Case · C-093
Lake Huron: an octagonal object shot down, never identified with certainty
Northern Lake Huron, near the border between Michigan (United States) and Ontario (Canada) · United States and Canada · Feb 12, 2023
In flight Military witnesses Radar
Unexplained
- What happened
- On February 11, 2023, radars detected an object over northern Montana, near sensitive defense sites, and the FAA briefly closed the airspace; the next day the object, octagonal, with dangling strings and no propulsion of its own, was tracked over Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula at about 20,000 feet. On February 12, an F-16 of the Minnesota Air National Guard shot it down over Lake Huron with a missile, after a first missed shot. The searches were suspended on February 16; in November 2024 it emerged that the Canadian police had later collected debris on the shore, without being able to link it with certainty to the object.
- Proposed explanation
- No official identification. On February 14, 2023, the White House said that it could not be ruled out that they were balloons tied to commercial or research entities and that this could become the main explanation. Documents obtained in 2024 by CTV News show that the Canadian police collected on the lake shore material and a module from a company that sells weather instruments, but the same email specified that it was not certain that they came from the downed object.
- Official investigation
- NORAD; Department of Defense; FAA; Royal Canadian Mounted Police; U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards
Sources
- CBC News, “U.S. downs another aerial 'object' over Lake Huron as search continues for wreckage in Yukon”, February 12, 2023 (press)
- CTV News, “Police in Canada collected wreckage after object shot down over Lake Huron”, November 15, 2024 (press)
- NBC Montana, “UFO shot down by US fighter jet found on Lake Huron's shoreline”, November 16, 2024 (press)
- Wikipedia – 2023 Lake Huron high-altitude object (other)
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