Pentagon says recovery efforts underway to find high-altitude object shot down over Alaska

Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Pentagon spokesman Gen. Pat Ryder said an F-22 U.S. fighter aircraft successfully took down a high-altitude object over Alaska after it was detected by ground radar Friday.

Ryder, speaking during a Pentagon press briefing, said U.S. Northern Command is conducting debris recovery of the object and, "at this point," the U.S. doesn't know the origin of the object.

Ryder said the object did not appear to have propulsion capabilities. He said it was operating at an altitude that could have endangered civilian aircraft at about 40,000 feet.

"No indication at this time that it was maneuverable," Ryder said. "It did enter U.S. airspace, and we took it down."

He said the object first entered U.S. airspace Feb. 9. Fighter jets "further identified the object," he said. But after reporter questioning, he declined to describe the object in detail.

Ryder said it was "not an aircraft per se," adding that it was traveling in a northeasterly direction when it was shot down.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby earlier Friday confirmed that a "high-altitude object" flying at about 40,000 feet over Alaska was shot down on President Joe Biden's order.

"The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President [Joe] Biden ordered the military to down the object, and they did, and it came inside our territorial waters and those waters right now are frozen," Kirby told reporters in a briefing at the White House.

Kirby said the debris field was "much, much smaller" than the one left by the Chinese balloon that shot down Saturday off the South Carolina coast.

Kirby said debris recovery efforts will be made and that the object was roughly the size of a small car.

Meanwhile late Friday, ABC News said an unnamed U.S. official told it that the undercarriage of the balloon shot down in the Atlantic Saturday had been found largely intact and will be retrieved later.