Featured Image Credit: Chesnot / Contributor via Getty
To quote The X-Files, the truth is out there. After an apparent 'alien base' was spotted lurking under the water just off the coast of California, proof of its existence has conveniently been wiped from the internet.
Feeling like an Easter egg from a Grand Theft Auto game, the supposedly natural underwater structure is officially known as Sycamore Knoll. Its existence is nothing new thanks to scientists studying it for years, although its recent notoriety has conspiracy theorists claiming it's an underwater alien base.
As pointed out by the Daily Mail, a Reddit post from earlier in the year refers to Sycamore Knoll as an 'Underwater UFO base between Malibu and Catalina Island'. Someone else wrote: "Some refer to it as an anomaly while others believe it is an alien base..It's believed to be between two-and-a-half and three miles wide."
Although it's located 2,000 feet beneath the surface, some 6.6 miles off the coast of Malibu, a check of its geographic coordinates (34° 1'23.31″N 118° 59'45.64″W) on Google Earth will bring up a surprising result.
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Whereas Sycamore Knoll used to be visible on Google Earth, it's mysteriously vanished. Images from 2024 clearly show the structure, which looks like a mound with a flat top, but typing in the coordinates in 2025 and you're greeted by a blurry patch of ocean. As the outlet notes, the alien base can still be viewed on platforms like the fishing charter app.
People have been trying to unlock Sycamore Knoll's mysteries for over a decade, while it has also risen in popularity thanks to being featured on Jimmy Church's Fade to Black podcast. Church controversially claimed it could be the biggest center of extraterrestrial activity since 1947's Roswell incident.
The National UFO Reporting Center also claims to have received numerous reports of unidentified flying objects near Sycamore Knoll, with some even saying that they spotted a craft coming out of the ocean. One California resident apparently said: "It looked like a massive, cathedral-shaped structure — multiple pointed edges all glowing brilliantly white, heading straight into the ocean...There was no splash, no sound... just a flash, and it was gone.
"It happened so fast — like a giant ship or object vanishing beneath the surface in an instant."
Daily UFO reported that Sycamore Knoll was no longer on Google Earth as of January 2025, while a Reddit thread from 2024 suggests it's been gone for even longer.
We're also reminded of Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, who says that an anonymous admiral spoke to him about an underwater UFO moving at incredible speed.
Burchett told former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz: "They tell me something's moving at hundreds of miles an hour underwater... as large as a football field, underwater. This was a documented case, and I have an admiral telling me this stuff."
Responding to the Reddit thread, one believer wrote: "Seen a lot of weird shit off the coast of SoCal. It’s a UFO/ USO waterpark."
Another joked: "That’s where the underwater UFO is in GTA 5😂."
A third claimed to be a geologist and concluded: "I wouldn't think this is anything super unusual. Lots of faulting and random debris flows all off the coast. What is weird is that Google airbrushed over it."
In reality, it seems likely that Google Earth simply doesn't have enough data to properly map that area. Still, the fact that Sycamore Knoll was once there and now isn't is sure to raise a few eyebrows. Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them?
