All right, we're recording now I just want to make let you know I'm recording.
And you know, I really appreciate you doing this because, you know, it's a I've been tried to interview a bunch of people around this topic and not everyone is willing to talk to me. So I really appreciate you doing it.
You're welcome.
Let's just like start, like, set the scene. So like when people listen to this. We know what we're talking about. So we were talking about obviously the Nimitz encounter, the so called Nimitz encounter.
Yeah, it was several days, we were operating off the coast of California in our in our military operating or doing, getting ready to go on deployment. And for several days, I've been watching these weird contacts off the off the coast of Catalina Island. And the reason why I say they were weird, is because our Ballistic Missile Defense guys was tracking these things coming down from outer space, I found out later. That wasn't the view that I had on my radar, I was I'm more concerned with 30,000 feet and below. And then we go from 80,000 feet then suddenly dropped to 28,000 feet. And they were going south at about 100 knots, which is really weird for something that high in the sky to go that slow. What the hell flies like that I'd been sitting behind that radar for 18 years on three different ships behind this SPY-1 radar. I had never seen anything fly like that. And I was convinced it was sort of a glitch in the system. I was like, Hey, we need to run diagnostics, reload the systems. And I wasn't really concerned from a defense point of view, because they, as far as I knew it was something entirely civilian, and they didn't know we were down there.
But we continue to monitor them and I, uh, on the day that commander David Fravor did his intercept, I'd probably already seen 60 of these things. You counted them all, they appeared in groups of five to ten at a time, and I thought it was some sort of system error until he intercepted one of them in..., at that moment I became convinced they were actually real objects. But what they were I don't know, I'm the same as you. I don't know. .
You just asked me what I thought they were my feeling I think, overall, you know, just like lay all my cards on the table. Is that I think that the radar contacts you saw were radar glitches. Now obviously, this is just me being a completely non-expert,
and I did too, I did too.
And what I think, what I think about the rest of the, commander Fravor thing. Yeah, what I what I think, you know, I'm obviously more skeptical. And I'm coming at this from a skeptical perspective, because I'm not really a big believer in, like, aliens visiting the earth or, or even like what you describe as none, none Newtonian physics. I think it's, you know, obviously possible that there's something out there that's really unusual. But I personally need fairly strong evidence. And I think you, being there, that day for you obviously, is a lot. A lot more significant. Yeah.
So let me just, I felt like a few questions I was really, really what I'd like to do is, is try to kind of resolve some of the, I guess, some of the confusions or the conflicting accounts of what went on, because, you know, sometimes they talk about one thing, and then someone else describes it in a slightly different way. I think perhaps people haven't been digging in deep enough to resolve these questions. So I'd really like to talk about things in some depth about what actually happened over those those few days. And I think the first question just to set the story straight is how many days was this happening over?
About 10 days or so? Over the 10 days.
Okay, so the the main encounter with David favor was on November the 14th. Is that correct?
Yep.
And so Was there anything that happened after the 14th? We can,
Yes, we continue to track other groups after that. But not as many. If I counted up all the groups together over that 10 day period, it was probably 100 different contacts. The appearance in groups of 5 to 10 at a time seemingly randomly, I mean, you should you should have heard this ship general announcing system, "senior Chief Day your presence is requested in combat, all day all night. It was a long 10 days.
So you were like the main guy manning the radar system.
Yeah. The senior guy for air defense. In addition to the captain, obviously
Okay,
on the ??? side of the house,
you reported directly to the captain Captain Smith, I think his name was
Captain smith, correct, Who has strangely never came out one way or the other on this? I think it could be. I think he has a job with the UN and probably concerned about that, to some extent or I'm not sure what his mindset is. But even at the time he had problems accepting this, I asked him, I said, Mick I asked him "Hey sir, what do you think these things were?" You know what he told me? He said it was spontaneously forming ice from space. And I actually laughed at him. Sorry, sorry sir, I kind of caught myself here. It, it was ridiculous to me that explanation to
Did he actually say, like from space?
That's what he said, well, because we had our Ballistic Missile Defense space tracking these thing, coming from space.
Yeah, so that's one of the things I wanted to ask about. You said that the ballistic missiles defense guys, were tracking them coming from space. Was this something that you were aware of at the time?
Well, I was not. I was not I was that was not my focus, and wasn't where my head was at at that time.
So How did you find out about this ballistic missile defense
In the next couple of days talking to the guys on the ships?
Okay. And
maybe we can do this again, I can get a couple of the other guys together. That would be would be interesting. You could ask me some questions. I don't have answers to because it wasn't my position.
Right. Yeah. So you know, what I want to do is clarify everything you know, about this.
Okay.
All right. So you said like I was trying to get a narrowed down the days that it happened. So it kind of centers around the 14th, which is the the Fravor and the Underwood encounter. And you say it happened for a few days after that, and a few days before? Do you know, can you can you?
Well, that's my recollection, from about the 4th of November to about the 15th of November. Okay, and I'd have to consult with the actual logbooks. We FOI them, FOIA them? I think Dave Beaty done that. I'll double check. I owe you an answer on that specific dates. You've got to remember, I'm ... long... memories now
yeah. Yeah, that's kind of one of the problems of the whole thing is that it was in 2004, November 2004. And so I think a lot of people, you know, some of the details are obviously going to be a little bit hazy or even wrong at this point.
Honestly so. I don't think anyone is lying about it
No, no, I don't think so. I mean, I got from my, from everybody, I've talked to me, I haven't talked to that many people. But I've listened to a lot of the interviews, I talked to Gary Voorhis, and talked to a few people kind of online, just chatting. And I think everybody that I know of is giving their honest recollection and their honest interpretation of what they saw on those days.
I know I can speak for myself, I know I am. And I want to, I still want to make this ID ???. That was my whole job was to identify everything that flew. And I have yet to make this ID and I still want to.
So, so what you saw, like what was the very first time you saw something that was strange.
It was on or about the fourth of November, I was up on watch, it was the evening watch, probably at 8pm at night 2000 in military time. And I notice, I believe there is five contacts the first time I saw it right off the coast of Catalina. They were at 28,000 feet. And in some way, they caught my attention, because they were going 100 knots, which is really slow for something that high in the sky. Wasn't, we didn't have the airwing onboard the carrier yet, on board the Nimitz. We were down off, getting ready for the air wing to to arrive in a couple days. And I wasn't really concerned from a defense perspective, because as far as I knew this was something completely civilian related. And they didn't even know we were down there. They had no idea we were even there. So it was something that I started to monitor at that point, just because the permissions were so stringent. And again at this time, at this point, I didn't I wasn't aware that the Ballistic Missile Defense guys had tracked these things from outer space. I had no idea about that. It was above my clearance, basically above my security clearance.
