"the way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car as opposed to a payload that was like two or three buses sized," kirby said.
Kirby said that the object was shot down because it was flying at around 40,000 feet and could have posed a threat to civilianaircraft versus the chinese spy craft discovered last week, which kirby said was at 65,000 feet and posed no threat to civilian aircraft.
Air force brig. Gen. Pat ryder, a pentagon spokesperson, said friday afternoon that the military has located a significant amount of debris from the object, stating that it was shot down by an f-22 using an a9x missile out of joint base elmendorf–richardson in anchorage, alaska. He said the object entered u.s. Airspace on thursday.
"debris that's been recovered so far is being loaded on to vessels taken ashore, cataloged, and then moved onwards to labs for subsequent analysis. And while i won't go into specifics due to classification reasons, i can say that we have located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to our further understanding of this balloon and its surveillance capabilities," ryder said.
From:
us military shoots down '''object''' flying in territorial waters over alaska | fox news