U.S. Navy

U.S. Navy

Type	Organization
Also known as	Navy
On the Timeline	78 events, 1947–2022

The U.S. Navy has played a growing part in the UAP story. In the early decades, Navy pilots and ships reported unidentified objects, and Navy photo analysts studied the 1952 Tremonton film. But the Navy's central role came after 2004, when pilots from the USS Nimitz carrier group encountered the "Tic Tac" object off California, and after 2014–15, when pilots training off the East Coast reported frequent unknown objects.

The UAP videos

Three Navy infrared videos, known as FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast, were made public in 2017 and officially released by the Pentagon in 2020. In 2019 the Navy updated its guidelines for pilots to report UAP, and in 2020 the Navy-led UAP Task Force was set up to collect and analyse reports.

Other claims

The Navy also appears in many unverified claims, including stories of submarine encounters, the Philadelphia Experiment legend and patents by Navy engineer Salvatore Pais for exotic propulsion concepts.

On the UAP Timeline

• Garrett's suspicion of secret U.S. tests (1947) (19 August 1947) — An Air Force officer tells the FBI he suspects secret U.S. military tests explain some flying disc reports.
• War Department denial of a U.S. disc program (1947) (19 August 1947) — The War Department says it knows of no U.S. program that could explain the flying discs.
• Twining memo (1947) (23 September 1947) — Gen. Nathan Twining writes that the flying discs are real and could be a secret U.S. or Soviet project.
• Hillenkoetter letter of 24 September 1947 (24 September 1947) — A letter attributed to the CIA director allegedly names Air Force and Navy intelligence units as leads on recovered objects.
• Research and Development Board dismisses the discs (1948) (31 January 1948) — A Pentagon research board publicly dismisses flying saucers as mirages and mass self-hypnosis.
• Henry J. Taylor secret-weapon broadcast (1950) (27 March 1950) — A broadcaster announces saucers are secret U.S. weapons; the story is later called CIA disinformation.
• Dewey Fournet's motion study and Navy inquiry (1951) — A Blue Book officer reportedly runs a private, Navy-assisted inquiry into undersea and aerial UAP.
• Urner Liddel's Skyhook balloon explanation (27 February 1951) — A Navy physicist publicly says all UAP reports are mirages or balloons.
• Anthony Mirarchi's challenge to the balloon explanation (27 February 1951) — The head of Project Twinkle tells reporters the Navy is misleading the public and real UAP show controlled motion.
• Project Winterhaven (1952) — Physicist Thomas Townsend Brown proposes Project Winterhaven, a military study of electrogravitic propulsion.
• Submarine encounters study (1952) (24 April 1952) — Air Force and Navy intelligence study nine undersea UAP encounters reported by U.S. submarines.
• Toronto dematerialization claim (1953) (1953) — An RAF instructor claims he saw a successful 'dematerialization' experiment in Toronto.
• Albert Chop and the Tremonton film release (9 February 1953) — Air Force spokesman Albert Chop claims the CIA killed a press release and ordered a debunking campaign.
• Ed Balocco's night chase near Edenton (1953) (19 February 1953) — A Marine pilot scrambled near North Carolina reports a disc with red lights coming within 350 feet.
• Lockheed–Kelly Johnson sighting (1953) (18 December 1953) — Lockheed test crew members flying a Navy aircraft follow a flying saucer over the Pacific.
• JANAP 146(C) (10 March 1954) — Directive JANAP 146(C) covers UAP reports and bars civilian pilots from discussing them.
• Navy FLYOBRPT reporting instruction (1954) (23 July 1954) — A new Navy directive orders UAP sighting reports sent to several intelligence commands.
• William Tompkins and the Douglas documents (1 March 1955) — Documents from engineer William Tompkins suggest Douglas studied unconventional propulsion.
• Tompkins's secret space program claims (1 March 1955) — Tompkins also describes alleged secret underground bases tied to a hidden space program.
• Varo edition of The Case for the UFO (April 1956) — Navy researchers receive an annotated copy of Morris Jessup's UFO book with strange handwritten notes.
• Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment (April 1956) — Morris Jessup receives letters claiming a secret Navy experiment at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
• Navy pilots' shoot-down orders claim (1956) (5 July 1956) — Unnamed Navy pilots claim standing orders to shoot down hostile UAP over the Pacific.
• USS Franklin D. Roosevelt sighting (1958) (October 1958) — A Navy veteran says he saw an orange cigar-shaped object with figures inside near Cuba.
• Navy reserve pilot's Wright-Patterson saucer claim (1962) (1962) — A Navy reserve pilot says he saw a saucer at Wright-Patterson in 1962.
• China Lake surveyors' sighting (1966) (18 January 1966) — Two surveyors at China Lake see a UAP pass low overhead and maneuver.
