Chinese authorities say they are preparing to shoot down an “unidentified flying object” spotted over a major naval base, Bloomberg reported Sunday.
Maritime authorities said the object was spotted near the city in Rizhao, according to the state-run Global Times newspaper.
The newspaper said authorities were preparing to shoot the object down, and were urging fishermen in the vicinity to be safe.
The news comes after U.S. F-22 fighter jets shot down three objects in the airspace above the U.S. and Canada this month, including one Washington said was sent deliberately by China for surveillance.
Beijing countered that it was a harmless weather-monitoring device that blew off course.
On Friday, an object roughly the size of a small car was shot out of the skies above remote Alaska. Then on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said a U.S. fighter jet had shot down an “unidentified object” that was flying high over the Yukon in northwest Canada.
Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said jets were scrambled after the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected the object flying at a high altitude over Alaska on Friday evening and it crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday.
“A U.S. F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory using an AIM 9X missile following close coordination between U.S. and Canadian authorities,” Ryder said.
Trudeau said Canadian Forces would “recover and analyze the wreckage of the object.”
The White House said on Sunday it’s too early to characterize the two latest objects shot down by US fighter jets over North America.
