The U.S. on Friday shot down another "high-altitude object," this time over Alaska, meaning the Biden administration is taking threats "very seriously," says retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt.
President Joe Biden ordered the unmanned object be shot down Friday morning, hours after learning about it from the Pentagon.
"I think we're starting to understand that the American people have little tolerance for other countries' unauthorized aircraft coming into our country and now we're doing the right thing and eliminating threats before they come to the continental United States," Holt said during an appearance on "American Agenda."
"This is great news. I know that there is an HC130 from the Air Force over this area right now. Those aircraft are typically positioned for search and rescue missions and recovery missions so they're doing everything they can to locate the object and then they'll start to do sensitive site exploitation here soon. The airspace has been cordoned off in all directions so they're taking this one very, very seriously and quite frankly, I'm very happy to see that."
The U.S. military shot down a Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 after it flew across the country for several days. Biden was criticized for waiting so long.
U.S. officials said they could not confirm whether the object shot down Friday by the Pentagon over frozen waters around Alaska was a balloon, but said it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
Holt suggested China was the source.
"China already got in trouble once with this and yet they've done it again so now we have to get into strategic intent from the Chinese," he said.
"What are they trying to accomplish? They've been told to knock it off and they're not knocking it off and so very quickly we've got to get to a high state of readiness because we don't know what their intent is."