MYSTERY OF “UNDERWATER UFOS” SOLVED?
SECRET NAVY PROGRAM REVEALED
FEBRUARY / MARCH 2025
Newly developed information suggests that top secret military technologies may account for some UFOs that have been seen to fly out of the ocean – or fly from the sky and then enter the ocean. Often called USOs, reports of these Unidentified Submersible Objects have been made with increasing frequency, including by amazed pilots.
It can now be revealed that an elite group of defense contractors, on behalf of the US Navy, has designed, manufactured, tested, and is now operating exotic manned and unmanned submersible aircraft of futuristic appearance. They can fly through the air and then enter the ocean. They then become subsea vehicles. They conduct spy or warfare missions in the ocean and then break out of the water as atmospheric vehicles. Other systems are dedicated to vertical takeoff from the oceans depths into the air but are not meant to reenter the sea but instead descend onto land after completion of their mission.
These ultra-advanced craft have been misconstrued as alien UFOs because these unconventionally-shaped objects can fly into and hurl out of the sea and exhibit extraordinary aerial maneuvers (which include right-angle turns at extreme speed).
-
Technical military documents have been found buried within Defense Department archives that detail these stunning craft
-
The involved defense contractors and types of craft are identified
-
For the first time, an engineer with high level security clearance speaks out about these crafts’ missions and how they relate to UFOs and public perception
-
A discovered paper shows that such US Navy technology development programs began an astounding 82 years ago.
THE COVERT CRAFT
.png)
.png)
DARPA Manned Submersible Aircraft Concept
General Dynamics Unmanned Hybrid Vehicle
.png)
Navy Launch of Undersea to Air Vehicles
These revolutionary craft are referred to by defense contractors variously as “hybrid platforms”, “submersible aircraft”, “transmedium vehicles”, and by other names. The craft blend Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) technologies so that a single craft can traverse both the sky and the ocean with impunity. Some of these vehicles carry human passengers. The images above represent early versions of various classes of vehicles. The Navy now has Hybrid Aerial Underwater Vehicles (HAUVs) that are several generations advanced from those shown in these rare pictures. Today’s vehicles are far more evolved, and they remain highly classified.
THE THREE MAJOR CRAFT CATEGORIES
There are three major categories of these types of Hybrid Aerial Underwater Vehicles: Unmanned Vehicles, Manned Craft, and Undersea-to-Air Vehicles.
Unmanned Vehicles (as shown in the first image above) offer unique military advantages. There are no pilot casualties, nor loss of life of those operating the craft remotely. They can perform with extreme agility and without regard to g-force. Because they carry no people, they offer large payload capacity for weapons and equipment.
Manned Craft (as shown in the second image above) carry human passengers. The concept Manned Submersible Aircraft shown above was from 15 years ago. Indications are that there are now fully realized, operating vehicles of this type. Manned craft are far more adaptable in unforeseen circumstances than unmanned vehicles. Humans can conduct experiments, gather data, and perform repairs on-site, often with a higher degree of precision and creativity than unmanned vehicles. A manned aircraft is also useful in contested environments where command-and-control is limited.
Undersea-to-Air Vehicles (as shown in the third image above) are smaller scale, subsea-to-air, drone-like vehicles that are especially useful in reconnaissance missions by using sensors and photographic technology. Highly maneuverable, they can also be armed and can carry charged devices. They are “shot out” from deep beneath the ocean through long, extendable, high performance “launch tubes” that are attached to specially equipped submarines, often located far below the water’s surface.
All these technology categories can react offensively from the air. Conversely, they can all surprise attack enemy aircraft by launch from the subsea. They all surveil and gather intelligence. In their own way, each helps to unite the air and the undersea as battlespace domains.
