THE NIMITZ UFO INCIDENT

November, 2004. The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, which, in addition to the Nimitz, included the guided missile cruiser, USS Princeton, was conducting exercises in the Pacific,¹ Southwest of San Diego. The sky was clear and the sea was calm.³

Beginning on or about November 10, Radar operator on the USS Princeton, Senior Chief Petty Officer Kevin Day, using advanced AN/SPY-1B radar, was monitoring groups of five to ten unidentified targets (about 100 individual blips over several days—they could have been watching 100 separate objects or the same ten or so objects going by repeatedly) flying roughly over Catalina Island and the Channel Islands at 28,000 feet and traveling at 100 knots on his scope. The radar equipment was checked and found to be working properly, and the strange targets were reported to higher authorities and monitored.^1.2

According to Day, the objects, at times, were higher than 80,000 above the earth, and were seen to descend at amazing speed to lower altitude⁴, Cmdr David Fravor, who was to chase one of the objects (see below) and who had spoken to those who had been tracking the targets, said, “…these things were coming down when the cruiser tracked them from above 80,000 feet, which is space, and they would come…straight down and they would hang out at like 20,000 feet and then three or four hours later they’d go back up.”³

[Apparently before the intercept…] Gary Voorhis, an Aegis computer and CEC technician on the Princeton, said he looked at the objects through the big eye binoculars in the daytime. He said they were about 30 miles away and had the appearance of white dots. When they moved, he said, they went so fast that they would seem to disappear.²

November 14, 2004 Day spoke with Captain Smith about the targets, expressing his concern that the objects could pose a safety issue for the aircraft participating in the exercises. The two agreed that interceptors should be sent to check out the objects.²

Navy Commander David Fravor, Commanding Officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, had already taken off in his FA-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft—with his weapon systems officer (WSO) in the back seat—from the Nimitz in a combat exercise. Accompanying Fravor, in a second FA-18F, was a female officer with her WSO . Assisting the two F-18s was an AWACS aircraft, a Grumman E-2 Hawkeye, of the Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 117[…].^{various
sources}

About 12:30 p.m. EST. Princeton's radio operator² contacted the crew of the Hawkeye, requesting that they guide the jets to one of the unknown aircraft. The Hawkeye was unable to obtain a good radar return of the target, so Fravor was told that the mission had changed to “real world tasking” and the radio operator directed the F-18s toward the object.¹

[“Once” i.e. Just before?] Fravor got to the target’s location, one of the objects was seen on radar to descend from 28,000 feet to the surface of the ocean in .78 seconds. That implies a speed of about 19,000 miles per hour, an incredible speed; and there was no sonic boom.²

At one point. The Princeton’s radio operator asked the F-18 pilots if they were carrying live weaponry, and was told that they were not.¹

When the F-18s arrived at the target’s position (the “merge point,” where the radar returns from the target and the planes merge), they could see a disturbance “the size of a Boeing 737 airplane” [Fravor’s description] in the water below. The disturbance consisted of a relatively smooth area surrounded by a darker area of foam, giving the impression that the waves were breaking over an object submerged just below the surface.¹

At this point, the fighter crews spotted an object flying erratically fifty feet above the disturbed water. The unidentified craft was a white object, 30 to 46 feet long, shaped like a Tic Tac. It had no windows, wings, rotor blades, empennage (tail assembly), or exhaust plume. It was remaining oriented north-south as it moved abruptly north, then south, then east, then west, etc.

Fravor, now at about 20,000 feet, began to spiral down toward the object to get a better look at it while the other jet stayed high (so that the pilot could see both Fravor’s plane and the object). Suddenly, the object re-oriented itself east-west and began ascending, mirroring Fravor’s downward spiral.¹ Fravor got within one half mile of the object and decided to cut across the spiral.³ When Fravor attempted this, the object shot out of sight in two seconds.¹ Fravor said that, given the unlimited visibility, that he could’ve easily seen the object 10 miles away.³ Fravor said, "I have no idea what I saw. It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s. But I want to fly one.”¹

On the way back, the controller (who operated the radar on the Princeton) told Fravor, “Hey Sir, you’re not going to believe this, but that thing is at your CAP.” The object had gone 60 miles to the spot in the sky, called a “Combat Air Patrol” point, where Fravor’s jets were supposed to remain when waiting.³

Other officers on the carrier who had been monitoring the communications took off in their jets and, since they could see the anomalous tracks, began doing intercepts on their own initiative. A WSO (weapons systems officer, in the back seat) in one of these planes, Chad Underwood, took the FLIR video of one of the objects that has come to be known as the “TicTac” video. Underwood’s radar was jammed, apparently by the object.^2,^3,5

“Next,” Day said “…,the whole sky is raining UFOs. It was going, ‘choo, choo, choo, choo, choo,’ down to the surface of the water. They track ‘em down there. They all pop back up into the sky, 28,000 feet at 100 knots, tracking slowly. As if they didn’t want anything at all to do with us.”²

Day, at twilight, looked at one of the objects using the ship’s “big eye” binoculars. He said it was a “boring, white light in the sky. Nothing amazing.”²

