WASHINGTON — The Pentagon shot down an unidentified object over frozen waters around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Biden, according to U.S. officials, less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic.
U.S. officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the object was a balloon, but it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
At a news conference on Friday, John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said that Mr. Biden ordered the unidentified object near Alaska downed “out of an abundance of caution.”
Some Republican officials had called Mr. Biden weak for not shooting down the Chinese spy balloon as it hovered over Montana and then drifted southeast last week, a step that Pentagon generals had advised against for fear that debris could hurt people on the ground.
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