A late-night stroll along a San Diego pier turned into something out of a sci-fi movie for one local man. He says he witnessed glowing objects flying up from the ocean. Do you think it was a UFO or something else?
In the trending video, which was posted by Meli (@melitonns), she was filming by the Seaport Village in San Diego when she and a friend saw something unusual.
"Oh, I saw that, yo," her friend says in the clip, reacting to the sight in real time.
In the video, there's a speck of light that moves erratically through the sky and suddenly out of frame.
"It happened so fast so I didn't get to catch it," Meli said in the caption. "But I saw a flock of UFOs maybe like 15 to 20 of them flying, thought they were birds at first, but when I looked better they were glowing orbs. They appeared for a couple seconds then disappeared."
San Diego has a long history of UFO sightings, in part because of its wide stretch of coastline and the nearby military presence.
Navy pilots and crews have reported far more unidentified aerial phenomena than their Air Force counterparts. Experts say that's because many of these sightings happen over water -- where unusual lights or objects are seen emerging from or diving into the ocean.
For decades, the U.S. government has investigated strange lights in the sky, unusual radar readings, and claims of crashed spacecraft, National Geographic reported.
The modern UFO era began after World War II. That's when unexplained sightings surged. From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force ran Project Blue Book. They catalogued more than 12,000 reports. A later study concluded most sightings could be explained by natural phenomena or hoaxes. And the project was shut down. But public fascination endured.
In the 1990s, Nevada Senator Harry Reid took a personal interest in the subject, eventually helping launch the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in 2007. That office investigated reports, including the now-famous 2004 Navy encounter off San Diego, when pilots saw a 40-foot-long craft with no visible wings or exhaust that outran F-18s.
In the following years, Navy pilots reported more encounters. Those encounters included near-collisions on the East Coast. Pilots captured videos of objects that seemed to defy normal flight behavior, like rotating, flying at hypersonic speeds, and maneuvering without traditional propulsion. Some officials suggested these could be advanced surveillance craft from rival nations.
In 2017 the New York Times revealed the Pentagon's UFO program. That sparked new attention. By 2020, both the Pentagon and NASA had announced official task forces to investigate what are now called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs.
A 2021 intelligence report reviewed sightings from 2004 to 2021, leaving 171 unexplained. In 2023, a whistleblower alleged that the U.S. had recovered a craft of "non-human" origin.
Despite decades of study, there is no official proof of alien life. But reports and investigations continue.
BroBible reached out to Meli for comment via TikTok direct message and comment.