IncidentUSS Nimitz Tic Tac Incident (14 November 2004)
aka USS Nimitz Tic Tac Incident (14 November 2004)
F/A-18F pilots from VFA-41 'Black Aces' off the USS Nimitz visually confirmed and intercepted a white, 40-foot, wingless oblong object that had been tracked by the USS Princeton's AN/SPY-1 radar for two weeks dropping from 80,000 feet to sea level in less than a second.
status history (1)
Notable & intriguing
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Senior Chief Operations Specialist Kevin Day of the USS Princeton tracked, over an 8-day period, dozens of targets dropping from above 80,000 feet to sea level in less than one second — an acceleration on the order of 5,000 g, beyond the structural tolerance of any known crewed or uncrewed aircraft.
Cmdr. David Fravor and Sr. Chief Kevin Day testimony, Joe Rogan Experience #1361, 6 November 2019; AAWSAP/AATIP executive report, 2009
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Cmdr. David Fravor, commanding officer of VFA-41 ‘Black Aces,’ described the object in sworn testimony as ‘a white Tic Tac, about 40 feet long, with no wings, no exhaust, no rotors.’ His wingman Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich gave a corroborating account on ‘60 Minutes’ on 16 May 2021.
House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation hearing, 17 May 2022; 60 Minutes, CBS, 16 May 2021
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The FLIR1 video, captured by an F/A-18F’s AN/AAS-46 ATFLIR pod on the follow-up sortie 60 nautical miles from the original intercept, was officially declassified by the Office of Naval Intelligence on 27 April 2020 via Pentagon press release.
U.S. Department of Defense press release, 27 April 2020; The New York Times, 27 April 2020
Public-record items already documented about this subject. Folklore is labelled. Sources cited where the specificity warrants it.
Suggested watching
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The Phenomenon (2020) documentary
The canonical filmed treatment, with Fravor, the strike group, and the FLIR1 footage in operational context.
essential
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60 Minutes — UAP segment (2021) episode
Whitaker interviews Fravor and Dietrich, May 16 2021.
essential
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Joe Rogan Experience #1361 — Commander David Fravor (2019) interview
Fravor unfiltered, before the 2021 ODNI report.
primary source
Appears in interpretive theories
- Extraterrestrial hypothesis — cites as evidence
- AI / non-biological intelligence hypothesis — cites as evidence
- Disclosure-imminence hypothesis — cites as evidence
- Crypto-physicalist / nuts-and-bolts hypothesis — cites as evidence
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