Day believes that his experience has caused him to undergo personality changes.²

At some point. Voorhis said that he and others were able to watch the entire “Tic Tac” video. This was apparently much clearer than the copy circulated publicly: Jason Turner, a Petty Officer on the Princeton, said that he was able to see the video. He said that the publicly available version is just the beginning of the full video, which is seven to ten minutes long² (Fravor disputes this, says that the video was only a minute and a half long—what we see is the entire video.)³ and crystal clear—“L”-shaped appendages could be seen attached to the bottom of the object (Fravor also speaks of these appendages—he saw them in the video, but not when he was looking at the actual object). Voohhis said that, after the publicly seen version ends, the interceptor began to chase the UFO. He said, “…then it was making maneuvers that no human being could ever survive.” Voorhis said “It was honestly amazing. This thing moved with no apparent inertial…gravity didn’t seem to affect it….I saw something truly impossible happen in front of me.”²

Voorhis says that he was told by the sonar technicians that one of the objects had fallen from 28,000 feet, down to the sea and kept descending, into the water. He said that he was told, “…it didn’t stop. They’ve got contacts under water, too.”²

MY ARGUMENT

(a) If objects, years ago, had been seen visually and by radar that exhibited capabilities vastly beyond even the presently known capabilities of modern technology, and if such capabilities were exhibited by objects observed in even the more distant past, then such objects are probably of otherworldly origin, not of this world.

(b) The objects observed years ago, in 2004, by the pilots and others in the Nimitz UFO case exhibited capabilities vastly beyond even the presently known capabilities of modern technology, and such capabilities were, in fact, exhibited by objects observed in even the more distant past (there are many examples; see, for instance, the article on the Washington National sightings of 1952).

(c) Therefore, the objects seen visually and by radar in this case were probably otherworldly. As Fravor said, “I believe, as do the other folks that were on the flight when we visually saw it that it was something not from this world.” [in an interview with Tucker Carlson][1 a, b, c]

(d) Things should not be multiplied without necessity [= Occam’s Razor].

(e) any explanation for the otherworldly objects in the Nimitz UFO case other than the interplanetary-origin explanation multiplies things without necessity. (f) Therefore, the objects are probably of interplanetary origin. [1 d, e, f]

SKEPTIC’S COUNTER-ARGUMENT 1.

I can imagine Skeptic arguing this way:

Skeptic. It’s quite possible that the radars on the Princeton, and the sensors and radars on the planes all were malfunctioning, and the officers in the interceptors simply misinterpreted what they were seeing. [included in a list of several possibilities by Kyle Mizokami]

The radar that first picked up the unknowns had been checked and found to be working properly.²Skeptic’s explanation here requires that the malfunctions and misinterpretations listed all be occurring at the same time, which is unlikely, and it is unlikely that so many malfunctions would remain undetected—besides, the strangeness of the targets was confirmed by the visual sighting of the tic tac by the officers in the Hornets; so, to make his explanation convincing, Skeptic would need to show what possible prosaic phenomenon the eyewitnesses might have been seeing.

SKEPTIC’S COUNTER-ARGUMENT #2

Or the Skeptic might argue

Skeptic. The tic tac could have been a secret U.S. aircraft. [included in a list of several possibilities by Kyle Mizokami]

The tic tac clearly had some sort of non-conventional propulsion system. The objects’ maneuvers exhibited technology far beyond any known terrestrial capabilities. As Fravor noted,

“These things were coming down…from above 80,000 feet, which is space, and they would come…straight down and they would hang out at like 20,000 feet and then 3 or 4 hours later, they’d go back up….They’re not drifting like a balloon, they’re just sitting there, and then they would go back up.”³

And, as Fravor says³, such a development would not be a matter of simply pushing the edge of technology; rather, it would represent a giant leap of technology. The events happened in 2004. Such amazing advances would have been revealed by now.

Also, Fravor points out³ that there are no scholarly papers that would reflect progress toward such incredible technological advances.

Also, there are solid reports from the 1950s that involve objects exhibiting similar aerodynamic capabilities—the existence of such terrestrial technology at that time would be extremely unlikely, and surely, if these craft had been ours, the technologies would have become publicly known by now.

SKEPTIC’S COUNTER-ARGUMENT #3

The New York Times cautioned, in reference to this story

“…not knowing the explanation does not mean that the event has interstellar origins.”

This is true, of course, but we actually do know, I believe, the explanation in this case. In MY ARGUMENT, above, I believe I demonstrate that these objects were probably interplanetary.

SKEPTIC’S COUNTER-ARGUMENT #4

Skeptic may echo an argument by Joe Nickell:

Fravor could not have seen “what a forty-foot object was doing from forty miles away.”

But, of course, Fravor and his WSO saw the tic tac from a distance of only a half a mile, and Fravor said that details, such as a pilot in an airplane, can be seen clearly at such a distance. The officers in the other plane saw it from a distance of about 8,000 feet.

NOTES

1. “USS Nimitz UFO incident” Michael Ruark.https://michaelruark.blog/2019/06/09/uss-nimitz-ufo-incident/

2. Confirmation? 2nd Witness Also Says He Saw Longer Tic Tac Video And Was Told Sonar Contact Occurred. Others Told To Shut Up. Notes and Quotes from the Military “Tic Tac” Witness Group Interview at UFO MegaCon, March 27th, 2019 http://www.ufojoe.net/?p=805

3. Lex Fridman, Podcast #122 “David Fravor: UFOs Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineerng” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E&t=8412s

4. “When Top Gun Pilots Tangled with a Baffling Tic-Tac-Shaped UFO” by
GREG DAUGHERTY UPDATED: JUN 5, 2019 ORIGINAL: MAY 16, 2019 History https://www.history.com/news/uss-nimitz-2004-tic-tac-ufo-encounter

tic-tac-ufo-video-q-and-a-with-navy-pilot-chad-underwood.html