The 2023 Alaska High-Altitude Object Shootdown
On February 10, 2023, a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor scrambled from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at a small, car-sized cylindrical object flying at roughly 40,000 feet over the Beaufort Sea near Deadhorse, Alaska. Pilots who flew visual inspection passes described the object as silver-gray, apparently unpiloted, and drifting with the wind at 20–40 miles per hour with no visible means of propulsion. It was the first of three unidentified objects the United States and Canada shot down within a single 72-hour window, following the destruction of a confirmed Chinese surveillance balloon six days earlier. Despite a multi-agency search involving the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI, no debris was ever recovered from the ice-covered Arctic waters, and the search was formally abandoned on February 18. A classified Canadian memo later obtained by CTV News revealed that, internally, officials were told the object's "full exploitation" had not been completed even after the U.S. ended its own search. President Joe Biden later said it was probably a civilian or research balloon. The object has never been formally identified.
Pictured: a pair of U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors flying over Alaska, the same aircraft type and unit (based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson) that shot down the object on February 10, 2023. This is not the object itself; no photograph of the object has ever been publicly released. U.S. Air Force, public domain.
Theoretical Alignment
This file weights "Man-Made / Unrecovered Object" highest because every physical characteristic reported by pilots and radar — small size, slow wind-driven drift, no propulsion, no maneuvering, an altitude and profile consistent with a high-altitude balloon — points toward a mundane origin, and a specific, named hobbyist balloon (K9YO-15, flown by the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade) went missing along a broadly consistent trajectory that same week. It is not classified as Psycho-Social/Mundane because the object was independently detected and tracked by military radar and confirmed by two separate fighter jet visual passes rather than resting on any single observer's perception, and because the case remains genuinely unresolved: no wreckage was ever recovered to confirm or rule out any specific origin.
Background
The shootdown occurred amid the most intense period of North American airspace scrutiny in decades. On January 28, 2023, a large Chinese high-altitude balloon entered U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands and crossed the continental United States before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4. In the aftermath, under pressure from the White House and Congress, NORAD adjusted its radar filtering to detect smaller, slower-moving high-altitude objects that had previously gone unnoticed — a change NORAD Commander General Glen VanHerck later described as closing a "domain awareness gap." Within days, radar operators began detecting additional unidentified objects across North American airspace, the first of which appeared over Alaska on the evening of February 9, 2023.
Complete Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Jan. 28, 2023 | A Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon enters U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands and crosses into mainland Alaska. |
| Feb. 4, 2023 | A U.S. F-22 shoots down the Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina; NORAD adjusts radar filtering in the following days, revealing previously undetected slow-moving high-altitude objects. |
| Feb. 9, 2023, ~9:00 PM AKST | U.S. ground radar detects an unidentified object over Alaska; F-35 and F-22 fighters conduct visual inspection flypasts that evening and the following morning. |
| Feb. 10, 2023, ~10:45 AM AKST | President Biden authorizes the shootdown; an F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson fires an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, downing the object over the Beaufort Sea near Deadhorse. |
| Feb. 10–18, 2023 | U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI personnel conduct search and recovery operations in Arctic ice conditions. |
| Feb. 11, 2023 | A second unidentified object is shot down over Canada's Yukon Territory — the subject of this site's Yukon UAP Shootdown file. |
| Feb. 12, 2023 | A third unidentified object is shot down over Lake Huron — the subject of this site's Lake Huron UAP Shootdown file. |
| Feb. 14, 2023 | The Canadian government's Privy Council briefs Prime Minister Trudeau in a classified memo referring to the Alaska object as "UAP #20," noting its "full exploitation" remained incomplete. |
| Feb. 14, 2023 | The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade reports its pico balloon K9YO-15 "missing in action" after last contact near Alaska on Feb. 11. |
| Feb. 16, 2023 | President Biden states the objects were probably tied to "private companies, recreation, or research institutions." |
| Feb. 18, 2023 | The U.S. military formally abandons the search for debris; no wreckage from the Alaska object is ever recovered. |
The Shootdown
NORAD radar detected the object over Alaska on the evening of February 9, 2023, prompting the scramble of F-35 and F-22 fighters for visual assessment. Pilots described the object as cylindrical and silver-gray, roughly the size of a small car, showing no sign of propulsion and appearing to drift at the mercy of the wind at an estimated 20 to 40 miles per hour. Some pilots reported sensor interference during their passes, though accounts varied. On the morning of February 10, President Biden authorized the shootdown "out of an abundance of caution," citing the object's proximity to civilian air traffic at 40,000 feet. An F-22 Raptor fired a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, destroying the object over the Beaufort Sea near Deadhorse — marking only the second confirmed air-to-air kill in the F-22's two-decade operational history, and the first not against a conventional aircraft.
