Declassified Footage Of A Strange Shape Crashing Into The Ocean Has Sent UFO Hunters Into A Frenzy

The sun’s set over the Pacific Ocean, and a U.S. warship plots a course off the coast of San Diego. Suddenly, the Navy personnel stationed on board spot something inexplicable – an unidentified flying object moving back and forth against the sky. Moments later it plummets down into the water below, leaving the crew gasping in disbelief.

Though it might seem like the plot from a science-fiction movie, this scene really did play out – and there’s video footage to prove it. So what exactly was the mysterious object? And where did it come from? According to filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, the anomaly’s just the latest in a series of unexplained encounters that are dogging the U.S. military.

Allegedly taken from the Combat Information Center on board the USS Omaha, the clip certainly shows something strange. And now, Pentagon officials have even admitted that the video did come from a military source. But is this evidence of extraterrestrial visitors to planet Earth, or are there different factors at play?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the footage has thrown UFO enthusiasts into a state of frenzied excitement. But surely the U.S. government wouldn’t simply release film showing an unknown anomaly stalking a warship off the Californian coast? Well, as it turns out, it isn’t the first time that the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified such alarming materials.

In January 2021, for example, the agency posted a huge number of records on the internet, allegedly the sum total of its research on UFOs. And though some observers have pointed out that it’s difficult to substantiate this claim, the files are certainly extensive. Spanning some 2,700 pages, the documents cover strange and unexplained aerial phenomena around the world.

Among the incidents described in the declassified files were an unexplained blast that tore through a town in Russia and an eyewitness description of a UFO in Azerbaijan. But some enthusiasts have criticized the format of the files, which means that processing the documents is unnecessarily time-consuming.

So, are these files evidence that U.S. authorities are ready to be more open about UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) to give them their official name? After all, just a month earlier a bill was signed off requiring intelligence services to deliver an official report on the subject. And now, if Corbell’s to be believed, the government’s freely releasing footage of such anomalies for anyone to see.

On May 14, 2021, Corbell, a U.S. filmmaker who documents aerial phenomena alongside other mysteries, uploaded a video to his social media channels. The clip, he claims, was shot from on board the U.S. warship Omaha in July 2019. And what it shows has made headlines around the world.

According to official documents available online, the Omaha was sailing off the coast of San Diego, CA, at the time, having recently completed a series of tests. But, reports claim, this was far from an ordinary outing. As the crew conducted exercises in the Pacific Ocean, it seems that an unexpected visitor decided to drop by.

If the info posted alongside the video by Cornell is correct, the Omaha was somewhere southwest of San Clemente Island when the incident occurred. At around 11:00 p.m., the filmmaker claims, crew members inside the vessel’s Combat Information Center spotted something unusual on the monitor – and proceeded to film the anomaly.

In the footage, a mysterious blob can be seen, darting back and forth between the crosshairs on the screen. And in the background, voices – presumed to be the Omaha’s crew – discuss the object’s strange behavior. Towards the start of the video, one notes, “Took off, booking it,” as they track the anomaly across the screen.

Despite harsh weather, the object continues to move above the ocean, seemingly unaffected by the wind that tore around the vessel. In fact, a crew member can be heard commenting on the rough conditions. He says, “Got a lotta white water out there. Six foot swells.” But instead of moving away from the boat, the blob seems to come nearer.

Finally, the clip reaches what Cornell calls “a crescendo,” with the object plunging straight down into the Pacific Ocean. In the video, a witness can be heard commenting, “Whoa, it splashed!” as the anomaly vanishes beneath the waves. According to reports, military personnel were unable to locate any trace of the object from the site of the apparent crash. So what was this strange blob – and where did it go?

According to Cornell’s estimates, the object was monitored for over an hour, reaching varying speeds of almost 160 miles per hour. Despite its impressive capabilities, though, its identity remains a mystery. Was it a visiting ship from an alien civilization? Or some secret technology developed here on Earth?

“In the end, I’m 50/50 that it is man-made tech from somewhere,” a crew member told Cornell, according to his YouTube channel. “Either way, it’s world-changing, because of the incredible energy capacity of the crafts.” In fact, the filmmaker claims that the clip was considered significant enough to be part of a UAP task force update in May 2021.

In an attempt to establish the authenticity of the footage, The Debrief contacted officials at the Pentagon. And surprisingly, they didn’t dismiss Cornell’s claims. Instead, spokesperson Susan Gough wrote in an email, “I can confirm that the video was taken by Navy personnel and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations.”

When The Debrief pushed for further information, though, officials weren’t forthcoming. But some believe that the Omaha wasn’t the only warship to experience strange aerial phenomena in the summer of 2019. According to NBC News, a number of vessels from the U.S. and elsewhere bore witness to UAP activity while sailing off the Californian coast during the same period.

Apparently, crew on these ships reported seeing up to six unknown objects, described as drones, across a number of consecutive days in July 2019. Equipped with lights, the UAPs remained airborne for upwards of an hour and a half, suggesting they were far more advanced than existing commercial drone technology. So what were they?

At an April 2021 meeting of the Defense Writers Group, the U.S. Navy’s Admiral Michael Gilday was questioned about whether the UAPs could have been of extraterrestrial origin. He replied, “[There are] no indications at all of that.” But he also admitted that the military hadn’t been able to determine the precise nature of the drones or where they’d come from.

