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UFOs, the Channel Islands and the Navy's 'drone swarm' mystery
https://thehill.com ^ | January 05, 2022 - 08:00 AM EST | BY MARIK VON RENNENKAMPFF, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

Posted on 01/06/2022 6:42:26 AM PST by Red Badger

The Navy has a perplexing mystery on its hands. For several weeks in 2019, unknown objects stalked U.S. warships off the coast of southern California. While the bizarre "drone" encounters remain unsolved, the incidents occurred in an area with a long history of UFO sightings, including two of the most credible encounters on record.

According to documents reviewed by The Drive, the first reports of unidentified objects hovering and flying near Navy vessels sparked a sweeping, high-level investigation. The Navy, working with the FBI and Coast Guard, now appears to have ruled out civilian activity or U.S. military operations as plausible explanations for the encounters. This leaves two possibilities, each with extraordinary implications.

Either a foreign adversary is spying on Navy ships around the Channel Islands (which lie just west of Los Angeles and San Diego), or devices of truly unknown origin are operating with impunity around U.S. (and allied) vessels.

The implications of a foreign power deploying drones to spy on American warships just off the California coast are immense. For starters, this scenario suggests a monumental U.S. counterintelligence failure.

Moreover, such a brazen and technically complex intelligence operation amounts to an enormous gamble for a hostile nation. Any shoot-down - as the Navy reportedly attempted - of a foreign surveillance drone so close to U.S. shores would invite sweeping geopolitical repercussions.

Importantly, if the UFOs that stalked the Navy warships were part of an adversarial intelligence collection effort, the objects' operators made little effort to conceal their presence. Videos taken aboard one U.S. vessel show the mysterious craft displaying bright and flashing lights. At the same time, Navy radar operators tracked the objects with apparent ease, even expressing surprise as the craft engaged in anomalous maneuvers. In another video, a spherical object (which has noteworthy parallels to UFOs observed by fighter pilots off the U.S. east coast) appears to descend slowly into the ocean.

To be sure, investigators and intelligence analysts must take seriously the possibility that a foreign power is spying on U.S. warships a stone's throw from two major American cities. But based on what is known publicly about these bizarre incidents, investigators should also consider the long history of UFO sightings around the Channel Islands. Decades of anecdotal reports are bolstered by two of the most credible encounters on record.

In a notable 2004 incident, air controllers aboard a Navy guided missile cruiser watched as mysterious radar tracks suddenly appeared around San Clemente Island.

The radar operators grew increasingly uneasy as the UFOs moved south at bizarrely slow speeds. With U.S. planes slated to conduct an air defense exercise in the same area as the unknown objects, controllers directed two F/A-18 fighter jets to investigate the nearest radar contact.

As the jets approached, all four aviators aboard the two-seat fighters observed a "Tic Tac"-shaped craft hovering and moving in extraordinary ways just above the surface of the ocean. The object, which had no discernible engines, rotors, wings or other control surfaces, then mirrored the maneuvers of the lead fighter jet before accelerating instantaneously out of sight.

After descending tens of thousands of feet in less than a second, the object reappeared on radar 60 miles away, implying unimaginably fast velocities and g-forces. Most perplexingly, the UFO appeared at a pre-determined rendezvous point known only to the aircrew and radar operators.

U.S. intelligence analyses ruled out highly advanced Chinese or Russian aircraft as plausible explanations for the bizarre encounter. For their part, the four aviators who observed the object believe that it was "not from this world."

A half century earlier, one of the most talented and prolific aeronautical engineers in history observed a UFO over the Channel Islands. His account is corroborated by four of America's most experienced test pilots and aerospace engineers.

Among many noteworthy contributions to American aviation, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson designed the legendary U-2 and SR-71 spy planes as the first head of Lockheed Martin's famed "Skunk Works" division. On Dec. 16, 1953, Johnson and his wife watched as a UFO with no apparent control surfaces or engines hovered for several minutes in the vicinity of Santa Cruz Island. The object then accelerated rapidly out of sight.

Unknown to Johnson, a Lockheed flight test crew, which included the company's chief aerodynamics engineer, chief flight test engineer and two highly experienced test pilots, observed the same object while flying northwest along the Los Angeles coastline.

