On Trudeau’s nod, US downs object in Canadian airspace

Ottawa, February 12

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that on his order a US fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the US took similar action over Alaska.

North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), the combined US-Canada organisation that provides a shared defence of airspace over the two nations, said it had detected an object flying at a high altitude over northern Canada. It wasn’t immediately clear how high up it was flying or what it was.

Trudeau said he also spoke with US President Joe Biden, who himself ordered the downing of an unidentified object over Alaska.

A NORAD spokesman, Maj Olivier Gallant, said both Canadian and US jets operating as part of NORAD had been deployed. The jets were scrambled and it was a US jet that shot it down.

While Trudeau described the object as “unidentified,” Gallant said the military had determined what it was but would not reveal details.

F-22 fighter jets have now downed three objects in the airspace above the US and Canada over seven days, a stunning development in the skies that is raising alarming questions on just what, exactly, is hovering overhead and who has sent them.

At least one of the objects downed was believed to be a spy balloon from China, but the other two have not yet been publicly identified. Trudeau said that Canadian forces would recover the wreckage for study. The Yukon where it was shot down is westernmost Canadian territory and the among the least populated part of Canada.

The downing came a day after White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said an object roughly the size of a small car was shot down in remote Alaska. Officials couldn’t say if it contained any surveillance equipment, where it came from or what purpose it had.

Last Saturday, US officials shot down a large white balloon off the coast of South Carolina. The balloon was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said.

US national security officials believed the flying objects shot down recently over Alaska and Canada were balloons, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a recent interview on ABC.

“You can be sure that if any American interests where people are at risk, they’ll take appropriate action,” he said, adding that the objects shot down on Friday and Saturday were much smaller than the first balloon that drifted over US airspace and was shot down over South Carolina last Saturday. — Agencies

China too spots airborne object

• China has spotted an unidentified object flying over waters near Qingdao, as per official reports
• The authorities were preparing to take down the object, a Qingdao Jimo district official said
• Fishermen in the region had been told to remain careful, the official was quoted as saying
• The development comes after the US and Canada shot down three high-altitude airborne objects ani

Much to know about

Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyse the object. There’s still much to know about it. That’s why the analysis of this object is going to be very important. A US fighter jet shot it down on my order. — Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister