A United States fighter jet has shot down an unidentified cylindrical object over Canada in a joint operation by the North American neighbours.
The shootdown on Saturday was the second such action in as many days and comes as North America appeared on heightened alert following a week-long saga over a suspected Chinese spying balloon.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first announced the shootdown over the Yukon territory in the country’s north and said Canadian forces would recover and analyse the wreckage.
Canadian defence minister Anita Anand declined to speculate on the origin of the object, which she said was small and cylindrical in shape. She stopped short of describing it as a balloon but said it was smaller than the Chinese balloon shot down off South Carolina’s coast a week ago, but similar in appearance.
She said it was flying at 12,100 metres (40,000 feet) and posed a risk to civilian air traffic when it was shot down at 3:41 EST (20:41 GMT).
“There is no reason to believe that the impact of the object in Canadian territory is of any public concern,” Anand told a news conference.
The Pentagon said the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected the object over Alaska late on Friday evening. US fighter jets from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, monitored the object as it crossed over into Canadian airspace, where Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joined the formation.
Source: aljazeera.com
