Case File 031 · Open — partially documented
Nimitz Tic Tac
2004 · Pacific Ocean
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- Videos
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- Witnesses
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Overview
In November 2004, aircraft from the USS Nimitz carrier strike group were directed towards radar contacts roughly a hundred miles south-west of San Diego, during a routine pre-deployment exercise. What the aircrew reported, and what the sensors recorded, has been argued over ever since.
The case is unusual for having three partly independent strands: radar operators aboard the USS Princeton tracking contacts over several days, aircrew who reported a visual encounter, and an infrared video clip later released by the Department of Defense. Most cases have one strand. Very few have three.
It is also unusual for what is missing. The radar track files that would settle several of the central questions have never been released, and the aircrew accounts that circulate most widely were given years after the event.
Timeline
10–14 November 2004
Intermittent radar contacts
The USS Princeton, the strike group’s air defence cruiser, tracked intermittent contacts over several days. Operators reported returns appearing at altitude and descending far faster than the system’s track logic expected.
14 November 2004
Aircraft vectored to a contact
Two F/A-18F aircraft were directed towards a contact. The aircrew reported a white object, smooth and without visible control surfaces, above a disturbance on the sea surface.
14 November 2004
The FLIR recording
A separate aircraft, launched afterwards, recorded roughly eighty seconds of infrared footage of an object. This is the clip later known as FLIR1.
December 2017
The clip reaches the public
The footage was published alongside reporting in The New York Times, and became the most widely seen piece of material in the case.
April 2020
The Department of Defense confirms the footage
The Pentagon formally released three clips including FLIR1, confirming they were genuine US Navy recordings and stating that the objects in them remained unidentified.
June 2021
The preliminary assessment
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a preliminary assessment of unidentified aerial phenomena covering 144 reports, of which it was able to explain one.
Key people
Cdr David Fravor
Commanding officer, VFA-41; pilot
Flew one of the two aircraft directed to the contact and has given the most widely reported account of the visual encounter. His description of the object’s appearance and departure is the centre of most retellings.
Lt Cdr Alex Dietrich
Pilot, second aircraft
Was in the second aircraft and has publicly corroborated the essentials of the encounter. Her account has been notably measured about what can and cannot be concluded from it.
Kevin Day
Senior chief operations specialist, USS Princeton
Led the radar watch that tracked the contacts over several days. His account of the track behaviour is the basis for the most-quoted claims about speed and altitude change.
Evidence
Each item carries a status. Where something is contested or has been debunked, it says so.
FLIR1 infrared footage
VerifiedFilm
Roughly eighty seconds of infrared video, confirmed genuine by the Department of Defense in April 2020 and, as a work of the US federal government, in the public domain. Its authenticity is not in dispute. What it shows is: proponents read deliberate motion, sceptics read a distant object against a moving sensor gimbal.
Aircrew testimony
ContestedTestimony
Multiple aircrew have described the encounter consistently in outline. The accounts were given publicly more than a decade after the event, which does not make them wrong but does place them well outside the window in which memory is most reliable.
USS Princeton radar track data
UnexaminedDocument
The recorded track files would settle the disputed questions about speed, altitude change and whether the contacts behaved as described. They have never been released, and no public account establishes whether they still exist.
ODNI preliminary assessment, June 2021
VerifiedDocument
The published assessment covering 144 reports. It explains one of them, declines to speculate about the rest, and explicitly notes that the available reporting is largely inconclusive — a document more often cited than read.
Witness accounts
Fravor has described an object above a disturbance in the water, which then moved in a way he could not account for and departed at a speed he could not match. He has been consistent across many retellings and has not claimed to know what it was.
Dietrich has corroborated the encounter and has been careful in public to separate what she observed from the interpretations placed on it by others, describing the experience as unexplained rather than as evidence of any particular explanation.
The argument
Both sides, given equal room. The alternative explanations are not an afterthought.
Supporting the claim
Three strands, not one
Radar operators, aircrew and an instrument recording is a stronger combination than any single one of them. Explaining the case away requires explaining all three, and the explanations that work for one tend not to work for the others.
The footage is officially confirmed
The Department of Defense released FLIR1 and stated the objects were unidentified. Whatever else is disputed, this is not a case built on material of unknown origin.
The witnesses had nothing to gain
The aircrew were serving officers with careers to lose and no obvious incentive to invent an encounter, which is a reasonable point about motive even though it is not evidence about what happened.
Alternative explanations
Sensor and gimbal artefacts
The most substantial sceptical case, argued at length by Mick West, holds that the apparent motion in the infrared footage is largely explained by the behaviour of the targeting pod — glare, gimbal rotation and parallax against a moving aircraft. Supporters respond that this addresses the video without addressing the radar tracks or the visual encounter.
Misidentification of a conventional object
A distant aircraft or balloon, misjudged for range and therefore for size and speed, accounts for a great deal of the reporting in this field. Range estimation without a reference is genuinely unreliable, including for trained aircrew.
A classified US programme
That the objects were American technology the aircrew were not cleared to know about. It is plausible for 2004, and it has the same weakness as always: it is unfalsifiable from outside, and no supporting document has surfaced in twenty years.
Latest developments
25 Jun 2021
ODNI publishes its preliminary assessment
The assessment covered 144 reports and explained one. It neither supported nor excluded an exotic explanation, and explicitly described the available reporting as largely inconclusive.
20 Jul 2022
AARO established
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office was created to consolidate US government work on unidentified phenomena, replacing a series of shorter-lived efforts.
Join the discussion
Still open on this one:
- 01
Do the Princeton radar track files still exist?
This is the single piece of material that would move the case, and no public account establishes whether it was retained.
- 02
Was the "80,000 to 20,000 feet" descent recorded, or recalled?
The figure is quoted constantly. It comes from operator recollection rather than from a published data file, which is a meaningful difference.
- 03
Were the aircraft carrying gun camera footage from the visual encounter?
The widely seen FLIR1 clip was recorded by a later aircraft, not by the crew who reported the visual. Accounts differ about what the first aircraft recorded.
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Sources
Sources
Open them and check for yourself. Where a record is public, it is linked.
Statement on the release of historical Navy videos
US Department of Defense · 27 Apr 2020
Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
Office of the Director of National Intelligence · 25 Jun 2021
See also
Everything this piece touches
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