0 a little further detail on that, the decision was made this morning he just revealed, asked when did the president give the order to shoot it down? this morning. >> john: talk about burying the lede, talks about all of this other stuff, and then a reporter says, oh, by the way, did you shoot something down? oh, yes. here are the details. my gosh. >> martha: grade to be with you come have a great weekend. i'm sandra smith. >> martha: elsey and monday, thank you for joining us, "the story" with martha continues to breaking news. >> it's actually a trace, good afternoon, and trace gallagher in for martha maccallum, "the story" is a bombshell as we can train new breaking news, about to go to the pentagon as a white house confirms a "high altitude object was shot down over alaska today. though there is no confirmation on who owns the object. we don't know if it is state owned or corporate owns, we just don't know that right now, mainly because we spotted this thing at night. in a moment, republican congressman jim banks who sits on the armed services committee and general jack keane will join us, but first, for the very latest on the breaking news let's bring in lucas tomlinson to give us a run down. lucas, you know a lot about these types of objects, these airborne objects, would you make of the breaking news? >> well, trace, we have learned moments ago, the white house hang the u.s. military has shot down an object flying at 40,000 feet over u.s. territory waters over northern alaska in just the last hour. john kirby said it was a fighter jet that down the object over alaska on the orders a president biden today. the debris is sitting on frozen water in the or take over northern alaska trace and he said this is a much smaller object to them previous by craft that was shot down last saturday. this one is about the size of a small car, john kirby just said. he also said no significant payload, keep in mind last weekend, the payload about 2,00y craft, he says that the object was shot shot down because it was a flight issue, because u.s. civilian airliners are flying a 40,000 feet and saying the object did not appear to maneuver like the spy balloon that the u.s. shut down last week off the coast of south carolina. >> trace: i want to go back to the breaking news said that john kirby standby, we will get back to you. >> the prime minister told president putin to stop the war, and they said, this is not the way and will go like this, and with think that there is still time for him to stop the war? with president putin? >> i think that there is still time for mr. pruden to stop the war -- i think there is still time for mr. putin to stop the war prayed i will let the prime minister stop don't make speak to whatever efforts he wi. but i want to stress it again, doyle. currently the united states would welcome any effort that could lead to an end of hostilities in ukraine. that are in keeping with the president zelenskyy's objectives. and his leadership, his determination of what is acceptable to the ukrainian people. nothing about ukraine without ukraine. sue president biden has said this gosh, dozens of times. we think that this work could end today, should end today. the single person responsible for what the ukrainian people are going through his vladimir putin. and he could stop it right now. instead, he is firing cruise missiles into energy and power infrastructure and trying to knock out the lights in the heat so the ukrainian people suffer even more than they already have, he could end it right now. and since he is not willing to do that, clearly, we have to make sure that we can help ukrainian succeed on the battlefield, so that when president zelenskyy determines its times to negotiate, and he is the only one who can make the determination, he can do it with the strongest hand possible. >> 1.54 billion people in and r are ready to welcome the next trip. >> other than what was talked about, i don't have any trouble to announce. >> now for the boring part of the briefing. >> trace: with the pentagon briefing should start any moment now, we will get more information on this object to that was flying over alaska and that was shot down somewhere near alaska and the canadian border on the northeastern side of the continent. we want to bring in joe concha, media and politics columnist and fox news contributor. your thoughts on how this was handled primarily, it was not brought up as hate, we have breaking news and want to notify you, it was a question asked and then the pentagon grabbed the paper, john kirby, rather not the pentagon, former spokesperson picked up the paper and said, oh, by the way, we want to confirm we did shoot down an object, we don't know what the object was at a certain time because we were concerned about air traffic or the certain time in the morning because we were concerned about air traffic coming your thoughts? >> right, trace, in this object we are told was shot down hours ago. in the white house decided not to say anything about it. and as you just said, john kirby, that's the lead. you get up to that podium and that should be your first announcement and you should be proactive in getting that information to the press and not wait for question to be asked by a reporter in terms of uncovering this. so it is interesting that we were told last week, trace, that that spy balloon that flew across the country could not be shut down as it approached alaska, our airspace or was over alaska or montana or other rural areas, could not shoot that down because it was a threat to civilians on the ground, but now with the latest object over northern alaska, the president ordered to shoot this down without hesitation it appears. it's a lot more questions than answers, no question. >> trace: just to give a timeline, so we are clear, and then you bring up a very good point which is if the question was not asked to during the white house briefing, would the subject have been brought up? i mean, that's a key thing, if you don't lead and have the information going into the news conference, if the question was not asked by somebody, and we don't know what to put this person got to ask the question, with the subject have been brought out? and secondly, we learned during this news conference that to the president found out about this last night. so he waited at least the better part of ten, 11, maybe 12 hours before making the decision to shoot this down. they had fighter jets that went up there, they were close enough to this object, again, he wants a balloon or anything else, close enough to know that it was unmanned. they got close enough to see that there was nobody inside this object, but not close enough apparently to decipher exactly what this object is or was. >> right, and trace, this is still as clear as mud, so what kind of object was this? was