So when you see these things, you know that 28,000 feet 100 knots off the coast of Catalina how does that actually show up on you? Are your radar screen or your display screen,
we very seldom look at raw radar, everything is , if I get a contact or a symbol that comes up in our system's up automatically. For the most part, I'm ??? at things using all of our systems and sensors and it'll create a symbol on the scope. And it's based on the sine wave like, part of the sine wave, there's an air contact, the whole, the whole thing of the surface contact, and the bottom part of the sine wave would be a submarine contact. Okay, and take that you take that symbol, and it's got a vector on it. Like if it's tracking down this way, the length of the vector will show me the relative speed. And if I click on it, I'll have all the information that I actually ??? contact with, pops up on the scope, and I can see everything I need to see about the contact, but it's all based on symbology.
Yeah. So when it when it came up as a as a kind of an unknown contacts
that it came back to the square shape top of the sine wave for unknown.
Okay. And but it did it tell you what the the the speed was? 100 knots.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, so it could detect that.
Yeah.
And they were heading heading south from Catalina Island
Right, heading South. Now the ???, the interesting thing is they all appeared just off the coast of Catalina Island. And they track past us, between us in the mainland. And they all disappeared off my scope in the same point in the sky. Right above of Guadalupe island off the coast of Mexico, which is why Lou Elizondo when he came to interview me. When as soon as that came out my mouth he's like "I'm going there", and he did, he went down to Guadeloupe. You know, on that first show he did, on Unidentified, and that's ow that came about happening. I just like I think that was kind of odd. All disappeared at the same point in the sky.
Yeah, and it did they all appear in the same point in the sky.
They did Yep. Just off the coast of Catalina
So they kind of sprung into existence. Just off the coast. What just south of Catalina was it?
Was about midway down there.
Okay. And then they traveled from Catalina to Guadalupe, and they pass between your group, I guess, the Princeton and the mainland.
That's correct, yes
Alright, how long did it How long did you track one individual for?
That's a good question. I can do the math in my head. It's 100 knots. It's probably, what is it, 250 miles, a couple of couple hours easily.
Right. So you can see them the whole way from all the way from Catalina and yeah,
you know, our when we get a contact, the system grades it on the quality on the radar. And I had the highest system track quality and contacts the entire time. The highest quality possible.
And they showed up in groups
of five to 10 each.
Okay, were they always in groups, or were they sometimes individually.
Always in groups. In fact, the only time they ever broke formation when Commander Fravor intercepting one of them, and that one that he intercepted, I drove them to the point in the sky 28,000 feet and as soon as he got what we call the merge plot position, which is two objects in the same vertical piece of sky. Then on a two dimensional display, it looks like one, they've merged, it's called merge plot, can't distinguish anymore, as soon as that, as soon as he was at that point in the sky, this object went from 28,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean. I found out the next day in .78 seconds. From 28,000 feet down to the surface of the water in less than a second. No sonic boom. No sonic boom.
Yeah, I don't want, I'll get to that in a second. I just want to like, you know, talk about the these groups like because you said you vectored out commander Fravor to one of them. Now was that part of a group?
Yeah, it was part of a group. If I if I could, the sense that I had when I was looking at these things, if you could imagine snow flakes falling in a calm winter day and kind of slowly how they tracked down the scope. They just kept their relative positions to each other and they very slowly made their way from north to south on the radar.
So, like, you talking about how they kind of moved on the screen. It was like snow coming down. Almost like a screensaver.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting. And so they stayed in the same relative position the entire time.
Yeah. They won't go on like this or nothing [rotates hand] They stayed the same. Almost like they were tied together.
What? How spaced out were they, in this group? How big is the group? Typical space between two of them
A number of miles, probably five miles, if I had to guess, but I don't recall, to be honest with you Yeah, it wasn't like, it wasn't like 100 miles apart. It was pretty tight group. And they stayed in the same relative positions to each other the entire time. And then
when you're looking at the screen, you've I guess you got a big overview map as well. So you could see like, Catalina at the top and Guadalupe at the bottom, and oh, well, you zoomed in on on the region.
I zoomed in and out the entire time. I could zoom in and out all I want.
So when you're zoomed all the way out? Could you still distinguish between the individual objects in the group?
Yeah, yeah, it was individual contacts.
Okay, good.
??? all independent. You take the mouse and click on them and information about the content pops up. We call it [?]hooking[?].
Okay. Did you? I mean, I guess you were trying to figure out what they were at the time and you thought balloons might have been a thing? I think you mentioned that at one point.
Yeah, I was. I was. I either thought it was some sort of a system error or something civilian related, like balloons. And they didn't even know we were down there. I wasn't even remotely thinking aliens just so you know. And at the time, I wasn't even thinking UFOs, it just wasn't what I was thinking. I'm pretty skeptical myself. Yeah,
Did it look like it was kind of artificial. I mean, you described it like, like snow, drifting down the screen, which almost makes it look like sounds like something that's overlaid on top of the screen rather than something that's really there.
They behave like normal context, in terms of symbology and stuff. Just another contact I had. It wasn't commercial airliners. I know that. When you mentioned maps, I got on my display I can display all the commercial airline routes. There is no commercial airline out right there.
Yeah. Yeah, there's not a lot of traffic. I mean, I've looked that up. And you just occasionally get like a business jet coming from from Mexico, or South America. And usually they're going overland rather than over the water in that area.
Right. Unless they are going east-west
Yeah, obviously, you do get some going TO to Asia and Hawaii from places. But yeah, so I guess like the, you would have had like, some kind of military operations area defined there for the fleet. And you have a NOTAM like a notice to airmen telling people to stay away. Do you remember like, when they started, I guess they would have been outside that area. Did they remain outside the area?
No, they traveled right through the Southern California operating area. When I see them offset peddling, of course, it's right up that's outside of the military operating area. But as you get down the coast guard right about San Clemente. That's when it turns into a military operating.
