(2004) The Nimitz Encounters Something
"It probably wasn't quality training."
Of the many cases in UFO history, none define the modern era quite like the 2004 Nimitz Encounters. Its combination of sensor data, credible witnesses, and publicly available evidence has elevated it above the many “classic” UFO cases that sometimes dominate the field. In recent years, “The Nimitz” has captured the attention of The New York Times and Congress, but with every additional piece of coverage, it’s become clear that the full scope of the encounter is still not well understood.
Today, I want to walk you through the first part of this event so that you can see why it’s leaned on so heavily inside the UFO Community. It’s my hope that with all the available information, you can form your own opinion on what exactly the Nimitz encountered and why that might still be important almost 20 years later.
Upgrades Big and Small
In 2004, the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was scheduled to conduct a pre-deployment “work-up” training exercise off the western coast of the United States. A Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is a group of several naval vessels that protect and support a single U.S. Aircraft Carrier: in this case, the USS Nimitz. In advance of this workup, the strike group had been reconfigured to include these five ships:1
Of all the ships in the strike group, the USS Princeton plays one of the most important roles by acting as its eyes and ears. Ticonderoga-class cruisers like The Princeton are equipped with a highly advanced radar system (AN/SPY-1) that can track a golf ball being hit more than 100 miles away.2 With the help of some additional sensors, the Princeton is capable of providing full sub-surface, surface, and air detection and it’s the sensor capabilities of this often-overlooked ship that elevate the case in the eyes of the UFO community.3
Just before this training exercise, those capabilities were enhanced even further with the installation of two major upgrades. The first was to The Princeton’s SPY-1B radar which included new display consoles, re-wiring the ship with fiber-optic cable, and installing a major firmware update. This substantially improved the performance of the radar, which one sailor would describe as like “going from old ‘60s technology to [something] hot off-the-shelf.”45
The second upgrade involved introducing a new technology called “Cooperative Engagement Capability” (CEC).6 While naval assets were previously limited to what their own individual sensors could pick up, CEC now allowed for a shared picture of the battlespace generated by all their sensors working together.
While these upgrades were helpful for the overall accuracy of the strike group, they would also come at a cost. Part of the Nimitz CSG’s mission on this training exercise was to test out these newly installed capabilities, and on the off chance they encountered something unusual, it would be all too easy to chalk that up to system error.
Early Contact on the USS Princeton
The Nimitz CSG began the first phase of their training exercise on October 29, 2004. Work-ups consist of three phases and this “Tailored Ship’s Training Availability” (TSTA) starts by training the core competencies of each ship separately.78
On around November 7, the USS Princeton was running simulations with its radar system to match conditions in the Persian Gulf. This is the region that the strike group would be deploying to at the end of their training exercise and simulated tracks (which would appear on top of regular tracks) would teach the crew how to handle something like a commercial airliner passing over the strike group.
While the sailors in the Princeton’s “Combat Information Center” (CIC) were able to identify most of the objects that appeared on radar, one object was repeatedly puzzling the crew. That evening, the officer on watch would indicate to another sailor (Karson Kammerzell, Cryptologic Technician) that “because it didn’t match any of the data that was attributed to our training exercise and because it didn’t match anything that should be [there], it had to be fake. So [we] deleted it [from our radar screen].”9
While that might seem like an odd decision, this was a standard procedure that used human judgement as the last filter for acquiring radar contacts. At the time, there was little reason to believe the object was anything other than a faulty track and deleting it was supposed to teach the system to ignore similar results. But after each deletion, the track kept reappearing and it fell to the sailors in the CIC to ignore it and press on with their training schedule.
