The White House said Friday that an unknown "high-altitude object" had been shot down over the waters off Alaska.
President Joe Biden ordered the shootdown, spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the origin of the object has yet to be determined.
Responding to reporters' shouted questions about the shootdown Friday afternoon outside the White House, Biden called the operation a "success."
It comes just days after the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon last Saturday, following a political firestorm.
Kirby said the object was about the size of a small car and was at flying about 40,000 feet.
He said because it posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight, that out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, Biden ordered the military to down the object.
ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz first reported that when fighters were scrambled, the pilots did visuals, got images and said there was no sign the object had propulsion.
It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said.
Asked if was "balloon-like," the official said, "All I say is that it wasn't 'flying' with any sort of propulsion, so if that is 'balloon-like' well -- we just don't have enough at this point."
"It came in, inside our territorial waters, those waters right now are frozen, but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters. Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object within the last hour," Kirby said.
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https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-shoo ... d=97040022