Pentagon Says Currently Unable to 'Definitively Assess' Nature of Downed Objects

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Department of Defense (DOD) currently lacks sufficient information on the airborne objects that were shot down over the past days, according to the Pentagon.

"We have not yet been able to definitively assess what these recent objects are. We have acted out of an abundance of caution to protect our security interests," US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs Melissa Dalton said during a Sunday Pentagon briefing.

Dalton said that after the Chinese balloon incident, the US military has been more thorough in tracking suspicious objects in US airspace, which is why a larger number of objects has been detected.

Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of the US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said during the Sunday briefing that he was urging people not to attribute the recent airborne object incidents to any specific country, since the Pentagon lacked information in that respect.

When asked about the objects’ possible connection to aliens, VanHerck told reporters that he has not "ruled out anything" and was going to "let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out."

"I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven't ruled out anything," VanHerck said during a Sunday Pentagon briefing when asked if the UFOs could be attributed to aliens.

Earlier on Sunday, the Pentagon confirmed that an airborne object was shot down over Lake Huron in the US state of Michigan, at the direction of US President Joe Biden, because it presented a threat due to potential surveillance capabilities.

On Saturday, an unidentified object was shot down by a US F-22 aircraft over the Yukon Territory in Canada. The White House said that the downed object had been tracked over 24 hours and was unmanned.

On Friday, the Biden administration announced that the United States shot down an unidentified object flying at approximately 40,000 feet near Alaska’s northern coast along the Arctic Ocean. Biden ordered US military aircraft to take down the object due to a potential hazard to civilian airplanes.