Sunday’s takedown is believed to have involved an octagonal object that was tracked by radar over Montana on Saturday, when it "flew in proximity to sensitive [Department of Defense] sites," Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command located the object Sunday morning and tracked it visually and with radar until an F-16 fighter fired an AIM9x missile to blow it out of the sky about 20,000 feet over Lake Huron at 2:42 p.m., Ryder said.
"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," Ryder said.
Ryder said it was shot down over water "to avoid impact to people on the ground while improving chances for debris recovery.
"There are no indications of any civilians hurt or otherwise affected," the rep added.
The object looked octagonal in shape and had strings hanging off it but carried no perceptible payload, an anonymous US official told Rooters.
Air Force officials said the latest three objects in US airspace are different from the now-infamous Chinese spy balloon.
"We’re calling them objects, not balloons for a reason," Air Force General Glen VanHerck told news hounds Sunday evening.
He said the most recent objects were "very, very small" and moved at slow speeds.
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[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
- A third unknown aerial object was shot down over the Great Lakes on Sunday
- Authorities are not ruling out that the three most recent objects could be linked to aliens and extraterrestrials, US Air Force General Glen VanHerck said
- They are not calling them balloons - as they are still not sure what the objects are
