1st missile shot at unidentified object over Lake Huron missed, general confirms

Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press
·2 min read
3
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed Tuesday the first Sidewinder missile fired at an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Sunday missed its target before a second shot brought it down.

Fox News first reported on Monday that the initial shot at the object missed. Milley was asked about it during a joint news conference in Brussels with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

"The missile landed harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron," Milley said. "We tracked it all the way down. And we made sure the airspace was clear of any commercial, civilian or recreational traffic. We do the same thing for the maritime space, so we’re very very deliberate in our planning."

U.S. Secretary for Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, left, and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley participate in a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. NATO defense ministers, attending a two-day meeting starting Wednesday, will discuss beefing up weapons supplies to Ukraine, and Sweden and Finland's applications to join the transatlantic military alliance. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

More:Rumors, theories spread about unidentified object shot down over Lake Huron

The object was the fourth to be shot down in recent days by the U.S. military. According to officials, the first was a high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon which was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, though China has denied that it was a surveillance instrument. U.S. officials were unsure about the other three objects, which were at lower altitudes. One was brought down in Alaska and the other in Canada, with the cooperation of Canadian officials.

Members of the U.S. intelligence community are saying that it is possible the three objects shot down after the surveillance balloon were benign but they won't know for sure until they are recovered and examined. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the intelligence community believes they may have been related to commercial or academic research but no one has come forward so far to claim ownership of the objects.

On Monday, John Kirby, an official with the National Security Council, said because the other three unknown airborne objects were at lower altitudes and appeared to be following prevailing winds, they posed a possible risk to aircraft and were downed "out of an abundance of caution."

The object seen Sunday was shot down about 15 nautical miles east of the Upper Peninsula in Lake Huron. Milley noted that while a second shot had to be fired in the case of the Michigan object, the other three were all brought down on the first shot.

On Tuesday, Milley reiterated that it could take time to recover each of those other three objects because of where they were shot down and added that the one in Lake Huron is in water "probably a couple hundred feet" deep. "We'll get them eventually," he said.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Unidentified object over Lake Huron: Missile missed target