For many, the idea that these objects came to Earth from an alien planet’s actually more reassuring than the alternative. Speaking to CBS News in 2020, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said, “Frankly, if it’s something from outside this planet, that might actually be better than the fact that we’ve seen some sort of technological leap on behalf of the Chinese or the Russians or some other adversary.” For the moment, though, the strange footage allegedly captured on board the Omaha remains unexplained.

It’s still a big mystery – just like the events of November 2004. Back then, two Super Hornet fighter jets were flying off the coast of California when they reportedly encountered an oval-shaped flying object hovering above. It was 30 to 40 feet long and did not resemble any known technology. And while a U.S. Air Force video of the encounter was released to the public in 2017, so far no one has been able to provide a satisfying explanation. The videos have, however, generated speculation about what the U.S. government knows – and what it may be hiding.

The videos appear to have been released by Department of Defense (DoD) officers working for a shadowy government program. Indeed, the existence of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was not even confirmed until 2017, even though it had come to an end in 2012. The AATIP represented the U.S. government’s first official UFO research project since Project Blue Book, which was wound up almost 50 years ago.

Project Blue Book was initiated in 1952 against the backdrop of a Cold War arms race. UFOs were in fact feared to be new and undocumented Soviet technologies. Of the more than 12,000 sightings it investigated, the overwhelming majority were deemed to be mundane things such as clouds, stars and aircraft. In fact, more than half were spy planes, according to a declassified 1992 CIA report.

However, approximately 6 percent of the cases could not explained. Nonetheless, in early 1970 the project ground to a halt. According to a memo by Robert Seamans Jr., who was then Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, the project could not be justified “either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.”

Launched in 2007, the AATIP represented the U.S. government’s most recent effort to document and analyze UFOs. The obscure program apparently operated from offices deep inside the labyrinthine corridors of the Pentagon. The program was not officially designated “Classified” as such, but it was clandestine nonetheless.

According to one of the project’s architects, Harry Reid, a former Senator for Nevada, the $22 million program was financed with funds normally reserved for classified Pentagon projects. “This was so-called black money,” he told the New York Times newspaper in December 2017. “…that’s how we wanted it.” Apparently, the aim was to avoid public scrutiny.

However, the program became public knowledge on December 16, 2017, thanks to an investigation by the New York Times newspaper. Evidence of the program included official records and interview testimonies from program participants and DoD employees. On the same day as the New York Times exposé, the political news website POLITICO published its own research on the mysterious initiative. 

Much like its predecessor Project Blue Book, the AATIP was partly concerned with the threat of new and undocumented weapons belonging to international rivals such as China and Russia. The program was initiated by Harry Reid, who was then Senate majority leader, and supported by late Senators Daniel Inouye and Ted Stevens. An intelligence officer called Luis Elizondo was assigned to lead it.

Reid’s decision to start the program was apparently influenced by his conversations with astronaut John Glenn, who advised him that the government should be interviewing fighter pilots about their UFO experiences. He also appears to have been swayed by his friend and campaign contributor, Bob Bigelow. Bigelow, who is a Nevada-based billionaire entrepreneur with interests in hotels and aerospace, was apparently contracted to do research for the AATIP.

In specially-adapted buildings in Las Vegas, the AATIP apparently studied supposed metal alloys said to have originated from unexplained aerial phenomena. Also part of AATIP’s remit was research into theoretical technologies such as space-time tunnels. It also documented and analyzed reports of UFO sightings, especially by military personnel.

According to Elizondo, the program was grounded in rigorous scientific method. “We tried to work within the system,” he told POLITICO in 2017. "We were trying to take the voodoo out of voodoo science.” A sensible approach, given that some of the eyewitness accounts described things that appeared to defy the laws of physics.

Particularly puzzling were the multiple reports of incidents similar to the one captured on video in November 2004. From altitudes upwards of 60,000 feet, UFOs appeared to descend at supersonic velocities before stopping abruptly above the ocean. No known aircraft are capable of such feats. And, Elizondo told POLITICO in 2017, they were frequently seen near nuclear-powered ships and nuclear power plants.

The program was not without critics. According to James E. Oberg, a former NASA engineer, author and UFO skeptic, the objects were unlikely to be extraterrestrial. “Plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits… can account for these stories,” he told the New York Times in 2017.

The program was terminated in 2012, according to government officials. “After a while the consensus was we really couldn’t find anything of substance,” a DoD staffer told POLITICO. “There was really nothing there that we could justify using taxpayer money… We let it die a slow death.”

However, contrary to official accounts, Elizondo claims that the program continues to operate. Speaking to the New York Times, he claimed to have stayed on in the program working with Navy and CIA personnel for five more years after the ending of official funding in 2012. Then, in 2017, he resigned in protest.

Writing to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Elizondo appeared to be frustrated by the government’s reluctance to commit more resources. “Why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue?” He wrote in his resignation letter. “…[there are] many accounts from the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities… [and] there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena…”

Bigelow, too, appeared to be critical of U.S. research efforts. “Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” he told the New York Times. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma. China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries.”

After leaving the program, Elizondo joined “To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences,” a private UFO research initiative co-founded by musician Tom DeLonge. According to the company’s advertising, its team includes “the most experienced, connected and passionately curious minds from the U.S. intelligence community.”

Meanwhile, Elizondo admits continuing the research is not without peril, but thinks the risks are worth taking. “They did not exhibit overt hostility,” he told POLITICO, talking about the phenomena observed by fighter pilots in 2004. “…something unexplained is always assumed to be a potential threat until we are certain it isn’t.” The truth, as they say, is out there.