The footage, captured through infrared cameras in the ship's Combat Information Centre just before 11 PM off the coast of San Diego, shows a spherical object moving with the sort of deliberate purpose that makes you wonder what, exactly, was piloting it. The Pentagon's since confirmed its authenticity, which rather puts paid to any suggestion this was some elaborate hoax or misidentified weather balloon.
What makes the Omaha incident particularly extraordinary—and frankly, rather concerning—is that this wasn't a lone object having a wander about the California coast. According to radar data released alongside the footage, the USS Omaha was surrounded by at least 14 similar spherical objects during a two-hour period that evening. Documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who obtained and published the footage in May 2021, confirmed through multiple sources that this was, in his words, "a swarm."
"This was a swarm. I think it's fair to say that there was a minimum of 14 objects. And that's a minimum. There could have been more. That's at one time on the S band radar screens."
The radar recordings paint an even more peculiar picture. Personnel aboard the Omaha can be heard tracking the objects as they moved at speeds ranging from 46 to 138 knots—far faster than conventional drones of that era. "Holy shit. They're going fast. Oh, it's turning around," one voice exclaims on the audio recording. It's the sort of genuine bewilderment you can't fake.
The most striking moment comes at precisely 11 PM when the tracked sphere appears to descend into the ocean. "Whoa, it splashed!" crew members can be heard saying, their voices carrying that particular mix of excitement and unease that comes from witnessing something genuinely inexplicable. What's rather notable here is what happened next—or rather, what didn't happen.
A submarine was deployed to search for wreckage. They found nothing. Not a fragment, not a trace, not so much as an oil slick. The object had seemingly transitioned from air to water without the catastrophic consequences one might expect from, say, a drone taking an unplanned dive into the Pacific. This transmedium capability—the ability to move seamlessly between different environments—is what separates these incidents from your garden-variety UFO sighting.
The phenomenon of Unidentified Submerged Objects has long been a somewhat overlooked aspect of the broader UAP mystery, but the Omaha incident brings it front and centre. If these objects can operate both above and below the waterline with equal facility, it rather expands the scope of where we ought to be looking—and what we might be looking for.
The USS Omaha wasn't operating in isolation that night. Ship logs from July 2019 reveal that multiple vessels in the San Diego area—including the USS Kidd, USS Russell, and USS Rafael Peralta—reported similar encounters over several days. The incidents were serious enough that the Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force included them in briefings delivered to members of Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and intelligence agencies.
Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough confirmed the authenticity of the footage in a statement: "I can confirm that the video was taken by Navy personnel, and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations."
It's worth noting that military installations and vessels have long been hotspots for UAP activity. A peer-reviewed study examining the correlation between UFO sightings and nuclear facilities suggests these objects demonstrate a particular interest in humanity's most sensitive technological capabilities. Whether the USS Omaha's advanced sensor systems attracted similar attention remains speculation, but it's not an unreasonable question to ask.
The remarkable thing about the USS Omaha footage isn't just what it shows—it's what it represents in terms of official disclosure. For decades, military personnel who reported such encounters risked ridicule and career damage. Now, the Pentagon is openly confirming these videos and acknowledging that whatever was captured on camera remains genuinely unidentified.
The shift in official stance has even reached the halls of Congress, where discussions about UAPs have become surprisingly mainstream. Even controversial figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene have weighed in on UFO-related matters, though her approach to the subject has sparked its own debates about how seriously to take various claims circulating in political circles.
Six years on from that July evening, the USS Omaha incident remains officially unexplained. The objects demonstrated capabilities that, if they were human-made, would represent a significant technological leap: speeds exceeding 138 knots, the ability to hover for extended periods, and most remarkably, seamless transition between air and water without apparent propulsion systems visible on infrared.
Were they foreign drones? The technology doesn't match anything publicly known from China or Russia. Were they experimental US craft? If so, why would they be testing them in ways that created confusion and concern among Navy personnel? And if they're something else entirely—well, that opens up rather more complicated questions.
Retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet has suggested these incidents represent potential threats to maritime security that demand serious investigation. He's not wrong. When your warships are being buzzed by objects that demonstrate capabilities beyond known technology, whether they're foreign adversaries or something more exotic, it's rather important to work out what's going on.
The USS Omaha footage remains one of the most compelling pieces of evidence in the modern UAP discourse. It combines multiple sensor systems, radar tracking, official confirmation, and the rather dramatic element of an object disappearing into the ocean. It's the sort of case that makes simple explanations increasingly difficult to maintain.
What happened off San Diego that July night in 2019? We still don't definitively know. But the fact that the Pentagon is acknowledging these encounters, investigating them through official channels, and—perhaps most significantly—admitting they don't have all the answers marks a profound shift in how we approach these phenomena.
The truth, as they say, is out there. In this case, it might also be under there, somewhere in the waters off California, leaving no trace of its passage save for infrared footage and the bewildered voices of Navy personnel watching something they couldn't quite explain.
