US closes Lake Michigan airspace, cites ’national defense’ post UFO sightings

US officials restricted the airspace over Lake Michigan on Sunday citing a potential new threat to national security, as the United States and Canada respond to a series of recent air intrusions.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced "temporary flight restrictions" over one of the Great Lakes along the US-Canada border, designating it as "national defense airspace," one day after a similar closure over Montana led to the scrambling of US fighter jets.

The Montana closure was ordered over a "radar anomaly," but no object was discovered.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday said that on his orders US fighter jet had shot down an “unidentified object" that was flying high over the Yukon. The claim comes days after US government said they had shot down a Chinese Spying balloon.

North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined US-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected the object flying at a high altitude Friday evening over Alaska, US officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday.

Trudeau spoke with President Joe Biden, who also ordered the object to be shot down. Canadian and US jets operating as part of NORAD were scrambled and it was a US jet that shot down the object

"President Biden authorized US fighter aircraft assigned to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to work with Canada to take down a high-altitude airborne object over northern Canada today," Pentagon Spokesman Pat Ryder said in a statement.

One of two F-22 fighter jets monitoring the object fired an AIM 9X missile that brought it down, it said.

On 4 February, US officials shot down a large white balloon off the coast of South Carolina.

The balloon was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said.

The US has said Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of countries across five continents in recent years, and it learned more about the balloon program after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina.

(This is a developing story. More details will be added)