American fighter planes intercepted an unidentified balloon on Friday over Utah but have determined it isn’t a threat to national security, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The balloon, which is traveling eastward with the jetstream at around 43,000 feet, or roughly 8 miles, is “not maneuverable” and poses “no hazard to flight safety,” the command said in a statement. It is not clear who owns the balloon.
The incident comes about one year after the highly controversial weeklong saga in which the Pentagon tracked a large Chinese spy balloon that flew across the entirety of the continental United States before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean by an F-22 fighter.