For the fourth time in less than two weeks, the US has shot down an unidentified object flying over North American airspace. A Michigan congresswoman tweeted that it happened over Lake Huron on Sunday. "The object has been downed by pilots from the US Air Force and National Guard," Rep. Elissa Slotkin posted, per the AP. Rep. Jack Bergman's office reported that the craft was over US airspace at the time, per the Detroit News. American officials said that the craft went down in the lake and that it will be recovered. There was no sign that the shootdown caused any damage, they said, per NBC News. Airspace over the lake had been restricted earlier in the day by US and Canadian officials while planes were sent to identify the object.
Earlier Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer said that the objects shot down over Canada on Saturday and Alaska on Friday were—like the one the Air Force brought down earlier over the Atlantic near South Carolina—balloons. The majority leader told ABC's This Week that he was briefed by White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan after the US shot down an object flying over Canada. A Pentagon spokesperson didn't quite confirm that the targets were all balloons, per Politico, saying they "were objects and did not closely resemble" the balloon China sent over the US. More will be known when the debris is recovered, Sabrina Singh said.
Either way, Schumer said, "the bottom line is, until a few months ago, we didn't know of these balloons." per ABC News. Schumer praised the military and intelligence work against the balloons but asked, "why as far back as the Trump administration did no one know about this?" Officials said they believe the object shot down Sunday is the same one that was being tracked over Montana beginning on Saturday night. (More spy balloon stories.)
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