WASHINGTON, February 13. /TASS/. The Pentagon is currently unable to attribute the airborne objects that were shot down over North America in recent days to any specific country, Commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command General Glen VanHerck said.
"I would be hesitant to and urge you not to attribute it to any specific country. We don't know. That's why it's so critical to get our hands on these so that we can further assess and analyze what they are," he told reporters during a briefing following the shootdown of a flying object over Lake Huron.
The US authorities earlier identified a Chinese balloon at an altitude exceeding the norm for commercial flights, which posed no threat to people on the ground. On February 4, the US Air Force downed what the Pentagon said was a spy balloon collecting vital information in US airspace. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his visit to China over the incident. The Chinese Foreign Ministry noted that the civilian airship, which was used for meteorological research, had deviated from its planned course.
Over the past week, the North American Aerospace Defense Command detected three unidentified objects, two of which were shot down by the US military in US airspace and one over Canada.