Yes, it is like that's like 30 miles south of Catalina I think so something 20-30 miles. This military base San Clemente? Yeah.
A small one. It's where we do our naval gunfire support training, usually from our shooting our five inch guns. There's targets out there and we'll sit off the coast and bombardment. And you got people on the beach calling in the shot, follow shot. Doing corrections.
Sounds like fun.
Been out there before
Yeah. So yeah, sorry. If I keep like reiterating things. I want to make sure I'm clear on exactly what was going on. And you know that some of this stuff hasn't been clear to me before. But it's fascinating, like you're talking about, you know, this, this formation going from North to south and you saw this type of thing happen. Like it was like every day, those 10 days.
Yeah, whose every day and sometimes a couple, you know, several times a day.
And so the first day that it happened, you had a group of 28,000 feet going south at 100 knots. And it goes over the carrier group or last year, we went near the carrier, it was in the, it was in the, what do you call it? The military area?
SoCal operating area.
Okay, that's okay. It's in the SoCal operating area, which it shouldn't be if it was, you know, a commercial jacket or something like that, or even a balloon? Was there was there like any kind of reaction to that, from from you and other people? Was there any talk about intercepting it on the first day?
Well, we didn't have the airwing available to us, until the very last part of this encounter. And as soon as I, as soon as I, as soon as I had aircraft that I can use, I talked to commander Smith, I said, Hey, sir, you know, been tracking the things for several days, and no one in the strike group has any idea what these are. And I, we're getting ready to do a big air defense exercise, we're going to launch a bunch of aircraft off the beach, and we're going to launch our guys, a mock air battle in that same piece of sky. So now I'm concerned about safety of flight. Because I've got these unknown objects, right in our playground area. And I strongly recommend we go intercept one and see what they are. So if there's not some sort of an error, error mishap, because if there is, you can ask both you and me we were so damaged, curious. And he looks at me, he goes, you're right. So your chief intercept one. And that that's how commander, Fast Equal's up. Fast Eagle 01. He was the first one to launch. And we immediately took him under control because EW Hawkeye radar ??? did not have any radar on these things, only we did. And we drove them to the closest contact. And that's when it all happens.
So say 10 days earlier, let's say, it happened on the 14th. And you saw on the first on the fourth. Like, why? I mean, wasn't it wasn't that serious, though?
I know. I mean, that there's all kinds of aircraft off the coast. You know, I can't intercept everything just because, okay, I had no way to do it anyway. I mean, we were reporting to the Beach over our datalinks and stuff. So if there was some entity on the Beach worried about him that I didn't know about it. I mean, we were we were reported in the whole time. Our radar picture goes to the Beach, put it that way. Yeah. People on the Beach to see what we're seeing
Is the Beach, the, like the kind of the command center like, near San Diego or something like that.
Commander 3rd fleeet, ??? back San Diego and there are several different commands that get our radar returned if they want to see it, in our datalink picture.
Yeah. Okay, so
I would The only reason why I convinced that Captain stood to intercept these things, was because I called the "safety of flight" thing on him. And that's really hard to argue with.
Right
If we would have just ignored it. And we would have launched all these groups of aircraft and one of our guys hit one of those objects. We could have gotten in a lot of trouble. That's what I told him right? Not safe, we need to figure out what this is. So we can either avoid it or cancel the exercise.
Yeah. Because at that point, you are you are planning you know, you you are going to launch all of these planes. And we're going to be doing these simulated dogfights and things like that.
Yeah, right. right about that altitude too.
So before that point, so before that point, you You didn't consider it a danger to the to the fleet. It wasn't like a
not at all, no, not even a little bit.
And, and you still, I guess you're still thinking it might be radar glitches at that point.
I totally thought that that is what it was. leading up to that whole, leading up to that day. I either thought it was something entirely civilian related. I didn't even know we were down there. None of our business type of thing. Or I thought it was some sort of system malfunction.
Right.
I definitely wasn't thinking UFOs, trust me on that. That was Yeah, wasn't really my thought process at the time who I would have laughed back, if someone would have said that. I would have laughed.
Oh, yeah, I mean, that's everyone's general reaction. Not everybody. I mean, a lot of people actually do believe in UFOs. But I think from a practical point of view, you don't expect to encounter them. Especially flying over the fleet.
Especially. Yeah. It wasn't what I was thinking, I can tell you that.
Yeah. So let's just talk a bit about Fravor's encounter. So, you, for safety reasons, you decided that you wanted to intercept one of these things. And you talked to Captain Smith and persuaded him and then I guess there was a, there was a set of, do you remember how many were in the group that you sent him towards?
There was I believe there was five.
Okay, so it was five.
He's in a flight of two
Okay, he said he's in a flight of two and he's going towards a group of five targets.
Okay, and as soon as Commander Fravor gets, he has his wing buddy a little bit higher, they kind offset vertically a little bit so they can watch each other. As soon as he got to that merge plot position over the radio, I had the communications dialed up into speaker up in combat Information Center, so everyone was hearing it. He's like, "Oh, my God, oh my God I'm engaged, I'm engaged!" And when I when we got that down, it sounded just like that too. When I got back to the Beach I said "What the hell happened sir". He said: "well, as soon as I intercepted it, it barrel rolled around me and went straight down to the water. I followed it down and that's what the other disturbances in the water you said this little like Tic Tac looking thing was darting eratically, just about about 30 feet above the water in the river, something in the water whirling the water."
I think that was sealife, my personal
So yeah, in the description, I kind of thought that the boiling of the water, it kind of sounded a bit like, you know, like whales feeding or sharks feeding or whatever. Feeding Frenzy type thing.
Commander Fravor comes over the radio, he's like "Charlie, Fast Eagle 01, we may have a downed aircraft here. That's what he said. So we started launching our search and rescue procedures and the whole nine yards. But as it turned out, it wasn't a downed aircraft. Yeah, that was the initial thought.
You said that Fravor told you that it did a barrel roll around him?
Yeah. Around his aircraft
So this was like, this was when he first encountered it.
When he was engaged with it, it went shwosh, straight down to the water, according to what he told me when we got back to the Beach, after we did the exercise ???
That's interesting, cuz
I wasn't able to see that on, I didn't see no barrel roll on my display. That was verbal, Yeah. Yeah, I just saw it go from [?]200,000[?] in less than a second down to the south, you know, from vertically making a vertical movement.