The Failed Recovery
U.S. Northern Command coordinated an extensive multi-agency search involving Navy and Coast Guard vessels, aircraft, and FBI personnel, using airborne sensors, surface inspection, and subsurface scans of the debris field. Arctic conditions — sub-zero wind chill, active sea ice, and limited winter daylight — severely hampered the effort. On February 18, 2023, the Department of Defense formally ended the search without recovering any debris. Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder confirmed the operation had been called off, acknowledging the country might never conclusively determine what the object was, how it was powered, or where it came from.
The Leaked Memo: "UAP #20"
A previously classified Canadian government memo, obtained by CTV News through a Freedom of Information Act request and authored by Privy Council Clerk Janice Charette on February 14, 2023, referred to the Alaska object internally as "UAP #20." The memo stated that "the full exploitation of UAP #20...has not yet been completed" — despite the U.S. military calling off its own search only days later. This file finds the memo's language a genuinely significant, if ambiguous, piece of evidence: it is unclear whether "full exploitation" refers to physical debris recovery, remaining sensor and radar data analysis, or both, but it directly documents that at least one allied government did not consider the case fully closed at the point the public search ended.
Key Figures
Joe Biden
Authorized the shootdown "out of an abundance of caution" and later stated the object was probably a civilian or research balloon, though no confirmation was ever obtained.
General Glen VanHerck
Led the military tracking and intercept operations and publicly acknowledged the military could not determine the object's propulsion or origin, describing the newly visible objects as a consequence of NORAD's post-balloon radar recalibration.
John Kirby
Served as the primary White House spokesperson briefing the public on the detection, shootdown, and recovery efforts, describing the object as "much, much smaller" than the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down days earlier.
Mike Dunleavy
Called the incident a national security concern and emphasized Alaska's strategic geopolitical importance following the shootdown in the state's airspace.
The Five Observables Assessment
Applying the Five Observables framework to the reported behavior:
Assessment: This case scores lower on the Five Observables than most files in this archive: the object exhibited no acceleration, no maneuvering, and no unusual velocity, behaving consistently with a passive, wind-driven balloon rather than a controlled craft. Its principal anomaly is procedural rather than physical — it went undetected by NORAD's prior radar configuration — and its case strength rests almost entirely on the fact that it was destroyed and never identified, not on any exotic observed performance.
Evidence Assessment
Supporting Continued Unresolved Status
- The object was independently confirmed by military radar and two separate fighter jet visual passes, not a single observer's account.
- No debris was ever recovered despite a genuine, extensive, multi-agency search effort, leaving the object's true identity formally unconfirmed.
- A leaked internal Canadian government memo indicates officials did not consider the case's "full exploitation" complete even after the public search ended, raising real if unanswered questions about what analysis, if any, continued privately.
- NORAD Commander General VanHerck publicly declined to rule out any explanation, including extraterrestrial origin, for the broader February 2023 object wave.
Supporting a Conventional Explanation
- Every physically observed characteristic — small size, slow uncontrolled drift, no visible propulsion, no maneuvering — is consistent with a small high-altitude balloon rather than a controlled craft.
- A specific, named hobbyist pico balloon (K9YO-15, launched by the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade) went missing along a broadly consistent trajectory the same week, offering a concrete, identifiable candidate explanation, even though it was never confirmed as the object destroyed.
- President Biden's own subsequent public assessment attributed the object wave to civilian, recreational, or research balloon activity.
- The object only became visible to NORAD after a routine radar sensitivity adjustment, consistent with a small, low-radar-cross-section balloon rather than a sophisticated craft evading detection.
Why "Open"
This case is rated Open rather than assigned a resolved status because it combines strong circumstantial evidence for a mundane explanation with the simple, hard fact that no debris was ever recovered or examined. Every behavioral characteristic reported by trained military pilots is consistent with a small balloon, and a specific hobbyist balloon vanished along a plausible trajectory the same week — but "plausible and uncorroborated" is not the same as "confirmed," and this file will not round up to Debunked without physical verification that never occurred.
It is not rated Disputed or higher because, unlike many cases in this archive, there is no reported anomalous performance — no acceleration, maneuvering, or unexplained velocity — for a stronger explanation to compete against; the entire live question is one of identity and confirmation, not of anomalous behavior. The case remains open specifically because the U.S. government destroyed evidence of unknown origin and then failed to recover or publicly identify it, and because an allied government's own internal memo indicates the matter was not considered fully closed.
Observer Credibility & Occupational Profile
This case's evidentiary weight rests on institutional rather than individual witness credibility: trained U.S. Air Force fighter pilots conducting deliberate visual identification passes, NORAD radar operators independently tracking the same object, and on-record statements from the NORAD commander, National Security Council, and the President of the United States. This file finds the multiplicity of independent institutional confirmation to be the case's principal credibility strength, offset by the fact that none of these sources ultimately produced a confirmed identification.