CHINA UNVEILS ONE OF ITS AERIAL / UNDERWATER VEHICLES
.png)
Although the development of these craft is led by the Navy in the US, there are other nations that are operating similar technology. In August of 2024, China quietly unveiled the “SeaDart,” shown in the photo above. Little reported on, it can transition seamlessly between air and water environments. It employs a sophisticated design that allows it to take off and land vertically, operate underwater autonomously, and re-emerge into the air. At 00:56 in the clip below, underwater thrusters are activated and you can see the craft emerge from under the ocean’s waters:
THE GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS THAT REVEAL THE TECHNOLOGY
Several technical documents and images found within the archives of the Defense Technical Intelligence Center (DTIC) and other repositories confirm such extraordinary underwater/aerial hybrid vehicle technology:
“Submersible Aircraft Concept Design Study”: This study was authored for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, for a department known as the “Ship Systems Integration and Design Department”. From the summary page we learn that this related to a: “Submersible aircraft study (that) combines the speed and range of an airborne platform with the stealth of an underwater vehicle by developing a vessel that can both fly and submerge.” The full document can be viewed here: Submersible Aircraft Concept
“Unmanned Three Environment Vehicle”: This study was again authored for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, but this time for the “Naval Architecture and Engineering Department.” From the summary page we learn that this related to: “Design of an unmanned autonomous vehicle capable of operating in air, on the surface, and underwater was explored to assess technical and technological issues required by such a vehicle.” The full document can be viewed here: U3V
“Project AirNautilus”: DARPA BAA 09-06 Over fifteen years ago DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which works closely with the US Navy) issued a Broad Area Announcement (BAA) calling for designs of a “transmedium vehicle” - a submersible aircraft for use in “future coastal insertion missions.” The full document on Project AirNautilus can be seen here: AirNautilus
DARPA was interested in proposals from defense contractors for an aircraft that could travel underwater. DARPA was particularly interested in an aircraft that would fly to the target area, land on the ocean, submerge, approach the coast, drop Special Operations operatives, loiter offshore, collect the returning troops and then take off to fly back to base. One response to this BAA came from the US Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Carderock Division in Maryland. The design featured a crew of two and space for up to six passengers and their equipment. Carderock published their designs in 2010 and noted that small-scale models had been constructed and displayed satisfactory flight characteristics. Crucially, the report concluded that the creation of a workable submersible aircraft was “feasible within the current state of the art.”
“Seabird-Inspired Fixed-Wing Hybrid UAV-UUV System”: Concepts for such technology can be derived from unexpected places. A sponsored design study undertaken at North Carolina State University in 2018 resulted in the creation of an undersea/aerial vehicle based on the aerodynamic and underwater dynamics of sea birds. It successfully demonstrated “egress from water, flight in the air, ingress into the water in each flight, and water locomotion.” The document can be viewed here: Seabird-Inspired Hybrid System
What these papers discuss only hint at what has actually been accomplished. The Navy periodically requests and commissions designs and studies from defense contractors and academia. This is done to gain fresh and outside perspectives on how to advance existing systems to next-generation craft.
.png)
The image above is of another US Navy/DARPA-developed design concept for a hybrid manned air-subsea vehicle. This image is from a PowerPoint presentation made by the Naval Surface Warfare Center. A decade and half ago the Navy conducted a study that would determine the feasibility of building a manned “submersible aircraft” that could insert Special Forces operators “covertly at a higher speed and more independently than is currently achievable” (see link below.) Here the US Navy admits that at that time – 15 years ago – there were submersible aircraft that carried passengers, and that higher speed was desired.
.png)
The image above is thought to be of a proposed aerial-undersea vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft – a small vehicle that can take off and land vertically without relying on a run space and that can traverse both under and over the sea, and land on ground.
