2004 USS Nimitz Tic Tac UFO FLIR footage (FLIR1)

Of course a simple explanation might just be that it was black.
I was wondering that with the 'tic tac" ..if it could have been a plane with blue wings. or possibly just a sun reflection? (I'm bad with distances reported by the 2 pilots: Farvor and the guy at high altitude)
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The TTS Academy web site now has a much more detailed interview with Dave Fravor:
This interview was conducted by To the Stars Academy in November 2017 with Commander David Fravor, U.S Navy (Ret).
Content from External Source
https://coi.tothestarsacademy.com/2004-uss-nimitz-pilot-interview


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCaruUtiPHo


I think it's fair to say Fravor is a party to an effort to solicit investments for anti-gravity technology, ie, a salesman.
 
I make it more like 1/25 of 1.5 degrees (12 and a bit across the 2x image)

One problem with that is you can tell with the naked eye that something is 10m (30 feet) long when it's an apparent 6km away. How do you know it's not 20m long and 12km away? If it looks like a featureless white capsule, then how are you judging the size, altitude. and distance?

If we postulate that the object is hovering either at 24k feet or 16k feet (the Fightersweep account seems to allow for either possibility), then the 5 degree azimuth of the FLIR sensor and the apparent size of the object in the image indicates a 48-foot craft at a distance of 8.7 miles.

The object was reported to have been hovering in mid-air with no movement of its own. That doesn't seem to be consistent with the video.
 
If we postulate that the object is hovering either at 24k feet or 16k feet (the Fightersweep account seems to allow for either possibility), then the 5 degree azimuth of the FLIR sensor and the apparent size of the object in the image indicates a 48-foot craft at a distance of 8.7 miles.

The object was reported to have been hovering in mid-air with no movement of its own. That doesn't seem to be consistent with the video.

From the video you can't tell if it's hovering in place or flying away. Now, if we use the 30 nmi (55.6 km) target range from the radar, and 0.7 degree FOV of the IR sensor, AND we assume that the target spans 1/25 of the FOV, then we get a 27-meter (89 ft) target, which is over twice the 40-ft wingspan of an F-18, but less than half the 200-ft wingspan of a Boeing 777. But you wouldn't see the whole wingspan at that distance. And again, this assumes that the IR sensor shows the target structure and not engine flare, because we don't know the TV camera's FOV and are guessing that it's similar to the IR camera. So the object may still be a distant jet that's flying away.

The big question is why it starts moving to the left so suddenly, when a jet that's flying away from the viewer would need to bank and make a more gradual turn to the left. Could this just be the camera panning to the right after a bunch of FOV changes? It only needs to pan a quarter of the FOV, or 0.175 degrees, for the target to leave the screen at 2X zoom, a deviation too small to appear in the displayed Azimuth indicator that has 1-degree precision. The LOS or tracker telemetry would show this. But if that's all it was, then it should've been easy to zoom out and pan the camera left to reacquire the target, but the video cuts off there, so we don't know what happened. And if it was just an ordinary jet seen from behind, then why couldn't the radar lock onto it? At least according to the fightersweep account, they couldn't establish a Single Target Track (STT).
 
I think he believes his 12 year old memory and just wants people to believe his story.
Well, aside from some inconsistencies, it's mostly consistent with the Event Summary that was posted on Above Top Secret back in 2007, and it's corroborated by the TTSA pilot report that cites the second pilot who was flying cover and watching the chase from above, and who "made detailed written notes of the incident" according to the report.
 
I think it's fair to say Fravor is a party to an effort to solicit investments for anti-gravity technology, ie, a salesman.
If all he did was give them an interview, then it's not THAT fair to say. The interview may certainly help TTSA solicit investments, but Fravor doesn't work for them, and his account was summarized in the Event Summary over ten years ago.
 
