explained that the object was smaller than the Chinese airship, which was flying at a higher altitude and flew over sensitive military sites throughout North America.
Kirby also pointed out that, unlike the Chinese balloon, this object does not appear to be equipped with a propulsion system or controls that give it directions, and the US military sent a plane to monitor the object before dropping it, and "the pilot's assessment was that the object was not inhabited," according to Kirby.
The spokesman explained that the body fell in northern Alaska near the Canadian border in freezing waters, which makes the process of its recovery possible.
Washington's downing of the Chinese airship last week led to an exchange of accusations and statements between Beijing and Washington.
China responded at the time that it reserved the right to "take further measures" and criticized the United States for its "obvious overreaction and serious violation of international practices."
This incident caused the postponement of a scheduled visit by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to China, and the US authorities are still making efforts to collect the debris of the airship from the Atlantic Ocean near the coast of South Carolina.