US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to reassure Americans on Monday about the risks posed by unidentified objects.
“I want to assure the Americans that these items do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground,” Austin said, speaking to reporters after landing in Brussels for a NATO gathering.
“However, they do present a risk to civil aviation and potentially an intelligence collection hazard.”
The US military has said that targeting the latest objects is more difficult than shooting down Chinese spy balloons, given the objects’ smaller size and lack of a conventional radar signature.
In an example of the difficulty, the latest firing of an unidentified object by an F-16 fighter jet on Sunday resulted in two Sidewinder missiles — one of them failing to shoot down the target, a US official said on condition of anonymity.
Austin said the US military has yet to recover any debris from three recently downed objects, one of which fell in ice and snow off the coast of Alaska. Another shooting occurred in the Yukon Territory in Canada.