Havre airspace in Montana was shut down for nearly an hour after a mystery object was seen flying in the skies above the area 30 miles south of the Canadian border, on Saturday night.
Just hours before on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, revealed that “an unidentified object” that violated Canadian airspace had been shot down by U.S. F-22s in Yukon by US and Canadian forces. It was a joint order given by Trudeau and President Joe Biden, the White House revealed later.
Soon after the incident, US and Canadian aircraft were quickly scrambled on Saturday night to Havre. According to The North American Aerospace Defense Command, fighter jets were unable to find the mystery object above Havre. The Command Center also reported that they “did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits.”
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They will continue to monitor the situation following three incidents that already occurred in the past week. Two Chinese spy balloons have been shot down over the US and a third object over Canada.
Montana congressman Matt Rosendale, who was enjoying dinner in Columbus, Montana, was briefed about the situation by security officials. He told Fox News: “I’m at an event, a Lincoln Reagan dinner in Columbus, Montana right now. And DOD called me as I have been sitting here and started giving me briefings to tell me what was going on. I clarified with them that this is actually the fourth balloon, OK.”
Rosendale added: “The first we shot down over the Atlantic. One was shot down before it entered into Alaska’s airspace. A third was shot down, Trudeau ordered over Canada. So now we’re talking about a fourth incident. DOD told me that they are going to be tracking the object – they can’t even say exactly what it is – they are going to track the object until it gets light again. They don’t have the ability to put any more eyes on it with aircraft until it’s light again. And then tomorrow morning we’ll be dealing with it.”
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According to NORAD a “radar anomaly” was seen, but jets “did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits.” The department said in a statement: “NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.”
Greg Gianforte, the governor of Montana tweeted: “I received a briefing tonight at the White House about an object in Montana airspace. I will continue to receive regular updates. With questions about the Chinese spy balloon still unanswered, the Biden administration must be fully forthcoming with Montanans and all Americans.”