The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has provided more information about the actions of the military on Sunday afternoon after an airborne object was shot down over Lake Huron.
According to the DOD, an F-16 aircraft shot down an airborne object that was approximately 20,000 feet above Lake Huron on President Joe Biden’s orders at 2:42 p.m. on Sunday.
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The agency says the path and altitude of the object were cause for concern; they said it could have been a hazard to civil aviation.
Previous: Michigan officials confirm object over Lake Huron has been shot down
The location for the shootdown was chosen to avoid impact on people on the ground and to improve chances for debris recovery, according to the DOD.
North American Aerospace Defense Command first detected the object Sunday morning and continued to track it before it was shot down.
Based on the flight path the object was traveling on, the DOD says they “can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana.”
In their statement, the DOD wrote, “We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but assess it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities.”
Teams are now working to recover the object to learn more about what it was and what it was doing.
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