An unidentified flying object from North Korea that prompted the South Korean military to fire dozens of rounds of warning shots a day earlier turned out to be a propaganda balloon flown by the North, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said Wednesday.

The incident came amid raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula following the recent series of ballistic missile launches by North Korea in defiance of international warnings.

Based on analysis done by surveillance equipment, the ministry concluded that the object was a balloon that had been used by the North to fly anti-South Korea leaflets, the official said.

According to the South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country's border guards fired about 90 rounds of warning shots at the flying object near the border with North Korea on Tuesday.

The military detected the object flying across the Military Demarcation Line southward in the Cheorwon area in the eastern province of Gangwon at around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the JCS.