Will disclosure come from the sea? Newly released Catalina Island files raise UAP questions about alien life
UFO researcher and filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee believes newly released UAP files documenting unexplained sightings over California's Catalina Island could support the theory that answers about alien activity may lie beneath the ocean rather than in the skies.
UFO researcher and filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee believes alien disclosure could come from what has been lurking under the sea.
Lee has highlighted recently released Department of War files from PURSUE Release 07 that document a cluster of UAP reports over Catalina Island, California, between 1949 and 1955.
Lee, who has made a series of documentary films about alien life, including The Rendlesham UFO: The British Roswell and The King of UFOs, argues these historical cases, combined with long-standing USO activity off the California coast, strengthen the case that meaningful disclosure may ultimately emerge from the ocean rather than the sky alone.
The Release 07 documents include Air Intelligence Information Reports and unresolved case files detailing silver "flying saucers" observed by Boy Scouts near Camp Fox in 1952, described as moving faster than a conventional jet before climbing and apparently disintegrating; a 1953 sighting of a round purplish-white object that remained stationary before heading northwest towards Los Angeles; and an earlier report of multiple objects seen singly over the island in 1949. The reports remain unexplained, although the 1953 file lists Jupiter as a possible explanation and the 1949 report states there was insufficient data for evaluation.
He said: "These Catalina files aren’t isolated curiosities. They sit in one of the most active stretches of water for USO reports on the planet. While the public focuses on the recent silent black triangle sightings, the older Catalina material points to something that has been operating in and around the ocean for decades. We’ve spent seventy years looking up. The real answers may be under the waves.”
Lee drew a direct connection to the ongoing work of retired US Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, former acting NOAA Administrator and Oceanographer of the Navy.
Gallaudet has publicly argued that some UAP activity involves transmedium craft operating in both air and water and has testified about the seriousness of the phenomenon. He has also described proprietary high-resolution bathymetric surveys in the Atlantic that a research team believes contain features corresponding to Plato's account of Atlantis. However, the location and underlying data have not been made public, and there has been no independent confirmation that the features are linked to Atlantis.
Lee continued: "Gallaudet brings institutional credibility to what many of us have argued for years: the ocean is not a side note in the UAP question - it may be central. If his team is mapping sites that align with ancient descriptions while the government is releasing decades-old Catalina reports that never got properly investigated, the two threads are pointing in the same direction. Disclosure might not arrive as a press conference about the sky. It might arrive when we finally start looking seriously at what’s under the water.”
Lee noted that previous AARO historical reviews found no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial technology, and that the Catalina cases, like other unresolved UAP reports, remain subjects of uncertainty. AARO's 2024 historical report found no evidence that any US government investigation or official review had confirmed a UAP sighting represented extraterrestrial technology, while noting that many reports remained unresolved.
He has called for independent oceanographic and archival follow-up on the Catalina cluster, greater attention to USO data, and transparency around any government or private surveys of anomalous underwater features.
The full PURSUE Release 07 files are available at war.gov/UFO.
