By Jack Phillips
The U.S. military took down another object that was flying over Lake Huron, according to a Michigan House lawmaker on Sunday.
“I’ve been in contact with DOD regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today. The US military has decommissioned another ‘object’ over Lake Huron. I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots,” Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) wrote on Twitter at around 3:30 p.m. ET.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer, wrote that “the object has been downed by pilots from the US Air Force and National Guard,” adding, “great work by all who carried out this mission both in the air and back at headquarters.
“We’re all interested in exactly what this object was and it’s [sic] purpose,” Slotkin wrote. “As long as these things keep traversing the US and Canada, I’ll continue to ask for Congress to get a full briefing based on our exploitation of the wreckage.”
Alleged unnamed military sources told ABC News and CNN that U.S. forces shot down the object, described as high-altitude. The nature of the object was not disclosed.
The Pentagon and the FAA have not issued public comments about the incident. The Epoch Times has contacted both NORAD and the FAA for comment.
It’s the latest time that an unidentified object was found over U.S. territory in recent days, coming about a week after a U.S. F-22 shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast. That balloon was spotted near Billings, Montana, and was allowed to traverse across the United States before the U.S. military took action.
On Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed to The Epoch Times that it temporarily restricted the airspace over Lake Michigan before that airspace was reopened a short while later. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) confirmed that it “implemented a temporary flight restriction airspace over Lake Michigan at approximately 12 p.m. EST on Feb. 12, 2023.”
“The FAA briefly closed some airspace over Lake Michigan to support Department of Defense activities,” an FAA spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Sunday, without elaborating further. “The airspace has been reopened.”
On Friday and Saturday, two unidentified flying objects were shot down by U.S. jets over Alaska and northern Canada. So far, officials have provided few details about them, including whether or not they, too, are suspected balloons.
Canadian investigators are hunting for the wreckage of the mysterious flying object shot down by a U.S. fighter jet over Yukon territory, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), citing White House adviser Jake Sullivan, said that officials believe both objects were also balloons, albeit smaller than the one shot down near the South Carolina coast a week ago.
Also Saturday, the FAA and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) restricted a portion of Montana’s airspace after a “radar anomaly” was discovered. A U.S. military aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to what was spotted on radar, NORAD said.
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) on Sunday wrote on Twitter that it may not have been simply a radar issue. He did not provide additional details about what he was told.
“I am in constant communication with NORCOM and they have just advised me that they have confidence there IS an object and it WAS NOT an anomaly. I am waiting now to receive visual confirmation. Our nation’s security is my priority,” Rosendale wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon.
Also Sunday, the FAA shut down airspace around Phoenix and Glendale, Arizona, due to the Super Bowl. The FAA and NORAD have shut down airspaces around previous Super Bowl games in previous years.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Sunday the administration was looking “somewhat trigger-happy.”
“Although that is certainly preferable to the permissive environment they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of most sensitive sites,” Turner added.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the Biden administration to be as forthcoming as possible about the takedown incidents.
