A newly released image showing the UFO that was shot down by a US fighter jet over Canada in 2023 has added more questions and uncertainty to the object floating over the Yukon.
The grainy, blurry image captured the “cylindrical” “suspected balloon” 40,000 feet above the Great White North in February 2023 days before it was taken out, according to CTVNews, which obtained the image through an information request with Canada’s Department of National Defence.
A US F-22 shot the object, which was first tracked flying over Alaska eight days earlier, out of the sky on Feb. 11, 2023.
Officials in the US and Canada began tracking the UFO again when it crossed into Canadian airspace, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the order to shoot it down just after 4:50 p.m.
An American pilot struck the object with an AIM 9x missile.
The airborne object previously described as a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload” was spotted amid three other cases in which North America dealt with unidentified objects in the sky.
Between Feb. 10 and Feb 12, three objects were spotted floating over North America before they were downed over Alaska, the Yukon and Lake Huron, respectively.
They were all smaller than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that traveled from Alaska across the United States before it was shot down over South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2023.
China used American technology in its spy balloon that snooped on US military bases earlier this year, a federal investigation analyzing the object’s debris has found.
The Canadian government was prepared to release the photo of the Yukon UFO, having declassified it and approved it for the public to see before holding off.
“Attached is an image approved to be released,” Canadian military leaders wrote in a Feb. 15, 2023, email, according to the outlet. “We are looking at getting a better one to send to you.”
The Department of National Defence was going forward with the release of the image before the acting assistant deputy minister for public affairs questioned whether the public should see it.
“Should the image be released, it would be via the [Canadian armed forces] social media accounts,” the official wrote. “Given the current public environment and statements related to the object being benign, releasing the image may create more questions/confusion, regardless of the text that will accompany the post.”
It was later recommended the Canadian department should wait on the release “pending US engagement,” leading to the photo never seeing the light of day for over a year and a half.
President Biden confirmed the three objects were shot down but said there were no “suggestions they were related to China’s spy balloon program, or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.”
