Object shot down off Deadhorse
On 10 February 2023 an F-22 shot down a small, car-sized object flying at about 40,000 feet off the northern coast of Alaska near Deadhorse, the day after it was first detected.
2023 CE · 70.40, -148.40 · status: official
The account
It was the first of three objects downed over North America in three days, right after the Chinese surveillance balloon. Searchers on the sea ice found no debris before the recovery effort was called off.
The sceptical view
US officials later said the three objects were most likely commercial or research balloons, made visible because radar filters had been retuned after the spy-balloon episode.
The researched reading
Almost certainly a balloon, made visible because radar had just been retuned to look for small slow objects. Without debris the exact owner, private or foreign, will never be known.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 40% | A slow, unpowered object drifting with the wind at about 40,000 feet is the profile of a balloon and its payload, and President Biden said on 16 February that it was most likely a commercial or research balloon. NORAD had just widened its radar filters after the Chinese balloon, so small, slow returns it normally discards were suddenly being tracked and intercepted. |
| Undetermined | 36% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Secret human technology | 12% | It was downed six days after a confirmed Chinese surveillance balloon, and officials described it as roughly car-sized, larger than a hobby pico balloon; a smaller foreign surveillance balloon or sensor package is a real possibility that recovery would have settled. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 6% | Searchers on unstable Arctic sea ice found no debris before the search was called off on 17 February, so the identification was never confirmed; that gap, not any positive anomaly, is what keeps this share open. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 3% | Early descriptions passed on second-hand (no visible propulsion, odd shape) were made under pressure and in a heightened alert after the spy-balloon episode; none points beyond a balloon. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 1% | The object was solid enough to be hit by a Sidewinder missile and fall; no weather or atmospheric effect does that. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 1% | Nothing in the record calls for an unexplained natural phenomenon. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 1% | The intercept and shoot-down are documented by the Pentagon and NORAD in real time. |
Official position: The White House said the object was most likely a commercial or research balloon; no debris was recovered.