• USS John F. Kennedy encounter (1971) (June/July 1971) — A Navy yeoman says the USS John F. Kennedy's systems failed during a UAP encounter in the Caribbean.
• Great Lakes shoot-down claim (1973) (June 1973) — A Navy instructor claims a UAP was shot down by a missile and secretly moved by rail to Great Lakes.
• Secret project asks about remote viewing (1973) (27 October 1973) — Puthoff tells Vallée a secret UAP project with an official charter asked about remote viewing.
• Three air bases claim (1978) (August 1978) — A source tells Leonard Stringfield that three air bases held alien craft or bodies.
• Sunnyvale hangar saucer claim (1979) — A Navy radar observer says he saw a large saucer in a hangar at Sunnyvale in 1950.
• Cheyenne Mountain and Lake Kickapoo sighting (1986) (December 1986) — A Navy officer says sensors at Cheyenne Mountain detected a UAP.
• Bruce Maccabee's CIA talk (1987) (7 July 1987) — Navy physicist Bruce Maccabee says he lectured about UAP at CIA headquarters.
• Cabo Rojo jet disappearance (1988) (January 1989) — A Navy sailor says F-14 pilots chased a UAP near Puerto Rico.
• Naval Research Laboratory parapsychology claim (21 February 1990) — A journalist claims the Naval Research Laboratory had a parapsychology unit.
• Kevin Thomas and the Nimitz black triangle (1991) — A Nimitz petty officer says he saw a huge black triangle rise out of the ocean.
• Jesse Marcel Jr.'s account of the Roswell debris (6 March 1991) — Jesse Marcel Jr. says his father showed him strange Roswell debris in 1947.
• Navy linguist and the Soviet crash report (July 1991) — A Navy linguist says he decoded a Soviet report of a crash split between England and Germany.
• Vallée meets D'Amato on secret programs (1992) (22 May 1992) — Vallée writes he met Senate counsel Dick D'Amato about secret programs.
• Edward Dudgeon and the Philadelphia Navy Yard (1994) — A Navy veteran tells Vallée about his time at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
• Zero-point field theory of inertia paper (1998) (August 1998) — Puthoff and Lockheed researchers publish a paper on inertia and vacuum energy.
• Cold fusion and the Energy Department (1999) (17 May 1999) — A journalist reports concerns about the Energy Department and cold fusion research.
• Arlington Institute board meeting (1999) (3 December 1999) — A defense think tank with former CIA chief James Woolsey holds a board meeting.
• Will Miller on senior officials kept in the dark (2000) — A retired Navy commander says senior officials are kept away from UAP knowledge.
• Will Miller's offer to Davis and Puthoff (25 April 2002) — A retired Navy commander offers his services researching crash retrievals.
• Bill Cooper and Behold a Pale Horse (2004) — Bill Cooper claims underground bases host cooperation between aliens and humans.
• USS Princeton data recordings claim (14 November 2004) — USS Princeton radar staff say two men took the Tic Tac encounter data recordings.
• Diego Garcia hangar account (2005) — An Air Force veteran describes secretive Navy operations in a hangar on Diego Garcia.
• Navy officer on the Montauk claims (4 August 2008) — An anonymous forum poster says a Navy officer dismissed some Montauk claims as nonsense.
• Underwater Tic Tac near Haiti (January 2010) — A Navy sailor sees a Tic Tac-shaped object under the water near Haiti.
• Lemoore triangle sightings (15 November 2011) — A Navy maintenance worker sees a glowing triangle above Lemoore Naval Air Station.
• Pentagon accounting plugs (18 November 2013) — A defense accountant says she was told to enter false numbers in Navy budgets.
• Navy metamaterials research (2014) (March 2014) — A Navy budget document mentions research on metamaterials to control electromagnetic waves.
• Oechsler on Navy EMP experiments (18 August 2014) — Bob Oechsler links Navy EMP experiments to UAP recoveries.
• Antarctic Navy flight engineer's account (30 January 2015) — A Navy flight engineer says he saw an entrance to an underground site near the South Pole.
• DeLonge on pooled crash material (27 March 2016) — Tom DeLonge says his advisers told him crash material was pooled among government and industry.
• Sekret Machines (5 April 2016) — DeLonge publishes the novel Sekret Machines, which he says advisers helped shape.
• Christopher Mellon goes public (2016) (9 May 2016) — Former Pentagon intelligence official Christopher Mellon speaks publicly about UAP for the first time.
• DeLonge's research groups (2016) (31 August 2016) — Tom DeLonge says he became involved with groups studying crashed craft and biology.
• Navy underwater-object program claim (2017) (19 September 2017) — An astronomer with Navy contracts claims the Navy runs a secret underwater-object project.
• DeLonge's advisers on Joe Rogan (26 October 2017) — DeLonge suggests on a podcast that senior officials and executives advise him.

…and 18 more.

References