Alien Souls or PLA Trolls? Watch New Footage From US Warships’ Mysterious 2019 UFO Encounters

Last year, the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of a clip showing a mystery triangle-shaped craft flying near US ships during maneuvers off California in 2019. The video further heightened public interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which had already been piqued by 2020 clips of UFOs flying in ways not thought physically possible.

A Freedom of Information Act request has yielded The Drive five new videos from the July 2019 encounters between US Navy warships and mysterious UFOs operating overhead.

The footage includes a pair of clips shot from aboard the USS Russell, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer whose encounter with what appeared to be a triangle-shaped object sparked a public furor in April 2021 when video of the incident was first leaked to the press.

“This is SNOOPIE [Ship Nautical Or Otherwise Photographic Interpretation and Exploitation] Team leader onboard USS Russell…We have visual of four probable unidentified drones with course unknown and speed unknown. Contacts are operating at a range of a thousand yards and holding. Tail numbers are unknown,” a radio operator is heard saying in the video. The infrared footage shows one or more craft flying over the destroyer at high speeds.

A second video shot from the same ship on 30 July shows a camera trained on another UFO, whose triangular lines now seem more bulbous, with the craft itself blending against the backdrop of the night sky.

“We have visual of one possible UAS [unmanned aircraft system] with course zero three four two. Contact is operating at a range of 4,000 yards. Flashing red, green and white solid lights seen,” the radio operator says.

When the first USS Russell footage was leaked last year, observers pointed out that the mysterious unidentified craft appeared to have come from nowhere, catching the US military off-guard and carrying out impressive, high-speed maneuvers which sparked speculation that the UFOs were otherworldly.

At last month’s historic congressional hearings on UFOs, which featured testimony from senior military officials, Navy deputy director for naval intelligence Scott Bray explained away the drones’ odd apparent shape, saying the “triangular appearance is a result of light passing through the night vision goggles, and then being recorded by an SLR camera.”

A third video, shot from aboard the USS Paul Hamilton, another Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, also on 30 July, focuses on a dark drone or plane-shaped object, with the voice behind the camera indicating that “there are multiple UAFs in vicinity upon Hamilton, CPA [closest point of approach] 100 feet in altitude off the bow.”

Another clip, shot from aboard the USS Ralph Johnson, also of the Arleigh Burke-class, shows FLIR footage of an unidentified object, with an officer saying the mystery craft was operating within four nautical miles of the ship. “One UAS approached USS Ralph Johnson from port side and passed forward to aft…The interaction to this point has been safe and professional.”

Finally, the fifth clip, shot from the USS Paul Hamilton, purportedly shows the Bass Strait, a Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier operating near the US warship during the 19 July 2019 maneuver. It is this commercial ship which the US Navy previously claimed was “likely using UAVs to conduct surveillance on US naval forces.”

The release of the videos followed the release of a Pentagon document dump by The Drive last week containing details on interactions between the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the drones and the Bass Strait (or at least the US military's version of these events). The documents, including emails, event logs and photographs, allege that the commercial vessel stalked the US ships as they sailed, trailing them at distances of several thousand yards away and sending out remote-controlled drones to come in for a closer look.

The Bass Strait’s owner and operator, Pacific Basin Shipping, has not commented on the incidents or their vessel’s purported involvement in them.

It is unclear what kind of useful intelligence the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could hope to gain from studying Arleigh Burke destroyers at night and so far from their home waters. US Navy vessels from this class of warship have repeatedly made port visits to Chinese coastal cities, and the US regularly sails them through the sensitive Taiwan Strait and South China Sea in so-called ‘freedom of navigation’ missions, presumably providing much better opportunities for the Chinese military to study them. If they weren’t intelligence-related, perhaps the drone flights were just a bit of trolling by the PLA.