The White House has reported that a “high-altitude object” was shot down above Alaska in the previous hour.

The item, according to spokesman John Kirby, was “the size of a small vehicle” and was over a rural region at the time.

According to Mr. Kirby, President Joe Biden decided to fire down the unidentified flying object.

It follows last Saturday’s shooting down of a Chinese balloon over US territorial seas.

Speaking on Friday at the White House, Mr. Kirby said the object over Alaska was moving at 40,000 feet per second and might have presented a threat to commercial planes.

The balloon that was shot down last week off the coast of South Carolina had a “far, much larger” debris field, the speaker continued.

According to Mr. Kirby, intelligence agencies first learned about the object on Thursday night.

He claimed that as a fighter plane approached the object, it determined it was unmanned, and Mr. Biden had access to this knowledge when he made his choice.

The object’s involvement in surveillance has not yet been determined by authorities, and Mr. Kirby corrected a reporter who mistook it for a balloon.