If all he did was give them an interview, then it's not THAT fair to say. The interview may certainly help TTSA solicit investments, but Fravor doesn't work for them, and his account was summarized in the Event Summary over ten years ago.
I don't think we know that money didn't change hands. He's had his story aired to millions of people all across major media. So it's not like an interview for TTSA was helping him get his story out. More like he was contributing his fame to assist what I believe is an obvious effort to dupe and bamboozle people on a false promise that their "investment" will bring about anti-gravity technology. Surely this is one of or the biggest scam(s) in the annals of woo-woo. I'd like to believe it was true, but my BS meter has maxed out.
 
it's mostly consistent with the Event Summary that was posted on Above Top Secret back in 2007
I have to admit I am dubious of that alleged log event. Especially seeing the TTS new write up with their "sources" and redactions (to make it look official) but sounds immature. An anonymous poster on ATS? Why wouldn't they go to MUFON or someone else. TTS/Elizondo is obviously playing games with the stuff they are putting out. And.. the advanced aerial threat program started in 2007. I would be interested in finding an exact start date for the program. Which will hopefully be more forthcoming with FOIA requests.
The Navy (which obviously could be hiding something..) denies that document exists at all according to Robert Powel of Open Minds [bold text is original to the article]
By April of 2017 I had received replies on all nine of my requests for information. In every case the Navy replied that they had no information responsive to my request. I appealed two of what I considered the most important of the nine FOIAs to the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG). The first appeal came back denied. In the second appeal, I pointed out to the Navy JAG officers that another appeal denial would indicate that on November 14, 2004, that they had no records on five different Navy assets. I copied my senators and congressman on my appeal. This time I had success. Although the Navy again indicated that they could find no documents, this time they provided me emails with some very interesting information that establishes the encounter with the unknown craft did occur.
Content from External Source
https://www.sott.net/article/366428-The-2004-USS-Nimitz-Event-Video-documents-and-analysis

*note the log event minus the UFO stuff might exist. Powell specifically asked for information pertaining to "unidentified aircraft" that day and location.

*and the emails in the article do not actually
establishes the encounter with the unknown craft did occur
Content from External Source
 
From the video you can't tell if it's hovering in place or flying away.

If it was stationary, then one would expect the azimuth angle of the sensor to increase as the F18 gets closer to the object, since the F18 is in level flight at a constant altitude throughout the entire video. So the object must be moving.

Now, if we use the 30 nmi (55.6 km) target range from the radar, and 0.7 degree FOV of the IR sensor, AND we assume that the target spans 1/25 of the FOV, then we get a 27-meter (89 ft) target, which is over twice the 40-ft wingspan of an F-18, but less than half the 200-ft wingspan of a Boeing 777. But you wouldn't see the whole wingspan at that distance. And again, this assumes that the IR sensor shows the target structure and not engine flare, because we don't know the TV camera's FOV and are guessing that it's similar to the IR camera. So the object may still be a distant jet that's flying away.

An azimuth of 5 degrees at a distance of 55.6 km would give the object an altitude of approx. 36k ft. That's reasonable for the cruising altitude of an airliner.

The big question is why it starts moving to the left so suddenly, when a jet that's flying away from the viewer would need to bank and make a more gradual turn to the left. Could this just be the camera panning to the right after a bunch of FOV changes? It only needs to pan a quarter of the FOV, or 0.175 degrees, for the target to leave the screen at 2X zoom, a deviation too small to appear in the displayed Azimuth indicator that has 1-degree precision. The LOS or tracker telemetry would show this. But if that's all it was, then it should've been easy to zoom out and pan the camera left to reacquire the target, but the video cuts off there, so we don't know what happened. And if it was just an ordinary jet seen from behind, then why couldn't the radar lock onto it? At least according to the fightersweep account, they couldn't establish a Single Target Track (STT).

It certainly seems difficult to believe that the F18 crew would just shrug their shoulders and give up as soon as the object leaves the FOV at 2x zoom. There must be more footage that was not included in this clip.
 
If it was stationary, then one would expect the azimuth angle of the sensor to increase as the F18 gets closer to the object, since the F18 is in level flight at a constant altitude throughout the entire video. So the object must be moving.

How much?
 
If it was stationary, then one would expect the azimuth angle of the sensor to increase as the F18 gets closer to the object, since the F18 is in level flight at a constant altitude throughout the entire video. So the object must be moving.

An azimuth of 5 degrees at a distance of 55.6 km would give the object an altitude of approx. 36k ft. That's reasonable for the cruising altitude of an airliner.