More Contact on the USS Princeton
By November 10, the radar results had gotten worse. There were now multiple unknown objects appearing on screen and they seemed to be descending from above 80,000ft to 28,000ft in a matter of seconds.10 From that height, they would travel in groups of 5-10 heading south between Santa Catalina and San Clemente Islands off the coast of San Diego. Their speed of travel was approximately 100 knots (115 mph), which is going slower than most planes require to stay in the air.1112 Later, U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense radar would add that they were picking up the same objects in low earth orbit (approx. 525,000 ft), implying that their original descent was coming from space.13
When he first noticed the issue, Kevin Day (Senior Chief Operation Specialist, USS Princeton) began a standard protocol to identify unknown aircraft.14 But after pulling together the expertise of his team, he could only determine that:
None of the objects were transmitting an “Identification Friend or Foe” (IFF) signal. This is a system common to all aircraft, including aircraft from other countries and military forces, that allows for immediate identification.15
None of the objects were emitting any electronic signals of any kind which would be present in any remotely controlled drone or other pleasure aircraft, including balloons.16
None of the objects were flying on a commercial air route or a route that would suggest pre-planned intent.17
None of the objects were flying in a way that matched any flight profile that pointed to a recognizable aircraft;18 and
None of the objects were present in any “Notice to Air Mariners” (NOTAMs) received by the Navy to identify all significant civilian and military flights in the area.19
The final step in this process was to ultimately determine if the objects were headed towards the carrier or something the carrier group was trying to protect.20 At the time, most of the carrier group was located approximately 100 miles southwest of San Diego.21 The objects tracking south were approximately 120 miles to their north22 and, on their current path, wouldn’t pass closer than 40 miles east of the carrier.23
With only an intermittent presence (waves would remain airborne for about 2 h 30 min) and with no obvious threat posed to the Nimitz CSG, the decision was made to continue monitoring the objects while leadership explored other options.
Have You Tried Turning It Off and Back on Again?
By November 11, the SPY-1B radar technicians onboard the USS Princeton had received permission to fully shut down their system and recalibrate all its instruments. This was not a light decision as the restart would take most of the day, delay training, and leave the strike group somewhat vulnerable during the process. But with the recent upgrades still suggesting a system error, J.L. Smith (Captain, USS Princeton) authorized the procedure.
By the time the systems were brought back up, the unknown tracks were now registering clearer than ever before.24 SPY radar, which assigns a confidence rating to each individual track (on an increasing confidence scale from 1 to 7) was now displaying 7s across the board.25
Reactions over the next few days were calm but mixed. While the objects didn’t pose any obvious threat to the Nimitz CSG, it was still unnerving for many of the sailors who were “in the know” about this strange development.
One of the computer technicians who participated in the system reset (Gary Voorhis, Fire Controlman) started looking for the objects on radar and racing up to the deck to make visual contact. Through a large pair of deck mounted binoculars (affectionately called the “big eyes”) he was able to see the objects on approximately five occasions, day and night, occasionally darting away at a speed his eyes couldn’t follow.26
Gary wasn’t the only sailor on the USS Princeton to make visual contact, but many others were trying to troubleshoot the issue in a more formal capacity. Beginning on November 12, Kevin Day began requesting that the ship change direction to see if any one piece of the radar’s 360-degree hardware was malfunctioning.27 Theresa Elders (Tactical Action Officer, USS Princeton) opened a dialogue with her counterpart on the USS Nimitz to see if they could help with an ID. Both ships were now picking up the same strange objects near the strike group and, so far, there was still no explanation as wave after wave continued.28
[Air] Safety First
Attempts to change the ship’s physical direction on the evening of the 12th and 13th produced no improvement and the reaction from Navy leadership remained muted. That was at least partly motivated by the total absence of any naval aircraft at the time. For the first part of TSTA, the squadrons of the Nimitz Carrier Air Wing (CVW) remained on land, only flying onto the USS Nimitz for the first time on November 13.29
If anyone had wanted to check out the strange air contacts prior to that date, it likely would have meant coordinating with the U.S. Air Force for a threat that was still very ill-defined. That would have been a big career risk for the officers of the Nimitz CSG, many of whom wanted to deploy, advance, and avoid any of the stigma associated with “unidentified flying objects.”
But on the morning of November 14, squadrons from the Nimitz CVW were set to begin their first full day of aerial training exercises. This would place at least 35 aircraft in the air over six launch cycles (what the Navy calls “Events”).30 These aircraft would mostly be flying at the same altitude in the same locations as the strange objects on radar, and even a collision with a harmless balloon might be enough to crash the aircraft and kill the pilot.
