Navy Visual Intelligence Personnel (VIPER Team)

Military Visual Intelligence Personnel

In July 2019, the USS Omaha (LCS-12) operated in a restricted warning area off San Diego, where it was surrounded by multiple unidentified aerial phenomena. Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell released footage claiming it was captured by the ship’s Visual Intelligence Personnel (VIPER) team, though this specific unit name has not been officially verified by the Navy.

The incident involved several key pieces of sensor data:

Radar Footage: Captured from the ship’s Combat Information Center (CIC), this data showed up to 14 unknown objects moving at speeds between 46 and 158 mph.

Deck Video: A shaky, handheld night video showed red-flashing lights hovering above the deck, corroborating the radar contacts.

FLIR/Thermal Video: An infrared clip showed a spherical object submerging into the ocean, an event for which no wreckage was found despite submarine searches.

While the Pentagon confirmed in 2021 that Navy personnel captured imagery from this period and that the objects were not US assets, it did not officially confirm the "VIPER team" designation or the specific deck footage. The USS Omaha is an Independence-class littoral combat ship, which technically utilizes an Interior Communications Center rather than a traditional CIC, leading some investigators to question the provenance of the claims.