Is There An Underwater UFO Base Off Southern California Coast? Part 1

Preston Dennett
– FATE Magazine

Shortly after I began investigating UFOs in the late 1980s, I started to receive reports of unidentified ocean-going craft. Most of these reports came from a certain stretch of California coastline, from about Santa Barbara south to Long Beach. This particular body of water, I soon learned, had a widespread reputation as a UFO hotspot. After several witnesses told me they believed there was an underwater UFO base there, I decided to conduct a more in-depth investigation to determine the truth. My first step was to survey the research of other prominent investigators.

To my surprise, most of the local researchers were already aware of the sightings. Writes Ann Druffel, “This body of water lies between the coastlines of Southern California and Santa Catalina Island, 20 miles offshore to the southwest. The area has for at least thirty years been the scene of UFO reports of all kinds: surface sightings of hazy craft which cruise leisurely in full view of military installations, aerial spheres bobbing in oscillating flight, gigantic cloud-cigars, and at least one report of an underwater UFO with uniformed occupants.” Another researcher, Robert Stanley, editor of the now defunct magazine Unicus, writes, “Even in the sixties, families were going down to the beach and waiting for a UFO to pass by…. By the 1970s, whole families were going down to the beach at Point Dume at night to watch the multi-colored UFOs [that] would sink under the water at times.” MUFON field investigator Bill Hamilton writes, “For years witnesses have seen many types of UFO cruising off the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Southern California. UFOs have actually been seen to come out of the water in the San Pedro Channel.” I had already uncovered several firsthand cases myself.

My next step was to put together a comprehensive list of all the recorded ocean-going encounters in the area. I came up with more than 50 sightings. These cases were next categorized into different types. Coastal Sightings The first and most common type are cases that take place over the coastline. In these cases, people see UFOs either from the shoreline or while they are out at sea. What follows are several typical cases. 1953: Engineer Frederick Hehr and several others are on Santa Monica beach when they observe a “squadron of saucers” performing maneuvers in the daylight sky over the bay. Later that day, the objects return and perform more maneuvers for a period of about ten minutes. July 10, 1955: Around 11:00 a.m., several fishermen off the coast of Newport Beach observe a bluish-silver, cigar-shaped object flying overhead at a “moderate speed and medium altitude.” Two and a half hours later, a Washington family of three are sailing 13 miles off the coast of Newport Beach on their way to Catalina Island when they observe a “perfectly round, gray-white” craft about 2,500 feet above their boat. When the object maintains its position over their boat, they radio the Coast Guard, which sends out a plane.

The object darts away before the plane arrives. November 6, 1957: Early morning in Playa Del Rey, three cars driving along the Pacific Coast Highway suddenly stall when a large “egg-shaped object” surrounded in a “blue haze” lands on the beach only a few yards away. Witnesses Richard Kehoe, Ronald Burke, and Joe Thomas exit their cars and observe two strange-looking men disembarking from the object. The UFO occupants have “yellowish-green skin” and wear “black leather pants, white belts and light colored jerseys.” They walk up to the witnesses and begin asking questions. Kehoe and the others are unable to understand the occupants, who are apparently speaking a foreign language. After a few moments, the figures return to the object, which takes off and accelerates out of sight. That same day at 3:50 p.m., an officer and 12 airmen from an Air Force detachment in nearby Long Beach observe six saucer-shaped objects zooming across the sky.

Two hours later, officers at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station report seeing “numerous” objects criss-crossing the sky. At the same time, police stations in Long Beach receive more than 100 calls from residents reporting UFOs. December 1957: The crew of the British steamship Ramsey observes a large metallic gray disk with antenna-like projections off the coast of San Pedro. One of the crewmen grabs his camera and captures a blurry photo of the object before it moves away. 1960: Actor Chad Everett and two friends are on the rooftop of his Beverly Hills home one night when they observe a lighted object moving back and forth at high speeds over the nearby ocean. Because the object moves so quickly and at right angles, the witnesses are convinced it is a genuine UFO.

1970: As investigated by Bill Hamilton, an anonymous gentleman sailing from Catalina Island to San Pedro Harbor observes a metallic saucer with four “hemispherical pods” underneath it flying only a few hundred feet above his boat. May 1973: Art director George Gray (pseudonym) observes an object sending down a beam of light while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica in the pre-dawn hours: “The UFO was over where the beach was…hovering I would say maybe a hundred, two hundred feet in the air.

It was silver. It was your basic UFO…it was definitely completely metallic with a silver dome on top and a silver dome on the bottom of it, like two plates put together. And it had little lights around it.” Gray is able to bring in additional witnesses before the object moves away. Summer 1988: Professional photographer Kim Carlsberg observes a darting, star-like object while relaxing in her Malibu beachfront home. Suddenly, the object moves directly toward her. “The brilliant point of light advanced until it became a luminous sphere some fifty feet in diameter,” reports Carlsberg. “It ominously hung in the air a hundred feet from my window…the apparent standoff lasted no more than a minute before the sphere departed as quickly as it appeared. It tore away diagonally through the night sky and vanished.” Summer 1990: Private pilot Toshi Inouye and his student observe a large, red, glowing cigar-shaped object hovering near their plane as they fly over the Santa Monica Bay in late afternoon. “It was standing still in the air, glowing red,” says Inouye. “We were kind of stunned. We didn’t know what to do.” Inouye considers calling the nearby airport control tower when the object suddenly darts away.

May 4, 1990: Early in the morning, two Malibu surfers are lying on their surfboards waiting for the next wave when they observe a “brushed aluminum saucer with a bump in the middle [which] approached the shoreline from out of the fog bank sitting about a mile offshore.” The object darts back and forth then moves back out to sea. 1998: Adam (pool-cleaner) and Mario (military private) are driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu when they see six black, diamond-shaped objects darting at high speed up and down the coast. The two men are so impressed by the brief sighting that they spend the next hour driving up and down the coast hoping for a repeat appearance. While they don’t see any more UFOs, they do find other UFO watchers. Says Adam, “We did come across a couple of people who were just sitting in their lawn chairs along the road. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but they were just sitting there along the side of the road, just looking up.”

January 3, 2004: Young Chyren is standing along the Santa Monica coast at midday when he observes a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering only a few thousand feet directly above a small yacht less than a mile out at sea. He quickly grabs his camera and snaps a photograph. Into the Ocean From the reports cited above, it should be clear that UFOs are witnessed over this coastal area in disproportionately large numbers. In most cases, they are observed a few thousand feet or less above the surface of the ocean. It is therefore plausible to speculate that these craft may be traveling into and out of this body of water. As we shall see, the next category involves UFOs that have been observed doing exactly that.

These much rarer cases provide further evidence of an underwater UFO base off the California coast. November 21, 1951: As reported by researcher Harold Wilkins, several witnesses observe “an unidentified burning object” descending into the ocean somewhere off the coast of California. August 8, 1954: The Japanese steam­ship Aliki is off the coast of Long Beach when several members of the crew observe an underwater UFO. As the intercepted radio message from the ship reads, “Saw fireball move in and out of sea without being doused. Left wake of white smoke; course erratic; vanished from sight.” 1955: Residents from the northern California coastal town of Santa Maria observe a “long silvery object” emerging from the ocean and taking off into space.

Preston Dennett