Canadian recovery teams searching for third flying object shot down over North American airspace, Trudeau says

Search teams are on the ground in Canada’s Yukon territory searching for an object that a U.S. F-22 fighter jet shot down on Saturday, the third object shot down in a week over North American airspace, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

“Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyze the object,” Trudeau told reporters on Sunday morning. 

“Yesterday afternoon, I also spoke with President Biden and confirmed together that we will continue to do everything necessary to protect the sovereignty of our shared North American airspace, but also to do everything necessary to keep our citizens safe.”

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) first detected the “high-altitude airborne object” flying at about 40,000 feet over Alaska late on Friday evening and scrambled jets to monitor it and “characterize the nature of the object.”

A U.S. F-22 Raptor shot down the object using an AIM 9X missile over Canada on Saturday afternoon. 

REPUBLICANS REACT TO THIRD ‘OBJECT’ SHOT DOWN OVER CANADA: ‘UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE’

Separately, U.S. fighter jets shot down another object on Friday over northern Alaska. Both incidents came about a week after the U.S. shot down a much larger, 200-foot tall Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. 

U.S. officials are still working to recover the aircraft that was shot down over Alaska but it “could be some time before we get access,” a senior U.S. official tells Fox News, citing weather conditions at this time of year. 

The latest two objects were both unmanned and neither could be steered. The object shot down over Canada is believed to be a “small metallic balloon with a tethered payload,” a U.S. official said. The country of origin for both of the latest objects is unknown. 

The Federal Aviation Administration also “briefly closed some airspace over Lake Michigan to support Department of Defense activities” on Sunday morning. The U.S. military examined a “potential contact” that was determined to not be a threat and the airspace was re-opened. 

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.