July 2019; major documentary reporting in 2021–2022 / T219
Drone-like objects around Navy ships
Southern California offshore training areas
Witness account
Several US Navy ships recorded or reported repeated drone-like activity during operations off southern California in July 2019. Later publicity sometimes merged these incidents with other Navy encounters and dramatic videos into a single mystery. The underlying records instead describe multiple nights, platforms and observations that should be evaluated individually, alongside earlier and later drone incidents in the region.
Public record
FOIA-based investigations by Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti examined ships' logs, imagery, operational material and vessel-location data. Additional documents released in 2022 provided more ordinary-drone context. At the May 2022 congressional hearing, officials also explained that triangular shapes in one circulated night-vision sequence resulted from the imaging setup rather than necessarily triangular craft.