it a drone? wasn't an unmanned aircraft? was it a balloon? it's amazing john kirby ran from the podium and now we see karine jean-pierre up there instead. and i'm sure that she won't be able to answer any questions about this, which is kind of the thing with her when it comes to any tough question. but overall, was this going to be a major breach of our sovereignty again? and who sent this aircraft? i would imagine china is number one in terms of if you were to guess given their history around these things, but we don't know much right now, and to your point, i have a feeling that this would not have been broached if that reporter did not ask mr. kirby when he did. i think they would've moved on with other things. to be on standby if you would come i want to bring in lucas tomlinson again, who covered the pentagon and still covers for many years also former military, good at these things, luke, as you know the inside game, it seems to me like we are not getting the whole story. it seems to me like it was brought up because a question was asked. it was told to us that we had fighter jets that got close enough to the object where they could see that it was unmanned and then he says it was night, so it was hard to tell what the object was, but we knew that there was nobody on it, so it was okay to shoot down. but it seems like the information is kind of coming in and john kirby was answering on the fly, what is your take away of what you saw today? >> it is notable that "the new york times" actually first reported on the shoot down just minutes before, i even texted jacqui heinrich, our colleague at the white house about the shoot down and one of the questions in the briefing like joe just said was not part of the top or off the top, and a question was asked about the shoot down, john kirby did have a prepared statement, it's very notable they are calling this an object, not a spy craft or spy balloon. it's notable that unlike the last balloon that was shot over the aleutian islands and southwest alaska, this was shot over the floor area of northeast alaska along the border with canada near the artech and is notable that kirby said it was shot down over frozen waters, they are hoping to recover some of this, and also interesting that john kirby did not say which country this came from that it was just a big mystery. in this object was much different in the spy craft shot down over south carolina last saturday. much smaller about the size of a small car and did not have the large payload, certainly going to be a scramble straight from the former defense chief stating they are scrambling to reach the debris, gather as much, and the conditions will be tough in northern alaska on the middle of the winter, trace. spin on my second question would be if you know there is no payload, you know there are no people on board this thing, how do you not know what it is? i mean, you know, it is small enough, you can't tell me what country it is from? you can't tell me if it is corporate or state owned, but you can tell me there is not a significant payload on this thing, how would one decipher that from a fighter jet at 40,000 feet being maybe a couple of thousand feet away from this. >> just peer size, f-22, and more space in alaska, so plenty of aircraft, they launch routinely to intercept the bear bombers over near alaska, supplying nearby and taking photos and sending us back and having and analyzed in the fact that it was discovered last evening, certainly many hours that went by because it was a immovable object traveling the size of a small car, but traveling at the same speed, they were able to do some estimated positioning if you will, so it was found much farther west and was traveling east. >> trace: lucas standby, let's bring in house armed service committee republican jim banks of indiana, congressman, thank you so much for coming on. i want to know what you make of this and if it is china sending this object, maybe not a balloon, but an object over, still waiting for the pentagon briefing when it starts, we will go to it. if, in fact, this was china, what do you make of that and what is going on? >> well, first of all it is good news that they are on alert now and they spotted this object as it flew into the u.s. airspace, it still begs the question why they weren't on alert last week when the spy balloon flew into the air space for many hours before the public was made aware of it and they were made aware of it because people were looking up in the sky and saw it. so we don't know enough about the new object, but we can assume that it probably is -- has been sent by the chinese and this president for two years has shown so much weakness towards the chinese, now is the time to act, let them know we will not stand. >> trace: let me pause you right here, here is the pentagon briefing. >> first of all to add to information already provided earlier by the white house at the direction of the president of the united states, fighter aircraft assigned to u.s. northern command successfully took down a high altitude airborne object off the northern coast of alaska at 1:45:00 p.m. eastern standard time today with any u.s. sovereign airspace over u.s. sovereign water, the command detected an object on ground radar, further investigated, and identify the object using fighter aircraft. the object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet imposed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flights. u.s. northern command is beginning recovery operations now. u.s. northern command's alaska command, coordinated the operation with assistance from the alaska international guard, federal aviation administration and the federal bureau of investigation. we have no further details about the object at this time including any description of its capabilities, purpose, or urgent. the object was the size of a small car, so not similar in size or shape to the high altitude surveillance balloon that was taken down off the c cow coast of south carolina on february 4. separately u.s. northern command continues to recovery operations in support of the recent takedown of the chinese high altitude surveillance balloon, recovery teams have mapped the debris fields and are in the process of searching for and identifying debris on the ocean floor. the debris that has been recovered so far as being loaded on the vessels, taken ashore, catalogued, and moved onwards for subsequent analysis, but i won't go into specifics due to classification reasons, i can say we have located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to the further understanding of this balloon and it surveillance capabilities. of note, due to less than favorable see states right now, teams will continue to conduct underwater survey and recovery as conditions permit. the department wants to thank the