US Military Takes Down ‘Octagonal’ Object Over Great Lakes Region

U.S. F-16 fighter jets are seen in a file photo. South Korea Defense Ministry via AP

The U.S. military shot down an unidentified object that was flying over Lake Huron on Feb. 12, according to a U.S. House lawmaker from Michigan, who revealed it had an “octagonal structure.”

“I’ve been in contact with DOD regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today,” Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) wrote on Twitter at around 3:30 p.m. Washington time. “The US military has decommissioned another ‘object’ over Lake Huron. I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots.”

Bergman told Fox News on Feb. 12 that the object had an “octagonal structure” and was shot down by an F-16 jet at 20,000 feet. He cited Pentagon officials for the information.

“They informed me that an F-16 using an AIM-9 missile had shot down an octagonal structure over Lake Huron. The altitude was about 20,000 feet,” Bergman said in a phone interview aired by Fox News. Officials are working to recover the debris, he added, saying that there was “no damage to human life or property.”

The Pentagon later confirmed that the F-16 jet had fired an AIM-9x short-range air-to-air missile to down the object.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer, wrote that “the object has been downed by pilots from the US Air Force and National Guard,” adding, “great work by all who carried out this mission both in the air and back at headquarters.

“We’re all interested in exactly what this object was and it’s [sic] purpose,” Slotkin wrote. “As long as these things keep traversing the US and Canada, I’ll continue to ask for Congress to get a full briefing based on our exploitation of the wreckage.”

Unnamed military sources told ABC News and CNN that U.S. forces shot down the object, described as high-altitude. The nature of the object wasn’t disclosed.

The FAA confirmed that it had closed “some airspace over Lake Huron to support Department of Defense activities,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Feb. 12. The Department of Defense didn’t respond by press time to a request for comment.

It was the fourth flying object in recent days to be downed over North American airspace, coming about a week after a U.S. F-22 shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast. That balloon was spotted near Billings, Montana, and was allowed to traverse across the United States before the U.S. military took action.

On Feb. 10 and 11, unidentified flying objects were shot down by U.S. jets over Alaska and northern Canada. So far, officials have provided few details about them, including whether or not they, too, are suspected spy balloons.

On Feb. 12, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed to The Epoch Times that it temporarily restricted the airspace over Lake Michigan before that airspace was reopened a short while later. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) confirmed that it “implemented a temporary flight restriction airspace over Lake Michigan at approximately 12 p.m. EST on Feb. 12, 2023.”

“The FAA briefly closed some airspace over Lake Michigan to support Department of Defense activities,” an FAA spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Feb. 12, without elaborating further. “The airspace has been reopened.”

Meanwhile, Canadian investigators are hunting for the wreckage of the mysterious flying object shot down by a U.S. fighter jet over Yukon territory, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Feb. 12. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), citing White House adviser Jake Sullivan, said that officials believe both objects were also balloons, albeit smaller than the one shot down near the South Carolina coast a week ago.

Also, on Feb. 11, the FAA and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) restricted a portion of Montana’s airspace after a “radar anomaly” was discovered. A U.S. military aircraft didn’t identify any object to correlate to what was spotted on radar, NORAD said.

The Pentagon said in its statement on Sunday that it believes “based on its flight path and data” that the object downed over Lake Michigan was the radar signal picked up over Montana, and that the object flew in proximity to sensitive DOD sites.

“Our team will now work to recover the object in an effort to learn more,” it added.

Additionally, the FAA shut down airspace around Phoenix and Glendale, Arizona, on Feb. 12 due to the NFL’s Super Bowl LVII. The FAA and NORAD have shut down the airspace in the vicinity of Super Bowl games in previous years.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Feb. 12 the administration was looking “somewhat trigger-happy.”

“Although that is certainly preferable to the permissive environment they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of most sensitive sites,” Turner added.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the Biden administration to be as forthcoming as possible about the takedown incidents.

UPDATE: This article has been updated to include a statement from the Pentagon.