In October 2021, the Navy's warship USS Kearsarge was reportedly followed by "two car-sized balls of light" during an unexplained encounter while it was on a training exercise off the East Coast. Filmmaker David Beaty said that the marines onboard were shocked when their anti-drone Ghostbusters-like weapons failed to deter the balls of light.
The crew also mentioned that the ship could not trace the unidentified objects by thermal image locking. Experts said that this is similar to the earlier reports of the Navy's encounter with dozens of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) in 2019.
) In this handout image provided by the U.S. Navy, the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) is anchored off the coast after four storms in one month have devastated the area and killed more than 800 people September 9, 2008 in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.
Menacing Balls of Light Followed Navy Warship for Several Nights
Documentary filmmaker Dave Beaty told The Sun that a reported UAP sighting happened last year, and the USS Kearsarge is the latest vessel to have reportedly experienced the mysterious encounter.
Witnesses describe it as odd and menacing "balls of light" that followed the 40,500 amphibious assault ship for several nights during a training exercise off the east coast of California. The objects reportedly followed the ship for half a mile while it lurked 200 feet above the ocean.
Armed with anti-drone Ghostbusters-style backpacks as weapons, they tried to deter the objects but to no avail. The objects were spotted by a deck watch that could not get a thermal targeting lock on them.
When the crew onboard radioed command about the objects, thinking it was part of the exercise to test the anti-drone weapons, they were told the objects were "not ours."
It was not the first time they had encountered an unidentified aerial phenomenon. The US Navy confirmed that a similar occurrence also happened to USS Kidd, when it was swarmed by at least four unidentified airborne objects in July 2019. Also, three videos from the Navy showed similar events. These videos are the "Gimbal," "Go Fast," and "Tic Tac."
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Anti-Drone Weapons Used in the Navy
Information regarding the series of unidentified drones stalking US Navy vessels over several nights in 2019 was shared with the public last year. According to The Drive, the Nacy appears to have implemented and conducted exercises using different counter-drone measures that included a 5-inch naval gun and a new "Ghostbuster" team that utilizes the portable counter-unmanned aerial system (CUAS) electronic warfare devices.
Moreover, some documents also showed that the Navy could have used Northrop Grumman's Drone Restricted Access Using Known EW (DRAKE) system. The news outlet explained that DRAKE is a backpack system that has become the frontline tool in the Navy for deterring drone threats.
Although previous reports were unclear if the ghostbuster team was different from the DRAKE team, documents reveal that portable CUAS systems were deployed during the UAP incidents that occurred in 2019.
Before being deployed in the Navy, DRAKE was initially a Humvee-mounted jammer system utilized in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Northrop Grumman described DRAKE as a "radio-frequency negation system that delivers a non-kinetic, selective electronic attack of Group 1 drones" in a 2016 announcement to investors.
Technically it acts as a jamming system that interferes with frequencies used in low-end or Group 1 drones, which are the hand-launched portable systems used for a small unit of base security. DRAKE can be used as a primary countermeasure in situations requiring a quick reaction to make drones stay away.
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