interagency partners from the u.s. coast guard, the fbi, state and local authorities for their continuing assistance and partnership. in other news, and i think that this is important that we remember a lot of folks and people in turkey and syria are suffering we want to express our support for the people of turkey and syria as they respond to the deadly earthquakes that struck their earlier this week. in support of ongoing u.s. assistance efforts spearheaded by the u.s. agency for international development coming u.s. european command has position personnel and equipment and a range of assets to aid government of turkey and its continued search and rescue efforts, this includes george wh bush carrier strike to the eastern mediterranean sea to provide logistics, medical, and rotary airlift support if required. additionally u.s. army aircraft began flying missions out of the airbase on february 7th to transport first responders to the most effective populations, and on february eighth, blackhawks transported civilians to a medical facility. u.s. european command has designated u.s. full civil forces europe and africa as the lead component command overseeing the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts within turkey. to aid in that determination, general andrew pretty, u.s. naval amphibious forces extradition theory per grade arrived february 9th to lead military coordination efforts with u.s. agencies involved in the humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts. we will continue to provide you with updates as we receive them coming uconn will be issuing a press release with further details, but again, we offer our thoughts and prayers to the people of turkey and syria during this tragic and difficult time. and finally, secretary austin welcomed a bilaterally meeting here today, the secretary express his thanks for the cooperation rendered by canada in altitude surveillance balloon that violated the sovereignty of both of our countries, during the meeting they reaffirm the close defense relationship between the united states and canada and it will be available later today on the defense side, and with that i will take your questions, will start with associated press. >> hi, thank you for doing this, a couple of questions on the latest shoot down, first, what type of u.s. fighter aircraft was used and what type of munition did they fire, and do you already have navy assets or coast guard assets outs involved in a recovery process? and then i have a few more. >> thank you. so the aircraft that took down the object was an f22 flying outs of joint base elmendorf and alaska, and employed in a nynex to take down the object. in terms of assets that are currently involved in terms of recovery, we have hc 1:30, hh c, and hc3 aircraft participating in that effort. >> you mentioned there was a reasonable threat, was there also a threat to potentially this object detecting some of our more sensitive radar capabilities that are based in alaska? and then, what has him and said it is where this object has come from, is there any indication that this was also a chinese surveillance balloon object, whatever it is? >> at this point, we don't know the origin of the object, again, we will know more once we are able to potentially recover some of those materials, but the primary concern again was the potential hazard to civil flight and so, again, we will know more later. thank you. >> a perceived threat to any of the radar installations we have based in alaska? >> again, right now we will know more once we assess it, but we'll just leave it at that, thank you. liz. >> thank you. thanks for taking my question. what made this threatening enough to shoot down? what is different about this object in the last object to that was over alaska, because it was chosen not to shoot the last one down over alaska? >> so the important thing to understand here is any time we detect anything, we are going to first of all observe it and then make a decision and take appropriate action, so you have to look at each individual case on its own merits, and this particular case given the fact that it was operating at an altitude that posed a reasonable threat to civilian air traffic in the determination was made and the president gave the order to take it down. >> was there a specific threat of air traffic incident that could've happened? >> again, as you well know, civilian aircraft operates at a variety of ranges up to 40-4500a reasonable concern that this could present a threat to two or potential hazard to civilian air traffic. >> has secretary austin reached out to his chinese counterpart or any other counterparts at all since this has been tracked? >> since this particular object? no, we go here and then i will come over more. >> from the previous balloon has been covered, what information do you have about the capabilities of the bloom. >> we are continuing to assess that, i can't go into more detail other than learning a lot about the ballooning capability said it has while it was over the continental united states, we have identified or located a significant amount of debris on the ocean floor that will be very beneficial to us learning more about it, but at this point in time i'm not going to have more details. >> and the balloons indicated that they are all manufactured in china, so it is from china? >> again, i won't have details at this point in time. >> but 39 other countries have indicated they have seen balloons in their territories, showing those information from the pentagon to these countries or the capabilities of how you shut them down? >> in terms of what we are learning about the balloons come i know the state department has talked about this in outreach certainly, the department of defense plays a role in those relationships and so we will continue to work with our allies and partners to share information along with our state department colleagues. i will go to lauren. >> two questions, first of the object show any signs of maneuverability or propulsion anyone other pentagon officials made a big deal about how much intelligence was gathered by letting the other one flowed across much of the united states, and you shut this one down before, is that the pentagon bowing to political pressure? was there nothing to gain from this one? >> so again, we are going to judge each of these on its merits, no indication at this time that it was maneuverable, but again, we will know more. and in terms of the united states, it did enter u.s. air space and we took it down. >> intelligence from the previous one? >> we will recover what we can add more to. >> was the decision to shoot it down before it entered too far? bowing to a political pressure from the hill? >> we will judge each of these objects on its own merits, it entered into u.s. airspace on february 9th. we