One morning during this whole process, our email inbox rewarded us with two videos we received in a bath of data from Fleet Forces Command. Both videos had been taken from the air by pilots in the Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, using the same sort of ATFLIR pod that Commander Fravor's squadron had used to capture the 2004 Tic Tac video.
The object in one of the videos also resembled a Tic Tac, at least in the sense that it was rounded, smooth, and egg-shaped. But where the 2004 Tic Tac was more than 40 feet long, this object—in the video that would later become famously known as GoFast—was no more than about 18 feet long, tops. That's smaller than a Piper Cub, an aircraft built for bush pilots and recreational fliers. A Cub is lightweight, about 765 pounds, and flies no faster than 90 miles per hour.
"Whoa, got it! Whoo-hoooo!"
Another voice, most likely the pilot, says, "What the f—is that thing?"
Someone else, probably the radar operator witnessing this event from aboard the Roosevelt, chimes in: "Did you box a moving target?"
"No," the Weapon Systems Operator (WSO) replies. "It's in auto track."
"Oh—okay. Oh my gosh, dude!"
"What is that, man?"
"Look at that thing flying!" The object moves from the top right to the lower left of the screen. There's no plume of exhaust, no wings, no propellers. Just a speedy little egg out for a jaunt above the ocean. At the time, no one in DoD or the IC could explain it. After several years of analysis, however, later researchers would claim that the object was going much slower than previously thought. This effect is called a parallax. I still don't agree with this assessment, since the pilots who witnessed the object flying marveled at its speed.
Elizondo, Luis. Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs: Written by the Former Head of the Pentagon Program Investigating UAPs (pp. 145-146). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.