The Tic Tac UFO: The Nimitz Encounter and the Navy Videos
A 2004 Navy encounter off California produced the "Tic Tac" video, one of three clips the Pentagon officially released in April 2020.
The Tic Tac UFO was a white, oval object that Navy pilots from the USS Nimitz group reported off California on November 14, 2004. Its infrared clip is one of three videos the Pentagon officially released in April 2020.
On November 14, 2004, Commander David Fravor of the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was sent to check radar returns off southern California. The cruiser USS Princeton had been tracking unusual objects for about two weeks. Fravor and pilot Alex Dietrich, along with two weapons systems officers, watched a white, oval object hovering over a patch of disturbed water. Fravor estimated it at about 40 feet long. When he spiraled down toward it, the object rose to match him and then disappeared.
Testifying before Congress in 2023, Fravor described "a white Tic Tac object with a longitudinal axis pointing north south" with "No rotors, no rotor wash, or any sign of visible control surfaces like wings." A second wave of fighters, including Lieutenant Commander Chad Underwood, recorded an object on an infrared targeting camera. That clip became known as "FLIR1" or the "Tic Tac" video.
The clip, along with two 2015 videos known as "GIMBAL" and "GOFAST," first appeared publicly through To The Stars Academy and the New York Times on December 16, 2017. In September 2019 the Navy confirmed that the footage showed "unidentified aerial phenomena." On April 27, 2020, the Department of Defense officially released all three videos, saying it wanted "to clear up any misconceptions." The GIMBAL and GOFAST files are available in the Naval Air Systems Command's FOIA document library. Fravor told the House that the technology was "far superior to anything that we had on time, have today, or looking to develop in the next 10 years." The Pentagon has described the objects only as unidentified.
By Fravor's account, as he spiraled down toward the object, it rose to meet him, seemed to mirror his path, and then vanished.
Analysts such as Mick West argue that the videos show ordinary things distorted by the sensors: infrared glare in GIMBAL, and parallax making a slow object look fast and low in GOFAST. The 2021 intelligence assessment said there was too little data to determine what most reported UAP were.