Alright, so let me just make sure I got this straight. So Fravor says that he flew to the position where it was. You saw a merge plot with that one thing. And he tells you that at that point, it kind of flipped around him, and then shot down to the ocean surface. Right. Yeah. And was it was it at that point that he saw the? The disturbance?
Yes. Yeah. He chased it down and he left his wingman up high down and he chasing it down that when he was chaing it down that then reacted to him. And that's when he saw the disturbance in the water.
Yeah, I think that, I must say, that's not exactly the the order in which he tells it now. Like he says he first saw the disturbance in the water. And then he saw the Tic Tac and then the Tic Tac came up rather than coming down.
Well, he had chased it down here, but he may have saw the disturbance before he got it. He noticed the thing's darting around the top of the ocean. I think that's what he was trying to say. Yeah, but when he saw that object, that's why he was chasing it down when it dropped down to the surface of the ocean.
So you think that he would have obviously been heading towards, was it 20,000 or 28,000. for that one.
One he intercepted?
Yeah.
Was at 28,000 feet.
Okay, so like it was just like parts of a group of five at 28,000 feet.
Yeah, it was the closest one to us, the lead of the formation, so.
Right. So does that mean they would, that was a group was north of you at that point?
Yes. ???
it was to the north of you and coming south.
Correct.
And you pick the lead of a formation of five.
Correct
Okay, that's interesting. And so so he flies over to it again. Again I apologize for getting into the weeds here. But you know, I really want to clarify exactly what what happened as best as you can recall. So do you remember, were you watching it on the radar when it happened? Because you mean you were actually there? Yeah. So you saw the whole the whole thing, the whole merge plot and everything. Do you remember what happened to the other four in the group when he intercepted the first one?
They just kept coming down.
Hmm. So so from your, your perspective, I guess you're in the ship and Fravor has been been vectored in from somewhere to this group of five. And then he he merges plot with one of them. And the other four keep moving down? What What do you see a Fravor, of the merge plot? Do you see like two overlaid symbols or just one symbol
Two overlaid symols, the unknown and his aircraft, which is a friendly symbol, but now they're right on top of each other, at merge plot
okay,
but the symbols remain separate, they don't, they don't become one symbol.
Okay, yeah. So you can still see, you can still see those two things there. You just can't distinguish where they are relative to each other.
Other than they're in their same vertical piece of sky. That's correct yeah. I'd have to hook at each one to see the altitude difference.
Okay, so, so if, Could you tell they were at the same altitude when when he got there?
Yes.
Okay.
When he when he, when you when you intercept something with the Super Hornet or any other type of aircraft you go, you're going to be co-altitude with what you're intercepting.
Alright. Then, let me see. Let me see if I get this. All right. So. So for Fravor's encounter, he describes kind of, you know, it's down at the ocean at this point. He's coming down to it. Could you tell by looking at the radar that this was happening?
Of course. Yep.
So you could see.
We're tracking him the whole time. Yes.
Right.
We're listening to the comms and everything.
Yeah. And you know, they're, they're in the same vertical piece of sky. But you can still distinguish the difference in Altitude's between the two.
Yeah, easily. Yeah.
Right. So you saw when he got there that they were both co-altitude. And then did you see it drop down?
I don't know how to say it, Mick, yeah. I'm not sure what word you want me to use to describe it because I've told you that four times already?
Yeah, no, I I just want to what I'm trying to figure out is what is that you see on the screen? No, you you know.
I see symbols, like, if I got a commercial airliner here and a fighter over here, and trackball up to the I want to get information on a fighter, I have to back up to it and click on it, Mick. It displays on my screen if I want to see that commercial. I do the same thing with that.
Okay,
click on that informational. And those two symbols remain two symbols unless they go off the radar. They never get better words. If they merge. It doesn't become one symbol. Now. They remain separate contacts. Right? Yes. We were able to watch the whole time as he chases this thing down to the surface of the water.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the reason I'm kind of harping on this point, and I apologize is that I think for a lot of people, the the rapid vertical movement of the object is one of the things that distinguishes it as being like something that's really unusual. And so just understanding how you could how you can determine that from the radar, nothe the symbology but,
that's what radar, radar tracks things and it was tracking it Right.
Right. I'm just wondering like did you have to click on it to get its altitude?
Yeah.
Right. So you wouldn't necessarily see it? Do the rapid.
Like when you launch an application on your computer, you actually got to click on Yeah. Same thing with the bar system. Yeah.
So then like you're, after Fravor gets there and he sees it down the water and goes down. Then, then what happens from your perspective At that, at that point, what do you see and hear?
goes on. "Charlie, we may have a downed aircraft." And we started launching our search and rescue. I was: "Oh my god, what happened?", right. And when I talk to him later, when we got to the beach, he said that that object that Tic Tac looking object, he said it actually reacted to him, and it noticed he was there. And they were he was probably about ??? miles from his combat is called a CAP point. When we're expecting ??? , we'll have CAP points around the threat group, and they'll stationary until something happens. And in this case, that object went from the surface of the water to where they were, to his CAP point, about 40 miles away, in just several seconds, several ???. and again, no sonic booms, and the air controller comes up on the radio and say: "Sir you're not gonna believe this but that object. That thing? It's at cap point? And of course, it is. Stunned silence on the radio at that point. Somehow that object knew the CAP point and that's another strange thing about it.
Yeah, yeah. Something that comes up a lot. I think, you know, you hear that? How, how would you even know that? Yeah. Is it just as coincidence? Or was it deliberate? people reading people's systems. So either the movement to the cap point, did you did youm after after the after Fravor gets there, and there's the merge plot. When was the next time you saw it, like, not merge plot, you know, like, separate from flavor, separate target.
It, he went, he went back, he started going back to his CAP point and that object, whatever it, was rejoined with, rejoined its group and just kept going south. And at that point, we call, we called off the exercise at that point.
Alright, so let me let me get this straight like the, this group of five, you intersect one, merge plot, then there's this little, you know, flying around, flying around, it's trying to figure out what it is, and then it shoots off to his CAP points, like 40 miles away. And then it rejoins the group, and then they'll continue south.
say that again.
So I just did the recap there of the intersection of of the group, so you send out Fravor to intercept one of the five, and he gets to the merge plot. And then he has this kind of little dogfight with it. And then it flies off and ends up at the cap point. And then later, it rejoins the group and then all five of them continue south.
