USS Nimitz Tic Tac Incident (FLIR1)

📅 Overview

On November 14, 2004, approximately 100 miles (160 km) off the southern California coast, the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and USS Princeton (CG-59) missile cruiser tracked and encountered an unidentified aerial phenomenon during pre-Persian Gulf deployment exercises. The incident became public via a December 2017 New York Times report, and on April 27, 2020, the Pentagon officially released the FLIR1 video, marking a defining moment in modern UAP discourse.

🔍 Event Sequence

Two weeks of prior tracking:

• USS Princeton's SPY-1B radar tracked abnormal aircraft patterns for two weeks
• Objects descended from 80,000 ft to 20,000 ft within one second → hovered
• Initially suspected radar fault → same results after system reset

November 14 encounter:

• 13:20–13:50 PST
• Commander David Fravor (VFA-41 Black Aces) and Lt. Cdr. Alex Dietrich scrambled two F/A-18F Super Hornets
• At the target location, observed "white oval object, approximately 40 feet long"
• Shape: "identical to a Tic Tac mint" — no wings, no rotors, no visible exhausts
• Fravor approached → object responded synchronously → vanished rapidly
• Second wave: Lt. Cdr. Chad Underwood captured FLIR thermal video (the "FLIR1" video)

🛂 Public Disclosure

• 2007: Some footage informally appeared on UFO forums
• December 16, 2017: New York Times "Glowing Auras and Black Money" (Cooper, Blumenthal, Kean)
• April 27, 2020: Pentagon official release of FLIR1, Gimbal, GoFast — three videos
• July 26, 2023: Fravor + Ryan Graves Congressional testimony under oath

🤔 Analysis and Unresolved Questions

Physical anomalies:

1. 80,000 ft → 20,000 ft drop: ~60,000 ft/sec ≈ Mach 50. Impossible with known technology
2. No visible propulsion
3. Hovering above water with surface disturbance: clearly recorded

Possible explanations (all unresolved):

• Adversary classified aircraft (Russia/China — no Mach 50 tech known)
• US classified aircraft (Fravor/Underwood would have been notified for safety)
• Extraterrestrial craft (no proof)
• Sensor/environmental anomaly (SPY-1B + F/A-18 FLIR + visual all agree — unlikely single failure)

📺 Significance

• Origin point of modern UAP policy — 2017 NYT → Senate Intelligence Committee → 2022 AARO founding
• First Pentagon official release shifted government stance from "denial" to "investigation"
• Fravor's testimony established military credibility for UAP reports
• Model for subsequent case investigations (2015 Gimbal/GoFast, 2023 Eglin)

📚 References

• Wikipedia: Pentagon UFO videos
• New York Times (2017-12-16)
• 2023 House Oversight Subcommittee hearing
• Pentagon FLIR1 official release (2020-04-27)

🛂 Modern Assessment

The USS Nimitz Tic-Tac incident remains one of the most well-documented military UFO cases in modern history. The 2017 release of the FLIR1 video by Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy and the subsequent New York Times exposé fundamentally changed U.S. UAP policy:

• 2017 NYT exposé → official Pentagon UFO program acknowledgment
• 2020 Pentagon official release of three Navy videos (Tic-Tac, Gimbal, GoFast)
• 2022 AARO establishment as the official U.S. government UAP investigation body
• 2023 Congressional hearings — Cmdr. David Fravor (Tic-Tac pilot) sworn testimony

Fravor's continued testimony (2017→2023) about an object with "no wings, no propulsion, no exhaust signature" performing impossible maneuvers — combined with the eight Navy personnel multi-sensor data — makes this the most credible single-event UAP case in U.S. military records.

📷 Related Photographs