Onboard the USS Princeton, Kevin Day suggested an aerial intercept of one of the objects to avoid an air-to-air mishap. If they were able to get a visual ID, they could at least tell the pilots what to look out for as they ran their exercises. The Captain of the Princeton agreed, making a bureaucratic safety of flight concern the ultimate reason for the intercept. There were about five unknown objects airborne at the time, and as Kevin would later describe it, “I picked the closest one to the strike group and sent them over there.”31
Event 3 Off the Carrier
At about 2 pm local time on November 14, 2004, the USS Nimitz was scheduled to launch a wave of aircraft as “Event 3” off the carrier. There would be about 12 aircraft in the air during this Event, five of which would be participating in a 2 vs.3 “Air Defense Exercise” (ADEX).32
The first aircraft in the air was piloted by Douglas Kurth (CO and Marine Aviator, VMFA-232). He was up early to conduct a functional flight check on a newly repaired F-18C and happened to be the first jet vectored toward the contact.
In the air with Kurth was an E2-C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, which would typically use its onboard radar to control an intercept like this one. But in conversation with the USS Princeton, it became clear that the E2-C’s 1970s-era radar was not reliably picking up the contacts and the Princeton would have to do the air control itself.33
As Kurth’s F-18C approached the contact, The Princeton changed its plan and instructed Kurth to wave off and return to his holding point (also called his “Combat Air Patrol Point”). Kurth’s jet had limited fuel to complete the planned ADEX and two more modern F-18Fs had just taken off from the USS Nimitz with substantially more fuel to spare.
Even though Kurth had been told to turn around, he was about 10 nautical miles away from the contact and from his position he could see a strange, 50-to-100-meter round disturbance in the water. Curiosity got the best of him, and he made a long turn that overflew the disturbance, technically placing him first on the scene.
While Kurth didn’t see any strange objects in the air, he did get a good view of the water, which reminded him of “something rapidly submerging from the surface … like a submarine or a ship sinking.” But with orders to leave and conserve fuel, Kurth left the scene as the two other F-18Fs came in to replace him.34
Those two F-18Fs were piloted by David Fravor (CO and Naval Aviator, VFA-41) and Alex Dietrich (Naval Aviator, VFA-41). Unlike the older models, each of their jets was a two-seater with a weapon systems officer in the back seat, bringing the total number of aviators up to four.
Just like Kurth, all four aviators arrived on site with a clear view of the large disturbance in the water. Their initial thought was that the disturbance may have been caused by a downed commercial airliner and all four began to scan the water for signs of a potential crash.
Moments into their search, David Fravor (in one jet) and Jim Slaight (in the back seat of the other jet) spotted what appeared to be a strange white object in flight approximately 50 ft above the disturbance. This “tic-tac”-like object was about the size of their F-18F and was flying in a north-south, east-west cross pattern with no apparent means of propulsion.35 Unknown to Fravor at the time, the radar system onboard the USS Princeton had captured that object descending from approximately 28,000 ft to its 50 ft position in 0.78 seconds as they had arrived on the scene.36
Leaving Dietrich and Slaight to fly “high cover,” Fravor opted to bring his aircraft down to get a closer look. As he began a slow, circular turn toward the water, the object seemed to react to him and immediately began an ascending turn to meet him. Fravor and the object continued this circular maneuver until they each reached about 12,000 ft, when, hoping to get even closer, Fravor dropped his nose to cut across the circle. But as he closed to within half a mile, “it [just went] poof.”
All four aviators lost visual contact at the same time and as Fravor regained altitude to get a better view, the disturbance in the water stopped below them. Shaken, but with little else to investigate, both jets started the journey back toward their Combat Air Patrol Point. But as strange as that was, the Princeton was now about to report something even stranger: according to the ship’s SPY-1B radar, the object was now in a holding position over the exact coordinates the F-18Fs were supposed to be flying to. Their “Blue Air” CAP Point was about 60 miles away, and, in order to make it there, that object would have had to close that distance in seconds. Radar would track it holding there for a few moments and, as the jets left the scene of their initial contact, the object quickly returned to its original location at 28,000 ft tracking south at 100 knots.37
The reaction was confused to say the least. The F-18Fs returned to their starting points for the planned ADEX and performed two runs as scheduled. At some point during this exercise, at least one of the tic-tac like objects formed up briefly with the E2-C Hawkeye but it’s unclear precisely what was captured on radar compared to what the crew of the aircraft reportedly saw out their window.38
At the conclusion of the exercise, the Hawkeye and all five jets in the ADEX landed back on the USS Nimitz. Reflecting on the aftermath of the event many years later, Alex Dietrich would go on to say “it wasn’t quality training.”39
“I’m Going to Go Find That Thing”
None of the jets in this air defense exercise were equipped with cameras. This was a routine training mission and none of the pilots had any indication they would be intercepting anything other than each other. But as they recovered onboard the Nimitz, there was a growing interest in figuring out exactly what they had encountered out there.
