“It’s surreal”: the search for a mysterious flying object began in a Canadian lake

A military aircraft patrols over the US-Canada border as a Coast Guard icebreaker searches for wreckage

On Sunday, the US military shot down the third flying object over North American airspace in the past few days, raising broader national security questions as more mysterious objects are picked up on radar. Canada is now searching for debris that fell into Lake Huron.

It was a mild, sunny winter day when Canadian Tara Shannon learned that all airspace over her community in southeastern Ontario was closed. Shortly thereafter, the woman and her neighbors began receiving scattered reports that a mysterious high-flying object had been sighted in the area.

“I went outside and it was just quiet there. It was surreal,” said children’s author Shannon, who lives near the community of Tobermory. – Usually you hear commercial planes. But it didn’t mean anything. The sky was clear and everything was quiet.”

Soon, however, the roar of engines broke the silence, and a moment later fighter jets roared overhead.

Shannon and others on the coast of Lake Huron have found themselves at the center of a search for unidentified flying objects amid a flurry of incidents and a wider geopolitical conflict between the US and China.

A high-rise unidentified object, described as an “octagonal structure” with ropes attached to it, was shot down Sunday afternoon near Canada’s Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron.

Officials say it’s the same object that was picked up by radar over Montana on Saturday. It was shot down by an air-to-air missile launched from an F-16 fighter amid concerns that its 20,000-foot altitude could pose a danger to civilian aircraft.

The mission to destroy the object came just a day after an object about the size of a small car was hit over rugged terrain in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Canadian enforcers are currently scouring the vast and piercingly cold landscape for any debris.

Residents on the shores of Lake Huron say they learned little about the downing mission or search efforts over the past day, according to The Guardian.

“We didn’t know what was going on. Was he going to land in our yard? What was it made of? Tara Shannon says “And now we don’t know if they found anything or where it might have been. We are left with so many questions.”

Defense officials from both Canada and the United States have not released details of the downed targets in recent days. The first object, a Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina, reportedly contained technology to monitor and intercept communications.

In a local social media group for Presque Isle, an American community on the northwest shore of Lake Huron, residents also reported hearing planes in the area on Sunday.

Some resort to conspiracy theories to explain the ballooning in recent days, while others joke about extraterrestrial visitors.

On Monday, flight-tracking websites showed aircraft circling around a section of the lake about 20km south of Manitoulin Island, including a low-flying US Coast Guard aircraft, in what appeared to be mostly water searches. Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray tweeted that a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker will help locate and recover any object from the waters of Lake Huron.

Military personnel equipped with cold weather diving equipment were expected to be dispatched to search the area for any debris that could be retrieved.