'Far too early' to say whether object shot down over Yukon came from China: Canadian defence minister

Canada's Defence Minister Anita Anand on Saturday (local time) said that "it's far too early" to say whether an "unidentified object" shot down over Yukon came from China.

"I will not be speculating on the origins of this object this evening. It is far too early in our analysis of the debris as we are still collecting," she said while addressing a news conference.

This comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Saturday to shot down the object after it violated Canadian airspace.

Anand said that the object was cylindrical in shape, and smaller than the Chinese balloon that the US shot down a week ago.

She noted the object, "potentially similar to the one that was shot down to the one shot down off the coast of North Carolina though was smaller in size and cylindrical in nature."

An F-22 fighter jet of US shot down an unidentified object over Canada on February 11, the second such incident in North America amid heightened alert following a week-long Chinese spying balloon saga.

The object was downed approximately 100 miles from the Canada-US border over central Yukon.

In a tweet, Trudeau said the operation was conducted under NORAD, or North American Aerospace Defense Command, a combined organization of the United States and Canada. And that a US F-22 fighter jet "successfully fired at the object."

"At the direction of the prime minister, aircraft assigned to NORAD successfully took down this high-altitude airborne object at approximately 3:41 pm Eastern Standard Time," said Anand during a press conference, noting it was visually identified using NORAD fighter aircraft.

"Recovery operations are now underway," she added.

"To our knowledge, this is the first instance of NORAD downing an object in Canadian airspace, and the importance of this moment should not be underestimated. We detected this object together and we defeated this together," Anand said.

The object was flying at approximately 40,000 feet and "posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight," Anand said.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen Wayne Eyre added that the instructions given to the pilots of the aircraft -- two F-22s and two CF-18s -- was for "whoever had the first best shot" to take it, reported Global News.

In a phone call Saturday between Trudeau and Biden, "the leaders discussed the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin," according to a readout from the White House.

"The President has been continually briefed by his national security team since the object was detected," the readout stated.

"Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of their militaries, President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau authorized it to be taken down. President Biden authorized US fighter aircraft assigned to NORAD to conduct the operation and a US F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory in close coordination with Canadian authorities," the readout said.

The incident came a week after a Chinese surveillance balloon that had flown into Canadian airspace and the northwestern U.S. for several days before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean by the US Air Force.

It's not known if the object being monitored on Saturday originated in China.

Asked why Canada didn't intercept the first balloon when it passed through Canadian airspace, Anand told reporters that the government had monitored the craft and "determined that it posed no imminent risk to Canadians at all."

Meanwhile, American security and defence officials have accused China of using surveillance balloons to spy on countries over several years and across five continents.

The US began collecting pieces of the downed Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast on Tuesday and will examine the craft's payload to better understand what it was surveilling. Parts of the craft have already begun arriving at the FBI's Quantico, Virginia headquarters.

( With inputs from ANI )