One claim made about the next wave of aircraft off the Nimitz (Event 4) is that several pilots strayed from their exercises to try and get a closer look at these contacts. On close approach, the tic-tacs were said to shoot down evasively from 28,000 ft to 50 ft in a manner similar to Fravor’s encounter but this phenomenon of “raining UFOs” hasn’t been substantiated by any of those pilots and could benefit from some additional clarification.40
What is clear is that things would get a little more deliberate in Event 5. As the naval aviators streamed in and out of the carrier’s equipment room, David Fravor found himself relaying the event to the next group of aviators going up. Chad Underwood (Naval Aviator, VFA-41) would be one of two Black Aces participating in a “Combat Search and Rescue” (CSAR) and his jet was already mounted with a “Forward Looking Infrared” (FLIR) camera for the occasion. Chad would be acting as the Weapon Systems Officer that controlled that camera, and as he and his pilot prepared to leave for the deck, he turned to Fravor and said: “I’m going to go find that thing.”4142
Underwood didn’t have to wait long. As his F-18F worked its way toward the starting point for his exercise, the USS Princeton vectored him toward a nearby contact. From a safe distance (about 20 miles away), Underwood locked his camera and began to record the object. Right away there were some very significant conclusions. This tic-tac had no wings, no propulsion systems, and none of the heat signatures you would expect from a typical aircraft. It was travelling at erratic angles and speeds, and, as Underwood soon realized, it was jamming him.43
Under U.S. rules of engagement, jamming a military aircraft is considered an act of war. Most countries don’t take it lightly and it is done very rarely, particularly so close to the U.S. mainland. But at this point, the best approach still seemed to be a fact-finding endeavor. Underwood cycled through several different recording modes on his camera and, over the next 7-10 minutes, obtained clear footage as the object did its best to evade him.
Eventually, it was able to accelerate rapidly and slip his camera lock, which, to evade that technology, would have required at least a 45 degree course change and 3 to 5 g’s of acceleration. Reflecting on that capability years later, Underwood would say: “I can’t [explain that.] When I say [the craft took off from] a standstill, it’s not like it’s sitting there in a hover. It’s in motion. It’s moving at some sort of velocity at a vector to go from whatever its airspeed was at the time, to something that’s just impossible by any physical standard. It’s something I can’t describe from a physics-based perspective. Things don’t just instantaneously accelerate like that.”44
After leaving Underwood’s vicinity, the Princeton lost radar contact with the object and the aviators were instructed to proceed with their pre-planned training. Underwood recovered onboard the USS Nimitz, handed over his tapes, and was asked to have a brief phone conversation with “someone [he] assumed to be from NORAD.”45 While the aviators from Event 3 had been met with ridicule and indifference from their command structure, now there was some hope it might get the attention it deserved.
The Men in Khakis
That phone call was very likely with a U.S. Ballistic Missile Detection facility located at Beale Air Force Base in California. Its “PAVE PAWS” radar system uses the same kind of technology as the USS Princeton but with much better height and range. In 2004, that radar was subordinated to the U.S. Air Force, managed by civilian contractors, and tasked with searching for anything that looked like a ballistic missile as far south as the Nimitz CSG’s operating area.46
It’s likely that this was the facility that kicked off a series of unplanned visits to the carrier group that would later generate some controversy. First, the five-man crew from the E2-C Hawkeye was held after their flight, made to sign an NDA, and hand over their data recording tapes from the event.47 Second, sailors onboard the USS Princeton were instructed to hand over their data recordings from the SPY-1B radar and then delete all of the data they had locally stored.48 Third, sonar technicians onboard the USS Louisville were also reportedly placed under NDA when their passive sonar happened to capture an acoustic profile for the objects.49 It is ultimately unclear what happened to that sonar data, but it likely shared a similar fate.
While sometimes this kind of data confiscation might happen when ships returned to port at the end of TSTA, these data retrievals were very unusual because they all happened day of. Many have wondered why, given VFA-41’s direct interaction with the tic-tacs, nobody bothered to treat the pilots from this squadron the same way. But in looking at the pattern of confiscations and NDAs, it would seem that attention concentrated on assets with the newly upgraded SPY-1B radar or the newly installed CEC. The F-18s of VFA-41 didn’t have that kind of sophisticated technology onboard and so all six naval aviators from that squadron were spared a similar visit.