It certainly seems difficult to believe that the F18 crew would just shrug their shoulders and give up as soon as the object leaves the FOV at 2x zoom. There must be more footage that was not included in this clip.

You mean elevation angle, not azimuth. You're right about the altitude.
 
I'm getting about 1 degree. Flying at 250 knots (128.6 m/s) for 74 seconds, covering 9.5 km out of 55.6 km, with the target 4.86 km above.

Might actually be 1.5 degrees. 0.55 Mach at 20,000 ft for 76 seconds gives me 13.21 km.
 
If all he did was give them an interview, then it's not THAT fair to say. The interview may certainly help TTSA solicit investments, but Fravor doesn't work for them, and his account was summarized in the Event Summary over ten years ago.

Agreed. Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't think Fravor is making any of this up, and he honestly believes there is no conventional explanation for what they saw that day. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't one.
 
How much?
If it stays the same size on the screen at the same magnifications throughout the ~82 second clip, and with TV mode its physical breadth is seen (hence it's not at great distance), and LOS is roughly stable, and the jet is traveling mach 0.55, wouldn't that mean the target is traveling about the same speed?
 
Here's a quick comparative look at TV (bright sky) vs IR (black sky) sizes at 1x and 2x magnification with video times (last two digits are the video frame). Each image here is the original unchanged size...



The IR and TV sizes seem close, whether nearer or further apart in time.

What strikes me is it would seem to be a not-very-hot object. If this is a jet with hot engines, shouldn't the heat signature bloom out exceeding the size of the object in TV? All the examples of jets I've seen suggest that would be the prediction. But there's little if any indication of IR bloom. Also, a curious impression (possibly wrong) gleaned from the 2x comparison is it's only warm along the sunlit top of the object, as if it was a balloon.
 
Here's a curious 1-second moment in the Nimitz footage I'm surprised I've not heard about...



I've slowed the speed down to 20% normal. The object seems to suddenly drop down to the left off screen. I'm surprised this hasn't, as far I've encountered, been raised as evidence of ET origin even if it's an artifact. The camera's LOS appears to not change. But the magnification changes from 1 to 2, and the change of value displayed usually runs 1 to 3 frames slower than the actual change in object size. Magnification change does not at any other point cause the object to shoot off screen.

Here it is seen in realtime on TTSA's post of the fill clip, this link aims for a few seconds before it seems to suddenly drop:



So fast you can hardly notice it. I only noticed it in frame-by-frame inspection.

I think the camera may be moving without the LOS data being changed. Notice as the object shoots down how the sky changes from black to lighter grey, then whites out. I think the camera started to point to the sun. There are other suggestions of camera change w/o LOS data change in the footage. That could mean almost all the motions are camera-motion artifacts.
 
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Here's a curious 1-second moment in the Nimitz footage I'm surprised I've not heard about...
Nimitz zoom corrected 2018-01-05 08-46-45.png
The camera is physically changing zoom level at that point - from NAR (1.5°) to MFOV (3°). As it has only three physical zoom levels that probably mean it has to physically switch lenses, probably on a rotating array. It cannot track the object while doing this, and likely also takes advantage of the downtime to do a quick major axes realignment into a more optimal position.

Note the display (both the 1.0/2.0 and the NAR/MFOV) lags behind the zoom changes by a fraction of a second (about 3 frames, so around 1/10th of a second)
 
This was discussed earlier in this topic. Probably related to the physical lens being rotated out during the FOV change.
Thanks guys. NAR changes to MFOV about 11 frames after the motion starts, so it's not so obviously connected. However, I agree that it is connected. 11 frames is faster than 1 second and the change of background tone (as well as target motion) implies camera motion.

So could the famous leftward motion at the end also be an artifact of the same phenomenon? Look how close both motions occur to each other, both occurring within ~2 seconds of each other:



The drop-down motion occurs within ~6 frames of screen white-out and the left-slide motion occurs within ~8 frames of another almost full screen white-out. Gee! Both are also correlated with the background tone changing from near black to brighter. I suspect all the off-center motions are camera-induced artifacts.

Fravor may believe the drop-down motion is "a couple objects coming out of the bottom."



