What does our military command think they are, and why did they feel justified in shooting them down? Via CNN:
With the North American Aerospace Defense Command on heightened alert, US fighters have now blasted three objects out of the skies since Friday following the shooting down of the Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coast on February 4:
- In the latest event, a high-altitude object was shot down on Sunday afternoon by an F-16 over Lake Huron, which lies between Michigan and Ontario. The Pentagon said the object was not assessed to be a military threat but was a flight hazard. But it did connect the craft to a radar signal picked up earlier over Montana, the home to US intercontinental missile silos and other sensitive sites.
- On Saturday, a US F-22 warplane operating on the joint orders of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Biden fired a missile that took down an object flying at 40,000 feet over central Yukon in the far north of Canada. Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand described a “cylindrical object” smaller than the Chinese balloon.
- On Friday, an F-22 shot down another unidentified craft over Alaskan airspace. US pilots were able to get up around the object before it was shot down and reported that it didn’t appear to be carrying surveillance equipment.
For what it's worth, former Senate majority leader Harry Reid was extremely involved in the topic of UFOs, and took them very seriously as a national security matter.