http://www.kfmb.com/special_assignment/archive/2001/04/weird.php

WEIRD WHIRLPOOL

A strange phenomenon spinning off the coast of San Diego. Some say it comes from out of this world.

It can best be described as a giant whirlpool caught on videotape off Black's Beach. A man flying in a biplane shot the footage with his home video camera and it is extraordinary to say the least.

Oceanographers say they've never seen anything like it. But at least one expert says an unidentified underwater object could have caused the weird whirlpool.

Flying saucers, UFOs, strange lights - people say they've seen them in the skies, over the water, even in the water. Imagine for a moment what would happen if a spacecraft did land in the ocean off San Diego. What would it look like?

Saturday, February 3, 2001 - 1100 feet above Black's Beach. Mike Runion is a passenger in an open-air biplane on a sightseeing tour when he sees something he's never seen before. The pilot circles around for another look and there it is: a huge, spinning whirlpool.

Mike pulled out his video camera and started shooting - 37 seconds of footage that shows a spinning whirlpool, sucking up dirt and debris, just outside the surf line -- a spiral of foam rising up from the center.

Mike is a kayaker. He and his friends spend a lot of time in the ocean, but this video was like nothing they had ever seen. When NEWS 8 first aired this video about a month ago, we received a phone call from the director of the San Diego UFO society. Rob Baldwin wanted to take a closer look so we obliged.

Baldwin says UFOs have been reported for years off the coast of San Diego. But could an underwater spacecraft really cause a whirlpool? Baldwin says the spinning motion of an underwater flying saucer could do just that.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are skeptical of the UFO theory to say the least. Bill Schmidt does extensive research on ocean rip currents. He says the spinning motion in the video appears to be a giant eddy, perhaps caused by two competing ocean currents.

Rip currents run perpendicular to the shoreline, flowing straight out to sea. Once they get outside the surf zone they sometimes collide with long-shore currents heading north or south. When the two currents come together a spinning, eddy motion can result.

There is also a deep canyon off the coast of Black's Beach, which can make ocean currents unpredictable. But because the video is so short Schmidt says it's difficult to say exactly what caused the eddy.

As for the man who shot the video, he's still at a loss to explain it. For now, the cause of the strange whirlpool off Black's Beach remains a mystery -- a phenomenon unexplained by either science or science fiction.

No one really knows just how common these whirlpool currents are off the San Diego coastline. But, scientists say they wouldn't be surprised if they occur as seldom as once a year or as often as once a month.

For more information go to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and San Diego UFO Society