Yeah. Called off the exercise at that point,
and you cancelled the exercise because of
again, there is objects in our in our playground, so I wanted to see what they were, safety of flight. Flies up to it. The closest one, it dropped down, he chases it. He sees it. There's a disturbance in the water, swoosh, back to his CAP point about 40 miles away. So he goes chasing back to the CAP point. And then that object rejoins its original group. And at that point, I'm convinced that they are real objects, we have visual ID something, it's not a system glitch. It's not a hot air balloon. It's not a commercial airliner. It's something definitely unknown. It's really real. I'm concerned about safety of flight and Captain I recommend we canceled exercise. Because we've got objects in our playground here and no one knows what they are. And I know their real because Commander Fravor just gave me a visual ID saying hey, [?]physical[?] object. So we cancelled the exercise and just continued to monitor those groups as they appeared on for...
Now Commander Fravor getting short on gas. So, he had to he had to return to base, RTB to the carrier and Lieutenant Chad Underwood was get ready to launch the next in the next sortie, right. So we told "hey, hey Chad, make sure you take a infrared forward looking ATFLIR radar equipped get, and try to get these things on film. And commander, Lieutenant Underwood what he's like, "I'm gonna go find those things!" And that's exactly what he did. He wouldn't. That's how that attack video came into being.
So with Underwood, so this was Just like what, like an hour after Fravor was it?
No, it was a next sortie. I don't want to reveal classified, but it was the next launch off of the carrier, it wasn't an hour.
So what did you vector to him out to the group of five then?
Yeah.
And did you, like, did you pick the same one? Or could you tell which one it was?
We vectored him, probably the same contract. I don't, I don't recall.
Right. Well it was to another group.
It was the same group I had on my radar. It was obviously closer to us now. And the seconds sortie launched. We intercepted it again. After the video came about, we actually did two different intercepts that day.
So how close did Chad, how close did Lieutenant Underwood get to that group?
It was almost a merge plot again, if I recall, it was a within the individual arena. He could see it with his eyeballs.
I really? Because I don't think he said, he I thought he said he just saw it with the camera. Did he get an actual visual on it?
yeah, he saw both, yeah. According to his testimony,
right,
because in order to, in order to, yeah, he saw it, I'll just leave it at that.
Alright, so the video you know the video is this this famous video which everyone everyone shows. Did you see that at the time that video? Well not, not l-, I don't know did you see it live.
Um, I was watching it on radar. Live in that video, that little snippet of video that's what is it? 10 seconds long or whatever.
Yeah, about a minute I think
that that same video appeared in my email the next morning. And that's why when I saw it in 2017, I was working down golf course, you know, watching the golf tournament. And also they walk out of the kitchen carrying a plate of food. And CNN was on, I like "hey turn it up". And when I saw the video, I actually [dropped] the plate of food, I was in such shocked. I knew exactly what I was looking at it. And I had that same video next morning after this happened. And the interesting thing about the video, let me let me talk a little bit about procedure, right? Let's say you're the pilot, and I'm the I'm the controller, I direct you to do an intercept and you accept you accepted, you will come back with a statement: "fight's on tape's on" which means all your recording devices are are turned on from the moment you get the order to intercept until after it's long over. In other words, you don't wait till you're intercepting and turn them off for 10 seconds, and then turn it off. It's left on the entire time. That's why I know that there's a longer video. A longer video definitely, definitely exists. We just don't turn them on for ten seconds then turn them off. that never Yeah.
Well that that video looks like it's it's from quite a long distance away.
Okay?
Do you think there was a closer video
I don't see why that matters?
Well, if if there's more video, then and you said he got to the merge plot, which I guess is within a few miles closer, then would would there be a closer up shot of the object?
I would have to presume so. I have never seen a longer video. I've only seen the 10 second snippet that we all see. I never have seen the entire video. But I know at least I know it. At one point at least I had to it had to have it existed at one point because that standard operating procedure and just don't turn it off for 10 seconds and turn it off ??? something cool just happen. You turn it on and leave it on until your intercept is over.
Yeah, I imagine. So were there? So you, with Chad Underwood's encounter this was, was this you that was directing him or you were just part of it was a
the controller was sitting at the console in front of me the error controller and I'm still supervisors, so I'm on a headset with a really long cord like I can actually pace over Combat and talk to various watch stations. The actual controller, I won't give his name here because the other cannot publicly but his callsign was Poison. That was, he was a junior guy to me and he was at air control.
Right actually he was talking to Underwood.
Yeah. Yeah. Talking to the second sortie
you would have been able to hear the conversation though I guess like
Yeah, in fact I had it in the overhead speaker in Combat, everyone was listening to it.
okay. Right. Okay. So we have the the Fravor Encounter and then the Underwood encounter. Were there other intercepts?
No. Because after, after, after Underwood had gone up there and got got us film, we were in the process of canceling the whole exercise and cancelling all the launches and everything. We were gravely concerned about safety of flight at that. Everything got cancelled. There was only two intercepts.
Okay. Someone was saying something about the scattering when planes got close to them? Is that something that happened?
That's not my memory.
Okay. Yeah, I can't remember where I read that. Now I got it written down but it's doesn't say who wrote is.
They maintained ??? groups
Okay, so the the all maintain this this this? Was it like a really fixed formation and it wasn't like rotating or spreading out or anything?
It was exteremely fixed. Like snowflakes falling on a calm winter day. They kept the same bearing and range from each other the whole time. All co-altitude though, at 28,000 feet
So with with Chad Underwood. How did that end? What was the what was the kind of resolution of that? Why? Why did he break away from the group?
We were concerned about safety of light. So we cancelled, we cancelled everything
But wasn't he specifically sent out to intercept?
It was at this point I was convinced it wasn't a ??? it was actually real objects that I was we were all thinking, hey, something's civilian related. Let's stay out of their way until we figure out what the hell this is. So we cancelled, we cancelled everything. Just for safety of flight reasons. Again, I was never concerned about I was never concerned about the military defense. I was concerned about safety of flight.
Yeah. No of course. Number one.
Probably civilian. was what I was thinking at the time. Again, Mick, I was not thinking UFOs.
