House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said Sunday he prefers how the US shot down unidentified objects over North American airspace in recent days to allowing them to traverse the country.
Later Sunday, a US fighter jet shot down an unidentified object near Lake Huron, marking the fourth time in a week that the US military has taken down objects in North American airspace. An unidentified object was shot down over northern Canada on Saturday, and on Friday, an unidentified object was shot down in Alaska airspace by a US F-22. A Chinese surveillance balloon was taken down by F-22s off the coast of South Carolina last weekend.
“I would prefer them to be trigger-happy than to be permissive, but we’re going to have to see whether or not this is just the administration trying to change headlines,” Turner, an Ohio Republican, said of the Biden administration in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” before Sunday’s shoot-down took place.
“What I think this shows, which is probably more important to our policy discussion here, is that we really have to declare that we’re going to defend our airspace. And then we need to invest,” added Turner. “This shows some of the problems and gaps that we have. We need to fill those as soon as possible because we certainly now ascertain there is a threat.”
There’s no indication at this point that the unidentified objects have any connection to China’s surveillance balloon but it seems that national security officials across the continent remain on edge.