Lake Huron Shootdown — Fighter Jet Video

The Lake Huron shootdown on February 12, 2023, was one of four aerial object intercepts conducted by the U.S. military over North American airspace during an eight-day window in February 2023. The sequence began with the takedown of a Chinese surveillance balloon over South Carolina on February 4, followed by objects shot down over Alaska (February 10), Canada's Yukon Territory (February 11), and Lake Huron (February 12). The Lake Huron object was tracked by NORAD radar and assessed as operating at approximately 20,000 feet altitude. A U.S. Air Force F-16 was scrambled from Selfridge Air National Guard Base and was ordered by the White House Situation Room to engage. The pilot fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile; the object was struck and fell into Lake Huron. Recovery efforts were complicated by the lake's depth and ice cover. The Pentagon stated the object was octagonal in shape with string-like protrusions but emphasized no determination was made as to its origin or operator. No debris was conclusively recovered and attributed to the object. A classified cockpit video recorded by the F-16 during the intercept, reviewed at the intelligence community level, is included in the May 2026 Pentagon archive release.