Yeah,
I would have I would have physically laughs suggested that at the time, I really would have. It would have been humorus to me. You know? What? Need some sleep. Go have some coffe. Yeah I really would
One of the pilots said that they got made fun of when they came back. Like they were playing Men in Black on the
??? in the strike group newspaper, playing every UFO movie that's ever been created. In the days following it. People wearing tinfoil hat. Yeah.
I saw a question about Underwood again, like you sent Underwood out to the group, you and the air traffic controller? Was there like a group of two like, with with Fravor, there's two planes?
Things kind of got a little bit confusing, because when the second sortie became aware of what was going on in these objects, all a sudden, independently, I had aircraft going up north too, not under my control. That's why I don't have a lot of situational awareness. what some of the other pilots saw or didn't see. I am. I'd like to talk to some of them. Actually, I wish they would come forward and clarify some of this stuff. I really do.
There were other planes maybe doing
15 years ago, memories are getting foggy.
Yeah. It's a problem I said, like with other planes that you said they were independent of you that might have done an intercept.
Right. And again, this this is a pretty chaotic at this point. Because we're in the process of canceling the exercise and put out the order for everyone to RTB back to the carrier and just basically get out of the airspace. Because I was concerned about safety of flight in my thought at the time, hey, something completely civilian related. I don't know what it is right now. But we'll find out later right now I just want to make sure my aircraft pilots are safe.
So did you basically you canceled everything that so what's
??? we told them to go back home.
So after that happened after you after you written your return to base on everybody, what what was what did? What was the plan in trying to figure out what these things were?
There wasn't one, essentially.
I mean, surely if you've cancelled the exercise?
Not in that monent there wasn't one. I mean what were we supposed to do? You tell me
Right, so what happened?
Nothing.
But I mean, like, you just sit tight on the ship and don't do anything.
Not at my level, I just continue to monitor the contacts. Was there stuff going on behind the scenes?
Okay. Do you think there's something else going on?
I don't know.
So you just kind of
the intel side of the house maybe doing something behind the scenes? I don't know. I wasn't ,there was nothing I could have done. Except for re intercepted. But what was the point of doing that? I didn't have, the aircraft didn't have missiles didn't have ammunition, or the machine guns or anything? The only thing I could do. So I we tracked it and reported in. We took our datalink picture and send it back to the Beach.
Okay, so I guess it's gonna be in their hands now. The guys on the Beach. They decide
maybe the Air Force was doing something? I just that part of the story? I don't know. I wish I did.
Yeah,
but all the tools in my bag had been used that wonder nothing further I could have done.
So
??? we didn't want to do that because if it's some sort of civilian thing, we don't want to create trouble for ourselves by intercepting it over and over and over again.
The plane when it flew to the, no sorry
The object, when it moved to the CAP point. Did you did you see it actually move? Or did it just appear there?
We saw it actually move. It went swoosh [moves hand rapidly]. In just several seconds? About 40 miles away.
So you tracked that on the radar
Yes
From the, from Fravors position to the CAP point.
Back to the CAP point, yes.
After it got to the CAP points. Did you track it? Back to its, you know, group?
Yes, it stayed on the CAP point for several seconds. And then it rejoined its original group.
Okay.
It kept going south, Back to 28,000 feet back to 100 knots and kept going so,
huh. So when from the CAP point to the group, it must have been going really fast, obviously, to get there very quickly. And you track that on the radar?
Well, you gotta remember. I was physically sitting at the radar this entire time. I'm on a really long headset, wandering over Combat. Some of those, some of those that, I wasn't staring at the scope the entire time. I [loud sound of chimes] to do
can hear some music in the background. Okay. sounding like someone playing the xylophone. Okay.
I got a, you see. It's interesting. Like you. You studied posting about this on Above Top Secret? Was that kind of the first time you told the story like afterwards? Or is it
the first time I remember saying anything? First of all known no one believed in, got off the ship and I ended up going to my turn out to be my last command. Commander naval air, air forces Pacific just across the corner, it'll be loose. And I got clowns, you know? "Sure. You intercepted UFOs" I was so frustrated with like I actually actually wrote, wrote about it. I called it my story "The See'r". And I fictionalized the whole thing. And I published. I published my short story in the Library of Congress in February of 2009. Just in case, the story ever did become public. My notary corroborated because, you know, unless I'm a time traveler, how would I do that?
And that's good. A good move.
My, my book is now contemporaryous evidence of this really did happen. And that's my ???.
That was like 2007 or something like that.
2009
2009 Yeah, y
You can download it for free. It's on. It's on Yes, Su ISS, you calm. And you can type in Sanders anthology. You can you can read it online. Yeah, I pretty much read it, or you can order. It's published on Amazon. And just so you know, all the other funds from the bookshelves are going to fund our expedition coming up next year, we're going back out to So Cal credibly find these things?
Yeah, I want to talk to you about that as well. Because the you started this kind of group. Is it me? Is it a company I guess like, like,
I'd like to have you there with us, be awesom dude
Well It it's im my neck of the woods.
. We ask you. UAP expeditions 501 c three nonprofit aid. Our plan is to have two teams, one on Catalina Island, and one on a ship. And we're going to go try to re-find these things.
Yeah. So you think it could be a regular thing
say again?
You think it could be a regular occurrence?
I think, of course, I'm just guessing like everyone else, but I think it's there's something between those objects and something in the water? And because of that, I mean, if I had to pick a time, in addition to that, I mean, if assuming you are going to try to find them, when would you pick? I would pick the same time, the same time without them to work alone. is kind of common sense. You know, where else to really start? So yeah, that's how they
got a few months ago before it comes up again in November.
we were supposed to be there this year but COVID prevented it
okay, yeah.
So we had to re-schedule.
Yeah, it's unfortunate, so. Oh, yeah, that reminds me. You said in another interview, that you thought that it was perhaps the new capabilities of the radar that allowed you to see them this time whereas you couldn't see them before?
Think that's definitely a possibility. And I didn't have any awareness of that at the time. I just kind of put two and two together, later. I knew there was a system upgrade, but it was above my clearance level. Exactly, the minute details of it. But I think that's possible. The upgrades to the system have suddenly allowed us to see something that had maybe been there for a long, long time. But I'm guessing. I don't i don't know if that's true or not. I just .. don't know what to think.
You know, the skeptical viewpoint there. Which is, which is me is: what if the systems upgrade kind of introduced some problems into the system, like it became overly sensitive to certain things.