Unsurprisingly, Johnson and the flight crew's descriptions of the incident are meticulously detailed. Most importantly, Lockheed's engineers and pilots explicitly ruled out a cloud formation as a plausible explanation for the incident.

Nonetheless, the Air Force, freshly charged with discrediting and "debunking" all UFO sightings, concluded that five of America's most credible observers were fooled by a small cloud.

Largely unknown in aviation history, Johnson was a firm believer in the existence of "flying saucers." In a letter informing the Air Force of the Channel Islands encounter (and another UFO sighting two years earlier), Johnson writes that the incidents left him "more firmly convinced than ever that such devices exist." According to Johnson, the 1953 encounter helped him win "some highly technical converts in this belief."

Importantly, the Lockheed engineers' and pilots' descriptions of the December 1953 incident refer to another credible sighting over the Channel Islands. In 1951, one of the company's top test pilots, Roy Wimmer, "sighted some lights over Catalina [Island]" that reportedly "stood still for a while and moved around" before disappearing. The parallels to the movement of the "drones" that recently followed U.S. warships are noteworthy.

A decade after the Lockheed encounters of the 1950s, a Navy photographer captured video of a UFO moving slowly over Catalina Island. Digitally enhanced footage shows that the object appears to lack control surfaces or obvious means of propulsion, bearing an intriguing resemblance to the strange craft observed by naval aviators in 2004.

Now, with Congress forcing the government to take the UFO phenomenon seriously for the first time, investigators must consider whether the objects that followed Navy warships are linked to the long history of inexplicable - yet highly credible - encounters in the waters off southern California.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense. Follow him on Twitter @MvonRen.


TOPICS: History; Science; UFO's; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: ca; channelislands; drone; ufo
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1 posted on 01/06/2022 6:42:26 AM PST by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

Have they ruled out the bible? The bible tells us what they are


2 posted on 01/06/2022 6:46:24 AM PST by roving
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To: Red Badger

Something in the water out there.


3 posted on 01/06/2022 6:52:07 AM PST by Buttons12 ( )
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To: roving

The Bible does no such thing.


4 posted on 01/06/2022 6:52:59 AM PST by GingisK
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To: Red Badger

Around two years ago, I watched a podcast where a PhD type guy talked about the long pains of extensive (years) space travel and unless you could hype up speed/lessen the time involved....anyone out there attempting to visit Earth would be Artificial Intelligence (AI) beings...programmed to visit and collect data.

So it wouldn’t shock me if these were android-like beings with a vast number of instructions...with avoiding conflict/contact being like the top priority.

What does shock me is that people are not shook-up or acting crazy when the Pentagon admitted all of this is occurring. It ought to be one of the ten three stories of 2021. I don’t think it even ranks in the top twenty-five stories of the year.


5 posted on 01/06/2022 6:57:51 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: pepsionice
Around two years ago, I watched a podcast where a PhD type guy talked about the long pains of extensive (years) space travel and unless you could hype up speed/lessen the time involved....anyone out there attempting to visit Earth would be Artificial Intelligence (AI) beings...programmed to visit and collect data


6 posted on 01/06/2022 7:01:43 AM PST by Yo-Yo (is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Red Badger

Wonder how these drones compare with the swarm of low-flying drones spotted over Colorado, Nebraska, and surrounding areas night after night a couple of years ago. No ID was made which says either the cover up was really effective, or that we truly have no idea what they were which means we’re really screwed.


7 posted on 01/06/2022 7:02:32 AM PST by bigbob
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To: pepsionice

If you remove the human being from an aircraft, you can then make it much smaller.

If you remove the human being from an aircraft, you can then make it much faster.

If you remove the human being from an aircraft, you can then make it much stronger.

If you remove the human being from an aircraft, you can then make it more agile.

If you remove the human being from an aircraft, you can then make it more stealthy.

If you remove the human being from an aircraft, you can then make it more capable.

If you remove the human being from an aircraft........................


8 posted on 01/06/2022 7:02:55 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger
"...Largely unknown in aviation history, Johnson..."