In 2010, NSWC Carderock (Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division) published a unique vehicle concept. The idea was to research the feasibility of designing a vehicle that combined “the speed and range of an airborne platform with the stealth of an underwater vehicle by developing a vessel that can both fly and submerge.” The conceptual design for this vehicle appears as the second image under “The Covert Craft” section of this article. The ultimate goal was to work towards developing a vehicle that could insert and extract Special Forces units at much greater ranges and speeds than existing platforms at the time, as detailed at this link: Submersible Aircraft Concept Design Study
Other indications of such aerial/underwater craft technology include the history of a system known as “Cormorant.” Cormorant was a Lockheed Martin “Skunkworks” concept for a submarine-launched unmanned air vehicle. The design was a response to the DARPA Multi-Purpose Unmanned Air Vehicle (MPUAV) program which began in 2003. Lockheed partnered with General Dynamics Electric Boat (makers of nuclear submarines) and Teledyne Turbine Engine Company which received millions of dollars in DARPA funding for a Phase 1 demonstration. The 19-foot-long jet-powered stealthy UAV was launched from a modified missile tube of a Navy ballistic missile submarine, and then boosted from underwater and into the air by novel rocket boosters. The system was tested in the Hood Canal. Records indicate that “Cormorant” was seemingly cancelled in 2008. In the 22 years since this vehicle program began, it is believed that the system was modified and technically enhanced, with a different project name attached to the technology. A picture collage of this bizarrely shaped craft is shown as the first image under “The Covert Craft” section title of this article. The image below is of a concept transmedium vehicle developed by DARPA and the US Navy over twenty years ago:
.png)
THE DEFENSE CONTRACTOR VIDEO OF FLIGHT FROM THE OCEAN’S DEPTHS:
General Dynamics Undersea Battlespace CONOPS for ANTX, 2017
General Dynamics released a promotional video to the public which was produced over seven years ago that shows an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) ejecting an object that then turns into a winged craft that flies into the air from the subsea. Rather than being one unit, it is two. The underwater vehicle (at 1:28 in the video) is launched using a system to extract and lift the flying vehicle out of the submersible. At 1:32 in the video, just as it comes out of the ocean, we see the vehicle actually “sprout wings” from its sides and turn into an aerial craft.
The video is carefully animated to obscure detail and skips over just precisely how the aerial craft propels itself at the moment of exiting the ocean. This is of course deliberate. The video is for public viewing. What is not told is that this video is only representative of the full level of development and sophistication of the vehicle. Years before the video was even made, such systems were already in use and today’s version is far superior than what is depicted. A similar system became operational in 2013 when the US Navy released a still photo of the launch from the USS Providence of unmanned aircraft from the subsea. A photo of this system appears as the third image under “The Covert Craft” section title of this article.
THE NAVY HAS WORKED ON FLYING SUBMERSIBLES FOR OVER EIGHTY YEARS
Remarkably, the US Navy’s efforts to create such hybrid vehicles extends back to over eight decades ago. In the September 1945 issue of The Journal of the American Rocket Society, an article was found titled “The Flying Submersible” that references a 1943 effort by the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics to create aircraft that can enter and exit the subsea. The project referred to this vehicle as the “Wadru”. It was to be powered by novel thermal jet technology. Two of the named defense contractors were Rolls-Royce and Alisson Engine. The article alludes to this project having brought the vehicle to a prototype level. The first page of the article can be read here: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/ and the full article can be read on pages 12-14 here: JARS Sept 1945.
Strangely, the Wadru vehicle was never again mentioned in the technical literature, and it is unknown how far this technology ever advanced. We do know that it set the stage for continued development along these lines in the years that have followed.
THE INVOLVED DEFENSE CONTRACTORS AND AGENCIES
The US Navy and DARPA are the organizations within the US government that review, approve, and order such technology. The four major defense contractors engaged in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Unmanned Underwater Vehicles and their Aerial-Underwater hybrids are General Dynamics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.
These defense contractors employ engineers that are versed in both aerospace and subsea systems design. The major technical challenges that defense contractors had to overcome were essentially twofold: Engineering a craft whose physical design would allow it to maneuver in two very different environments – the atmosphere and the subsea. The other challenge was propulsion design – how to propel and navigate an aeronautic vehicle in an underwater environment and vice versa. The secret that the contractor have kept is that they have solved these challenges.
