USS Nimitz 2004 "Tic-Tac" UAP Encounter

Briefing

On the fourteenth of November 2004, aircrew from the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, operating in the Southern California (SOCAL) operating area during a pre-deployment workup, reported and recorded an unidentified aerial object [4]. One F/A-18 weapons-system officer captured roughly seventy-six seconds of infrared footage, later designated “FLIR1” [4]. The U.S. Department of Defense officially released that video, alongside two from January 2015, on the twenty-seventh of April 2020, stating that the phenomena it shows remain “unidentified” [1]. As of the June 2021 ODNI assessment and AARO’s March 2024 historical review, the U.S. government has not publicly identified what the object was [2][3].

Sequence of events

• In the days preceding the fourteenth of November 2004, USS Princeton radar and fire-control operators — including Senior Chief Kevin Day and Petty Officer Gary Voorhis — reported anomalous tracks on the ship’s AN/SPY-1 Aegis radar, describing objects appearing at high altitude, descending rapidly and loitering [4].
• On the fourteenth of November 2004, two F/A-18F crews from strike-fighter squadron VFA-41 were vectored to intercept a radar contact in the SOCAL operating area [4].
• Cmdr. David Fravor, the squadron commanding officer, with his weapons-system officer Cmdr. Jim Slaight in the back seat, and Lt. Alex Dietrich in the second aircraft, stated they observed a white, oblong object hovering low over the ocean that then accelerated away rapidly [4].
• A second aircraft’s weapons-system officer, Lt. Cmdr. Chad Underwood, is credited with recording the FLIR1 infrared video; the “Tic Tac” nickname derives from the object’s shape on the targeting pod [4].
• A later Pentagon UAP Task Force briefing slide, released under FOIA, describes the object as “solid white, smooth, with no wings or pylons, approximately 46 feet in length” [4].

Documentary record

The primary contemporaneous record is the infrared footage itself. The DoD statement of the twenty-seventh of April 2020 authorised release of three unclassified Navy videos — one filmed in November 2004 and two in January 2015 — to “clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real”, and stated that “the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified’” [1]. In 2021, DoD spokesperson Sue Gough confirmed that “the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel” [5].

The ODNI “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” of the twenty-fifth of June 2021 examined 144 reports describing incidents that “occurred between 2004 and 2021” — placing the Nimitz event at the start of the modern U.S. UAP record [2]. It identified one report “with high confidence” as “a large, deflating balloon”, noting “the others remain unexplained”; in 18 incidents (21 reports), observers reported objects that “appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion” [2].

The AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1, dated the eighth of March 2024, found that the claim the U.S. government is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology is “in large part the result of circular reporting” and that AARO discovered “no evidence” of such programs [3]. The “46 feet … solid white” Tic-Tac description appears in UAP Task Force briefing slides hosted by The Black Vault [4].

Open questions

1. The primary releases do not state what the object actually was; the 2004 case is not resolved in the ODNI or AARO documents [2][3].
2. Raw 2004 radar data, the USS Princeton’s sensor logs, and pilot debrief statements have not been publicly released; the Navy has asserted that some related materials are classified [4].
3. No primary document establishes the object’s measured speed, altitude, or descent rate. Those figures originate in a contested leaked “For Official Use Only” executive summary, associated with the AAWSAP/AATIP programme and circulated in 2018, which describes the object dropping “from ~60,000 feet to near sea level in seconds” and displaying “fantastic agility”; that document’s provenance and authority are contested and it was not officially released [6].
4. The official record does not corroborate “transmedium” (air-to-underwater) behaviour [6]. AARO’s first director, Sean Kirkpatrick, has been quoted characterising the Nimitz case as still an “unknown”, in part because little usable 2004 sensor data was retained for analysis [4].

Status

This file is CONFIDENTIAL — admitted to the archive on the strength of official U.S. government documentation, chiefly the Department of Defense’s release and authentication of the FLIR1 footage and its successor assessments [1][5]. The DoD’s own characterisation of the phenomena as “unidentified” is recorded here as documented; the pilots’ descriptions of the object’s performance — including Cmdr. Fravor’s statement that it “was far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today, or are looking to develop in the next 10-plus years” — are logged as witness opinion, not as established fact [1][4]. Widely-repeated figures such as an “80,000 feet” descent, a craft “the size of a Boeing 737”, or an object found “waiting” at the planned rendezvous point have no traceable primary source and are excluded from this record [4][6]. Updates pending release of the classified 2004 radar and sensor data.

References

1. U.S. Department of Defense (2020). “Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos”, 27th April 2020. war.gov/News/Releases.
2. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (2021). “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”, 25th June 2021. dni.gov.
3. All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (2024). “AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1”, 8th March 2024. U.S. Department of Defense, media.defense.gov.
4. The Black Vault (n.d.). “The Vault Files: The ‘Tic-Tac’ Incident, November 14, 2004”, including FOIA-released UAP Task Force briefing slides. theblackvault.com.
5. CBS News (2021). “Pentagon confirms authenticity of videos showing unidentified flying objects” — DoD spokesperson Sue Gough. cbsnews.com.
6. “USS Nimitz UFO / UAP Executive Summary” (leaked, unredacted; provenance contested; associated with the AAWSAP/AATIP programme, circulated 2018). Uploaded copy via DocumentCloud.