US shoots down unidentified high-altitude aerial object in Alaska

A US fighter jet has shot down an object, the size of a small car, flying at a high altitude over Alaska on the direction of President Joe Biden, the White House said on Friday.

According to Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the object posed a "reasonable threat to civilian air traffic".

The object, whose origin is yet to be ascertained, has fallen off the coast of Alaska in frozen water and an effort is on to collect as much debris as possible, he told reporters at a news conference.

This came almost a week after the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean. It had hovered over continental America for several days after entering the US airspace on January 30 in Montana.

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