The United States believes the unidentified objects shot down by American fighter jets over Canada and Alaska were balloons, though smaller than the China balloon downed over the Atlantic Ocean last weekend, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Schumer, D-N.Y., told ABC’s This Week that he was briefed on Saturday night by President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, after the incident hours earlier over the Yukon. On Friday, an object roughly the size of a small car was downed over remote Alaska, according to the White House.
Asked whether those two recent objects were balloons, Schumer said, “They believe they were, yes, but much smaller than the first one.”
The government has said the first balloon was about the size of three school buses. It was shot down on February 4 off the South Carolina coast after it had traversed the United States. The Biden administration said it was used for surveillance. China claims it was on a meteorological research mission.
