Navy Vessels in 2019 Were Swarmed by Drones, Not UFOs

(Photo: Albert Antony/Unsplash) Remember when a swarm of unidentified flying objects flew over a handful of US Navy ships off the southern California coast? (If you don’t, that’s okay—a lot has taken priority since then.) It turns out those mysterious lights were drones, not extraterrestrial aircraft, according to the Department of Defense (DoD). 

Last week the House of Representatives’ Intelligence, Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee held a hearing on the DoD’s investigation of UFOs (which the government now refers to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAPs). The goal was to determine whether UAPs pose any near or immediate national safety concerns. Since this is Congress’ first public conversation regarding unexplained aircraft in over 50 years, it also gave Americans a rare glimpse into the federal government’s current stance on possible alien activity. The resulting conversation was relieving, albeit a bit disappointing. 

A major focus of the hearing was the aforementioned incident from July 2019, in which a troubling number of small aircraft swarmed US Navy Destroyers multiple nights in a row. Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft conduct erratic maneuvers within close proximity of the ships. The incident caught the attention of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy intelligence, and the FBI, the last two of which quickly launched investigations that turned up nothing. 

The aircraft seen off the coast of Southern California were not actually triangular, as this enhanced image shows. (Photo: Twitter user @JeremyCorbell)

Meanwhile, leaked footage of the incident captivated the public, spurring obvious questions and anxieties regarding UFOs/UAPs. The government’s confusion regarding the activity was seen as concerning, and the mysterious aircraft at one point flew for over 90 minutes in low-visibility conditions—something most, if not all, commercially-available drones would struggle to accomplish. These questions died off over time, though a definitive answer was never offered.

Thanks to the Congressional hearing last week, we appear to finally have one. During the hearing, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray vaguely revealed that a second, near-identical incident occurred “off a different coast,” and that night vision footage and other data from the second incident allowed investigators to become “reasonably confident” that drones were involved. Supposedly the aperture mechanism on the night vision scope used to capture footage of the southern California activity is what caused the flying lights to appear triangular in shape. This would’ve been nice to know back in 2019, given that many other still-unexplained incidents have involved triangle-shaped UAPs. 

Now that the federal government has shown a real interest in discussing seemingly-otherworldly phenomena (so much so that it’s developed a new name for it), we can probably expect to see further conversations surrounding UAP sightings—past and future. Until then, it’s nice to know at least one sighting can probably be chalked up to drones.  

Now Read:

• Pentagon Officials Brief Congress on UFOs in Historic Hearing
• Scientists Develop Swarm of Inescapable Autonomous Drones
• DJI Mini 3 Pro Review: Setting a New High Bar For Travel Drones