F-22 shoots down new ‘object’ over US airspace, days after Chinese balloon saga

WASHINGTON — The US military on Friday shot down an “object” flying over Alaskan airspace, just days after the nation was captivated by the saga of an alleged Chinese spy balloon passing over the country.

An F-22 Raptor fighter jet from US Northern Command launched an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile around 1:45 pm ET to take down what Biden administration officials described as a car-sized object flying above Alaska. That was the same combination of jet and missile that destroyed the Chines balloon over the weekend.

“We don’t know what entity owns this object,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing to reporters shortly thereafter. “There is no indication that it’s from a nation or an institution or an individual. We just don’t know who owns this object.”

What is clear, Kirby said, is that the object is much smaller than the Chinese high-altitude balloon shot down on the East coast last week.

Speaking after Kirby, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the object was flying at 40,000 ft and was a “responsible threat” to civilian aircraft. He added that operations are already underway to recover the remains of the object. (Of note, Kirby said that the water under which the object was shot down was frozen.)

Ryder, who like Kirby avoided calling the object a “balloon,” noted it was “not similar in size or shape to the high-altitude surveillance balloon” that was destroyed on Feb. 4. Ryder also said it “wasn’t an aircraft, per se.”

The visible case of the Chinese balloon dominated headlines starting late last week and through the weekend, and led to a quickly-convened Thursday hearing of the Senate Appropriation Committee’s defense subcommittee.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, used that hearing to express her frustration that the Biden administration was apparently tracking the Chinese balloon but choose not to act when it was over Alaskan airspace.

“As an Alaskan, I am so angry. I want to use other words, but I’m not going to,” Murkowski told witnesses from the Defense Department, including Melissa Dalton, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs.

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“You said, Ms. Dalton, that the clear message here we sent a clear message to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] when we shot this down in our sovereign waters. Seems to me the clear message to China is ‘We got free range in Alaska because [the US is] gonna let us cruise over that until it gets to more sensitive areas,’” Murkowski said. “You know, at what point at what point do we say a surveillance balloon a spy balloon coming from China is a threat to our sovereignty? It should be the minute the minute it crosses that line, and that line is Alaska.”

As to the F22: 17 years after being declared operational, the Raptor has now scored its first two air-to-air kills in the span of five days — though hardly against the rival, highly sophisticated jet fighters the plane was designed to take on.