NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — is not a UAP or UFO archive. It does not investigate UAP. Its mandate covers weather, climate, oceans, and coasts. But NOAA operates the most extensive civilian acoustic monitoring infrastructure on the planet, and within that infrastructure, researchers have found anomalies that have driven sustained FOIA activity. The most prominent focus: the Malibu Anomaly and unexplained deep-ocean acoustic events.
The Malibu Anomaly
Google Earth imagery of the seafloor off Point Dume, Malibu, California revealed an unusual structure approximately 2,000 feet below the surface: a roughly oval platform-like formation elevated above the surrounding seafloor, with what appear to be support columns or pillars. The structure is approximately 3,000 feet across. Multiple researchers have filed FOIA requests with NOAA for sonar survey data of the area. NOAA’s MULTIBEAM bathymetric data for the region is the primary civilian data source that could either confirm or contextualise the formation. NOAA has released some bathymetric data under FOIA. Whether the structure represents a natural geological formation or something else remains unresolved in public documentation.
NOAA Hydrophone Arrays and Unexplained Acoustic Events
NOAA operates a network of hydrophone arrays in the Pacific Ocean through its Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). Originally deployed to monitor Soviet submarine activity under the SOSUS programme, these arrays were partially declassified after the Cold War and repurposed for scientific monitoring. They have since detected multiple unexplained acoustic events — including “The Bloop” (1997), an extremely powerful unidentified low-frequency sound that was later attributed to icequake activity, and others that remain unresolved. The hydrophone network represents a continuous passive acoustic intelligence layer over the Pacific that, when queried through FOIA, provides the most objective available data on unusual undersea acoustic events.
NOAA and AARO’s All-Domain Mandate
AARO’s all-domain classification — explicitly including undersea phenomena — creates a formal government framework for what NOAA data could theoretically document. NOAA is not part of AARO’s reporting structure. There is no formal data-sharing agreement between NOAA’s acoustic monitoring programmes and AARO’s UAP investigation mandate, at least not in any publicly available form. The gap between the world’s best civilian acoustic monitoring infrastructure and the government office specifically tasked with tracking undersea UAP is one of the most significant unaddressed structural issues in US UAP investigation.
Sources: NOAA PMEL hydrophone programme. FOIA requests for Malibu Anomaly bathymetric data. AARO all-domain reporting. NOAA FOIA contact: webmaster@noaa.gov.