The executive branch of the United States government has declared that President Joe Biden commanded US fighter jets to shoot down a mysterious airborne object that had been sighted above the Alaskan coastline.

At a briefing on Friday, John Kirby, the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications, mentioned that an object had been detected hovering high in the sky at 40,000ft above US territory and posed a “reasonable threat” to the security of civilian planes.

According to Kirby, the object was approximately the size of a vehicle but much smaller than the balloon that was shot down the week prior.

South Carolina officials notified Fox News that they had located an “intact” package that had been dropped from a Chinese surveillance balloon in the nearby waters.