What happened
After the downing of a Chinese spy balloon on February 4, 2023, NORAD tuned its radars to detect small, slow targets. On February 10 fighters shot down an object over Alaska, and a day later, on the afternoon of February 11, a U.S. F-22, on the orders of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden, shot down another object over central Yukon with an AIM-9X missile. Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand described it as a small, cylindrical object. On February 12 a third object was shot down over Lake Huron. The Canadian military and the RCMP searched the snow-covered terrain for several weeks but found no debris. The series of events drew enormous media interest and questions about UFOs, to which the White House replied that there was no indication of extraterrestrial activity.
Witnesses
The F-22 pilot and the crews of NORAD aircraft tracking the object; the object was detected by radar.
Explanations and hypotheses
President Biden said that the three objects shot down on February 10–12 were most likely balloons belonging to private companies, research organizations, or hobbyists rather than spy devices. A group of American amateur radio enthusiasts suggested that one of them may have been their small balloon, which disappeared in that area. Since the debris from Yukon was never found, the object’s origin has not been confirmed.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
More: Wikipedia (en)