But the pilots weren’t spared from ridicule and an almost insulting series of potential explanations attributed to the event. Intelligence officers in their initial debrief wore literal tin foil hats, faked a prank investigation, and switched the ship’s onboard entertainment system to a non-stop loop of popular UFO movies.5051 When senior leadership of the USS Princeton sat down for an evening briefing on November 14, the officer running the PowerPoint inserted an alien from the 1990s movie, Mars Attacks.52
Most of the 6,200 sailors of the Nimitz CSG would never receive any kind of explanation for what happened but the unofficial conclusion was formed on the 15th of November when senior leadership on the Nimitz determined that they had encountered “spontaneously forming ice crystals from the upper atmosphere.” This prompted one of the better quotes attributed to the incident where the Carrier’s Air Boss is alleged to have said that “with all due respect sir, falling ice does not turn 90 degrees and accelerate at 600 miles an hour.”53
Opining on this strange, lackluster response from the chain of command, one sailor would later remark that “no captain wants to be the guy that tracked UFOs. You’ve got to remember that this was back when the stigma was in full swing, and if you claimed to see a UFO or anything like that, that’s a good way to get a one-way ticket to the psych dept. and lose your clearance.”54 With a plausible explanation in hand and some other military entity collecting their data, the leadership of the Nimitz CSG was handed a perfect opportunity to turn the page and close the book on whatever had happened out there.
All Quiet on the Western Coast
Indifference has consequences and one of those consequences was self-censorship of the many strange things that continued to happen. On the evening of November 14, Sean Cahill (Chief Master at Arms, USS Princeton) would see a strange twisting star constellation from the bridge of the ship.55 For three nights starting on November 15, Karson Kammerzell would observe an unusual triangular set of lights sliding around the sky like he was “on the underside of an air hockey table.” Kammerzell’s visual of a strange triangular something was particularly notable as it was located only 2 miles from the ship, happening outside of regular flight operations, and emitting no regular aircraft noise.56
When asked why he didn’t think to report the sighting through his chain of command, Kammerzell would sum up the feelings of many of his shipmates by saying that:
…at this point everybody knew that [something] was there. And I mean everybody… we had just all decided sort of unanimously to just go about our business. I know that sounds really weird because people not in the military look at that and think ‘that doesn’t sound right.’ But the reality is we were out there for training and this thing hadn’t caused any issues. After our COs and after our DIVOs all kind of did their Pow Wow’s on the matter, everybody just decided ‘well, we’ve got to go back to training.’ And so that’s what we did … An analogy would be like a stray cat around your house. At first, you’re like ‘why is this cat here?’ and then it just kind of sits around for a few days and you’re like ‘well it’s not causing any problems. Hey, what’s up?’ And you go back inside.57
The Nimitz CSG wrapped up TSTA and returned to port on November 17, 2004. Its leadership was commended for its exemplary completion of a compressed training schedule and there was no further investigation of the waves of strange objects in the area.58 There had been approximately 100 of them over a period of seven days, and according to those responsible for monitoring them, they did not stop coming until the Nimitz returned to port.59
This first part of the 2004 Nimitz Encounters is not, as is so often reported, about “2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing They’ve Ever Seen.’” It’s about a series of repeated observations, over at least 10 days, from several different radar systems, sonar systems, sensor technologies, and a FLIR camera. There were at least 12 eyewitnesses. And its legacy is not a grainy 1 min 16s clip from from an email attachment in 2004, but rather 7-10 minutes of clear video that the U.S. Government will not release to you.60
To date, there has never been an official investigation of this event. And now, you might consider asking for it. Who knows? Maybe it was falling ice.
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Stratton, Jay. Rep. Tic Tac (Nimitz Carrier Strike Group) Investigation, 7 January 2009 - 18 May 2009 (28 Pages). Washington, D.C: Bigelow Advanced Aerospace Space Studies, 2009. https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document_dev/2018/05/18/TIC%20TAC%20UFO%20EXECUTIVE%20REPORT_1526682843046_42960218_ver1.0.pdf. Pg 2.
Note: Crew compliments figures are pulled from publicly available data on each ship. The figure for the USS Nimitz includes the personnel associated with the attached Nimitz Carrier Air Wing.
