US Military Shoots Down Fourth Flying Object Near Michigan

The U.S. military shot down another high-altitude object Sunday, reports CNN — this one flying near Michigan.
'The operation marks the third day in a row that an unidentified object was shot down over North American airspace.'
Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said Sunday that the operation to down the object over Lake Huron was carried out by pilots from the U.S. Air Force and the National Guard.... The object was flying at 20,000 feet over Michigan's Upper Peninsula and was about to go over Lake Huron when it was neutralized, a senior administration official told CNN on Sunday.

The object was 'octagonal' with strings hanging off and no discernable payload, according to the official and another source briefed on the matter. While the U.S. has no indication that the object had surveillance capabilities, that has not been ruled out yet.

Why have so many flying objects been spotted in the last week? The Washington Post says the Chinese spy balloon and subsequently-spotted objects 'have changed how analysts receive and interpret information from radars and sensors, a U.S. official said Saturday.'
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that sensory equipment absorbs a lot of raw data, and filters are used so humans and machines can make sense of what is collected. But that process always runs the risk of leaving out something important, the official said.

'We basically opened the filters,' the official added, much like a car buyer unchecking boxes on a website to broaden the parameters of what can be searched. That change does not yet fully answer what is going on, the official cautioned, and whether stepping back to look at more data is yielding more hits — or if these latest incursions are part of a more deliberate action by an unknown country or adversary....

The official said the current U.S. assessment is the objects are not military threats.

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