sent help aircraft to assess what it was, the decision was made that it posed a reasonable to civilian air traffic, the president gave the order to take it down and we took it down. thank you. laura, then i will go to dan. >> sorry, thanks for taking my question. so a couple of questions, first of all, has anything like this happened before with an object to this size, this shape, in this particular height, the 40,000-foot range, has that happened before? and then second of all, why did you -- can you say more about why you knew that last balloon or object was from china where is this one you don't know? >> so in terms of this particular object, again, as i highlighted, we don't know where it is from preto post a reasonable threat to civilian air traffic and so the determination was made to take it down. in terms of the other balloon, as i have mentioned in our previous briefing, we have learned a lot about the chinese surveillance high-altitude balloon program. we gathered a lot of information over the last couple of years, and so we were able to based on that information detected a very early stage as it approached u.s. airspace we had a good understanding of what it was as he mentioned we were able to monitor that closely, track it when i went over the continental united states and learned a lot about it and take it down at the report appropriate time. >> just to put this in a different bucket than that, or shall be -- >> i think i was pretty clear, this was traveling at about 40,000 feet, which posed a potential reasonable threat to civilian air traffic and the decision was made to take it down. >> when the pilot approached it and they determined, i understand that it was not manned, how did they determine that? and at that point, wouldn't it be possible to at least describe what they were looking at? did it resemble a balloon or an airplane? >> again, we will have more information once we have recovered this, i will give credit to our pilots that they are very capable in terms of looking at an object, assessing whether or not this had the potential to be manned. at that altitude something that small, very, very unlikely that it was manned. and so again, no indication that it was manned presented a potential reasonable threat to civilian air traffic and we took it down. >> what speed wasn't traveling at by the way? >> i don't have that information. >> the chinese balloon, is it still in the pentagon's view possible or maybe even likely that it was not necessarily intentional, but when that balloon turned and blew eastward, that it seemed to have had some technical problem? >> so dan, what it would tell you based on the information we have, it was being maneuvered and purposefully driven along its track. again, recognizing that winds do play a role, because of the maneuverability of the balloon, it is our assessment that this was a purposeful mission. in terms of the chinese motivations, again, i would have to refer you back to china to talk about that. >> thank you. sorry, i've got it. we emailed to you police body camera footage showing a national guard general in ohio pushing my colleague and having to be escorted away from him this week, we asked the ohio national guard for comment, but the u.s. a spokesperson for the department of defense condone such conduct by a commissioned officer of the u.s. military against an american journalist? >> let me be clear, the answer is no, that is not acceptable behavior, the secretary of defense, the department of defense absolutely supports -- strongly supports a free and independent press, so again i would refer you to the ohio national guard for any comments about that particular incident, but i can assure you that that is not acceptable behavior. >> any conduct under the -- >> i would have to refer you to them, i'm not going to make those kind of policy comments here from the podium in terms of what they may or may not be doing to address it, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on that. when we go to nancy. >> i had a couple of clarifying questions, you said that the pilots were able to see it, that it was not the same shape or size of the balloon, can you say definitively was not a balloon? >> at this point, considering the fact that we are still assessing the object, i don't want to get into characterizing it, so let's just leave it at that. >> you mention you did not know how fast it was troubling, can you say it was traveling faster or slower than the balloon? >> i don't have that information in front of me, i don't make it up. >> did anyone within the administration contact the counterparts before the decision was made to shoot it down? >> in terms of when you see the administration if you are referring to the white house i would refer you to them, the department of defense to my knowledge did not come again, we don't know the point of origin of this object. so. >> and was there any effort to jam or somehow disable this object before so that it would pose less of a threat. >> i don't want to get into specific tactics or techniques we may use when observing these types of things, again, sent up aircraft to observe and see what it was and then the ultimate decision was made based on the reasonable threat to civilian air traffic to take it down. so thank you. >> a couple of things coming mention you have recovered a significant or located a significant amount of debris, is it fair to say you have located a significant amount the pay payload? >> you're talking about the prc high-altitude balloon? >> the one today. >> at this point i am not able to go into more detail other than what i would describe, we discovered or located a specific amount of the debris associated with the balloon, again, we will have more details to follow. >> located, but you have not recovered and pulled out of the ocean for service forensic analysis. >> great point, so the way to understand how this is unfolding is we map out the area where the debris field would be that enables us to figure out where the places that we need to prioritize a search and recognizing that we are talking a wide area, as that happens divers are able to go down, depending on the size of the debris, they are able to tag it. so the debris that can be brought up quickly is brought up, taken on a vessel and taken ashore, debris that takes more time and again, especially given the current c states, it may take a little bit longer, we know where it is, so we tag it and then we will go back and eventually recover all of that and bring it up. >> the equivalent come he found the titanic, but have not pulled up debris from it. i want to ask you about the overall program, you have been learning a lot about the balloon program over the last couple of years, but the annual china report does not have a peep about balloons in there. he spent a lot of money