The US Air Force recently shot down four mysterious flying objects over North American skies in a span of about a week, and the commander of the military commands responsible for the downings has revealed why.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command (NORTHCOM), explained in a briefing Sunday that the uptick in discovery and engagement follows a tweak of the radar filters after a Chinese spy balloon drifted across the continental US earlier this month.
NORAD and NORTHCOM changed their radar filters to detect smaller, slower-moving flying objects, and VanHerck said operators are on “heightened alert” and looking more closely for these smaller and slower objects. Since the US Air Force shot down the Chinese balloon in early February, fighter jets have downed three additional airborne objects.
The F-22 Raptor, a fifth-generation fighter jet, fired a single AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile to down the Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, sending the large system plummeting over 60,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean. An F-22 used an AIM-9X to down an unidentified object over Alaska days later and an F-22 fired an AIM-9X to take down a second unidentified object over northern Canada the following day.
On Sunday, an F-16 — still using the AIM-9X — took down an object over Lake Huron that was flying at a low altitude of 20,000 feet, well below the cruising altitude of many commercial airliners.
While the US identified the first object as a high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon, North American militaries have yet to explain publicly what the other objects are — aside from offering a few details about size and shape — and what purpose they serve.
Despite the lack of information, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said last week that the decision to shoot down these objects was still made out of an “abundance of caution to protect our security and interests.” He added that the objects did not pose a “kinetic military threat,” but they were traveling in proximity to “sensitive” US military sites and that their relatively low altitude could possibly threaten civilian aircraft.
Recovery teams are now working to collect debris from the downed objects, but it’s not immediately clear where they all came from. Ryder said China operates a global network of surveillance balloons that extends across five continents and multiple regions, but it is unclear if the objects that were downed in the wake of the Chinese spy balloon were also of Chinese origin.
As the US and Canada continue to keep a closer eye on their airspace, it’s likely that more of these mysterious flying objects will be shot down in the future.
