By Dan De Luce - NBC News
WASHINGTON - Drones repeatedly flew over U.S. Navy destroyers off the coast of California in July 2019, according to a report on The Drive website, which cites ship records.
To date, it is not clear who operated the devices.
Up to six drones flew around the warships in low visibility conditions near the Channel Islands of Southern California at a time for several days
, with the robots flashing and triggering security alerts on board, according to the report.
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The document is based primarily on Navy ship records that The Drive obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, as well as public ship tracking data.
Documentary filmmaker Dave Beaty was the first to discover some details about drone flights around the USS Kidd, a Navy destroyer, according to the report.
The Navy did not respond to a request for comment.
The event raised the
possibility of a serious security breach
.
The drone flights took place near San Clemente Island, which is home to sensitive military facilities, including a training space for the Navy SEALs, the main special operations force of the United States Navy, and an airfield.
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The mysterious flights prompted immediate inquiries from investigators and intelligence officers from the Navy and the FBI, including a special agent from the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, the FBI field office in Los Angeles, and the director of the Maritime Intelligence Operations Center, based on emails obtained by The Drive.
The emails made it clear that the event was receiving high-level attention, right down to the office of the chief of naval operations.
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Military authorities explored whether the Navy could have launched the drones without the knowledge of the destroyer crews.
It was unclear if that was the case, according to the emails cited in the report.
The aircraft were able to stay in the air for 90 minutes or more, exceeding the flight capacity of commercial drones
, and one of them covered at least 100 nautical miles (185 kilometers), according to the report, which cites the locations of the ships that they reported having sighted the aircraft.
According to the ship's logs, the drones were also able to fly at the same speed as a destroyer traveling at 16 knots per hour (30 kilometers per hour) in low visibility conditions.
The first sighting of the unidentified drones occurred on
the night of July 14, 201
9, and sailors from the USS Kidd reported the sighting of two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the ship's log.
According to the handwritten deck log, the ship deployed an onboard intelligence unit, known as the SNOOPIE team, or the Ship's Nautical or Photographic Exploitation and Interpretation team, to document the robotic aircraft.
After the two drones were spotted, the USS Kidd took security precautions and restricted communications in a way that the ship registry qualifies as River City 1, according to the report.
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Later, two other Arleigh Burke-class destroyers reported that they had heard the drone movement.
The crew of the USS Rafael Peralta observed an "identified white light hovering over the ship's flight deck," according to the ship's log.
The following night, July 15, the drones reappeared at the last minute
.
The USS Russell documented various drone activities, with drones approaching and moving back and forth and left to right.
A passing cruise ship, the Carnival Imagination, radioed Rafael Peralta to inform the crew that the drones did not belong to him.
The crew told the Navy ship that they had seen as many as five or six drones operating nearby, according to Peralta's record.
Despite military officials trying to gather information on the July 14-15 incidents, more drones were seen flying near the warships in the early morning hours of July 25 and July 30, according to the report.