and effort, but no balloons, we learn about taiwan and china's balance of power against them and satellites and jets, no balloons, why not? >> tony, what i would say on the unclassified china power report, there are going to be certain elements intelligence aspects in the unclassified version that may not be included in that particular report, in terms of what is in that report and what is not in that report, again, we can go back and look at that, but i can tell you, i can assure you that there are a lot of activities that we continue to monitor to include this balloon program we have learned a lot over the last couple of years. >> the last version has balloons on there? >> i would have to go and look, i do not have the answer to that. thanks. >> the only reason the american people know about the american balloon is because a couple of guys in montana spotted it and it leaked out. my question is if it had remained secret and did not become a specular toll and end of harassment to the white house, would you have shut it down or allowed it to continue on its way? >> you are asking me to speculate? >> so mike, i will push back a little bit at the assertion, first of all, again, what made the balloon difference was the length and duration that it was over the united -- the continental united states, look, we track activities all over the globe on a daily basis, some of which will remain classified, because again, we don't want to reveal sources and methods, in this particular case, i can tell you that there were efforts underway to make that public, montana journalists reporting notwithstanding, all of that to say there are going to be times when there is activity happening that we are monitoring that we are not going to go public, especially if it does not present a particular or pose a significant threat to the american public. but again, as we monitor that balloon, there was an effort underway to ensure that folks understood what the slugs especially how visible it was, and i will just stop there. thank you. yes, ma'am. >> thank you, general, first, a really quick follow-up on tony's question, at this point as the pentagon reassessing the need for a counter balloon or a counter object capability is at that altitude at this time? >> what i would tell you is not in the air force sometimes we talk about don't get platform specific, right, what we are talking about is monitoring the domain and having domain awareness, and as i highlighted, it seems like a couple of days ago, probably last week we are continuing to learn more about this program, which enables us to identify and track objects and so does ensure that we are continuing to protect our skies and airspace. >> thank you, and really quick, first do you and admiral kirby know the shape of this new object? and if so, what is sort of the reason for why you can't share it shape before it was shot down? and then separately, how is the recovery efforts of this new object downed over ice different from the one downed over the coast water, and are you guys using unmanned systems for the new object as well? >> yes, thank you. in terms of shape, i do not know. i've not seen any imagery, i'm just telling of the verbal characteristics as it was described to me. in terms of the difference in the recovery effort, again, this literally was what? an hour and half, two hours ago, so that's underway right now. so more to follow on that front. right now i think they are moving to the sites, we will have more to follow in the days ahead, let me go to a few other folks here. sorry. some new folks back here, and then we will go over here to mike. >> you mentioned that the object was spotted yesterday, is that the first night we saw it? or do we see it coming in a couple of days before? >> no, it was spotted yesterday. >> and for follow-up, what we have learned about the first balloon last week, did that help us detect this object? >> i would say that again, we detect it -- when we detect objects, let me just back up, so what you are asking is did what we learn from the prc balloon help us track this? kind of a little bit of apples and oranges in terms of there is the ability to maintain and track objects, so they track this approach as it entered in the u.s. airspace again, we are still assessing what this object was, so i don't know that we have learned anything new as a result of that other than again, i think that we are all to include the media and the public at very attuned to balloons at the moment. so thank you. yes, sir. >> thank you, sir, just to clarify, so this was first identified when it flew into u.s. airspace, is that correct or before russian mark >> it was detected yesterday, and then again, sent an aircraft to observe and see what it was, and then the decision was made to take it down. >> do you have any information whether this object flew over any other sovereign nations or countries? >> i do not to. temper a few more, let me go to joe. >> another question about the recovery effort, i think that you mentioned at the outset that it was going to involve rotary wing aircraft, that's because it landed on ice as opposed to water, that's why there is a watercraft being used? is it? >> yes, joe, we will get more information on that front, again, this happened just a short while ago, and so according to north tom these are the assets that were being used to go out and do the initial recovery, but we will have more information in terms of the various roles and responsibilities of those. >> to get down in the weeds for a second, any idea what units are involved in the recovery effort or the f-22, that shut it down? >> we can get you that information. thanks. phil. >> hey, just a couple of clarification questions, first off, when he first identified, was it traveling at the same altitude of 40,000 feet, did you at that point know its velocity, and doesn't north, have the authority on its own to shoot down unidentified objects entering u.s. airspace if they pose a threat to civilian air traffic? if so, why was the president's authorization required in this case? >> yes, thanks. so my understanding is that it was at 40,000 feet and it was detected and ultimately taken down. the north tom commander does not have the authority necessarily to take down an object if it is not posing potential hostile intent or actions, however, given the fact that this aircraft was -- or excuse me, this object was operating at an altitude that posed a reasonable threat to civilian air traffic after consultation with the secretary and the presidents, and of course the president on our advice gave the order to take it down, and we took it down. >> trying to clarify, is his authorization required in a situation like this? >> again, it is kind of a moot point at this point, because the president gave the order, but he has the authorization