Robinson, John A. “Force Protection from the Sea: Employing the SPY-1D Radar.” Field Artillery, Spring 2004, 24–25. https://tradocfcoeccafcoepfwprod.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/fires-bulletin-archive/2004/MAR_JUN_2004/MAR_JUN_2004_FULL_EDITION.pdf. Pg 24.
Stratton, “Tic Tac Investigation.” Pg 2.
Willis, Martin. “Kevin Day, Gary Voorhis & Robert Powell, The USS Nimitz Tic-Tac UFO Incident.” Podcast UFO, October 8, 2019. At 8min 16s.
West, Mick. “TFTRH #36 - Gary Voorhis: Tic-Tac UFO Witness.” Metabunk, January 21, 2020. At 18min 29s.
Hanley, Brian. “Nimitz Tic Tac UFO Military Witness Gary Voorhis Tracked UFOs In The Navy.” Brian Hanley YouTube Channel, March 14, 2020. At 34min 31s.
Allen, Kris. “Nimitz Completes TSTA and FEP, Prepares for COMPTUEX.” US Navy Newstand, November 29, 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20061123120252/http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=16093.
Pike, John. “IDTC - Inter-Deployment Training Cycle Evolutions.” Global Security, May 7, 2011. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/idtc.htm.
Beaty, Dave. “Tic Tac Witness Karson Kammerzell CTO3 Pt. 2.” The Nimitz Encounters, October 10, 2020. At 10min 59s.
Knuth, Kevin H, Robert M Powell, and Peter A Reali. “Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles .” Physics Faculty Scholarship, 2019. https://doi.org/10.3390/e21100939. Pg 7.
Beaty, Dave. “Tic Tac Witnesses Kevin Day Interview.” The Nimitz Encounters, October 12, 2019. At 1min 36s.
Hanley, Brian. “Nimitz Tic Tac UFO Witness Kevin Day Discloses New Information.” Brian Hanley YouTube Channel, May 7, 2020. At 15min 46s.
Hanley, “Nimitz Tic Tac UFO Witness Kevin Day.” At 22min 46s.
Note: There are many descriptions of where “Low Earth Orbit” actually starts. I used the minimum threshold provided by the European Space Agency (160km) which roughly works out to 525,000 ft.
Unknown Interviewer. “Kevin Day Gary Voorhis and John Burroughs.” Task Force Gryphon with Commander Cobra, November 10, 2019. https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/task-force-gryphon/kevin-day-gary-voorhis-and-Ju5SUlb6Z8D/. At 15min 16s.
Unknown Interviewer. “Kevin Day Gary Voorhis and John Burroughs.” At 14min 25s and 16min 29s.
McGrillen, Andy. “From The Archives - Gary Voorhis, Kevin Day, PJ Hughes (Part 2).” That UFO Podcast, August 25, 2020. At 41min 43s.
Rojas, Alejandro. “UFO JET CHASE Explained by US Navy Vet Kevin Day.” Den of Geek, May 8, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/live/TXr3sWkBqQk?feature=share. At 5min 13s.
Ventura, Tim. “Kevin Day - Nimitz UAP Navy Encounters.” Tim Ventura YouTube Channel, June 23, 2022. At 6min 30s.
Willis, Martin. “Kevin M. Day, USN Ret./M.Ed, The USS NIMITZ UFO Incident Witness.” Podcast UFO, March 19, 2019. At 19min 54s.
Kleinman, Kelly. Unbelievable USS Nimitz UFO Incident as Witnessed by US Navy Ret.Senior Chief Kevin Day. Other. Phenomenon Report, August 30, 2020.
Knapp, George. Tic Tac UFO Incidents/ Anthropology of Seances. Coast to Coast AM, June 17, 2018. At 16min 27s.
Hein, Simeon. “Tic-Tac UFO Incident USS Nimitz Senior Chief Operations Specialist and Witness.” Unidentified Aerial System, May 23, 2019. At 14min 22s.
Sprague, Ryan. “A Conversation with Witnesses: Military UFO/UAP Encounters.” Somewhere in the Skies, July 5, 2021. At 26min 22s.
Hanley, Brian. “Nimitz Tic-Tac UFO Witness Sean Cahill Analyzes Utah UFO in EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW.” Brian Hanley YouTube Channel, October 6, 2019. At 4min 57s.
