Object shot down over Canada: Trudeau confirms that NORAD shot an “unidentified object”

For the third time this month the United States military has shot down an object flying over North America, sparking further concerns about the worrying trend.

This time the object was observed hovering over Canadian airspace and the military, after being given the green light by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, shot it out of the sky.

Trudeau confirmed the news on Twitter on Saturday, saying: “I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. @NORADCommand shot down the object over the Yukon. Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled, and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object.”

At this stage it is not clear what the object was, but Trudeau did confirmed that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had been tracking a “a high-altitude airborne object” prior to the incident.

Trudeau added: “Canadian forces will now recover and analyse the wreckage of the object”.

This incident comes after the US military shot down another unidentified object on Friday as it hovered over Alaska. Earlier this month the White House confirmed that a suspected Chinese spy balloon had been tracked and shot down after spending days over US territory.

What is NORAD?

The object was first identified and subsequently tracked by NORAD, a joint organisation from the US and Canadian government that cooperates on aerospace issues. The organisation is designed to allow the two nations to share information and help protect each other’s airspace.

NORAD was founded in 1958 and was intended to aid the Strategic Air Command’s early warning and defensive capabilities. The organisation grew during the Cold War as aerial attacks became an ever-present concern for the two countries.

In the late 1980s, with the Cold War context fading, operations were broadened to include anti-smuggling activities and tracking small aircrafts entering and operating in the shared airspace.

Most recently, the mission statement of the NORAD Air Warning Center was “expanded to include the interior airspace of North America” in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.