In a memo sent to lawmakers on Monday, Pentagon officials revealed the first details of the three unidentified flying objects shot down in recent days. The memo described the object shot down in Canadian airspace on Saturday as a “small, metallic sphere with a tethered payload below it.”
The object crossed near “US sensitive sites” before it was shot down, the memo said, according to CNN.
Defense officials also wrote in the memo to lawmakers that the object shot down over Lake Huron, in Michigan on Sunday, “subsequently slowly descended” into the water after impact.
A National Security Council spokesperson said the objects “did not resemble” the Chinese spy balloon, and that the Pentagon “will not characterize them until we can recover the debris.”
The memo comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pressing to gain a better understanding of the three unidentified objects that were shot down in three days following the take down of the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the US the previous weekend.
The Senate is holding a classified briefing for all senators on the shot down objects on Tuesday, according to a spokesman for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The White House on Monday denied that President Joe Biden’s recent swift actions to take down high-altitude objects identified hovering over American airspace were the result of political pressure, following earlier critiques that he waited too long to make the call to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon.
During a press briefing on Monday, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby was asked: “Is it now the policy…if unidentified aircraft are over U.S. territory that it is likely the President will…shoot it down?
“The president will always act in the best interest of our national security and in the safety and security of the American people,” Kirby said.
NBC's @KellyO: "Is it now the policy…if unidentified aircraft are over U.S. territory that it is likely the President will…shoot it down?
Kirby: Biden "will always act in the best interest of our national security and in the safety and security of the American people." pic.twitter.com/rkcioBI149
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 10, 2023
