The Nimitz ‘Tic Tac’ and the FLIR1 Video (2004)

ARCHIVE FILE · Event year: 2004. This happened in 2004 and is not breaking news. It’s part of the Redacted Weekly evergreen archive.

On 14 November 2004, aviators from the USS Nimitz carrier strike group, training off the coast of Southern California, said they met something they could not identify. The U.S. Navy later confirmed that date for the encounter. The object became famous as the “Tic Tac,” named for the way pilots described it. A short black-and-white infrared clip of it became famous as “FLIR1.”

The clip stayed out of public view for 13 years, and nothing about the encounter ended up being simple.

CASE FILE · RW-ARC-UAP-001
Subject: White, oblong, wingless object (“Tic Tac”)
When: 14 November 2004
Where: Pacific Ocean, off San Diego, California
Witnesses on record: Cdr. David Fravor (USN, ret.) and other aircrew
Evidence: Pilot testimony; ATFLIR infrared video (“FLIR1”)
Official status: Video confirmed as Navy footage; object listed as “unidentified”
Snack resemblance: High

What was reported

As reported by The New York Times in December 2017, Commander David Fravor was sent to check on unusual radar tracks. He described a white, oblong object about 40 feet long, with no wings and no visible exhaust, moving above a disturbance in the ocean. When he moved closer, he said, it accelerated away faster than anything he had seen. Fravor repeated the account under oath to a House Oversight subcommittee in July 2023.

Later that day another crew recorded about a minute of footage of an object on the jet’s ATFLIR targeting pod. That footage is FLIR1.

How the video got out

• 16 Dec 2017: The New York Times published FLIR1 and the GIMBAL video with its story on the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. To The Stars Academy (TTSA) uploaded copies to YouTube the same day.
• Sept 2019: Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough confirmed the clips were made by naval aviators. The Navy gave the FLIR1 event date as 14 Nov 2004, according to The Black Vault, which obtained the statement.
• 27 Apr 2020: The Department of Defense formally released the three videos “to clear up any misconceptions,” and said the phenomena “are characterized as ‘unidentified.'”

Wired later reported that a version of the clip had been posted on a UFO forum since at least 2007.

The footage

This description is based on still frames from the public-domain DoD file (76 s), sampled every 6 seconds:

• 0:00–0:12: A small bright point sits in the center of the targeting reticle on a dark background.
• ~0:18–0:36: The display switches polarity and zooms in. The target shows as a dark, oblong blob on a grey sky.
• ~0:42–1:12: The target appears smaller or fainter in the reticle.
• Final frame (~1:14): The reticle is empty. Published descriptions say the object leaves the frame to the left, but our frame sampling can’t confirm how it left.

Embed: official TTSA upload (uploaded 16 Dec 2017, 2:46): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY. A public-domain DoD copy is hosted below.

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