CASE FILE US-2004-001
USS Nimitz Strike Group "Tic Tac" / FLIR1 Encounters
Official finding
Unidentified — video confirmed as an authentic, unaltered Navy recording; depicted phenomena not identified
U.S. Department of Defense
Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos
Anomaly Index assessment
Unresolved: corroboratedMultiple, partly independent evidence channels converge on the 14 November intercept itself: USS Princeton's radar operators reported a contact reappearing near the aircrews' rendezvous point within a minute of Fravor's visual encounter, directly linking the radar and visual channels in real time, and no evaluated conventional explanation adequately accounts for that combined radar-visual event. The threshold for corroborated status is met on that basis despite real gaps: the radar tape was never publicly released, and although a second aircrew recorded infrared video (FLIR1) hours later during the same response to the anomalous contacts, no record confirms it depicts the same object Fravor's flight intercepted.
Anomaly Index assessments are editorial evaluations of the public record. They are not official government determinations.
Unresolved means that the available evidence does not support a reliable identification. It does not imply extraterrestrial or nonhuman origin.
What was reported
For about two weeks before 14 November 2004, radar operators aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton, escorting the USS Nimitz carrier strike group off Baja California, tracked intermittent contacts that appeared to descend rapidly from above 80,000 feet to roughly 20,000 feet, linger, and climb again. On the morning of 14 November, Cmdr. David Fravor, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41 ("Black Aces"), and a fellow VFA-41 aircrew were diverted from a training mission to investigate. Fravor told Congress in 2023 that he and his weapons systems officer visually intercepted "a white Tic Tac object with a longitudinal axis pointing north south," moving abruptly over a patch of disturbed, whitecapped water on an otherwise calm sea. He reported that the object mirrored his aircraft's approach, then "rapidly accelerated in front of us and disappeared." Princeton's controllers subsequently reported a contact reappearing near the aircrews' planned rendezvous point roughly sixty miles away in under a minute. Later that day, a separate VFA-41 aircrew, including Lt. Chad Underwood on a different sortie, used an AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR targeting pod to record roughly ninety seconds of infrared video of a fast-moving target — the footage now known as FLIR1. Fravor has testified that the radar tape recorded during the intercept, which he says documented jamming of his aircraft's APG-73 radar, was never released. He described a routine squadron-level debrief at the carrier's intelligence center but said no wider investigation followed and "none of my crew were ever questioned," until a Pentagon official connected to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program contacted him in 2009, years after the encounter.
What is verified
- On 14 November 2004, a USS Nimitz strike group aircrew visually intercepted an object described as a white, wingless, oblong shape maneuvering over disturbed water off Baja California.[1]
- A separate VFA-41 aircrew recorded roughly 90 seconds of forward-looking infrared video of a fast-moving airborne target that same day; the Department of Defense confirmed this video's authenticity in 2020.[4]
- USS Princeton's radar operators reported unidentified contacts descending from above 80,000 feet to approximately 20,000 feet and climbing again over a roughly two-week period preceding 14 November 2004.[1]
- AARO's 2024 Historical Record Report states it found no evidence that any U.S. government program or extraterrestrial technology was involved, without issuing a case-specific resolution for this incident.[3]
Evidence ledger
| Type | Description | Originality | Source organization | Released | Raw or edited | Metadata | Provenance | Known limitations | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infrared | FLIR1 — approximately 90 seconds of AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR infrared video showing a fast-moving object, recorded by a VFA-41 aircrew on 14 November 2004. | Derivative | U.S. Navy / Department of Defense | 2007 (limited); 2017 (public); 2020 (official DoD release) | Unknown | Partial | Circulated privately for years before being published by To The Stars Academy and The New York Times in December 2017; officially confirmed as an authentic, unaltered Navy recording by DoD in April 2020. | The publicly available copy lacks synchronized radar data and original raw sensor-file metadata, and shows only the later infrared intercept — not the earlier visual encounter Fravor described. | [4] |
| Military eyewitness | Sworn congressional testimony from Cmdr. David Fravor describing the visual intercept, the object's movement, and the existence of an unreleased radar tape. | Original | U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability | 2023-07-26 | Raw | Yes | Direct sworn testimony under oath before a congressional subcommittee. | Testimony reconstructs an encounter from nearly two decades earlier and cannot substitute for the underlying sensor data, which Fravor states was never released. | [1] |
| Radar | USS Princeton AN/SPY-1 radar contacts tracked intermittently over roughly two weeks before 14 November 2004, and reported jamming of an F/A-18's APG-73 radar during the intercept. | Unknown | U.S. Navy | Not publicly released | Unknown | No | Known only through secondhand and testimonial accounts — air controllers' reports relayed to aircrew, and Fravor's later congressional testimony. The underlying radar tape itself has never been made public. | No raw radar track file or contemporaneous written report has been released; the record rests on recollection and testimony rather than an inspectable sensor product. | [1] |
| Official document | AARO Historical Record Report, Volume I — review of official U.S. government UAP-related investigative programs since 1945. | Original | All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office | 2024-03-08 | Raw | Yes | DOPSR-cleared unclassified DoD report, publicly released. | Addresses the broader historical record of government UAP programs rather than issuing a specific finding on the Nimitz encounter. | [3] |
Proposed explanations
Conventional aircraft, drone, or balloon misidentified during a fast, high-stress intercept
Proposed by Independent researchers and skeptical analysts (e.g., discussion collected on forums such as Metabunk); not an official U.S. government finding.
