(CNSNews.com) - Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley today confirmed reports that one of the missiles fired on Sunday by the U.S. Air Force missed its target over Lake Huron. A second missile brought the unidentified object down.

"Yes, the first shot missed on the fourth balloon, so we're talking about the balloon that was downed over Lake Huron."

Milley noted that it took only one missile to down the other three floating objects, including the enormous Chinese spy balloon downed off the coast of South Carolina a week ago Saturday; the first unidentified object shot down over the north coast of Alaska last Friday; and the second object shot down in the Yukon on Saturday.

"So the most important thing for the American military is to protect the American people," Milley said:

"So we evaluate the risk; we evaluate the risk of the balloons themselves, are they a kinetic threat or not, yes, no? Are they an intelligence threat, are they a threat to civilian aviation? All those things we go through very, very carefully.

"We determine what the debris field is likely to be, with one of these platforms landing on the earth's surface or in the water. So we go to great lengths to make sure that the air space is clear, that the backdrop is clear, out to the max effective range of the missile.

"And in this case, the missile landed harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron. We certainly tracked it all the way down. And we made sure that the air space was clear of any commercial and/or recreational traffic.

"We do the same thing for the maritime space. So we're very, very deliberate in our planning ..to make sure that those shots are, in fact, safe."

Milley said none of the debris from the three most recent objects has been recovered, and he said it will take a while to get to the crash sites, given the difficult terrain of the three debris fields.