The following was pulled from declassified deck logs from the USS Kidd, USS Rafael Peralta, USS John Finn and USS Russell, that were released as a result of investigation and multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the Drive.

The UFO encounter described occurred between July 15th and 16th in 2019 less than 150 nautical miles from Los Angeles.

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The USS Kidd was just west of San Clemente Island, around 9:58 at night when the first two orbs of light appeared in the air over the Navy destroyer. Leadership aboard the Kidd immediately deployed what’s referred to as a “SNOOPIE team” — a group of trained crewmembers who carry handheld digital cameras to collect visual evidence of enemy encounters.

The SNOOPIE team took to the deck and began recording what they could. Visibility was very low — less than a nautical mile at night — but nevertheless, what the USS Kidd and several other Navy ships in the area witnessed over the next 90 minutes was mind-bendingly weird, according to their deck logs.

The USS Kidd went into a condition known as “River City 1” to enhance both “operational security” and “survivability.” Onboard sensors were put on high-alert as the ship’s SNOOPIE team roved the deck, operating their handheld cameras. They warned the nearby USS Rafael Peralta and John Finn of the situation: two shapeless drones… or unmanned flying vehicles (UAV’s)… or UFO’s, whatever, were hovering in restricted airspace nearby their ship, matching their speed as they cruised along the open ocean.

USS John Finn confirmed that they were witnessing similar activity near their ship and at a distance. 

Then, things got exponentially weirder.  

At 11:23 the USS Kidd reported that one of the orbs of light had moved directly over the ship and was hovering perfectly still over the onboard helipad. The object was not only matching the battleship’s speed of 16 knots (18.4 mph), but it was doing so in extremely poor visibility — a maneuver that would be tough for any pilot.

By this point the ship’s encounter with these UFOs (or, as they’re referenced in the deck logs “UAVs”) had lasted for over 90 minutes. Then, the objects disappeared and were not mentioned again.

At least, not for another 22 hours.

However, the following night, on July 16th, one of the other destroyers in the area, the USS Rafael Peralta again spotted objects in the sky around 8:39 PM and deployed their own SNOOPIE team, according to their logs. Within a half hour, the USS Kidd was also encountering the objects\] miles away, for their second time in as many nights. By 9:20 the USS Kidd logs “Multiple UAV’s above around the ship” (with the word 'above' crossed out). And by 9:40, the USS Rafael Peralta had recorded four more such objects surrounding their ship.

Then, at 10:15, the USS Russell (another nearby destroyer) was quite literally swarmed by the mysterious lights. Their deck logs indicate that they spotted seven different objects appearing, dropping in elevation and moving forward and backward and left and right; flying all around their ship for the next forty-five minutes.

The USS Rafael Peralta contacted the only nearby suspect at the time: a Carnival cruise ship. Who confirmed that, not only did the objects not belong to them, but that they too could see five or six of these objects from their vantage.  

At 11:51, after a nearly three-hour encounter with these mysterious lights, the USS Russell reported its final sighting. Then the objects disappeared for good.

Naturally such a high-profile event, with so much evidence and so many witnesses initiated a full-scale military investigation that involved the Navy, the Airforce, the FBI and several other agencies. According to emails released to the Drive, that investigation found no answers. Every avenue they pursued resulted in a dead end.

It wasn’t our military, they concluded, nor was it anything civilian. So was it an adversary?

We’d better hope not. Not only were these “drones” or “UAV’s” able to get within spitting distance of some of our most advanced destroyer battleships without being detected in advance; not only were they able to remain unidentified after an hours-long close-encounter with multiple different military vessels; but these objects did so just off the coast of Los Angeles. That’s a little too close for comfort, if it’s the Chinese or the Russians flaunting their newest drone-tech in our military’s faces. That would almost undoubtedly result in some kind of conflict or confrontation.

Which, leads to perhaps the most perplexing question of all: why didn’t the USS Kidd or any of the other destroyers shoot these targets down? They were clearly interfering in US military operations, flying in restricted airspace and breaking multiple federal and military laws. It’s hard to imagine such advanced military vessels allowing unidentified threats to harass them like that for several hours, multiple nights in a row, without attempting to neutralize or otherwise repel the threat (unless they’d already been instructed explicitly not to).

But, that’s exactly what the deck logs seem to indicate: no aggressive action was taken by any party in response to this UFO encounter. The destroyers destroyed nothing.

In fact, the only actions that were definitively taken were defensive and in the spirit of gathering intelligence. Multiple SNOOPIE teams were deployed at multiple different times, on multiple different ships to record as much of the encounter as possible. That’s not even to mention the numerous radio, thermal and electromagnetic sensors onboard such destroyer battleships, that also surely captured tons of data on these things.

It’s quite possible, that this UFO sighting has more technological sensory evidence, than any other known UFO event. However, the full details of it remain classified and unknown. The investigation into this mystery either died or was somehow resolved behind closed doors. And all the video, photo, and sensory evidence/data disappeared into the black hole of “classified” intelligence — likely never to be seen again.

What happened those two nights in 2019? What were those objects? Who was operating them and for what reason?

We may never know — even if the government already does. But one thing is certain: something very strange is going on in this part of the globe. This stretch of ocean is the same area where Commander David Fravor encountered the now-infamous “Tic-Tac” object in the 2004 Nimitz Encounter; the same area that the USS Princeton had reportedly been observing hundreds of UAPs/UAVs flying along the coast.

Whatever is going on down there, it seems to be perplexing our military. Which presents them with a very clear and very serious security threat.