U.S. not taking any chances in shooting down unidentified object over Lake Huron
DETROIT (FOX 2) - It's been a full day since the United States military shot down a flying object over Lake Huron and there are still plenty of unanswered questions about what it was.
It's the latest in a string of encounters of flying objects, dating back to early February when a suspected spy balloon from China crossed the entire country before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina.
Michigan Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin said while much remains unknown about the object that was shot down by the U.S. military over Lake Huron this weekend, it was not a national security concern.
"NORAD, which has the mission of protecting the United States, is paying extremely close attention to anything that's flying in our skies," she said Monday. "They've really lowered the threshold of what they're looking at and this pinged on their radars about 24 hours ago."
Slotkin and Senator Gary Peters were both in town for separate events but both said the Biden Administration is doing what needs to be done and, even though they don't pose any threats, they're not taking any chances.
"You’re seeing a very aggressive posture right now by this administration - objects tracked, monitored very closely, safe for Americans on the ground," Peters said.
They're getting backed up by the White House, which defended the decision on Monday to down the three objects.
The three objects, including one shot down Sunday over Lake Huron, were traveling at such a low-altitude as to pose a risk to civilian air traffic, said White House national security spokesman John Kirby. And though the Biden administration does not yet have evidence that they were equipped for spying purposes, or even belonged to China, officials also couldn't rule it out either, he said.
The sky over Lake Huron in Michigan after an object was shot down Sunday. (Photos from Twitter handle @DLDT_MrHills. Used with courtesy from FOX. )
The Pentagon says the objects are different in size and shape than the Chinese balloon.
The object in question was first detected over Lake Michigan. Officials decided to shoot down the object after it had crossed over Michigan and above Lake Huron.
An F-22 downed the object around 3 p.m. Sunday after closing airspace.
A joint retrieval operation between the U.S. and Canada is underway, but choppy waters in Lake Huron made recovery difficult.
"We watched it traverse from the Lake Michigan side to Lake Huron, and they chose to shoot it down over Lake Huron so we could have a chance of collecting what it was," Slotkin said.
She said officials are still unsure what the object is - but "chances are this is just a normal run-of-the-mill that we and the intelligence community know how to exploit."
"I know there's lot of talk about UFOs and all of that, let's let our military do their job, collect the information. I have no reason to believe this is a UFO and I noticed the general's wording left open the door so I know that's gotten all kinds of excitement."