An unidentified object was shot down over Lake Huron by the U.S. military, leading many to speculate on the object’s origin and intent.
Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, speaking in Howell Monday at an event to discuss funds her office secured for four Livingston County projects, shared that U.S. and Canadian forces are currently working on retrieving the object, though the choppy waters of Lake Huron in February are a challenge to navigate.
Currently, it is unknown where the object originated from, what its intent was, why it was in the region, and to whom it might belong. There has been much speculation as to the object’s origin and purpose due to the presence of Chinese spy balloons in U.S. airspace. Five spy balloons have been sighted over the continental U.S. since 2017, the most recent having been shot down off the coast of South Carolina. The object is in the process of being retrieved from the ocean and examined by U.S. intelligence. A similar object was shot down over Yukon Territory in Canada, although intelligence officials have not yet provided clarification on the identity of this object. The Lake Huron object is the third high-altitude object to be downed, with Slotkin explaining that, in addition to the initial balloon, there have been three different objects traversing North America. As a yet-to-be-identified aerial object, it can technically be referred to as a UFO, though the Biden Administration has discredited any pseudoscientific hypotheses.
“We do not know what it is right now,” Slotkin reiterated. “I’ve seen a lot of speculation from another Chinese object to an academic who put up some sort of sensing device. We don’t know yet, that’s why we like to collect things.”
As an ex-CIA analyst, Slotkin is well-acquainted with the processes and procedures of collecting and analyzing items of interest. Once the object is retrieved, it will be taken to a secure facility and thoroughly analyzed in order to determine its origin, intent, and function. Until then, she noted that the best course of action is to “let our military do their job, collect the information.”
“Chances are,” Slotkin concluded, “this is just a normal, run-of-the-mill thing that we in the intelligence community know how to exploit, that’s what I expect to learn in the next couple of days.”
While limited information on the Lake Huron object is available, Slotkin assured the press that this is not considered an immediate threat to national security, adding that NORAD and U.S. intelligence are paying extremely close attention to anything in U.S. airspace. Furthermore, in a recent tweet, Slotkin noted that “as long as these things keep traversing the US and Canada, [she’ll] continue to ask for Congress to get a full briefing based on our exploitation of the wreckage.”
