The Nimitz Encounter

In November 2004, aircrews from the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group encountered an unidentified object during training exercises about 100 miles southwest of San Diego. Pilots described a white, oblong object roughly 40 feet long, with no wings, no rotors, and no visible exhaust. It became known as the Tic Tac. The case is the foundation of the modern U.S. government UAP debate.

The USS Princeton, a guided missile cruiser in the strike group, had tracked unusual radar returns for several days beginning around November 10, 2004. Radar operators reported objects descending from high altitude to near sea level in seconds.

On November 14, 2004, the Princeton directed two F/A-18F Super Hornets to investigate. Commander David Fravor, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, flew one jet with Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight. Lieutenant Alex Dietrich flew the second jet with her weapons systems officer.

The crews reported a disturbance in the water below and a white object moving erratically above it. Fravor descended toward the object. He reported that it mirrored his movement, then accelerated away and disappeared. The Princeton reacquired an object at the crews' pre-assigned rendezvous point about 60 miles away moments later.

Later that day, Lieutenant Commander Chad Underwood flew to the area and recorded the object with his jet's infrared targeting pod. That recording became the FLIR1 video.

Four naval aviators reported the object visually. Radar operators on the Princeton, including Senior Chief Kevin Day, tracked the anomalous returns. All principal witnesses have since spoken publicly under their own names.

The evidence consists of witness testimony, the FLIR1 video, and reported radar tracks. The original radar data has never been released publicly. The FLIR1 video leaked online in 2007 and was published by The New York Times on December 16, 2017. The Department of Defense officially released it on April 27, 2020, and confirmed it was authentic Navy footage of an unidentified object.

The incident received no formal investigation at the time. It was later examined by the Pentagon's UAP programs. The 2021 Office of the Director of National Intelligence preliminary assessment on UAP left the case unresolved. Fravor testified about the encounter under oath before a House Oversight subcommittee on July 26, 2023.

Skeptics generally do not dispute that the pilots saw something. They dispute the interpretation. Writer and analyst Mick West has argued the FLIR1 video is consistent with infrared glare and camera artifacts, and that the object's apparent acceleration can be explained by the camera losing track. Others have suggested the Princeton's recently upgraded radar produced false returns. Proponents respond that no such explanation accounts for all four visual witness accounts. The extreme speeds and accelerations reported rest on witness estimates and radar data that has never been released. The case remains officially unresolved.