The US Air Force isn't ruling out extra terrestrial life after an object was shot down

The United States Air Force isn't ruling out extra terrestrial involvement after an unidentified flying object was shot down.

Reuters says the Pentagon has confirmed US military fighter jets took out 'an octagonal object over Lake Huron, which is in America's north east.

The lake borders the US state of Michigan and the southern tip of the Canadian province of Ontario.

This is the fourth object that American authorities have shot out of the sky in just a week.

The first was a Chinese balloon that captured the world's attention and sparked outrage in certain American political spheres as they demanded to know why a foreign nation was able to observe another country like this.

Chinese authorities have since denied the device was a spying aircraft, stating that it was a weather balloon that had been blown off course due to bad weather.

It's unclear what exactly the object was that was hit by a heat-seeking AIM-9X missile as it hovered around 20,000 feet above Lake Huron.

But it seems officials are keeping everything on the table.

US Air Force General Glen VanHerck, whose job is to look after American airspace, was asked if he could clarify what the object was.

“I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out," he said.

General VanHerck was also asked whether it could be aliens and he did not disappoint with the answer.

“I haven’t ruled out anything," he said.

“At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it.”

While the Chinese balloon was referred to as a ballon, US officials are reticent to call this latest object that.

General VanHerck said: “I’m not going to categorize them as balloons. We’re calling them objects for a reason. I’m not able to categorize how they stay aloft.”

TIME Magazine says none of the objects that have been discovered have 'posed a threat to anything on the ground'.

The objects have been popping up all over the place, with the first being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean, while another was spotted over Wisconsin and a third was detected over Canada.