Knapp, “Tic Tac UFO Incidents.” At 16min 27s.
Willis, Martin. “Kevin Day, The Post Effect of UFO Encounter & More.” Podcast UFO, October 4, 2022. At 12min 44s.
Powell, Robert, Peter Reali, Tim Thompson, Morgan Bell, Doug Kimzey, Larry Cates, and Richard Hoffman. “A Forensic Analysis of Navy Carrier Strike Group Eleven’s Encounter with an Anomalous Aerial Vehicle.” Scientific Coalition for Ufology, March 3, 2019. https://www.explorescu.org/post/2004-uss-nimitz-strike-navy-group-incident-report. Pg 95-98.
Note: This citation is specifically referencing a leaked “CVW-11 Event Summary” for Nov 14, 2004.
Note: Content pulled substantially from “CVW-11 Event Summary” with additional information from interviews and publicly available information on aircraft.
Willis, “Kevin M. Day, USN Ret.” At 1h 22min 44s.
Stratton, “Tic Tac Investigation.” Pg 6.
Rogan, Joe. “Episode #1361 - Cmdr. David Fravor & Jeremy Corbell.” The Joe Rogan Experience, October 5, 2019. At 5min 6s.
Knapp, George, and Jeremy Corbell. “Commander David Fravor’s Full Speech on Seeing Tic Tac.” McMinville Oregon UFO Festival, May 18, 2019. At 16min 7s.
Beaty, Dave. “Tic Tac Witness Patrick Hughes.” The Nimitz Encounters, September 21, 2019. At 13min 2s.
West, Mick. “Alex Dietrich - The Nimitz Event Summary, Time Differences, and Other Accounts.” Metabunk, June 15, 2021. At 16min 31s.
Note: This claim is made by Kevin Day and was most prominently featured in Season 1 Episode 2 of the History Channel’s Unidentified. A representative description of this claim can be found here.
Note: Chad Underwood has never indicated that this is the exact training exercise he was on. But his contextual description (he recalls a refuelling exercise) fits best with this event as opposed to the other option (an ADEX) in Event 5. Other details for this citation come from the “CVW-11 Event Summary.”
Phelan, Matthew. “Navy Pilot Who Filmed the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Normal Laws of Physics.’” The Intelligencer - New York Magazine, December 19, 2019. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/tic-tac-ufo-video-q-and-a-with-navy-pilot-chad-underwood.html.
Corbell, Jeremy. “Episode #6 - LT. CMDR. Chad Underwood / The Man Who Filmed the Tic Tac UFO.” The Extraordinary Beliefs Podcast, August 17, 2020. https://www.extraordinarybeliefs.com/extraordinary-beliefs/podcast-6. At 13min 13s.
Phelan, “Navy Pilot Who Filmed the Tic Tac UFO Speaks.”
Hanley, Brian. “Nimitz Tic Tac UFO Military Witness Gary Voorhis Tracked UFOs In The Navy.” Brian Hanley YouTube Channel, March 14, 2020. At 24min 39s.
Adams, Vinnie. “Gary Voorhis & Jason Turner Interview with Vinnie.” Disclosure Team, August 13, 2021. At 36min 42s.
Dvorak, Petula. “She’s a Fighter Pilot Who Saw a UFO. For Real.” The Washington Post, May 24, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/this-fighter-pilot-and-working-mom-saw-a-ufo-for-real/2021/05/24/07210234-bc93-11eb-b26e-53663e6be6ff_story.html.
Rocco, Tonny, Joy Parkes, and Shannon O’Brien. “Episode 5: Eye Witness Accounts Of The ‘Tic Tac’ Phenomena. Guests: Sean Cahill & Josh Amaro.” Whistlin Past the Graveyard, July 14, 2019. At 26min 14s.
Kyle, Jane. “Gary P. Voorhis, Jr., Military UFO Witness.” UFO Jane, September 16, 2021. At 24min 13s.
Allen, “Nimitz Completes TSTA and FEP.”
Note: Previously, the Navy had denied the existence of any video footage longer than the 1min 16s email attachment that is available to the public. The existence of 7–10 minutes of clear unedited footage has been confirmed by Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, and Ryan Weigelt who each personally saw this footage onboard the USS Princeton. In response to a 2019 FOIA request, the Navy has now admitted it has a copy and has continued to refuse its release.