The Nimitz incident of November 2004 refers to a number of alleged UFO encounters off the California/Mexico coast, southwest of San Diego & Tijuana. These were, in fact, several unrelated incidents:
1) Strange radar readings on USS Princeton
2) A large submerged object
3) A small white flying "Tic Tac"
4) A flying object captured on infrared video
The encounters were revealed to the public in the December 2017 New York Times article "Glowing Auras and Black Money: The Pentagon's Mysterious UFO Program" by Leslie Kean & Sidney Blumenthal, followed by a televised interview with two US Navy pilots (David Fravor and Alex Dietrich) on 60 Minutes in 2021.
Artist's rendering of the Nimitz objects described by Navy pilots David Fravor, Alex Dietrich & Jim Slaight.
1. The submerged object was a blue whale.
2. The "Tic Tac" was an albatross with dark wings and a large white body.
3. The "ping pong" maneuvers of the "Tic Tac" - described by Fravor - are a flying technique called dynamic soaring. The albatross glides on varying wind gradients above the ocean, dipping between wave crests and launching toward a favored trajectory, all without flapping their enormous wings, allowing them to accelerate with no visible means of propulsion.
4. The "FLIR1" object is a distant airplane. The sudden acceleration at the end of the video is an illusion: the camera merely stops tracking the object.
Fig. 1: FLIR1 video, 2004. There is no reason to believe FLIR1 shows anything exotic, outside of the high probability that it is one of many "drug planes" common to the skies west of Tijuana and San Diego.
Fig. 2: Chilean Navy video, 2014. This "UFO" was positively identified as Iberia Airlines flight IB6830 (Santiago to Madrid) in 2017.
5. The seemingly hypersonic "objects" which initiated the Nimitz incident were radar anomalies on the USS Princeton, probably caused by ice crystals. The radar was newly installed and needed calibration, after which the hypersonic "objects" disappeared, never to return.
Carl Sagan wrote about this phenomenon year's earlier:
"At least some [UFO] radar reports were due to anomalous propagation - radio waves traveling curved paths due to atmospheric temperature inversions. Traditionally, they were also called radar angels: something that seems to be there but isn't. You could have simultaneous visual and radar sightings without there being any there there." - The Demon Haunted World, 1996
When reflecting sunlight (or any light), ice crystals can create visible light pillars:
NIMITZ WITNESSES
RADAR
According to Captain Red Smith of the USS Princeton, the radar anomalies were ice crystals. This was the Navy's official conclusion.
“The [carrier strike] group was going to be deploying in a few months and there was a bunch of new systems, like the Spy-1 Bravo radar. It was really about getting all the kinks out.” - Petty Officer Gary Voorhis, USS Princeton
“People are acting like the AEGIS [radar system] is infallible. There’s a reason procedures exist to correct ghost tracks; the AEGIS makes mistakes.” - Karson Kammerzell, Chief Technology Officer, USS Princeton
“I was convinced it was some sort of glitch in the [radar] system...I thought it was some sort of a system error or something civilian-related like balloons." - initial reaction of Kevin Day, Operations Specialist Senior Chief, USS Princeton
Day, a longtime fan of the Coast to Coast AM radio show, convinced himself that the radar anomalies were something other than ice crystals - something not of this Earth.
ALBATROSS
Object had "a fuzzy or wavy looking border" - Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight
"It was just like a ping pong ball." - Cmdr. David Fravor
“It behaved in a way that we were surprised, unnerved. It almost didn’t accelerate. It jumped from spot to spot and tumbled around in a way that was unpredictable” - Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
"It goes from a hover to a pretty aggressive climb. You can’t just start a climb...This thing did it like it was no big deal.” - Fravor
FIVE MINUTES OR A FEW SECONDS?
"Four of us [were] watching this thing for roughly five minutes." - Fravor
"I only had visual of Tic Tac for 8-10 sec from high cover" ... "If I had a full 5 min with it I would have been able to give you a make, model and serial number!" - Dietrich
HYPERSONIC TIC TAC?
Fravor claims his Tic Tac was seen on radar travelling 60 miles in an instant. Dietrich provides a logical explanation: "Either it was supersonic and able to get there super-fast or it dropped off and something else popped up that had the same radar signature."
ALIENS?
“I am in no way implying that it was extraterrestrial or alien technology or anything like that.” - Dietrich
"It's very possible [the military] could have been testing something on us, and that's why I lean towards it being something of ours [more] than I do it being extraterrestrial, is because I've seen them testing; I've participated in testing." - Petty Officer Patrick Hughes, USS Nimitz
[Chad] Underwood has mostly wanted to avoid having his name “attached to the ‘little green men’ crazies that are out there.” - The Intelligencer, 12/19/2019
"It was not from this world." - Fravor
RECALL
“I would like to think everything is accurate as it was when the event happened; but I know I've gotten some details wrong here and there...There are certain parts of the story that I just didn't remember. The only way I know the details is because I've spoken with other people to kinda fill in the blanks to what I know.” - Patrick Hughes
"I want to be careful because we know the science of the mind, the science of the memory, we shouldn’t rely too much on my technical account at this point." - Dietrich
THE ALLEGED COVER-UP
“There are a lot of rumors out there that it was classified and the ship got locked down. No, it wasn’t. Men in suits did not show up. No one told us not to talk about it" ... "I did not have to be quiet; the superiors knew, everyone on the ship knew...[the story] just kinda went away and I really didn't talk about it for years.” – Fravor
Further reading:
I. FRAVOR'S TIC TAC: A WANDERING ALBATROSS
VIDEOS
Albatross soaring
Dynamic soaring of the wandering albatross, the largest seabird in the world
Dynamic soaring: how the wandering albatross can fly for free
Wandering albatross facts
Dynamic soaring: the flight of the albatross
ARTICLES
•Flying Without Flapping: The Wandering Albatross and the Mechanics of Dynamic Soaring. Fowler, 2012
RESEARCH PAPERS
II. PRINCETON UFO: A RADAR GLITCH
Police radar differs from military radar, but these incidents are still relevant:
III. UNDERWOOD VIDEO: AN AIRPLANE
Is the Nimitz UFO video just a plane?https://youtu.be/s1oTg0kxzDs
Nimitz FLIR1 "tic tac" video - no sudden moves
Caution to all UFO videographers
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