That's what I thought was happening,. But how do you square that away with actual eyeballs on the objects? How was that possible if it wasn't [???]
I would square it away as
You tell me Mick, is Commander Fravor lying? You think he's lying?
I don't think he is. I never rule anything out. [crosstalk]
Yeah, well, but then what if, I mean, this sounds like pretty ridiculous. What if it was a coincidence? Like you're getting all these like, for 10 days, you're getting all these false returns? And then one day that just happens to coincide with one of the pilots spotting an unusual object? Maybe they weren't related.
I don't see how you don't see how you argue that logically. doesn't make any sense at all.
No, it certainly seems a bit of a coincidence but then you know, strange coincidences do happen and this might have been just the the one that did happen. But obviously it doesn't seem like it.
was let's say it was a coincidence. What did Commander Favor see.
I don't know. That was an interesting, interesting thing. Like, from his description of it. Sounds like he's saw a, you know, a Tic Tac shaped thing with little little legs underneath it. And he was speechless.
Non-Newtonian thing, the way of operating, doing physically impossible things. Based on the way [???] .
Yeah, certainly. It's certainly a big puzzle in the, an the thing about it is...
Even if it is a coincidence, so what? You still have to explain what he saw?
Yeah,
it wasn't a coincidence.
And of course there's the video as well.
I respect that point of view. But this was not a coincidence.
No, I certainly can't claim to have
The object that he intercepted was the same object that I was tracking on radar.
Okay. Yeah, I don't, I don't have a good answer. I don't have a good answer for that. And yet, to be honest, my my main focus, when I'd been looking into these things, has been looking at the videos. So all the other stuff is is is not, certainly not an area of expertise of mine and say, when I theorize about what Fravor that might have seen, you know, I think perhaps he might have seen some kind of, I don't know, like a targeting a target device, like a towed target type thing that they've got loose. And he perhaps misjudge the size of it, and thought it was further away when it was actually closer to him. And then that made him misjudge the speed of it. But yeah, none of these explanations are very satisfying, or particularly good. So I can't really claim to know, much beyond...
Can I ask you a question Mick?
Sure
Assuming that these objects were real, what are they are do you think they're probably manmade? Or what would be your opinion in that case?
Well, if if we're talking about things moving from 28,000 feet to 50 feet in 0.78 seconds, you've done the math there, you know, that it's it's an impossibly high acceleration in terms of, you know, humans being in the craft, and it's also pretty much impossible in terms of human technology as we know it. So if if these things are real things, then that would mean that technology exists to drive them that is way beyond anything that we know that we have. So that leads to two possibilities, really, maybe three, like two and a half. It's either human technology, or it's non human technology, and it's human technology, then it's either US technology, or it's somebody else's technology like the Russians or, you know, some evil super genius in the volcano. But the more likely thing...
The other half possibility, is that it's something actually living, something alive.
Yeah, I guess that's another one. I guess that'll be three, actually.
Yeah, like, some kind of life-form
yeah, like you mean, you talk about it happening consistently in that area. So it's something that's going from Catalina to Guadalupe. And I think people have mentioned, I mean, this is this is really kind of far out speculation like the the whales migrate up and down that that coast.
Yeah, that's [???]
I think it might have been some living entity following the whales. But, you know, this is obviously very, very speculative.
If we are throwing out possibilities, we have to include that.
I certainly wouldn't put that near the top of my list. I think I would probably put aliens above some kind of living creature
that's at the bottom of my list. [???]
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz he would have
I have to include it as a possibility. [???]
But essentially, you're talking about supernatural beings at that point, because he couldn't physically do that type of movement, or some kind of ethereal being, which again, is a bit a bit speculative.
Correct
But yeah, like, I guess I keep things on the list, even if the way way down on the list.
Yeah.[???] It seems crazy to even seems crazy to even hear myself say that.
Well, yeah. I mean, you know, people. People thought he was crazy that rocks fell out of the sky at one point. So yeah. Lessons from history teach us to never, never 100% eliminate things, but but also, I think, give them appropriate weight in your considerations. Even though I wouldn't say 100% discount the idea of ethereal beings following whales. I think it's vanishingly small in terms of the probability.
Me too.
Yeah. All right. I think that was thing we've covered. Let me just like quickly go over my little list of things and make sure I haven't missed anything. Do anything about these, these tapes being taken away? What are your thoughts on that controversy.
That's other people's testimony. That was not my situation. I had I didn't realize it had happened at the time, so I have no knowledge about that. But I have to beleive my shipmates when they told me [???]
but it was like some conflicting accounts that isn't like David Favor say that the tapes were overwritten, and no one came on board to take them. Is that? Is there a reason why he would think that?
I don't know how? I don't know. But I don't know how he could claim that. He wasn't on the Princeton, he was on the Nimitz. How would he know if someone came on the Princeton.
Yeah, I must admit, I haven't really been following that. Exactly. So I'm not sure what what he said. So we shouldn't really even delve into it. So what, what what would be your number one theory? For what happened?
Man...
Or the top two perhaps
I mean, assuming that they're real Mick. I would rather believe there's something manmade and I would [???]. [???] I would want to believe It's a UFO [...] so you know.
Yeah. It seems more straightforward.
Yeah, it is more straightforward.
Yeah. 'cause there's a lot of implications.
more easy to swollow, right? Yeah. But then again, I mean, this is a huge universe. Maybe it's a little naive of us to think we're the only ones in it.
Yeah well, I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility of visitors. But like you, I would, I would, I think because of the, as you describe it, non Newtonian physics. I think you need some, personally, I would need some very strong evidence that these actual maneuvers actually happens. Now, I think, you know, from your perspective, you you you saw things on the radar in a much more direct way to me, which which maybe might make you more convinced than I was, would be about it. But I think the question is, like, how much Yeah,
plus the eyeballs the pilots had on the objects?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Were there other pilots .
It wasn't my eyeballs on them, I'm just telling you, based on their description
Yeah, yeah, they are telling you a description. That so the there was the other plane, the Hawkeye. And apparently, there were crew members on that. I guess all of them, say that they saw it.
PJ Hughes, he was [???] guy airborne at the time. He thought they actually observed one of the Tic Tac objects go right past the airplane. So he saw it with their eye. they never had a lot of radar though. They saw it visually only
have you read personally taught her anybody else who saw it directly?
