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good evening. this time no one waited. just days after a chinese spy balloon was allowed to drift across the country, another unidentified object was spotted over alaska. in this case, fighter jets were scrambled to investigate and then shoot it down. president biden was asked about it not long after. do you have anything to say about the object shot down over alaska, mr. president? more on how all this played out and how the administration is handling it. what else has the administration said about this object? reporter: here s what we know, anderson. this mysterious object is the size of a small car. it was unmanned. it didn t appear to have the capability to maneuver itself within the windstream. and also according to a u.s. official, it didn t appear to have surveillance equipment on board. so those are some significant details. but we really don t know the answer to the major question here, which is who was responsible for sending this up into the sky. listen ....
we re joined on how this played out and how the administration is handling it. what else has the administration said about this object? reporter: here s what we know, anderson. this mysterious object is the size of a small car. it was unmanned. it didn t appear to have the capability to maneuver itself within the windstream. and also according to a u.s. official, it didn t appear to have surveillance equipment on board. so those are some significant details, but we really don t know the answer to the major question here, which is who was responsible for sending this up into the sky. listen to what the nsc s john kirby said about that earlier today at the white house. we re calling this an object because that s the best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it, whether it s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned, we just don t know. reporter: now, what he also said significantly, anderson, is that this mysterious object was traveling a ....
There s fighter bases. there s some energy-intense stuff up there. alaska actually plays a very important role in national defense, particularly when you re looking at its west. you look at russia, and you look around the globe to china. so, yeah, i mean it could be anything from that level. but i mean it s really kind of an interesting mystery, and i think they made the absolute right decision to shoot it down. i m not sure if it was shot down because of, you know, commercial airline traffic as they ve said. i think that s probably the right thing to say. but, look, it s pretty sparsely populated out there, and you can always vector traffic around something. so i think they thought it as a threat. if it does turn out to be china or another adversary like russia, what happens then? i mean obviously countries probe each other all the time, looking for you know, trying to spy on each other. should there be other action? no, i don t think it should escalate. i mean, you know, i thin ....
There s a lot of stuff out there on the internet and on twitter describing it, which i don t know if it s true or just rumor. but it certainly, to me, looks like something that either china or russia, you know, i guess it s quite possible there could be should commercial entity that was testing something. but given the proximity to military bases, stuff with our defense, it s very interesting. i think there s a lot we we may not even find out, but there s a lot to be learned. is there anything in this area in particular that would have been of interest to adversaries? well, there s air defense. there s military bases. there s fighter bases. there s some energy-intense stuff up there. alaska actually plays a very important role in national defense, particularly when you re looking at its west. you look at russia, and you look around the globe to china. so, yeah, i mean it could be anything from that level. but i mean it s really kind of an interesting mystery, and i think they mad ....
Defenses around iran. is this a good move? i think on balance this is a good move. let s put it in perspective. about a week ago we were hearing reports of 120,000 troops potentially deployed. that would be a very bad move. that would be far too much. if you look at what iran has done over the last week or so, they planted bombs on tankers. they are flying drones over saudi oil fields and attacking the pipelines. a rocket lands in the u.s. embassy in baghdad. iran is clearly sending us a pretty aggressive signal. those 10,000 troops and i ve spoken with senior leaders in the pentagon, they re going for defensive means to protect our missile installations, our fighter bases. this is actually going to make us safer. if you see more troops than 10,000, that s when we got to worry. ....