Nimitz "Tic Tac" 2004: one video, a leaked summary and records nobody kept

On 14 November 2004, F/A-18F crews from USS Nimitz sent to a radar contact off Baja California saw a white, wingless "Tic Tac" shaped object, and a second jet recorded it on its targeting pod. The Department of Defense released the video in 2020 and says the phenomena remain "unidentified."

31.3333° N · 117.1667° W · Off Baja California · 14 Nov 2004

Source: AARO Archive

A training flight turned into a real-world intercept

In November 2004 David Fravor commanded Strike Fighter Squadron 41, the Black Aces, aboard USS Nimitz with Carrier Air Wing Eleven, at the start of a workup cycle before deployment. In his written statement to the House Oversight Committee in July 2023, he said his flight of two F/A-18Fs launched for a two-versus-two air-to-air exercise controlled by the cruiser USS Princeton, and was told the training was suspended for real-world tasking. The Princeton controller, he wrote, had been watching objects on the ship's Aegis system for the previous two weeks, coming down from above 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet ^[3].

Arriving at 20,000 feet, the four crew members saw a patch of white water on a calm sea and, over it, a small white Tic Tac shaped object with no rotors, no rotor wash and no wings. Fravor descended toward it; the object turned to face his jet and climbed, and when he pulled his nose onto it at about half a mile it accelerated and disappeared. As the flight turned back toward its combat air patrol point, roughly 60 miles east, the controller reported that the object had reappeared on Princeton's SPY-1 radar at that point ^[3].

At the hearing Fravor agreed that it was a 40-foot object and said that Princeton, Nimitz and the E-2 tracked it, while the fighters' own radars never picked it up ^[4].

This Tic Tac Object had just traveled 60 miles in a very short period of time (less than a minute)

— Cmdr David Fravor (ret.), statement to the House Oversight Committee, 2023 [3]

The unofficial executive summary

The most detailed account is an unsigned, undated 13-page executive summary that later circulated publicly; Fravor calls it the "Unofficial Official Report" ^[3]. It dates the activity to approximately 10–16 November 2004 and says Princeton detected multiple "Anomalous Aerial Vehicles" on several occasions, descending from about 60,000 feet to about 50 feet in a matter of seconds, hovering, then leaving at high speed ^[6].

Its figures differ from Fravor's later accounts: 60,000 rather than 80,000 feet, visual contact at approximately one mile rather than half a mile, and a length of approximately 46 feet rather than 40 ^[6][3][4]. It places the 14 November intercept at approximately N31 20' W117 10', about 70 nautical miles south of the U.S.–Mexico border and 30 nautical miles off the Baja California coast, and notes that the E-2C did not see the object on radar until Princeton steered it there ^[7].

solid white, smooth, with no edges.

— Executive summary of the 2004 Nimitz incidents [6]

How the FLIR video was taken

Back aboard Nimitz, Fravor told a crew preparing to launch what he had seen, and that crew took the targeting-pod video ^[3]. The executive summary names the weapons system officer as Lt Chad Underwood of VFA-41, in a second F/A-18F section that launched at about 1500 local time and flew south at 20,000 feet. His radar showed tracks 30 to 40 nautical miles south but could never lock on; the FLIR, slaved to the radar, pointed down the track and showed an object ^[8].

The accounts disagree on the radar. Fravor told Congress that when the second jet tried to lock on, the object "jammed the radar" ^[4]; the summary records that Underwood reported no jamming cues ^[8]. Fravor added that Underwood went through the black-and-white TV and infrared modes and saw no IR plume or other sign of propulsion ^[5].

Fravor's statement calls it an approximately 90-second video ^[3]. The copy AARO posted to DVIDS, credited to Naval Air Systems Command, runs 1 minute 16 seconds ^[1].

just appeared as if the radar couldn't hack it.

— Lt Chad Underwood, as recorded in the executive summary [8]

Leaked twice, released once

On 27 April 2020 the Department of Defense authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and two in January 2015, which had been circulating after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017. It said the release revealed no sensitive capabilities and was meant to clear up misconceptions about whether the footage was real ^[2].

The video is often described as declassified in 2020 after first leaking in 2017, but the Pentagon's own statement calls it unclassified and dates the first unauthorized release to 2007 ^[2]. Fravor credits To The Stars Academy with working with the reporters behind the New York Times articles of December 2017, which brought the case to wide attention ^[3].

The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as "unidentified."

— Department of Defense statement, 27 April 2020 [2]

Records nobody kept

Fravor testified that the incident was never investigated: none of his crew were questioned, the tapes were never collected, and no one contacted him until Jay Stratton in 2009 ^[3]. The executive summary is consistent with this. Strike group leadership was told that an email mission report to Third Fleet intelligence was the only report required; it arrived on or about 14 November 2004, was read but not forwarded up the chain, and was probably deleted later. The strike group's operations officer said they never considered the object a threat and knew of no weapons testing or experimental aircraft in the area ^[9].

In 2025 a workshop sponsored by AARO pointed to the loss: weak retention policies, its synthesis says, have cost critical records, "as in the well-known Nimitz case" ^[10]. None of the released documents identifies what the crews saw.

it was not likely archived but deleted at some point later as there is no requirement to keep these reports

— Third Fleet deputy intelligence officer, as recorded in the executive summary [9]

Last fact-checked: 2026-10-03. Every claim cites its source.