>
China is preparing to shoot down an unidentified object seen flying over a port, according to reports.
The object has been spotted near the port city of Qingdao and an employee of the city’s Jimo district marine development authority said authorities are preparing to shoot it down.
The clerk had not been told what the object is, but did say that fishermen in the area had been warned to be careful.
Reports about the mysterious object have been made in the Chinese government spokesperson, The Global Times, and in social media posts on Weibo.
It comes after the US and Canada shot down several high-altitude objects so far this month.
Reports of an unidentified object over the Chinese city come after the US and Canada shot down a small car-sized flying object (file image of an F-22 Raptor)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had ordered the object shot down when it violated Canadian airspace.
The US government said one of the balloons, shot down off the coast of South Carolina, contained spy equipment.
Beijing responded, saying the balloon, which flew over the US for three days, had been a weather kit.
A Montana congressman said late Saturday that he had been told an unidentified object had been seen over his district, forcing a temporary airspace closure and the search to resume in daylight.
Federal agents ordered the Montana airways closed hours after the object was shot down in Canada.
Matt Rosendale, a Republican elected in 2020, said the Defense Department had tipped him off while he was at dinner with Lincoln Reagan.
Fighter jets were scrambled and airspace over Havre, a city of 10,000 30 miles south of the Canadian border, was closed at 7:50 p.m. before reopening about 50 minutes later.
“I’m at an event, a Lincoln Reagan dinner in Columbus, Montana right now,” Rosendale told Fox News.
‘And the DOD called me when I was sitting here and started giving me reports to tell me what was going on.
‘I clarified that this is actually the fourth balloon, okay.’
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, confirmed that an object had been shot down by US F-22 jets in the Yukon.
The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts into the ocean after being shot down off the coast of Surfside Beach, South Carolina.
Earlier on Saturday, Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, confirmed that an object had been shot down by US F-22 jets in the Yukon, as part of a joint US-Canadian operation.
Rosendale continued: ‘The first one we shot down over the Atlantic. One was shot down before entering Alaskan airspace. A third was shot down, Trudeau ordered over Canada. So now we are talking about a fourth incident.
He said he was told the Pentagon would track the object, but they couldn’t shoot it down because it was dark.
“The DOD told me they’re going to track the object, they can’t even tell exactly what it is, they’re going to track the object until it lights up again,” he said.
“They don’t have the ability to put more eyes on it with aircraft until it’s light again.
And tomorrow morning we’ll take care of it.
NORAD said a “radar anomaly” was seen, but the planes “did not identify any objects to correlate with the radar hits.”
“NORAD will continue to monitor the situation,” they added.
A fighter jet shot down an object posing a “reasonable threat” to civilian flight, hovering 40,000 feet over Alaska on Friday.