On February 4, a balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina by a US AIM-9X robot after traveling in US airspace for several days.
According to the US, it was a Chinese surveillance balloon with the purpose of gathering information that moved over several military installations.
From the Chinese side, it is claimed instead that it was a civilian craft that collected data for research purposes.
Unknown objects
On February 10, an American fighter jet shot down an object over Alaska.
The object is said to have been "the size of a small car" and flew at an altitude of about twelve kilometers in northern Alaska near the Canadian border.
The next day, on February 11, US fighter jets shot down another unidentified object at high altitude – this time over the Yukon Territory in northern Canada.
The object is said to have been small and cylinder-shaped and posed a "possible threat to civil aviation", according to Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand.
On February 12, another alien object was shot down into the air above North America, this time over Lake Huron on the border between the United States and Canada.
The object was shot down in the airspace that the US and Canada had jointly closed earlier in the day.
Accusations from both countries
From the American side, it is stated that balloons have been observed on previous occasions as well, and in the last week China has been accused of using a global fleet of balloons to spy on countries all over the world.
China counters by claiming that American balloons have repeatedly flown over Chinese airspace since January 2022.
Get a quick summary of the tours around the downed objects in the video above.