Claims have emerged that a US Navy base in Maryland has secretly housed a mysterious “vehicle of unknown origin” for decades, amid renewed scrutiny of alleged government programmes investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.
According to a recent report, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, commonly known as Pax River, may have stored an “exotic vehicle” since as early as the 1950s. The base is home to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), which oversees the development, testing and maintenance of US Navy and Marine Corps aircraft and aviation systems.
Anonymous sources with alleged links to NAVAIR told the Liberation Times that certain classified programmes at Pax River have long been involved in analysing and attempting to exploit technology recovered from non-human craft. The claims have not been independently verified.
The sources further alleged that recent surveillance activity near the base has intensified, including activity attributed to Chinese drones as well as unidentified non-human craft. According to the report, this activity has moved closer to land and has been observed near the Chesapeake Bay, close to the naval installation.
While these allegations could not be confirmed, Luis Elizondo, a former senior US intelligence official, previously stated under oath that a specially constructed hangar had been built at Pax River specifically to facilitate the transfer of extraterrestrial technology.
In written testimony to Congress, Elizondo said the hangar was intended to allow defence contractor Lockheed Martin to move recovered non-human materials to Bigelow Aerospace for further analysis. The Daily Mail has contacted Lockheed Martin for comment. Bigelow Aerospace ceased operations in 2020, laying off its workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Elizondo also claimed that although the hangar was completed, no transfers ultimately took place after the CIA’s former director of science and technology blocked private companies from accessing the materials. The anonymous sources echoed this assertion.
The report further alleged that the US government has developed a contingency plan to relocate any unidentified craft should its location at Pax River become publicly known or compromised. Some of the aerial activity near the base, the sources claimed, may involve advanced drones or aircraft using technology derived from the alleged exotic materials.
Elizondo, who led the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), became a public whistleblower in 2017. AATIP investigated unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) to determine whether they posed a national security risk.
In 2024, Elizondo testified under oath to Congresswoman Nancy Mace, stating that the US government maintains secret programmes to recover crashed spacecraft. He claimed that some recovered technology has been successfully reverse-engineered and that advanced non-human equipment has been stored at facilities including Pax River.
“These facilities included locations in the Las Vegas area and a newly built hangar at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station,” Elizondo said. “Specifically, the PAX River hangar was designed to facilitate the transfer of future materials via air and river.”
Pax River has been home to the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) since 1992, a unit responsible for research, development, testing and evaluation of advanced and experimental aircraft and weapons systems.
The US military has repeatedly stated that it possesses no physical evidence of recovered extraterrestrial vehicles. However, several former government officials and scientists have claimed that multiple craft have been retrieved since the 1940s.
In 2024, physicist Dr Hal Puthoff, who previously worked on classified US programmes involving psychic research and UFOs, said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that more than 10 spacecraft had been recovered since the Roswell incident. He provided no evidence and claimed some were intact and allegedly “gifted” to humans by extraterrestrials.
The latest claims come after hundreds of unidentified drones were reported over the US East Coast between November 2024 and early 2025. The drones were seen by both civilians and the military and appeared to focus on military installations and other sensitive locations, including property owned by President Donald Trump in New Jersey.
Witnesses described the objects as car-sized, silent drones flying at low altitude over residential areas. Their origin and purpose remain unclear.
In August 2025, an unnamed private company contracted by the US military reportedly claimed responsibility for the drone activity during off-the-record remarks at an Army summit, saying the flights were part of tests involving advanced aerial systems.
