Unidentified object shot down in Canadian airspace, third incident of this kind in North America recently

An American fighter jet has shot down an unidentified flying object in Canadian airspace, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says on Twitter.

“I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. NORAD Command 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,” his tweet reads.

According to Trudeau, Canadian Forces will recover and analyse the wreckage of the object. The Canadian prime minister spoke with the US President Joe Biden about the incident and thanked NORAD for “keeping the watch over North America”.

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand said during a press conference that it was a small cylindrical object — smaller than the one previously shot down near the coast of North Carolina. The minister added that the object was flying at an altitude of about 12 km. It was shot down approximately 100 km from the Canada-US border, with a recovery operation underway, Anand explained.

Anand refused to say whether the object could have come from China. Although the defence minister did not use the word “balloon” to refer to the object, AP reports that Gen. Wayne Eyre, chief of Canada’s Defence Staff, said the instructions given to the fighter jets was “whoever had the first, best shot to take out the balloon had the go-ahead”.