The USS Nimitz Tic-Tac Encounter: Navy Pilots Intercept Unknown Craft off Southern California (2004)

The Encounter

On November 14, 2004, during a routine training exercise approximately 100 miles southwest of San Diego, California, pilots and crew aboard the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group detected a cluster of unidentified objects on advanced radar systems. The objects appeared to descend from above 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet in seconds — a descent rate far exceeding the capability of any known aircraft or missile. Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight, flying F/A-18F Super Hornet jets, were directed to investigate.

The Visual Intercept

Fravor and Slaight arrived at the location and observed a white, oblong object approximately 40 feet in length hovering just above the ocean surface, disturbing the water below it in an oval pattern approximately 400 feet in diameter. Fravor later described the object as looking like "a giant Tic-Tac" — smooth, white, with no visible wings, tail, exhaust, or control surfaces. As the F/A-18s descended toward the object, it mirrored their movements, then abruptly accelerated away at extreme speed, leaving no contrail or heat signature. Fravor stated the entire intercept lasted approximately five minutes. The object was subsequently picked up on radar approximately 60 miles away within seconds of disappearing — a speed that would equate to thousands of miles per hour.

The FLIR Footage and Declassification

A second F/A-18 equipped with the AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR targeting pod recorded the object on forward-looking infrared video. The footage — known as the "FLIR1" or "Tic-Tac" video — was leaked to the public in December 2017 by The New York Times and investigative journalists Luis Elizondo and Tom DeLonge via the To The Stars Academy. On April 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of Defense officially declassified the footage and confirmed it was recorded by Navy personnel. The Navy stated that the objects in the three released videos — including the Tic-Tac — remain unidentified.

Congressional and Institutional Response

Commander Fravor testified before Congress and stated he believed the object demonstrated technology "50 years ahead of us." The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), established by Congress in 2022 to investigate UAP, classified the Nimitz encounter as one of the foundational cases in its database. The encounter is also referenced extensively in the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2021 UAP Report.

Connection to Southern California

The USS Nimitz and its strike group were operating out of Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California, during the training exercise in which the encounter occurred. The airspace involved — a designated military training area off the Southern California coast — is part of the broader Warning Area 291 corridor that researchers have linked to the Malibu coast UAP concentration. Witness Commander Fravor retired and has given numerous public interviews, including to The New York Times, CNN, and Congress, maintaining a consistent account of what he observed.