The anchor asks him what the DoD concluded the object is. Notice that Fravor completely evaded the question, switching the topic to seemingly anomalous descriptions of the footage, including the claim:

"You can't really discern what it is until there's a couple shots, when it gets close, there’s a couple objects coming out of the bottom."
Content from External Source

"Couple objects coming out of the bottom"? What do you bet he's referring to this drop-down motion. He's also as fooled as a FLIR novice about the zoom-induced fast motion at the end that Mick resolved. In video comments I'm constantly hammered with, "But pilots are the experts, how can you be right?!" And yet here we have this expert as fooled by the footage as anyone who never saw a FLIR screen in their life. To me, I see that as notable meta-incongruity in the package of claims we're receiving from TTSA & Associates... why is this 'expert FLIR operator' not able to resolve artifacts?
 
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The anchor asks him what the DoD concluded the object is. Notice that Fravor completely evaded the question, switching the topic to seemingly anomalous descriptions of the footage, including the claim:

"You can't really discern what it is until there's a couple shots, when
it gets close, there’s a couple objects coming out of the bottom."​

"Couple objects coming out of the bottom"? What do you bet he's referring to this drop-down motion. He's also as fooled as a FLIR novice about the zoom-induced fast motion at the end that Mick resolved. In video comments I'm constantly hammered with, "But pilots are the experts, how can you be right?!" And yet here we have this expert as fooled by the footage as anyone who never saw a FLIR screen in their life. To me, I see that as notable meta-incongruity in the package of claims we're receiving from TTSA & Associates... why is this 'expert FLIR operator' not able to resolve artifacts?

The video footage was not Fravor's and I wouldn't listen to his opinions on it. We don't even know if the object in this video is the same object as the "tic tac" that he encountered earlier that day. His expertise as a fighter pilot doesn't make him an expert in FLIR video analysis.
 
The video footage was not Fravor's and I wouldn't listen to his opinions on it. We don't even know if the object in this video is the same object as the "tic tac" that he encountered earlier that day. His expertise as a fighter pilot doesn't make him an expert in FLIR video analysis.
I'd presume that pilots flying jets with FLIR screens entails a reasonable understanding of what FLIR screens show and experience with spurious things they show. So the "they're experts" appeal is reasonable, albeit not necessarily decisive. I'd presume someone who operates a system as their profession has at least some knowledge of it and its eccentricities and so wouldn't likely be fooled by simple artifacts.

It seems clear this can't be his footage, but do we know that for a fact?
 
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I'd presume that pilots flying jets with FLIR screens entails a reasonable understanding of what FLIR screens show and experience with spurious things they show. So the "they're experts" appeal is reasonable, albeit not necessarily decisive. I'd presume someone who operates a system as their profession has at least some knowledge of it and its eccentricities and so wouldn't likely be fooled by simple artifacts.

It seems clear this can't be his footage, but do we know that for a fact?

Presumably it's the WSOs who operate the sensors like radar and ATFLIR. In any case, an operator is not necessarily an expert on the sort of artifacts that show up on video after the fact.

We know this isn't Fravor's footage because his F-18 wasn't equipped with an ATFLIR (according to the Fightersweep account).
 
Fravor's story seems to have incorporated elements of the ATFLIR video, things he didn't actually witness himself, and he seems to regard the false "hyperdrive" motion as ET technology, not from the camera zoom. We need to focus on what he actually saw, and what the video shows.
 
Thanks guys. NAR changes to MFOV about 11 frames after the motion starts, so it's not so obviously connected. However, I agree that it is connected. 11 frames is faster than 1 second and the change of background tone (as well as target motion) implies camera motion.

So could the famous leftward motion at the end also be an artifact of the same phenomenon? Look how close both motions occur to each other, both occurring within ~2 seconds of each other:

The drop-down motion occurs within ~6 frames of screen white-out and the left-slide motion occurs within ~8 frames of another almost full screen white-out. Gee! Both are also correlated with the background tone changing from near black to brighter. I suspect all the off-center motions are camera-induced artifacts.

Fravor may believe the drop-down motion is "a couple objects coming out of the bottom."

