China 'preparing to bring down aerial object' after US shoots down another

The Chinese military is preparing to bring down an unidentified aerial object over waters near the port city of Qingdao, the site of a major naval base, reports say.

A worker at the marine development authority of Qingdao's Jimo district told Chinese media outlet The Paper that "relevant authorities" are preparing to bring down the object, the Bloomberg news agency reports.

The worker was not informed about what the object was.

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The Jianggezhuang Naval Base, about 30km east of Qingdao, hosts both ballistic and nuclear attack submarines and the country's first aircraft carrier.

It is the command headquarters of the country's North Sea Fleet.

Earlier, the US military shot down another high-altitude object over Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes near the US-Canada border.

The operation marks the third day in a row that an unidentified object was shot down over North American airspace.

An unidentified object was shot down over northern Canada on Saturday.

On Friday, an unidentified object was shot down in Alaska airspace by a US F-22.

And last weekend, a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was taken down by F-22s off the coast of South Carolina.

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Democratic Rep Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said the operation to down the object over Lake Huron was carried out by pilots from the US Air Force and the National Guard.

"Great work by all who carried out this mission both in the air and back at headquarters. We're all interested in exactly what this object was and its purpose," she said in a tweet.

Republican Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan also confirmed the operation Sunday, tweeting, "The US military has decommissioned another 'object' over Lake Huron."

"I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots," he said.

The news comes as US officials were still trying to precisely identify the other two objects blown from the sky by F-22 fighter jets over the past two days, and were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalate about what Washington says is Beijing's large-scale aerial surveillance program.

The object shot down on Saturday over the Yukon was described by US officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the three school bus-size balloon hit by a missile February 4 while drifting off the South Carolina coast after traversing the country.

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A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.

Both were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin.

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US officials said the two more recent objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the US missile strike.

They said the Alaska and Canada objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.

That large white orb first appeared over the US in late January, and since then Americans have been fixated on the sky above them.

US authorities made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them.

- With agencies

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