'Unidentified Object' Shot Down Over Lake Huron

An "unidentified object" was shot down with a missile by American fighter jets Sunday over Lake Huron, not far from Michigan airspace, U.S. officials said. It was believed to be the same one tracked over Montana and monitored by the government beginning the night before.

“Our national security and safety is always a top priority,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tweeted shortly before 4:30 p.m. “I’ve been in contact with the federal government and our partners who were tracking an object near our airspace. I’m glad to report it has been swiftly, safely, and securely taken down.”

About an hour earlier, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, tweeted the military had “an extremely close eye on the object above Lake Huron,” and, around 4 p.m., she wrote that the object had been downed by pilots from the U.S. Air Force and National Guard.

“We’re all interested in exactly what this object was and its purpose,” Slotkin tweeted. "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."

The North American Aerospace Defense Command briefly restricted airspace for flights over Lake Michigan around noon, citing command operations.

The downing Sunday comes after earlier objects in Alaska and Canada were shot out of the sky because they were flying at altitudes that posed a threat to commercial aircraft, according to officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The object shot down Saturday over the Yukon was described by U.S. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the three-schoolbus-sized balloon hit by a missile Feb. 4 while drifting off the South Carolina coast after traversing the country. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.

Both were believed to have a payload, either attached to or suspended from each object, according to officials who spoke to The Associated Press anonymously.

U.S. officials said the two more recent objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.