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The United States military shot down an object over Alaska on Friday (February 10). White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that the object was flying at an "altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight."
He said the object was shot down "off the very, very northeastern part of Alaska near the Canadian border."
"Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object, and they did. And it came inside our territorial waters – and those waters right now are frozen – but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters. Fighter aircraft assigned to US Northern Command took down the object within the last hour," Kirby told reporters.
Kirby did not provide any information about what the object was or who it belonged to.
"We're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now," Kirby said. "We do not know who owns it, whether it's state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned. We just don't know."
Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the object was not similar to the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas last week.
“The object was about the size of a small car, so not similar in size or shape to the high-altitude surveillance balloon that was taken down off the coast of South Carolina," he said.