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The first of two missiles fired from an F-16 fighter jet at an unidentified object in Lake Huron on Sunday missed the object but landed safely in the water, US General Mark Milley said on Tuesday.
“First shot missed, second shot,” said Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in response to reporters’ questions at a press conference in Brussels.
Reuters reported on Friday that the first two missiles had missed an object, one of three unidentified objects shot down by US fighter jets over US and Canadian airspace between Monday and Sunday.
“In this case, the bullet landed harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron, we tracked it all the way down,” said Milley. “And we make sure the airspace is free of commercial or civilian or recreational traffic.”
The first two incidents of the weekend occurred in Alaska and Yukon. In both cases, Milley said, the objects were brought down on the first try.
Espionage was not detected in the last 3 incidents: White House
The three incidents over the weekend came after US officials identified the object as a Chinese surveillance balloon and shot it down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4. The incident caused another flare-up in testy relations between the two superpowers, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceling a planned visit to Beijing.
Milley, like other officials, said they would use the term “object” to refer to the three most recent incidents. Entering the depth of water in Lake Huron, as well as the remote location and cold temperatures in Alaska and Yukon, Milley cautioned that “it will take some time to recover that.”
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, confirmed the first miss over Lake Huron to reporters in Washington.
Kirby told reporters that the U.S. does not yet know the origin of the last three objects. The intelligence community is considering the possibility that the trio could be balloons “tied to commercial or benign purposes.”
He said there was no sign the three objects were tied to China’s spy balloon program.
Officials have said one explanation for the new flurry since the balloon was first detected is a change in NORAD filters to detect objects that are moving slowly and at different heights.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he ordered the object over the Yukon shot down, and the American F-22 destroyed it at 3:41 ET. Trudeau did not mention the Lake Huron miss in comments to reporters on Saturday in the Yukon.
A US military F-22 fighter jet shot down an unidentified object said to be about the size of a small car near Deadhorse, Alaska.
Congress wants more answers
US senators reportedly received another briefing on the latest developments on Tuesday.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, “owes the country some answers.”
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Biden “needs to communicate and level with the American people.” He asked what the administration knew about China’s surveillance efforts before the first balloon crossed the country.
WATCH l The latest trio of unmanned, propulsion-less objects:
Search teams are currently scouring Lake Huron and the Yukon region looking for debris from two of the three unidentified objects shot down in North America. Officials said the objects all appeared to be floating, had no bodies and no known propulsion systems.
The Biden administration last week listed six Chinese entities linked to Beijing’s suspected surveillance balloon program.
“China hopes that the US will stop its unreasonable oppression of Chinese companies, and will take the necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” the commerce ministry in Beijing said in a statement on Tuesday.
China said on Tuesday that more than 10 high-altitude balloons released by the United States since May 2022 had flown into its airspace and other countries.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin did not provide details on the other countries involved, refusing to specify which part of Chinese airspace the incident occurred in or provide photographs as evidence.
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