The USS Nimitz Tic Tac Encounter
For two weeks in November 2004, the advanced AN/SPY-1 radar systems aboard the USS Princeton, part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, tracked groups of anomalous returns descending from 80,000 feet to sea level in seconds. On 14 November, Commander David Fravor and Lt. Commander Alex Dietrich were vectored to investigate. What they found hovering over a churning patch of white water was a smooth, white, Tic Tac-shaped object roughly 40 feet long, with no wings, no exhaust, no visible means of propulsion. It reacted to Fravor's approach, mirrored his descent, then accelerated away at a speed the Navy later estimated at thousands of miles per hour. It reappeared seconds later on radar, 60 miles away, at the carrier group's combat air patrol point. Thirteen years later, the Pentagon confirmed the encounter was real.
It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen. I was a Top Gun graduate. I had seen everything. I had not seen this.Commander David Fravor, US Navy, 2017
The Engagement
Two Super Hornets, one Tic Tac, no contest.
Fravor and his wingman Dietrich descended from 20,000 feet toward the contact. Below them, they could see a disturbance in the ocean, a churning area of white water roughly the size of a 737. The Tic Tac was hovering above it, erratically moving. Fravor began a spiralling descent toward the object. It appeared to react, rising to meet him as though aware of his approach. When he committed to an intercept vector, the object accelerated and disappeared in less than two seconds.
It was next detected by the Princeton's radar at the carrier group's CAP point, 60 miles away. A second pair of F/A-18s, flown by Lt. Chad Underwood, encountered the object minutes later. Underwood captured the FLIR1 video that would later become the most analysed piece of UFO footage in history. The infrared imagery shows an oblong object with no thermal exhaust signature.
We have things flying in our airspace and we don't know what they are and we're not able to mitigate them.Lt. Ryan Graves, US Navy pilot, describing ongoing encounters
The Disclosure
From buried encounter to front-page news.
The Nimitz encounter was classified and largely unknown for thirteen years. In December 2017, the New York Times published an investigation by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean revealing both the encounter and the existence of AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), a Pentagon programme that studied UAP. The FLIR1 video was released alongside the article.
The story changed the landscape. Fravor appeared on national television. The Pentagon confirmed the video was authentic. Three videos from Navy encounters (FLIR1, Gimbal, and GoFast) were formally declassified in April 2020. The Nimitz encounter became the catalyst for congressional hearings, the creation of AARO, and the modern UAP disclosure movement.
Physicist Kevin Knuth of the University at Albany calculated that the Tic Tac's observed acceleration was approximately 5,300 g, published in the peer-reviewed journal Entropy. No known material or biological system can survive such forces.
See the Nimitz case file and USS Nimitz article. The encounter is central to the What Is UAP Disclosure article. Related: US sightings.
Key People
The witnesses, investigators, and officials connected to this case.
