On the direction of the President of the United States of America, USAF’s F-22 fighter shot down a mysterious flying object using a Sidewinder air-to-air missile on Friday.
The Pentagon confirmed the incident and said a jet of USAF shot down an unidentified object flying above 40000 feet above sea level. A high-end jet fighter of the USAF shot the mysterious flying object over frozen waters around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Biden, less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic in an episode that increased tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Mystery shrouds the identity of the object which was shot down less than a week after the fighter jets had shot down a balloon that the US authorities believed, was a Chinese spy.
Officials have refrained from commenting on the issue further. Also. they didn’t disclose whether the object was a balloon. What they could confirm so far is that the object hovering thousands of meters above was surely a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Friday, John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said concerned officials had brought the matter to the notice of Mr. Biden who immediately ordered the forces to shoot down the object near Alaska.
Interestingly, Biden didn’t waste a second when it comes to ordering shooting the object this time. The Friday shootdown showed Mr. Biden taking direct and forceful action far more quickly compared to what he did last week deciding the fate of the spy balloon. Biden came under sharp criticism from Some of Republican lawmakers for letting the spy balloon linger over the United States for several days before destroying it.
Defending Biden’s earlier decision, well-infirmed US officials argued period of observation last week allowed American officials to collect intelligence about the spy balloon, while in the episode on Friday, officials seemed unsure about what exactly they shot down.
New York Times had quoted Pentagon officials as saying that said they were able to immediately bring down the object over water, so they could easily avoid the dilemma posed by the spy balloon drifting over populated areas, which had prompted commanders to recommend to Mr. Biden to wait to shoot down the machine in order to avoid any chance of debris hitting people on the ground.
Regarding Friday’s incident, U.S. officials said that the government did not know who owned or sent the object seen above Alaska, which, like the Chinese balloon last week, was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet using a Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
Several officials said they believed the object shot down Friday was a balloon, but a Defense Department official said it broke into pieces when it hit the frozen sea, which added to the mystery of whether it was indeed a balloon, a drone, or something else.