I have spoken with Commander Fravor, obviously, and PJ Hughes, and I've never spoken with Underwood. So Fravor and Hughes are the only two I've ever spoken to, they actually saw it with their eyeballs.
Right now. I interviewed Gary voorhis for my podcast, about a year ago.
He was a computer technician on board the Princeton.
Right,
he was a guy. He's in charge of recording all this data. And preserving it on the tapes. [??? backup ???]
If there's a mishap he can [???] the tapes, figure what the hell happened. The reason why we data collect stuff, and it's all goes back to safety.
So if if the people who came on board to take those tapes, I guess the rationale wouldn't be one or two things either they were trying to figure out what the heck this object was that was buzzing the ship or they were trying to figure out what went wrong with the radar by analyzing the data. These are my my my one and two scenarios, I guess two in one scenarios. But I was gonna ask you something about Oh, yeah. Gary, Gary voris. He says he used the the Big Eyes the big big binoculars on the on the ship to look at the objects. Do you remember people doing that? He said he would like go in.
I did it myself. There was a couple days later. Of course now that after the commander Fravor's intercept we have [???] "what the hell are those" So the next group that came? It was at, it was in the evening watch again. I picked the closest one, I ran up to the ship and I actually correlated that object, but it was nothing special, Mick. And it was just a glowing white light in the sky. I didn't do anything when I was watching. It just kept going South. tracking south slowly. But it was the same. It was the same object I had on radar. What it was, I have no idea. And to me, it was just a [???] light, it didn't do anything fancy when I was wathcing.
Yeah. It's really interesting, though, that after such a thing happened that there wasn't more of a response. And you said like the captain kind of acted un-interested in the whole thing, even after this.
I would describe him as a real skeptic like you are. And he I think he I think he would agree with you on most points. His only concern was safety of flight in I was one that convinced him to be concerned about safety of flight
And to is your feeling then that he just he didn't give it enough thought? Or do you think he knew something? And there was something going on behind the scenes?
At the time I I thought the latter. I thought okay, there's something going on here above my paygrade. And I'm just gonna shut up about it. And [???] what he said, and just the way he was acting? That he knew something he couldn't tell me? Yes. I'm just guessing because I don't know. That's [????] above my paygrade. And above my clearance level ...
I guess if that's the case that would that would probably kind of point more towards a manmade thing. Would you say like, a secret test of some sort? or?
Yeah,
people talk about them? Maybe testing radar spoofing technology.
Again, how do you describe how do you explain the visual contacts from the pilots? I mean, a radar spoof is something that's not real, trying to convince the radar that it is real. But if I have a pilot that goes and intercepts it and actually sees an actual physical object? How could that be radar spoofing?
Yeah, but then again, like, what would be the point of these groups of five slow moving objects drifting off the coast? From a you know, if they're a human technology? What are they? What are they doing? Isn't seemed like a very practical thing? Like what is it some kind of slow moving drone or something like that?
I don't know. Yeah, why would they do that?
But can also...
And that's just not how tests are done. Because never in my career, that you might run a test on top of my test without telling me because the safety of life [???]. I mean, illegal in terms of Navy, doctrine and procedures, I mean, you can't do that.
Yeah.
Like, you can't put objects in my playspace and not telling me what to do if I run into on now we're all in trouble.
Yeah.
Break aircraft, and maybe someone dies, you know
Yeah, I guess unless they were just, you know, mostly virtual contacts and not real contacts. And maybe this this, this one other contacts as well
Fascinating stuff. So I really appreciate you talking to me. Is there anything else you think we haven't discussed
Let's do this again, let's continue this, I've enjoyed this greatly. And maybe we can set it up we got, you can interviewed more than just me. Kind of in a group thing? Because I was unable to answer some of your questions, but maybe some of the other guys and gals can.
Yeah, it'd be good. It was interesting. Hearing your your accounts, because some of it is, you know, to be to be honest, it seemed quite different to how how Fraser describes the encounter, you know, years later, obviously, you're recalling what he told you afterwards. And it would be kind of interesting to try to reconcile all these these minor things like was it What was the altitude at intercept and things like that? Because the you know, there's, yeah, I think you've resolved some questions here, but it kind of raised you as well.
One thing that we do agree on is he intercepted something, on that day
well yeah, he saw something
and in maneuvered in ways that are unexplainable. I mean, we agree with all that that the minutiae of what he thought happened. After we got back to the ship and what he thinks happened on board my ship? He can think whatever he wants.
And then the Chad Underwood encounter, that seems a little bit different how it was previously described? Like, I don't know, people talking about intercepting one of a group. And I don't think he said he got that close to it either. So maybe that's something we could resolve somehow.
We can resolve that, I'm sure.
Yeah.
I mean, he got close enough to film on on his ATFLIR system. So
yeah, it'd be. Do you think he got close enough to see it
10 miles? Is it 15 miles? I don't know. And we've got to remember, I'm wasn't sitting in front of the console. [???] Captain, I'm talking to the technicians, I'm talking to my air intercept controller, I'm talking to the electronic warfare operator, I'm trying to put all the pieces puzzle together in my head so I can come up with an identification. And
you give me this description of you walking around the room on this long, long corded headset? sounded like something from the movies?
[...] this object, when he filmed it. I don't I don't know.
Yeah, but did you say he got to a merge plot situation?
What was that?
Did you get to a merge plot, Underwood?
Again, I don't know how. I don't believe so. But I don't know how close he actually got to it to the thing, ... took off. Yeah, yeah. [makes swoosh noise]
Yeah, that's, that's the whole point of these videos, you get like, you know, 30 seconds or a minute or something. And then you don't you don't know what happened on either side of it. It's so frustrating. All right, Kevin. I just want to check you're okay. Want to check. You're okay with me putting this up? on YouTube? Is that alright?
Yeah. And you can even edit, edit, no, cut out the parts you want. I don't care. Do whatever you want.
Cool.
So do what you need to with it. And I would like members of the team?
Yeah, well, let's, let's get this out there and see what kind of people will probably pick up on various points of what you said, because I think some of it is actually new, least new to some people. And we'll see. See what kind of reactions we get and what type of questions arise from it. And so maybe you do it again.
Right, thank you man.
And hope the technology works next time.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much. Kevin it has been an hour and a half.
Again, I appreciate your skepticism. I truly, truly mean that.
I appreciate your your openness and willingness to talk has been very useful and interesting.
