Mystery flights over US and Canada spark jitters

A US warplane has shot down a new flying object near the Canadian border, the third mysterious device spotted since military radar settings were cranked up.

US President Joe Biden defended the decision to wait until a Chinese balloon crossed the United States before shooting it down. Picture: AFP

A US warplane has shot down a new flying object near the Canadian border, the third mysterious device spotted since military radar settings were cranked up in the wake of the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

Jittery Americans have been watching the skies as the mysterious incursions unfolded against a backdrop of acute tensions with China – although only the first ­object has so far been attributed to Beijing.

The Pentagon said that it did not know what the other three ­objects were. One was shot down over Alaska on Friday, one over Canada’s Yukon territory on Saturday, and the most recent one on Sunday over Lake Huron, part of the Great Lakes between Canada and Michigan.

But it said that the object downed on Sunday had been tracked for nearly a day and did not resemble the alleged Chinese surveillance balloon that was destroyed off the Atlantic coast on February 4 after traversing the country.

President Joe Biden ordered a F-16 fighter to shoot down the ­latest object “out of abundance of caution”, a senior administration official said.

Reflecting the heightened state of alert, US authorities briefly closed the airspace over Lake Michigan on Sunday, before the latest object was shot down further towards the Canadian border.

The US aerospace command NORAD tracked the new object visually and with radar, and it was downed over the lake “to avoid ­impact to people on the ground while improving chances for ­debris recovery,” the Pentagon said.

The object was described by the official as an octagonal structure with strings hanging off it. Drifting at about 6000m over Michigan, it could have posed a hazard to civil aviation, the official said.

US Northern Command Commander General Glen VanHerck said that after aircraft were sent up to inspect the newest object, they concluded that there was no indication of any threat, the same with the previous objects.

“What we are seeing is very, very small objects that produce a very, very low radar cross section,” he said.

He declined to describe the shape or size of the objects, but said they were travelling very slowly, around the speed of the wind.

The objects shot down since Friday were detected after US air defence adjusted radar settings to scan for smaller and slower-moving objects, said Assistant Secretary of Defence Melissa Dalton.

“In light of the People’s Republic of China balloon that we took down last Saturday, we have been more closely scrutinising our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase in objects that we’ve detected over the past week,” she said.

The Pentagon was aware that there were objects drifting at such altitudes operated by research ­institutes and private companies.

“But because we had not been able to definitively assess what these recent objects are, the President wanted to act out of an abundance of caution to protect our security and interests,” she said.

Operations were under way to recover all four objects.

Canadian officials described the object shot down over the Yukon on Saturday as small and cylindrical, roughly the size of a small car.

A US F-22 jet, acting on orders from Mr Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, downed the “high-altitude airborne object” about 160km north of the border.

Mr Trudeau headed to the western Yukon territory on Sunday, where recovery teams backed by a Canadian CP-140 patrol aircraft continued the search for debris.

US teams were struggling with Arctic conditions as they searched near Deadhorse, Alaska for the second object, shot down on Friday.

Operations were also continuing off the South Carolina coast, where the past week’s drama ­climaxed when the initial large balloon was shot down. China has insisted that first ­object was a weather balloon blown off course.

Ms Dalton said the US had spoken to Beijing about the balloon after overtures were rebuffed for days, but she gave no details about who was involved in the contact or what they communicated.

China said on Thursday it had refused the offer of a call with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin because of Washington’s “irresponsible” decision to shoot down the balloon.

“This irresponsible and seriously mistaken approach by the US did not create a proper atmosphere for dialogue and exchanges between the two militaries,” China’s defence ministry said.

AFP