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   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: jacobscott@gmail.com   
      
   Flying object was the fourth to be shot down over North America by the   
   military in eight days.   
      
   United States fighter jets have shot down an “unidentified object” flying   
   near the Canadian border in the Midwest, the Pentagon said, the latest   
   incident since a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon put North American   
   security forces on high alert.   
      
   The object was flying at 6,100 metres (20,000ft), and while it was not a   
   military threat, it could have potentially interfered with domestic air   
   traffic, Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder said in a statement.   
      
   It was shot down at 2:42pm local time (19:42 GMT) over Lake Huron on the   
   US-Canada border, the statement said.   
      
   It was the third to be shot down over North America in as many days and   
   the fourth in just more than a week.   
      
   The flurry of defence activity began in late January when a white balloon   
   appeared over the US and hovered over the country for days. The US said it   
   was a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon and fighter jets eventually   
   brought it down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4.   
      
   The latest object appeared to be octagonal in structure, with strings   
   hanging from it but no discernible payload, an official told reporters.   
      
   It had been detected over Montana near sensitive military sites, prompting   
   the closure of US airspace, the Pentagon said.   
      
   Not ruling out aliens   
   US Air Force General Glen VanHerck, who is responsible for the protection   
   of US airspace, told reporters that the military had not been able to   
   identify what the three most recent objects are, how they stay aloft, or   
   where they are coming from.   
      
   “We’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason,” said VanHerck,   
   head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Northern   
   Command.   
      
   VanHerck said he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation.   
      
   “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure   
   that out,” he said.   
      
   Legislators have been calling for more information on the objects.   
      
   “We need the facts about where they are originating from, what their   
   purpose is, and why their frequency is increasing,” said US legislator   
   Debbie Dingell, one of several Michigan lawmakers who welcomed the move to   
   shoot the craft down.   
      
   Heino Klinck, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for East   
   Asia, told Al Jazeera that the government needed to be more forthcoming   
   about the latest incursions.   
      
   “I think what the government is currently challenged with is what to   
   release publicly without compromising sources and methods,” Klinck said.   
   “We do not want to provide our adversaries with insights into what we can   
   detect, what we can’t detect [and] how we obtain certain types of   
   information. Nonetheless, it is high time for the government to say   
   something.”   
      
   The latest object was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana but   
   was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again on Sunday   
   hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and moving over Lake Huron,   
   according to US officials, who had knowledge of the incident and spoke to   
   The Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity to discuss the   
   sensitive operations.   
      
   US and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake   
   earlier in the day as fighters were scrambled to intercept and try to   
   identify the object.   
      
   Canadian authorities, meanwhile, are working to find the wreckage of the   
   object shot down on Saturday over the Yukon, a sparsely populated region   
   in the country’s far northwest.   
      
   “Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyse the   
   object,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Sunday.   
      
   “The security of citizens is our top priority and that’s why I made the   
   decision to have that unidentified object shot down,” he said, adding that   
   it had posed a danger to civilian aircraft.   
      
   The three latest flying objects were much smaller in size, different in   
   appearance, and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected spy balloon.   
      
   China denies the first balloon was being used for surveillance and says it   
   was a civilian weather monitoring station. It has condemned the US for   
   shooting it down.   
      
   US officials want to precisely identify the other objects shot down in   
   recent days amid concerns in Washington about what it believes is a large-   
      
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