USS Nimitz and Tic-Tac: The 2004 UFO Incident in the US

## The Established Facts On November 14, 2004, off San Diego (California), approximately 100 nautical miles (185 km) from American shores, pilots of Carrier Strike Group 11 embarked aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) documented repeated encounters with an unidentified aerial object. The object, described as white, ovoid, approximately 12 meters long, would later be nicknamed "Tic-Tac" due to its characteristic shape. The incident occurs in a military training work area (MOAA-1, Military Operating Area Alpha-1) at an initial estimated altitude between 15,000 and 24,000 meters. The object is detected on the radars of the USS Princeton (CG-59), an escort cruiser equipped with the AN/SPY-1B system, for several consecutive days before the visual interception on November 14. The infrared video designated FLIR1 (Forward-Looking Infrared), filmed by Lieutenant Chad Underwood from his F/A-18F Super Hornet, constitutes the central documentary piece of this incident. The recording, lasting 1 minute and 17 seconds, shows an object moving at speeds and along trajectories incompatible with known aircraft, without identifiable thermal propulsion signature. In 2014-2015, pilots of Carrier Air Wing 1 embarked aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), operating off the east coast of the United States (North Atlantic), film two new videos. The video called Gimbal, recorded in January 2015, and the GoFast video, captured in February 2015, show objects moving at low altitude and high speed, estimated at more than 300 km/h for GoFast according to initial analysis, although later calculations nuanced this estimate. The United States Department of Defense officially declassifies and simultaneously releases the three videos FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast on April 27, 2020, confirming their authenticity and their origin within the American armed forces. --- ## The Principal Testimonies Commander David Fravor (Commander, U.S. Navy), commander of squadron VFA-41 "Black Aces", is the principal and most publicized witness to the USS Nimitz incident. On November 14, 2004, at the controls of his F/A-18F Super Hornet, he visually observes the "Tic-Tac" object for an estimated duration of 5 minutes before it suddenly accelerates and disappears from his view at a speed he will describe as "well beyond any known human capability". At his side, Commander Jim Slaight, navigator officer in the same aircraft, confirms the visual observation. A second patrol of two F/A-18Fs, piloted by Lieutenant-Commander Alex Dietrich and his wingman, simultaneously observes the same object from a different position, providing independent corroboration of Fravor's testimony. Lieutenant Chad Underwood, pilot of the F/A-18F that recorded the FLIR1 video, testifies publicly in 2019 in an interview granted to New York Magazine. He describes an object whose behavior, notably the complete absence of infrared signature compatible with any known propulsion system, left a lasting impression on him. Underwood insists on his inability to "lock" the object with his targeting system in a stable manner. Kevin Day, senior radar operator (Senior Chief Petty Officer) aboard the USS Princeton, testifies to having tracked the movements of unidentified objects for several consecutive days before November 14, 2004. According to his testimony, the objects regularly descended from altitudes of approximately 28,000 meters to sea level in a few seconds, then climbed back up, in violation of all conventional aeronautical physics. During hearings of the United States Congress held on July 26, 2023, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch testifies under oath to having been aware of classified government programs related to the recovery of materials and craft of non-human origin. Although his statements do not directly address the Nimitz incident, they are part of the continuum of revelations surrounding these events. --- ## The Response of Authorities The Pentagon maintains an official position of silence on the Nimitz incidents for more than thirteen years. It is the publication by the New York Times on December 16, 2017, of an article co-signed by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean that forces the first significant institutional reaction, by revealing the existence of the AATIP program (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program). The AATIP, a classified program budgeted at 22 million dollars between 2007 and 2012, was managed within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under the supervision of Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada). Luis Elizondo, director of the program until his resignation in October 2017, becomes one of the principal public whistleblowers on these cases. On April 27, 2020, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence publishes an official statement confirming the declassification of the three videos FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast, specifying that they "have been declassified in order to dispel any ambiguity regarding the authenticity of the videos circulating in the public domain". This cautious wording avoids any interpretation regarding the nature of the filmed objects. In June 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) publishes a preliminary report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), documenting 144 reports between 2004 and 2021, of which 143 remain unexplained. The report explicitly acknowledges that certain objects "demonstrate advanced flight characteristics" requiring further investigation. In July 2022, the Department of Defense creates the AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office), a permanent structure tasked with centralizing, analyzing and resolving reports of anomalous phenomena in all operational domains: aerial, spatial, submarine and terrestrial. The AARO is placed under the joint supervision of the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence. --- ## Analysis and Controversies The characteristics attributed to the "Tic-Tac" object by all witnesses constitute, from the perspective of conventional aeronautical physics, a set of performances without documented equivalent. Instantaneous acceleration, the absence of visible control surfaces, the nonexistence of thermal signature and the capacity to transit from 24,000 meters altitude to sea level in a few seconds represent fundamental analytical challenges. Several conventional hypotheses have been advanced to explain the Gimbal and GoFast videos. An analysis published in 2019 by Mick West, a journalist specializing in fact-checking, suggests that the rotating effect visible in the Gimbal video could result from an optical artifact linked to the derotation of the ATFLIR infrared pod system (Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared). This hypothesis is contested by several military engineers and pilots. For GoFast, trigonometric calculations performed by independent analysts, notably physicist Marik von Rennenkampff, indicate that the apparent high speed of the object could be partially explained by the combination of the speed of the carrier aircraft and a parallax effect. However, these analyses do not resolve all of the anomalous behavioral characteristics reported by the pilots. The question of the chain of custody of the recordings has also been raised. Commander Fravor himself noted, during his testimony to Congress in July 2023, that complete copies of the data from the 2004 incident, notably the raw radar data from the USS Princeton, were allegedly collected and transmitted by unidentified individuals shortly after the event, and have never been made public or officially returned. The hypothesis of drones or adverse aerial technologies (notably Chinese or Russian) is regularly advanced by defense analysts. However, no state has claimed ownership of the objects, and the performances described in 2004 remain technologically inaccessible to this day for any known program, which significantly weakens this hypothesis for incidents from this period. --- ## Legacy and Importance The incidents of the USS Nimitz (2004) and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (2014-2015) represent a historical turning point in the institutional treatment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the United States. For the first time in modern history, democratic governments have officially acknowledged the existence of unexplained videos captured by their own high-tech military systems. These events have directly led to a modification of the American legislative framework. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2022 imposes on the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies legal obligations of reporting and transparency concerning UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), a term officially adopted by the Pentagon to replace the acronym UFO, deemed too culturally laden. The credibility of the witnesses — experienced combat pilots, certified radar operators, intelligence officers — has profoundly modified the media and academic reception of these reports. The Nimitz incidents demonstrated that highly qualified observers, operating with redundant and sophisticated technological systems, could document phenomena remaining unexplained by available scientific frameworks. At the international level, these revelations have triggered a dynamic of openness in other countries. Japan (2020), Canada (2022) and several NATO member nations have published or strengthened their protocols for reporting UAP by their armed forces, explicitly citing the American example as a reference. The AARO, created in 2022 and with an expanded inter-agency mandate, constitutes the