MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US shoots down a “high altitude” flying object, this time over Alaska frozen waters

The White House said it was notified of the object late Thursday. “The president ordered the military to down the object,” National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

A United States fighter jet shot down an unidentified high altitude object overflying the state of Alaska, the second time in a week that such an operation takes place, it was announced on Friday by the White House .

The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet (12,200 meters) and is reported to have come down in US waters just off the far northeastern coast of Alaska, near the Canadian border.

The White House said it was notified of the object late Thursday. “The president ordered the military to down the object,” National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

The incident comes after the Pentagon downed what says was a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean on February 4.

Kirby did not describe the object shot down Friday as a balloon, saying instead that a fighter jet had shot down a high altitude object that was the size of a small car and had posed a “reasonable threat” to civilian flights.

The Pentagon on Friday added that the object shot down Friday “wasn't an aircraft per se.”

Kirby told reporters Friday: “We do expect to be able to recover the debris, since it fell not only within our territorial space, but what we believe is frozen water, so a recovery effort will be made,” adding, “We do not know who owns it, whether state-owned or corporate-owned. We don't understand the full purpose.”

Kirby also said the US military had sent a plane to observe the object before it was shot down. The pilot assessed that it “was not manned.”