Historical Precedents & Archive Matches
This case is the first of three unidentified objects shot down over North America within 72 hours in February 2023 and belongs to this site's broader case cluster on that event chain, directly comparable to the Yukon UAP Shootdown of February 11 and the Lake Huron UAP Shootdown of February 12, both of which share several key figures, the same NORAD radar recalibration context, and the same ultimate lack of recovered physical evidence.
Material Analysis
No physical material from the object has ever been recovered, examined, or publicly described. The case's evidentiary record consists entirely of radar data, pilot visual reports, government statements, and the leaked Canadian Privy Council memo referencing "UAP #20."
Supporting Continued Legitimate Interest
- The object was destroyed by a live military missile engagement, an extraordinary step for what the government itself later suggested may have been a harmless hobbyist balloon, and no confirmation of that theory was ever physically obtained.
Supporting a Conventional Explanation
- Every reported physical characteristic of the object is consistent with an ordinary small high-altitude balloon, and a specific, named balloon disappeared along a broadly matching trajectory that same week.
The Conventional Explanation Candidate: A Civilian or Hobbyist High-Altitude Balloon
The leading, and this file's assessed, conventional explanation candidate is that the object was a small civilian, research, or hobbyist high-altitude balloon, consistent with President Biden's own public assessment and with the object's entirely passive, wind-driven flight profile.
The K9YO-15 Pico Balloon Theory
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB), an amateur radio hobbyist group, reported one of its pico balloons, K9YO-15, "missing in action" on February 14, 2023, after last contact near Alaska on February 11 during its seventh planned circumnavigation of the globe. Trajectory modeling cited by the group suggested the balloon's projected path would have carried it over Alaska and into the Yukon Territory around the time of the shootdowns, a coincidence the group itself was careful to describe only as speculative in the absence of recovered wreckage. This file notes that the K9YO-15 trajectory theory has been most directly associated with the February 11 Yukon object, and that its applicability to this specific February 10 Alaska shootdown — which occurred a day before the balloon's last confirmed position — is less precisely established, though it remains part of the same general pattern of hobbyist balloon activity cited as a plausible explanation for the broader February 2023 object wave.
A Civilian or Hobbyist High-Altitude Balloon — Plausibility Rating: PLAUSIBLE BUT UNCONFIRMED
Related Cases
Confirmed Documents & Official Records
The War Zone's analysis of the memo obtained by CTV News, referring to the Alaska object internally as "UAP #20."
PUBLIC RECORD (freely accessible)Search Government Archives Directly
Further Reading — Recommended Literature
UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There
An extensively researched history of U.S. government UAP records and disclosure, including the 2023 balloon and object shootdown wave.
UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record
A compilation of credentialed military and official UFO testimony, directly relevant to weighing NORAD and Pentagon statements on this case.
Inside The Black Vault: The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed
A guide to obtaining and interpreting declassified UFO-related government documents, relevant to the leaked "UAP #20" memo central to this case.
The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry
The foundational text on scientifically rigorous UFO classification and evaluation of official investigations.
Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth
A skeptical history of the flying saucer phenomenon, useful comparative context for the balloon-hobbyist explanation candidate.
Sources
- "2023 Alaska high-altitude object," Wikipedia. Read online →
- "US shoots down unknown 'high-altitude object' over Alaska, White House says," ABC News. Read online →
- "What we know about the unidentified object shot down over Alaska," CNN Politics. Read online →
- "'High-altitude object' shot down over Alaska, U.S. says," The Washington Post. Read online →
- "Secret Memo Raises More Questions About UFO Shootdowns Over Alaska, Canada," The War Zone. Read online →
- "U.S. ends search for objects shot down over Arctic Alaska, Lake Huron," Anchorage Daily News. Read online →
- "3 Downed Objects Still Unrecovered, Says US Military," VOA News. Read online →
- "US Recovery of Object Downed Over Alaska Faces Arctic Conditions," Bloomberg. Read online →
- "U.S. ends its search for remnants of aerial objects shot down over Alaskan airspace and Lake Huron," NBC News. Read online →
- "Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade from Illinois says small balloon last reported over Alaska 'missing in action,'" ABC7 Chicago. Read online →
- "Mystery object shot down over Yukon may have been harmless 'pico balloon,'" Global News. Read online →
- "Governor Dunleavy Issues Statement on Unidentified Object Shot Down Over Alaska," Office of the Governor of Alaska. Read online →
- "Alaska Again at Center of Mystery as Pentagon Releases UFO Files and Videos," The Alaska Story. Read online →
- Graff, Garrett M. UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There. Avid Reader Press, 2023.
- Kean, Leslie. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. Harmony Books, 2010.
- Greenewald, John, Jr. Inside The Black Vault: The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
- Hynek, J. Allen. The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. Da Capo Press, 1998 (orig. 1972).
- Peebles, Curtis. Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.
- "File: F-22 Raptor pair over Alaska - 081010-F-1234X-924.jpg," U.S. Air Force, public domain. View file →
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