to take action against anything that presents a potential threat to the american public or people on the ground, in this particular case, it was determined that to this post a reasonable threat to air traffic. again, yes, i will leave it at that. thanks. >> just a couple of clarifiers, was it a single f-22? or a pair that were up for the shot. and then when they said the initial aircraft up to see, was there any sort of hailing or any type of warning given typically when an aircraft makes an incursion into protected airspace, there is a whole lot of procedures that have to be followed before it would escalate to something like this. >> okay, well, this was an object, not an aircraft per se. and to answer your earlier question, it was a two shape of f-22s, but one aircraft took the shot. i have time for one more. >> thank you so much. really quick, when it was started to be tracked last night, were you able to tell what direction it was coming from? >> this was traveling in a northeasterly direction when it was taken down. >> and then one more, the aircraft that were observing it, what type of aircraft were those? >> i will have to come back to you on it, i think i know, but i don't want to make it all up on the podium. we will come back to that one. thank you very much, we appreciate it. >> trace: there you have the pentagon briefing, they are telling us they found an object, and what they are saying is they found this object, discovered it over u.s. territory yesterday. sometime yesterday, specifically when we don't know. we do know that at 1:45:00 p.m. east coast time today that two f-22s were tracking it and one of those f-22s shot down this object. now the pentagon is saying that they got close enough to this object to decide that it was unmanned, and therefore it was a threat to civilian aviation, and that's why they shot it down. remember, it was up for the better part of 18, may be 24 hours, apparently not posing a threat and then at some point they said that it did posed a threat. they got close enough to see that it was unmanned and was okay to shoot down, but not close enough to tell if it was a balloon or exactly what this object was. let's bring in retired four-star general jack keane, general of the institute of the study of war, also a fox news senior strategic analyst. it appears to me by covering a lot of these aviation stories over the past 30 years we are not being given all of the information. >> oh, no, by far we are not. significant amounts of unanswered questions. and i think that some of those answers they do have, but maybe they don't have themselves. and you can't help but compare it to the previous incident that took place which seems to be on the surface of it dramatically different, obviously the prc balloon we knew very well because it took six days to get to the alaska coastline where we knew well where it came from and because we were able to get up and take pictures of it day and night, and we have by the way exquisite photo capability on our cosmos ends aircraft. and look at the details of what that represented and certainly we knew that it was a surveillance balloon and we made all of the decisions we discussed for the last week or so surrounding all of that. this particular object i mean it is a mystery to me why we are still calling it an object if we have taken you know, sophisticated photos of it. it was moving at a northeastern direction and if it fell into the arctic sea up there in northeast of alaska obviously it was about to leave the landmass of the united states, we probably knew about this track since last night it is a mystery to me why we don't know what the point of origin is or the relationship until that is. and it is likely we don't know at this point or they are not telling us whether we suspect it came from another country. is this a commercial, corporate, or private enterprise that we are dealing with. they are also not telling us about the options that they looked at, certainly a shooting it down is something most of us advocated we should have done with the prc balloon, in this case you know, you can cure the slim and clear the air space around something that could interfere with the safety of flight, the faa has control of that, that was an option, but they chose not to do that. so that is more information that they have that they are literally not sharing with us, and at some point obviously they will do that. >> trace: they chose not to for the better part of a lot of hours, and that's kind of my point is that some point they decided this was a threat to civil aviation, but it flew for they found it yesterday and they did not shoot it down until 1:45:00 p.m. east coast today, so they let it fly for a great time. i want to put this graphic up, this is flight radar 24 giving you an idea, you can see the lines right there. you can see where it was kind of shot down up at the top of the screen in the blue, and that is kind of very near the border of canada and alaska, but you can see the lines where the jets apparently flew around the thing, and it gives you an idea of what was going on, but you make a very good point, general, which is that we could spot a fly on the wall with the photography and the equipment we have where we could identify a fly on the wall from a mile away. and they are saying they don't know how to identify this object even though they had to f-22s up there for many, many hours, seems like they know what it is, and i guess the biggest question is if they know what it is, they know where it came from. and if this is from china, what do you make of that? >> well, if it is from china, it is quite a breeze and move on their part. and i was talking about this earlier, when we made the decision not to shoot it down and had a secretary provide testimony yesterday one of the reasons we did not shoot it down was because we wanted to see it a more favorable waters on the east coast recovering the debris, that is almost an open end an open invitation for adversaries to send more balloons in our direction, and do whatever they want to do in terms of surveillance and don't set it to the east coast, said it back where they came from and let the united states shoot it down over the ocean in turbulent waters in rough seas, and sudden death here where the sea is completely frozen. i have spent four years up there, for people who have never been in alaska, this is twice up there, and one of the most errant areas in alaska up in that northeastern part of crude obey, and it would take actually some time to get helicopters up there to try to recover. it's not like something happened off the east coast of the united states where we had a plethora of military bases and very responsive access by sea as well as by error. so this is a very remote part of the world. and a remote part of the united states. >> trace: they give you warnings coming to shut this area down, you can go here or here, the faa shuts down airports all the time because of drone activity in the way. they don't shoot down the drums, you get rid of the drones and they move on, and it's interesting to me that we know some conclusions here, this thing was not intelligence gathering, i don't know how they know that if they don't know what the object is, they said that this unidentified object does not mean because it was shot over alaska that this is new policy, that we shoot things down as we see them or shortly after we see them, so there seems to be some information that they have gleaned from this that seems to be tough to glean, and yet you don't know the actual origin of this object and you don't know specifically what it is. >> yes, i think a couple of things are conditions that are contributing. one is the severe criticism, the administration received not shooting down the prc balloon which entered our airspace around the islands after we were tracking it for days and knew exactly what it was. i think that condition may in fact be influencing this balloon if the prc balloon did not happen, what this course of action have been selected to shoot this balloon down as opposed to just clearing the airspace and have our aircraft fly around it. so people while alaska is a big part of the world, the viewing audience who flies knows full well that many routes from east to west go over the north pole so to speak because it's the quickest way to get to someplace, so there is a fair amount of traffic, and we can agree that there is a safety hazard with this balloon would pose being at 40,000 feet, but look at it. they now decide that this balloon obviously, they have already described that to us. they know it does not have propellers to change direction like the prc balloon. they know about the payload that is on this. and i think that that's how they can tell that this is not a spy balloon because of the size of the payload and what is inside of it, it is mystifying to me why distill an object and we have not defined to the object given all that they have told us about the object, but not having to find what it is. >> yes, it is baffling, if you'll stand by for me, please come i want to bring in chief correspondent jennifer griffin, joining us by phone, and i know that you are getting information that we don't have now, what are they gleaning from this and what are you hearing? >> well, things, trace, and i agree with general jack keane on his analysis. what i am hearing is the pentagon was watching this for the last 24 hours, i know that they were watching it closely, it is clear that obviously in the wake of the administration flying across the u.s. and currently in the decision-making that was taken at the time when it first entered alaska on january 28th that they are under increased pressure and they are scrutinizing more closely any sort of object or balloon-like object that crosses into u.s. territory, so all of the systems are up and the intelligence is able to watch all of these objects more carefully. they would be marked in the past and logged, but now people are on what i would describe as a higher alert level. which what is interesting about this particular object and what we have learned since the chinese spy craft was brought down off of the coast of south carolina is that the intelligence community in the last year and one of the things that they were able to do as they started to understand the signature of the chinese spy craft was to look back and see other objects that they add blog to fit into the category, that's how they realize that that they were previous incidents that had naturally risen to the level of the national security senior establishment and been reported in the past, so what they are doing is now realizing and unmasking this incredible fleet of chinese surveillance balloons that have crossed the world and been seen on five continents, and every time one goes down whether it was off of hawaii in the last year or now we understand that the balloon that was brought down off of south carolina that the payload is almost completely intact under water, so that will be good news for the intelligence committee, what exactly the payload is and what exactly this object is that was brought down over alaska, i think we are still -- we don't have all the details about that. >> i'm wondering if you know, because they said during a briefing that they won't say whether it was a harmless weather balloon, and it just not going to get into that. we do know that it was just appearance gathering. releasing a little bit of information saying it's not intelligence gathering, but they won't tell us whether this was a harmless balloon, and they want to really identify this or give us more detail about what it looks like at all. and i'm wondering if you think there is reason for that? >> let's just start with this ada's a starting point, they do not to shoot things down. and i know from what i have seen at the pentagon and the last 24 hours is that they were watching this very closely. they clearly were gathering intelligence on it. and they clearly had some indication that it was posing some sort of threat, what has been explained from john kirby at the white house was that it was flying at 40,000 feet. that's different than the spy balloon, and at 60,000 feet, it was not close to any -- did not pose a threat to aviation, so we are going to have to get more details. i have a feeling they are going to need to get more details, but i think there is a higher alert status right now and i think that this is also sending a signal to the chinese to others, we don't know if the chinese send this object, but don't try this again, because we do have the ability to be what is coming to our shores and we will shoot it down if it looks like it poses a threat. be one and i've got a go, jen, but i am curious if the chinese send this, would you be surprised if it was in fact from china? >> i would be a little surprised. and i would see a lot of things with china and wait to see. >> trace: back to you as the news warns, let's bring in senior strategic analyst general jack keane and she makes a good point there, general, that we are on high alert status right now, and another good point saying that we don't shoot aircraft, and shoot down balloons whatever, so there's a reason this was shot down. there's a reason they watched it for 24 hours and we just aren't privy to that reason at this point in time. >> yeah, and we have to be a little sensitive, a couple of hours into this and if you are a government official dealing with breaking events and we have 24-hour nurse don't make a new service and capability worldwide together information information, you know, it's really quite extraordinary, and i am a