The Nimitz 'Tic Tac' Encounter
Navy pilots from the USS Nimitz carrier group were sent to check a radar contact and found a white, wingless object the shape of a Tic Tac moving over a disturbance in the sea. It responded to their approach and vanished. The infrared video and testimony became public in 2017 and reset the official debate.
- Date
- 14 November 2004
- Place
- Pacific Ocean off San Diego, California, USA
- Witnesses
- Commander David Fravor, Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich and their weapons officers; USS Princeton radar operators
- Status
- Unresolved
What happened
For about two weeks in November 2004 the cruiser USS Princeton, part of the Nimitz strike group off southern California, had tracked objects that descended from above 80,000 feet to near sea level in seconds. On 14 November two F/A-18F Super Hornets on a training flight were diverted to investigate. Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich saw a disturbance in the water and, above it, a smooth white oblong object about forty feet long, with no wings, rotors, exhaust or markings, moving erratically. Fravor descended toward it; the object mirrored him, then accelerated away faster than anything he had seen. The Princeton reported it reappearing sixty miles away at the jets' rendezvous point within a minute.
A second flight later recorded the object on the aircraft's infrared targeting pod. That video, known as FLIR1, shows a featureless oval that darts out of frame.
The object
A white, capsule-shaped object with no visible means of propulsion, reported by four aviators and tracked by ship radar. No occupants; no species is attached.
Aftermath
The video reached the public in December 2017 through the New York Times report on the Pentagon's AATIP programme. The Navy confirmed in 2019 that it was genuine and that the object remained unidentified, and the Pentagon formally released it in 2020. Fravor and Dietrich testified to Congress and appeared in the 2021 ODNI report's era of official study. The 'Tic Tac' became the emblem of the modern UAP debate.
Explanations
Proposed explanations include a classified American drone or aircraft test, a balloon or bird combined with radar and infrared artefacts, and parallax effects in the video. Sceptical analysts such as Mick West have argued that the video alone shows nothing extraordinary. The pilots' visual account at close range is harder to dismiss and has not been explained. The case is unresolved.
Sources
- USS Nimitz UFO incident
- Leslie Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (2010) Find on Amazon
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