Supporting: Visual intercepts at speed and altitude are known to produce misjudgments of size, distance, and motion; the reported "whitewater" disturbance could indicate a surface feature rather than the object itself.
Contradicting: Fravor's aircrew described a discrete, apparently solid object with defined edges and no visible control surfaces, and Princeton's radar operators reported contacts consistent with the visual account before the intercept began; a separate aircrew's later FLIR1 video independently shows a discrete infrared target, though it has not been confirmed to be the same object.
PlausibleAdvanced U.S. or foreign drone technology
Proposed by Some members of Congress and media commentators.
Supporting: None publicly documented; would require capability far beyond what any known 2004-era aircraft or unmanned system possessed.
Contradicting: AARO's 2024 Historical Record Report states it found no evidence of a secret U.S. government program responsible for incidents like this one, and no foreign power has been credibly linked to the case.
RejectedOfficially unresolved — no attributed conventional explanation
Proposed by U.S. Department of Defense (2020 video release statement) and, implicitly, AARO, which has not published a case-specific resolution as of 2026.
Supporting: DoD's 2020 statement confirmed the video's authenticity while characterizing the depicted phenomena as unidentified; no subsequent official report has resolved the case.
Contradicting: None documented; this reflects the absence of an official conclusion rather than a competing theory.
UntestedWhy this classification?
This case is classified as Unresolved: corroborated because radar and visual evidence converge on the 14 November intercept: USS Princeton's controllers reported a contact reappearing near the aircrews' rendezvous point within a minute of Fravor's reported encounter, and no evaluated conventional explanation adequately accounts for that combined radar-visual event. That threshold is met despite significant gaps: the radar tape was never publicly released, a second aircrew's infrared video (FLIR1) recorded hours later has not been confirmed to depict the same object Fravor's flight intercepted, and no government body has issued a case-specific resolution.
What remains unknown
- Whether the object recorded on FLIR1 by the second aircrew was the same object Fravor's flight visually intercepted earlier that day, or an unrelated contact.
- What the withheld USS Princeton radar data would show about the object's speed, altitude changes, and the reported radar jamming.
- Why the Navy did not debrief or formally investigate Fravor's aircrew after the encounter, per his congressional testimony.
- What, if any, conventional object or platform could account for the radar-visual-infrared correlation across the reported two-week detection period.
Classification history
- 2004
Routine debrief only; no follow-on investigation — U.S. Navy
Per Fravor's 2023 congressional testimony, aircrew gave a standard debrief at the carrier's intelligence center, but no further investigation, interview, or tape collection followed.
- 2020
Confirmed authentic Navy recording; phenomena characterized as unidentified — U.S. Department of Defense
Official statement authorizing release of the FLIR, GIMBAL, and GOFAST videos.
- 2024
No case-specific resolution published — All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
Historical Record Report, Vol. I, found no evidence of a secret U.S. program or non-human technology, without adjudicating this case specifically.
- 2026
Unresolved, corroborated — Anomaly Index
Sources
- Primary source: Tier A"Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency" (hearing transcript) (opens in new tab)
Source provenance note
Sworn testimony of Ret. Cmdr. David Fravor (former commanding officer, VFA-41 "Black Aces") describing the November 2004 USS Nimitz encounter, including USS Princeton's prior radar tracking, the visual intercept, and his statement that "the radar tape that was never released" documented jamming of an APG-73 radar, and that "the incident was never investigated." Fetched and read directly in full; the govinfo.gov mirror renders as searchable HTML and was used for text extraction.
- Primary source: Tier AAll-domain Anomaly Resolution Office — reports and case resolutions (opens in new tab)
Source provenance note
The Department of Defense office responsible for resolving unidentified anomalous phenomena reports. Publishes annual reports, case resolution summaries, and declassified imagery.
- Primary source: Tier AReport on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I (opens in new tab)
Source provenance note
63-page DOPSR-cleared unclassified report reviewing official U.S. government UAP-related investigative efforts since 1945 (Projects SIGN, GRUDGE, BLUE BOOK, the UAP Task Force, AOIMSG, and AARO itself). States AARO found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology in U.S. government possession, but does not issue a case-specific resolution for the 2004 USS Nimitz encounter. Direct fetch of aaro.mil returned HTTP 403 (site-level bot protection); content verified via the Wikimedia Commons-hosted mirror of the same DoD-released PDF, which also confirms the original aaro.mil URL and publication metadata. Original aaro.mil PDF path returned 404 as of 2026-07-15 (site reorganization); the report remains accessible via the archived copy.
- Context only: Tier CUSS Nimitz UFO/UAP Tic Tac Executive Summary (circulated 2009 document) (opens in new tab)
Source provenance note
A document purporting to be an internal executive summary of the Nimitz encounter, reported by journalist George Knapp to have been obtained around 2017-2018 during a Washington visit arranged by former Senator Harry Reid. In sworn 2023 congressional testimony (src-nimitz-hhrg-2023- transcript), Cmdr. David Fravor stated he was first contacted about the incident in 2009 by a Pentagon official, Jay Stratton, connected to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) under Luis Elizondo, and called the resulting document an "unofficial official report." That testimony clarifies but does not officially confirm the document's provenance — DoD has never formally authenticated or released it. Listed for context only, per design doc §13.3 (Tier C: discovery and context only) — it does NOT independently qualify this incident for inclusion and is not used to support the editorial classification, which rests on Tier A sources.