We're in a brand new world now in terms of the Tic Tac encounter. The "8-10 second visual" world.
I like the new world. It has more data. Not enough, but more.
We've been using Dave Fravor's account for years. And now Dietrich contradicts him on several points, and seems very believable and credible.
We have of course had Dietrich's written account before and known they contradict, but it has been sort of easy to give more weight to Fravor's account where they differ.
One reason obviously that we have actually seen him tell the story in multiple places, and he has seemed to have a good recollection, which actually fits quite well with the available documents. Dietrich's account not so much, and that 8-10 seconds has seemed like a probable error.
But in the end that "small" detail (as some seem to think about 30x time difference) opened up a very fruitful discussion and made us see the entire event in a brand new way. Suddenly the vast majority of that earth shattering event was actually unnoticeable for even someone who was actually there, and quite likely to half of all witnesses.
That leaves us with the short part where their accounts differ significantly enough that if someone would ask me to explain that part, I could just ask which version.
Then there's the grand finale, the supposed extreme acceleration, the highlight of the story. I still haven't seen Dietrich giving a detailed answer to how it actually disappeared. Like was there a distinguishable direction of movement, and was she definitely looking at it right at the moment when it disappeared. The fact that she talks about disappearance instead of acceleration seems indicative, but it would be nice to have a definite answer from the source. That could pretty much make or break what's left of this story.
Speculating, I feel like Fravor is exaggerating. He's been telling the story and emphasizing "5 mins" of visual contact for all 4 pilots form 2 different perspectives, and using that info to "sell" the veracity of the account. He really sells it hard, too.
He seems to enjoy telling it, Dietrich not so much. It would be nice if both were somewhere in between, interested enough to answer questions, not enough to exaggerate.
What would the WSOs say? Might they also say they only saw it for 10 seconds, like Dietrich? Then what?
A third opinion would certainly help. If Dietrich is right and Fravor was looking at it much longer, their WSOs would likely have a similar split of opinion, as they have no doubt had ongoing discussions with their backseaters
But then again, it would seem logical for Fravor to have talked sooner with his wingman as well, instead of circling for a few minutes looking at it, while the other pilot was apparently completely unaware of the whole thing. Maybe it didn't actually look special enough at that stage to warrant such communication?
Remember, Dietrich went on 60 Minutes and nodded along to everything Fravor said. In reality, she only saw it for 10 seconds...but Fravor apparently thought she saw it for 5 minutes like him, and said so while she was just sitting there!
Fravor and Slaight also didn't say anything on that Fox interview while the host was showing the wrong video and commenting it doesn't look like a submarine.
It's just easier not to correct or disagree with others publicly, which is then way too easy to interpret as agreement. I mean, just look what a difference that one on one conversion between Mick and Alex made! If only we could get one of the WSOs to do the same.
How much has Fravor (the commander of all these other folks) driven this narrative? How much have their accounts acquiesced to his over the 17 years?
Quite a lot probably. Although faded memories are probably bigger issue by now.