U.S. Air Force F-22 Shoots Down ‘High Altitude Object’ Over Alaska

F-22
File photo of an F-22 firing an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. (Image credit: Darin Russell via Lockheed Martin).

Six Days After U.S. F-22 Shoots Down Balloon, A Second Object Has Been Downed.

National Security Council official John Kirby confirmed on Friday that the U.S. has downed another “high altitude object” over Alaska that the Department of Defense has been tracking “over the last 24 hours”.

Kirby told media in a statement released Friday afternoon that, “The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight”. Kirby went on to say that fighter aircraft assigned to the U.S Northern Command had shot down the aircraft within an hour of his 1430 Eastern Time Zone statement.

Officials have not specified if the object was a similar high altitude balloon to the one that was shot down by a USAF F-22 Raptor over the Atlantic coast on Saturday, February 3, 2023.

The U.S. has accused the Chinese of using high altitude balloons for unauthorized surveillance that may include signals intelligence gathering and/or reconnaissance above sensitive U.S. military installations, including nuclear weapons facilities. The Chinese have stated that the balloon shot down on Feb. 3, off the U.S. East Coast was conducting meteorological research.

Again, the aircraft that carried out the downing, achieving the second “kill”, was a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor.

About Tom Demerly
Tom Demerly is a feature writer, journalist, photographer and editorialist who has written articles that are published around the world on TheAviationist.com, TACAIRNET.com, Outside magazine, Business Insider, We Are The Mighty, The Dearborn Press & Guide, National Interest, Russia’s government media outlet Sputnik, and many other publications. Demerly studied journalism at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan. Tom Demerly served in an intelligence gathering unit as a member of the U.S. Army and Michigan National Guard. His military experience includes being Honor Graduate from the U.S. Army Infantry School at Ft. Benning, Georgia (Cycle C-6-1) and as a Scout Observer in a reconnaissance unit, Company “F”, 425th INF (RANGER/AIRBORNE), Long Range Surveillance Unit (LRSU). Demerly is an experienced parachutist, holds advanced SCUBA certifications, has climbed the highest mountains on three continents and visited all seven continents and has flown several types of light aircraft.
About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.