About

Ned Madden is a professional journalist and contributing writer for OC Weekly Magazine. He has lived in San Clemente, Calif. since 1989.

“The Catalina Triangle” is the third segment of a three-part work by Madden called “The South Coast Trilogy.”  The first two segments in the trilogy:

“The Death Ray” (1999)
Welcome to South Orange County, home of uranium 238, illegal immigrants, rare trout, and the most powerful military laser in the world.

San Clemente’s remote eastern edge was home for nearly 40 years to a military facility known as the TRW Capistrano Test site, where Cold War technologies were developed in privacy.

“Ace Hoffman Is Tilting at ‘Nofre” (2013)
Tilting at ‘Nofre: Ace Hoffman has spent years fighting the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Now, the impossible is on his horizon: its permanent shutdown.

On the city’s southern tip just across the county line sits the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), permanently shut down just a few months after this article was first published.

Looking out to sea for Part 3 of his South Coast Trilogy, Madden locked in on San Clemente Island, a Navy base located 60 miles offshore, as a potential subject for an article. He heard from the then-president of the San Clemente Historical Society about a “triangle” in the waters off the coast linking Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands and Dana Point.

In the process of writing about the 1,200-sq. mi. area of Pacific Ocean, Madden began calling it “The Catalina Triangle.”

This website is dedicated to that idea.