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Catalina Island, a California tourism hotspot known for its crystal-clear waters and Hollywood history, has emerged as a UFO hotspot, with newly released White House documents detailing a string of eerie alleged encounters.
The detailed Catalina encounters are among several UAP-related documents dumped by the Trump administration Friday. UAP is an abbreviation for “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.”
The Post was part of a small group of reporters briefed by senior government officials on Thursday ahead of the documents’ release.
The Air Force intelligence report describes an alleged encounter involving three Boy Scouts who saw an “object silver in color” that moved “faster than a conventional jet” while hiking in the mountainous terrain of Catalina Island near Camp Fox at noon Pacific time on Aug. 25, 1952.
The Scouts were unable to estimate the object’s altitude, speed or distance, according to the report. Weather conditions were clear at the time of the alleged encounter.
The biggest mystery surrounding the Scouts’ alleged sighting may be a missing sketch of the object, drawn on the back of the original report but still unaccounted for despite searches through decades-old government archives.
Another hand-written letter, dated May 1, 1947, is included in the files detailing another alleged sighting.
“About 8 o’clock of the night of April 28th, my wife and a school teacher saw six objects in the sky, not in a group, but singly. A few minutes later after going to my daughter’s home, on the next street and corresponding block, she and my daughter and my grandson saw four more. All traveling in the same direction,” the letter said.
“If you are still interested in flying disks, saucers etc., please let me know and I will write more in full,” the description, written by a man named Percy E. Mackey, added.
The alleged sighting was concluded to have “insufficient data for evaluation.”
The letter dates back to a time when the reported Roswell crash in Roswell, New Mexico drew national attention.
The Catalina records are part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to release files on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, through its Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters initiative.
Friday’s disclosure marks the seventh tranche of records, with more files expected to follow.
Three visiting Army Air Force veterans reportedly spotted six “flying discs” traveling in formation over Avalon on July 8, 1947, according to a historical account published by The Catalina Islander.
The objects were said to have appeared around 1 p.m. and disappeared over East Peak. One of the reported witnesses, Alvio Russo, estimated their speed at 850 mph.
The historical account also named former aerial photographer Bob Jung as a witness who claimed to have photographed one of the objects. An image purportedly showing a UFO over Catalina was published by the Los Angeles Examiner and remains in Getty Images’ archives.
But the photo raises questions, it appears to show a nighttime sky filled with stars, despite the sighting reportedly occurring during the day. The discrepancy remains unexplained.