A MILITARY ENGINEER CONFESSES:
“WE HAVE CRAFT THAT CAN FLY INTO AND OUT OF THE OCEAN”
A defense contractor systems engineer with security clearance has provided insight into the technology in an astonishing interview. He has experience in the design and test engineering of both aerospace vehicles and submersible vehicles with major defense contractors. He spoke to this author recently under the understandable condition of anonymity. This engineer has managed projects relating to highly advanced classified technology systems for air and sea warfare.
He has several reasons why he was open to discussion. He believes that a general acknowledgement of such air-subsea vehicles will help to dispel misplaced belief by people that these craft are all extraterrestrial. He is especially distressed that these man-made craft are not revealed to members of Congress who are now evaluating sightings of the UAP/UFO phenomena. He also has concerns related to flight hazard and safety, in that passing aircraft are not alerted to such underwater-to-air flights. He further explained that the Navy does not always share important technology developments with other “rival” military branches or other agencies. Often, they do not even tell their own Navy pilots. This leads, he said, to sightings of advanced craft that are mistaken to be UFOs even by airmen and officers because they have not been informed of such technology.
He states: “These hybrid vehicles are not all model-scale or prototypes. Many are operational. They can range from small to full vehicles of considerable size. They take on different configurations depending on if they are manned or unmanned and to accommodate different purposes and conditions. They can be armed or used for surveillance.” He continues, “Exercises take place off of the coasts, over and in the ocean.”
The engineer is unequivocal on where we are today in the development of these advanced hybrid craft: “What you see in the literature and in promotional material from the contractors is technology from 15 years ago or more. They don’t show you at what stage we’re at today.”
Alarmingly, the engineer adds, “It’s my understanding that we are not the only nation with this capability. And some of these are not friendly nations.”
He also says, “I can tell you that the defense community is more than happy to have the craft mistaken as extraterrestrial UFOs by the public. Why wouldn’t they? It clouds the issue, and it provides a good cover. But the secrecy is out of hand. Even military pilots are not usually informed of these craft, even though they have seen them.”
WHAT THEY SHOW IS NOT ALL THAT THEY HAVE
These defense contractors show and tell us only what they want to. The fact is that the actual stage of development of these craft is far beyond what they admit to. They are compelled to show technology advances to the public and politicians because they are funded by taxpayer money. They have to show for it, just not the latest and greatest. We do not want enemy states to know at what stage we are truly at in the design or deployment of our most advanced military technologies. What they show is impressive, but it is what they do not make public – so-called Black Projects – that are far more remarkable.
Clandestine engineering design is confined to a small, compartmentalized core of security-cleared engineers who know only the part of a project that is needed to perform their jobs. The engineers are sometimes replaced by others and moved on to other areas to “cycle out” those who become overly familiar with sensitive projects.
Such Black Projects require expenditures. The precise names of these Black Projects are obscured in expenditure reporting. These projects are often referred to by nicknames or in vague or multiple-meaning terms. Periodically the project names themselves are retired and then renamed.
Defense contractors frequently use small, specialized subcontractors. They develop the components that are then integrated into full systems by the prime defense contractor. This helps to obfuscate the full scope of the technology.
And defense contractors are known to file “secret patents” (which the US Patent and Trade Office military advisors agree to be a potential threat to national security if they are disclosed.) Such patents will not be published until the technology is no longer considered sensitive, by order of the Commissioner of Patents acting through the Invention Secrecy Act.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE ET?
The fact that humans have reached the point of being able to submerse into the ocean from the air and back up again does not mean that the visiting alien does not. Given that the Earth’s surface is comprised of 70% water, it is likely that they do. If we can now move freely on Earth’s land, seas and atmosphere, the extraterrestrial who comes to Earth surely can. But as man’s craft become more unusual in design and more capable than ever, over time it will become more difficult to distinguish between things that are man-made and things that are not made by man.
.png)