Defence Minister Anita Anand says it is too early to tell whether a “cylindrical object” shot down over central Yukon was from China.

But the minister hinted about it being another Chinese spy balloon during a hastily arranged news conference Saturday night.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel are working to recover wreckage of the object after it was destroyed by an American fighter jet on Saturday afternoon at the request of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to NORAD.

Anand says from all indications, the object is potentially similar to the one that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on the fifth of this month, but smaller in size and cylindrical in nature.

This third object was first detected over Alaska late Friday evening, according to the Pentagon, at which point two U-S F-22 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept, identify and track it.

That monitoring continued as it crossed into Canadian airspace at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

A short time after NORAD publicly revealed its presence over Northern Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau confirmed on Twitter that he had ordered it to be taken down.

Anand says to her knowledge, this was the first time NORAD had ever shot down an object flying over Canadian airspace.

(With files from CP)