The Lake Huron "Octagonal" Object Shootdown

February 2023. North American skies were being watched as never before. A Chinese balloon had been shot down off South Carolina on February 4. Then came Alaska on February 10, and the Yukon on February 11. NORAD had widened its radar filters to catch smaller, slower objects.

Saturday, February 11. 4:45 p.m. NORAD radar picked up something in Canadian airspace, approximately 70 miles north of the U.S. border. It traveled over Montana and drifted eastward, passing over sensitive Defense Department sites. F-15s were scrambled. When they arrived, they could not see it.

On Sunday, radar found it again near Wisconsin. It moved over Lake Michigan toward Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Airspace closed over Lake Michigan, northern Michigan, Lake Huron and near Tobermory, Ontario. About 10:30 a.m., two F-16s of the Minnesota Air National Guard's 148th Fighter Wing took off from Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin.

At about 20,000 feet, the pilots found it. Their radio calls still carry the uncertainty. "Looks like something… there's some kind of object that's distended… it's hard to tell, it's pretty small." Then, through the targeting pod: "I can't tell if it's metallic or what, but I can see like lines coming down below it, but I can't see anything below it."

It was moving, as Gen. Glen VanHerck put it, "very, very slow...essentially at the speed of the wind." Rep. Jack Bergman later called it octagonal, with strings hanging from it but no payload on them. In the cockpit, one pilot made the call. "I'm gonna call it a balloon."

President Biden gave the order. The first AIM-9X Sidewinder missed. "The missile landed harmlessly in the water at Lake Huron," said Gen. Mark Milley, who called it the only miss. The second missile hit at 2:42 p.m. EST. The object burst apart about 15 nautical miles off the Upper Peninsula and fell, likely into Canadian waters.

At a briefing the same day, VanHerck would not rule anything out. "We're calling them objects for a reason. I'm not able to categorize how they stay aloft." The next day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there was "no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns."

On February 16 the search was suspended. Twelve-foot swells and gusts up to 30 knots had closed in. That same day, President Biden said the intelligence community's assessment was that the three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions.

A redacted Royal Canadian Air Force report suggested a possible weather balloon launched from a U.S. National Weather Service radar station in Michigan. In March, debris was recovered from the shores of Lake Huron, including a module. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn wrote: "The module is from a company who sells weather monitoring equipment." The RCMP never confirmed that the debris came from the shootdown.

On May 22, 2026, the 46-second infrared clip was finally released under PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. A bright spot drifts near the crosshairs, with a line dangling below. At the 20 second mark, it breaks apart in a radial displacement pattern that suggests a high-energy event. AARO made no identification. Former AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick later said the objects were balloons, but the U.S. government has never publicly identified the Lake Huron object.