The anchor asks him what the DoD concluded the object is. Notice that Fravor completely evaded the question, switching the topic to seemingly anomalous descriptions of the footage, including the claim:

"You can't really discern what it is until there's a couple shots, when
it gets close, there’s a couple objects coming out of the bottom."​

"Couple objects coming out of the bottom"? What do you bet he's referring to this drop-down motion. He's also as fooled as a FLIR novice about the zoom-induced fast motion at the end that Mick resolved. In video comments I'm constantly hammered with, "But pilots are the experts, how can you be right?!" And yet here we have this expert as fooled by the footage as anyone who never saw a FLIR screen in their life. To me, I see that as notable meta-incongruity in the package of claims we're receiving from TTSA & Associates... why is this 'expert FLIR operator' not able to resolve artifacts?

As I speculated in post #127, "The big question is why it starts moving to the left so suddenly, when a jet that's flying away from the viewer would need to bank and make a more gradual turn to the left. Could this just be the camera panning to the right after a bunch of FOV changes?"

Fravor said that the object moved off the screen pretty fast "from a standstill." But as I said, even if it had been flying away from the viewer, it still would've been a sudden change in direction to the left. So Fravor wasn't necessarily talking about the zoom-induced jump.

I doubt that "a couple objects coming out of the bottom" refers to the drop-down motion, since it doesn't look like a couple of objects. Fravor may be talking about the TV camera footage, where towards the end, the oblong blob starts to look like two round blobs side by side. "Objects coming out" may mean protruding from the bottom.

As Josquin said, Fravor's expertise is in being a fighter pilot, and the WSO's expertise is in operating the FLIR, but I agree that fighter pilots ought to have at least a good understanding of FLIR imagery. To Fravor, the video probably validates what he saw with his own eyes: an oblong tic tac that seems to hover and then suddenly accelerates to the side.
 
Fravor said that the object moved off the screen pretty fast "from a standstill." But as I said, even if it had been flying away from the viewer, it still would've been a sudden change in direction to the left. So Fravor wasn't necessarily talking about the zoom-induced jump.
Fravor said in the video above:
"When it leaves the screen on the video it's moving pretty fast. And that's from a stand-still."
Content from External Source
So the speed he's referring to is what appears "when it leaves the screen," which is the zoom-augmented speed. If instead he understood that there's a zoom artifact causing an illusion of intense speed occurring at the exact same time he's saying there's extraterrestrial-like speed, he should have explained that to the viewers. That would be even worse than getting fooled by an artifact.
 
I think it's fair to say Fravor is a party to an effort to solicit investments for anti-gravity technology, ie, a salesman.

I think it would be fair to say that.. if you also provided evidence confirming the assumption that Fravor is getting a payoff for this. Failing some sort of citation I think it's wholly unfair. There is a history within ufo literature of many military pilots having reported similar events, not for profit, but purely due to concern. I think its fair to say Fravor might be yet another one of these people. I think it's fair to say neither of us really know for sure, at this point in time.
 
I think it would be fair to say that.. if you also provided evidence confirming the assumption that Fravor is getting a payoff for this. Failing some sort of citation I think it's wholly unfair. There is a history within ufo literature of many military pilots having reported similar events, not for profit, but purely due to concern. I think its fair to say Fravor might be yet another one of these people. I think it's fair to say neither of us really know for sure, at this point in time.
Do you think his advocacy of the existence of extraterrestrial technology under TTSA's banner, a group claiming to be able to acquire the same, stands to help TTSA raise at least $1? Commonsense should tell you it would.

So what do you call a person who helps a business increase its revenue? Maybe there's a better word.
 
Fravor said in the video above:
"When it leaves the screen on the video it's moving pretty fast. And that's from a stand-still."
Content from External Source
So the speed he's referring to is what appears "when it leaves the screen," which is the zoom-augmented speed. If instead he understood that there's a zoom artifact causing an illusion of intense speed occurring at the exact same time he's saying there's extraterrestrial-like speed, he should have explained that to the viewers. That would be even worse than getting fooled by an artifact.

"When it leaves the screen" may refer to the entire part of the video when the object moves left.
When I first saw the video, it didn't even cross my mind that anyone would mistake the zoom for extraterrestrial-like speed, so I wouldn't have explained that either.
 
