The White House has claimed the Pentagon downed an unknown object off the coast of Alaska. The Joe Biden administration downplayed the incident, claiming the craft was only shot down as a precaution.

American officials could not confirm what kind of object the US fighter jet intercepted, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby only saying President Biden “ordered the military to down the object, and they did.“

Kirby claimed the object was flying at roughly 40,000 feet and was “the size of a small car.“ The White House says it had no idea where the object came from, why it was off the coast of Alaska, or what kind of assignment it might have had.

The New York Times cited an unnamed American official who said the object did not present any risk to people in the air or on the ground. There were “no affirmative indications of military threat,“ the official assured. It is too early to know what kind of equipment may have been aboard the object, however.

Still, the White House ordered the object to be downed in a similar fashion to a Chinese high-altitude balloon that was intercepted by an F-22 over the Atlantic Ocean last week. The balloon – which Washington claims was a surveillance craft despite Beijing’s insistence that it was a weather balloon – traveled over a large portion of the United States.

China hawks in Congress capitalized on the balloon incident, even after the Department of Defense said it posed no threat to Americans. “It wasn’t a good idea to have a spy balloon fly over our country, it must come down,“ said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Across the aisle, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) declared that “China is OPENLY spying on us and the Biden Admin does nothing. China is trolling us,“ adding “they know Biden is weak.“

This article was originally featured at Antiwar.com and is republished with permission.