USS Omaha — Spherical object encounter, 15 July 2019

FLIR video taken from the bridge of the USS Omaha shows a spherical object tracking the ship before descending into the ocean. The Department of Defense has confirmed the footage is authentic Navy material; the object's identity remains unresolved.

On the night of 15 July 2019, a combat information center watchstander aboard the USS Omaha (LCS-12) recorded approximately 17 minutes of FLIR video showing a spherical object tracking the ship at low altitude. The object was reportedly observed in the company of multiple similar contacts and descended into the ocean without resurfacing on sonar.

What is on the record

• FLIR video authenticated by the Department of Defense as legitimate Navy material captured during a UAP encounter.
• Audio in the video recording personnel reacting in real time as the object’s altitude approaches sea level.
• Reference in the 2021 ODNI report as part of the dataset under U.S. Intelligence Community review.
• No recovered debris or sonar tracking of the object after its descent.

Mundane explanations considered

1. Balloon or untethered object. Some independent analysts have argued a slow-moving balloon would be consistent with the visual track. The descent into the ocean without surfacing complicates this hypothesis but does not eliminate it; balloons can sink.
2. Unmanned aerial system. No publicly documented UAS in 2019 is known to operate as a tight cluster of spherical objects in restricted maritime training airspace.
3. Sensor artifact. The DoD’s confirmation that the imagery is authentic and not a processing artifact rules this out.

Open questions

• Sonar logs from USS Omaha for the 15-minute window after the splash event have not been released.
• Other ships in the strike group reportedly captured related observations; their data is not public.

The Council’s verdict

Inconclusive. The combination of authenticated multi-sensor data and an unrecovered terminal trajectory makes this one of the more evidentiarily complete cases of the modern era. The most-cited mundane explanation — a balloon — does not cleanly account for the apparent submarine outcome. No verdict beyond “Inconclusive” is defensible without the unreleased sonar data.