"When it leaves the screen" may refer to the entire part of the video when the object moves left.
When I first saw the video, it didn't even cross my mind that anyone would mistake the zoom for extraterrestrial-like speed, so I wouldn't have explained that either.
So the zoom-corrected movement itself is sufficient for the ET claim?

And you'd expect nearly everyone would notice the magnification switch and realize a zoom artifact took place, so much so it's not even worth mentioning?
 
Assuming the motion isn't an artifact of camera motion (which I suspect it is), and given Fravor's estimation of the object being about the size of a fighter jet, so let's say 60ft, its speed is about 245 mph.



If that's from a stand still, that is pretty intense acceleration, even zoom-corrected! But I don't believe a jet traveling @ mach 0.55 can be approaching a 60ft object for 82 seconds and the object remains the same screen size per magnification (ie, its size at 2x remains approx the same and at 1x remains approx the same) over those 82 seconds. So I can't believe it was standing still.

Whatever, I think this is more evidence that its motion is a camera-motion artifact.
 
...When I first saw the video, it didn't even cross my mind that anyone would mistake the zoom for extraterrestrial-like speed, so I wouldn't have explained that either...

So the zoom-corrected movement itself is sufficient for the ET claim?

And you'd expect nearly everyone would notice the magnification switch and realize a zoom artifact took place, so much so it's not even worth mentioning?

A variation of that is, "...It's surprising to me that everybody doesn't make the same assumptions that I made. I expect everybody to have the same background knowledge, the same frame of reference, and the same real-world experience as I have...".

That happens so often when a bunch of people are speculating about stuff together, that I'm sure there must be a technical term for that particular type of speculation?

Please, can anybody refresh my memory on what term I'm thinking of?
 
Do you think his advocacy of the existence of extraterrestrial technology under TTSA's banner, a group claiming to be able to acquire the same, stands to help TTSA raise at least $1? Commonsense should tell you it would.

So what do you call a person who helps a business increase its revenue? Maybe there's a better word.

Just gonna stick to the facts. I hope nobody minds. Prove he's profiting from this, then you'll have a point worth discussing.
 
At first I was disturbed by that report, rather than giving us some answers they're treating it like a bullet-point on ATFLIR's resume. But I'm glad they offer a clear evidence-assessment criterion: we "want at least two sensors." Bang! That's a highly credible and spot-on reference, since these are the very people who produced the system whose data is in question, and they're telling us don't trust just one sensor for what might seem like an extraordinary signal.

Backup: http://archive.is/https://www.raytheon.com/news/feature/uap_atflir.html
I thought it was funny they were taking advantage of the media interest for advertising purposes, and it's telling that the experts who design these FLIR systems say a single sensor isn't enough, i.e. they don't think the images are proof of anything extraordinary (not aliens at least). I guess they can't say much more, the company wouldn't want to alienate (no pun intended) the true believers, nor give away some technical detail about the design that could be classified (for either commercial or military reasons).
 
Assuming the motion isn't an artifact of camera motion (which I suspect it is), and given Fravor's estimation of the object being about the size of a fighter jet, so let's say 60ft, its speed is about 245 mph.

If that's from a stand still, that is pretty intense acceleration, even zoom-corrected! But I don't believe a jet traveling @ mach 0.55 can be approaching a 60ft object for 82 seconds and the object remains the same screen size per magnification (ie, its size at 2x remains approx the same and at 1x remains approx the same) over those 82 seconds. So I can't believe it was standing still.

Whatever, I think this is more evidence that its motion is a camera-motion artifact.

Right, the speed itself is not impressive, 6 object lengths per second, so if it's a 60 foot object, then it's 360 ft/sec or 245 mph. If it's bigger, then it's proportionally faster. But the acceleration or change in direction is impressive, not what you'd expect from a helicopter or an airplane.
I agree that it's more likely a camera motion artifact, especially since it happens right after switching the FOV from MFOV to NAR, which placed the target outside the track gate, which broke lock or confused the tracker.
Perhaps the target drifted to the left because it was 8 degrees to the left of the F-18, but then again, it was also 5 degrees above the F-18 yet it didn't drift up at all.
 
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