Largely unknown in aviation history, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson?

Good gosh, what planet is the writer from?????

9 posted on 01/06/2022 7:03:43 AM PST by rlmorel (Nothing can foster principles of freedom more effectively than the imposition of tyranny.)
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To: rlmorel

To the General public.............


10 posted on 01/06/2022 7:05:49 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

This leaves two possibilities, each with extraordinary implications. Either a foreign adversary is spying on Navy ships around the Channel Islands (which lie just west of Los Angeles and San Diego), or devices of truly unknown origin are operating with impunity around U.S. (and allied) vessels.

or three ... if you watch the short video shot from the deck of one ship, you will notice that the objects have strobe lights at edges ... leaving the real possibility pointing to the one party that is saying nothing, but has the most historic interaction with UAPs ... the USAF.


11 posted on 01/06/2022 7:06:49 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: GingisK

he’s referring to the Book of Enoch perhaps?


12 posted on 01/06/2022 7:07:31 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Red Badger; COUNTrecount; Nowhere Man; FightThePower!; C. Edmund Wright; jacob allen; ...
I saw a UFO and nobody believes me
The government wants to disarm us after 245 yrs 'cuz they plan to do are doing things we would shoot them for!

tumblr-lykntn-Ccde1qbvl57o1-500

At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son

The biggest killer of mankind

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...

"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand." ~ Putt's Law


13 posted on 01/06/2022 7:07:50 AM PST by null and void (81 million votes ≠ 81 million voters)
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To: PIF

My guess: a foreign adversary is spying ....................


14 posted on 01/06/2022 7:08:27 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: pepsionice

Face it. You either believe Einstein or you believe in UFOs. It is virtually impossible for a physical or biological entity to travel the inconceivable distance of say 50 light years and visit earth. Of course despite all these sightings and encounters there is no physical or documentary evidence.

However that is not to say that intelligent life does not exist in distant worlds somewhere in this immense galaxy alone. Also earth has been transmitting intelligent radio waves for 120 years first in analog and then in digital form. If someone has heard us, it is not inconceivable that they are sending back radio waves of different frequencies and intent. Some may be using the earth’s atmosphere as a video screen that projects the images that cannot be held and move almost at the speed of light. Perhaps one day some computers may light up with discernable messages meant to establish contact. Who knows. Perhaps there is a string of civilizations that are linked by radio wave communications. Unfortunately given the laws of physics they can’t visit us or each other.


15 posted on 01/06/2022 7:10:29 AM PST by allendale
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To: Red Badger

My guess: a foreign adversary is spying ....................


If some foreign power had them, then we would be speaking some other language and would have for at least 100 years - the first object ever photographed was from a balloon over some New England mountain in the late 1800s. Or painted into Renaissance paintings or scratched on to rock walls ...


16 posted on 01/06/2022 7:13:07 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Red Badger

They should develop a shotgun shell for their weapons
you would not try to shoot birds with a rifle- you use shotgun ‘shot’ to increase the chances of hitting them

If this is a swarm of drones, then blast them


17 posted on 01/06/2022 7:13:32 AM PST by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing obamacare is worse than obamacare itself)
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To: Mr. K

Maybe they came up from the ocean...


18 posted on 01/06/2022 7:15:23 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: GingisK; roving

“The Bible does no such thing.”

Actually, I agree it does. So does many ancient Christian art works.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s—AMAkUhuj—/c_fill,fl_progressive,g_north,h_358,q_80,w_636/17pl7bf17hqqtjpg.jpg


19 posted on 01/06/2022 7:16:47 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: null and void; Red Badger

“We” think we’re the only inhabited planet in this vast universe of millions of galaxies with billions of suns. The arrogance of mankind is mind-boggling.

Who is to say there aren’t many, many other civilizations far more advanced than our own?

Or if one wants to be Biblical, who is to say these are not angels? That requires me (and maybe others) to re-think the purpose of angels and the fact that they have been “known” to be by your side in an instant to help you and leave without a trace just as instantly.

(Waiting for the scoffers...)

‘Face

;o]


20 posted on 01/06/2022 7:20:16 AM PST by Monkey Face
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