A new unidentified object or UFO was shot down over Canada today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote in a tweet on February 11, 2023.
Shortly after Trudeau’s tweet, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued an alert saying it was closing airspace over Havre, Montana, for national defense reasons and then, according to a Montana congressman, reopened it a short time later. You can read more about the Havre alert here.
The development comes after an U.S. fighter pilot shot down an unidentified object off the coast of Alaska on Friday, February 10, 2023, according to a White House spokesman. And it comes a week after the United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon.
Officials have not identified the objects shot down over either Alaska or Canada. According to CNN, regarding the object shot down Friday off the coast of Alaska, “US military pilots sent up to examine the object gave conflicting accounts of what they saw.”
Here’s what you need to know:
According to Trudeau, a U.S. F-22 Shot Down the ‘Unidentified Object’
I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. @NORADCommand shot down the object over the Yukon. Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled, and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object.
Trudeau wrote in his tweet that the United States took down the object over Canadian airspace.
“I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. @NORADCommand shot down the object over the Yukon. Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled, and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object,” Trudeau wrote in the tweet.
Trudeau also tweeted, “I spoke with President Biden this afternoon. Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object. Thank you to NORAD for keeping the watch over North America.”
Anita Anand, Canada’s defense minister, tweeted, “Today, a @NORADCommand aircraft shot down an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled and a U.S. F-22 fired at the object. I discussed this with @SecDef Austin and reaffirmed that we’ll always defend our sovereignty together.”
The U.S. Government Shot Down a ‘High-Altitude Airborne Object’ Friday Off the Coast of Alaska
John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said in a February 10, 2023, news conference about the object shot down over Alaskan waters, “We’re calling this an ‘object’ because that’s the best description we have right now.”
He described the Alaska object as “much, much smaller than the spy balloon,” and he said it was not “maneuverable.” He said the U.S. government is not even sure whether it was state-owned or privately-owned.
Pentagon Spokesman Pat Ryder said at a Friday news conference that the object in Alaska was a “high-altitude airborne object” that was shot down in U.S. territorial waters. He said it was flying at 40,000 feet and could have imperiled civilian planes. Ryder described the object as the size of a small car.
Pilots who approached the Unidentified Flying Object over Alaska did not know how it was actually staying in the air cruising at that altitude when they could identify no identifiable propulsion system
Both Kirby and Ryder said in their respective news conferences that they aren’t sure what the object over Alaska was.
CNN reported that some pilots said the object shot down near Alaska “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, and others said they saw “no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air.”
The Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina and after traversing part of the United States, according to the U.S. defense secretary.
In a statement, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said that a U.S. fighter aircraft “assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully brought down the high altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the water off the coast of South Carolina in U.S. Airspace.”
READ NEXT: See Videos of the Chinese Spy Balloon Being Shot Down.