• The FAA closed the airspace around Havre, Montana, for around an hour on Saturday night due to ‘an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic’
  • An hour later, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said fighter jets had been scrambled for ‘a radar anomaly’, but nothing was found  
  • At 3:41pm Eastern Time on Saturday, a U.S. F-22 shot down a ‘small cylindrical object’ flying over the Yukon, in a joint U.S.-Canadian operation

By HARRIET ALEXANDER and ALYSSA GUZMAN and STEPHEN LEPORE

PUBLISHED: 09:39 AEDT, 12 February 2023 | UPDATED: 18:26 AEDT, 12 February 2023

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Fighter jets were scrambled and Montana’s airspace closed due to a ‘radar anomaly’, officials said on Saturday night – admitting that nothing suspicious was detected by the planes.

NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, issued a statement hours at 9:30pm on Saturday night – an hour after Montana congressman Matt Rosendale said jets were responding to an ‘airborne object’ spotted above his state.

NORAD said they ‘detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate.’

They continued: ‘Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits.

‘NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.’ 

The Federal Aviation Authority briefly closed the airspace above Havre airport in Montana at 7.40pm EST citing ‘national defense’ amid reports of ‘an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic’.

Data from FlightRadar.com showed a KC-135 Stratotanker – an American military aerial refueling aircraft – circling the area before airspace was reopened at around 8.20pm.   

Rosendale, a Republican congressman representing Montana who claimed to be in direct contact with NORCOM (Northern Command), said the Department of Defense would not shoot down the unidentified object until day broke on Sunday.