Navy warships were swarmed by UFOs off California in 2019 — confirmed by the Chief of Naval Operations

For years, military personnel reported encounters with unidentified aircraft off the California coast. Most of these accounts were dismissed as misidentifications or equipment malfunctions. In July 2019, that changed.

Multiple Navy warships operating off San Diego reported being approached by a coordinated swarm of unidentified flying objects. The USS Omaha, USS Russell, and other vessels detected numerous contacts on radar simultaneously. What made this incident different from decades of previous reports was that this time, the military had documented evidence and officials were willing to confirm it.

The USS Omaha captured infrared video of a spherical object approximately six feet in diameter. The footage showed the craft traveling alongside the ship for roughly an hour before descending into the ocean. Despite extensive searches, no wreckage was recovered. The video quality was clear enough to rule out simple sensor artifacts or known aircraft.

Initial responses from defense officials followed the familiar script: requests for more data, suggestions about misidentified balloons or drones, or silence. There was no immediate official acknowledgment that anything unusual had occurred. This silence persisted even as word of the incidents circulated among Navy personnel and started gaining attention in defense circles.

The authentication came from the Pentagon itself, which confirmed the authenticity of the USS Omaha footage. The radar data independently corroborated the visual evidence, showing multiple contacts in the same airspace during the same timeframe. Pentagon officials also verified additional photographs depicting objects described as spheres, acorns, and metallic blimps captured during related incidents.

Admiral Michael Gilday, the Chief of Naval Operations, went further than Pentagon statements typically do. He confirmed that the incidents were genuine and remained unexplained. Gilday didn't speculate about origins or propose explanations. He simply confirmed that trained military observers had encountered something their equipment registered, recorded, and analyzed—and the Navy had no conventional explanation for it.