little sensitive and have some empathy for what the pentagon and john kirby was dealing with. i think he went into that briefing knowing full well this event took place, but he certainly was not announcing it as a breaking news story and why is that? because they are still developing the information surrounding the incident. that is why. and they weren't prepared to come out and tell the whole story yet based on the information that they are still gathering from multiple sources. so we will get all the information i think we need at some point, this is very early into the event since the shootdown, not since it began, which was sometime yesterday. and i certainly agree with jen that we don't go around shooting objects out of the sky. on some kind of random basis, but i really appreciate a couple of things, one, yeah, are antenna was out. what was most revealing about the prc balloon incident to me was after the intelligence community went back and said, well, what has been the fleet balloon activity of the chinese going back several years and using all sources to find that? it's a good thing we did that, and we determined that there were four balloons and indeed that penetrated u.s. airspace and they were undetected and they reveal that to us and were forthcoming about that. and that is something we obviously have to fix, and i am confident we are going about fixing that. and that probably contribute it somewhat to this detection itself into the actions taken here. >> trace: general jack keane, best insight as always, thank you, sir, we appreciate your time, in the meantime also on the phone, we want to bring in general keith kellogg, administrator to mike pence, and fox news contributor, your thoughts on what you see transpire with this object so far not identified, not named, and we do not know the origin or whether it's state owned or corporate owned. >> thank you for having me on, one of the first ever in the military which was the first casualty of war is truth, and also never trust the first report you get, so we have to see what is happening with the report, they tend to be wrong right at the start, but you know, the question i have got out there is caution, we have heard everybody talk about it, we are reacting to shooting down a balloon, i think that that is really good and we need to make sure we don't have a great just activity within our borders. but i'm still waiting for the response. what are we going to do with where these come from and who is doing it, and the concern is raised when i think about that is the fact that if they are coming from china, they are not answering the telephone. you know, we had to avoid the secretary of defense on the hotline, and they did not pick it up. and it was concerning is that hotline has been in effect since 2007 camino, the other one has been around for a lot longer than that. but they won't pick up the phone and answer the office. that's a big concern i've got. because clearly this is a lack of communications from two rather large super powers, the chinese are and a nuclear superpower at that. and what are they trying to do? and i think that those are questions that the chinese have to answer, why are they sending these balloons here in the united states? >> everybody we have had on has said the same thing, there is this common denominator consensus which is that you just don't go up, we don't send aircraft up to shoot down other aircraft willy-nilly. there is a reason we do this, and i'm wondering, do you buy into the reason we are being given by the pentagon which is that this was a threat to civil aviation? and yet they let it up there at the same 40,000 feet elevation for the better part of an entire day? >> no, i don't, trace, look, i have been involved being in the white house and in the military, and i've been on the political side of it, so on both sides and i think that this is reaction to what they did not do last week when they let a truce by a balloon with massive sensor package float across the united states of america and sensitive sites and no they are realizing that they have to do something, and now the question is what did you do? is this an overreaction? and they don't know when they have not told us yet, do we shoot down a big weather balloon? or is this a chinese balloon? is there a sensor package? most people are saying no, now we get a reaction that is just totally different from what happened before, so it leads again to the crushed income okay you shot down a big object come the first balloon, no smaller object for the second balloon, the common denominator is we use a missile side liner, f-22 and got them both down, what are you going to do about it? that's what i am waiting for, what kind of definitive decision-making and guidance is the president of the united states going to target? >> trace: and i want to know your thoughts, general, if this is from china? is this a taunts? is china taunting us? >> yeah, i think it is not a taunts, it is actually them gathering information, checking out -- and militarily, they are smart to do this, they check out reactions, what are you going to do? all opponents do that. and make no mistake, i consider china to be an adversary, not just an opponent. and you are actually seeing what her reaction will be at the national plan level in the military reaction as well. and today, that's how they pick up and they see how we react in crisis situation, we have done that in the u.s. military as well, and right before it there was a tackle review, where we did exactly the same thing, we tested the rebel linac resolve and how they would react, they are doing the same thing, don't think for a minute they are not gathering information, what is going on is our decision-making, and how fast is it, how tough is it, when are they going to make it and who is going to make it? >> trace: it sounds like you are saying they are not taunting us, they are testing us. thank you for your time again, we appreciate it very much, for those just joining us, the pentagon has announced that united states has shut down another object, an airborne object at 40,000 feet in the prude obey witches on the border of canada and alaska on the northern side of the continent. that's all we know, we know that it was there for the better part of 24 hours and was shot down at 1:45 east coast time today. we will continue covering breaking news. i will see you back here on "fox news at >> can you speak to rumors that there is another chinese balloon above alaska or any other u.s. territory that the u.s. shot down? >> so i can confirm that the department of defense was tracking high altitude object over alaska air space in the last 24 hours. out -- the object was flying at altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. out of abundance of caution and recommendation of the pentagon,