Hypothesis: Fravor's Tic Tac was Kurth's FA18

The only report we have which was supposedly from the day of the event, is the supposed Event Summary leak on ATS.
The user TheFinalTheory leaked the Tic Tac video and an Event Rummary on ATS in Jan 2007
He claimed to have gotten the files from the Nimitz computer directly.

If you believe it, the event summary paints a more mundane description that excluded a number of key things Fravor says these days
According the the ES, there was no mention of ping ponging motion, it also said they saw the object 5Nm miles away from the disturbance and they lost the object in Haze.

If you believe the ES, then a whole bag of prosaic possible explanations open up.

And that's the problem here. Depending on what you believe for the description of the event, shapes and limits your assessment of the possible explanations

If going by the ES alone, I'd say they flew into a live fire test from the USS Louisville as that would fit the ES and the fact the Lousiville was there in the area doing that eact thing
 
I can kind of see how an f18 might look the shape of a tic-tac from the right angle, distance, and lighting conditions. It would help to have poor eyesight. Maybe Fravor's eyesight was giving out, and it hadn't been caught yet.


Source: https://imgur.com/dmJQWbK


By the way, I can also see how the gimbal video might be explainable as an airplane coming out of a banking turn, or going into one.

add even more effects to what you already laid out . check the pics i posted above. what do you think?
 
we have three options:

1) we massively over estimate their abilities and they really cant identify planes or missiles with their eyes or atflir screen

OR

2) they can but blatantly lie and cover each others asses

OR

3) it really was a hypersonic, matte white, unidentified tic tac shaped "craft" with super advanced technology having a blast
4) it was a jet that didn't look like a jet normally does because of vapor obscuration

if you look at Elizondo's identification cards, I don't think pilots are trained to identify aircraft that are partially obscured -- after all, there are few obstacles in the sky!
 
Fravor didn't have the object on gimbal video, he claims he saw it with his naked eye as does Dietrich. Identifying a plane visually in very clear conditions at 25k feet is doable. There obviously isn't enough information in our hands to completely prove or disprove your hypothesis but I see no reason to believe Fravor & Dietrich were fooled by intermittent vapor accumulating around a hypothetical jet, an effect they would be familiar with. I'm still not convinced Kurth was below Fravor. I'd like to see someone ask him about it again. I'd trust his word over a report with no real provenance.

I doubt we'll ever truly know what it was due to lack of data. Just another mystery like Roswell and all the others.
 
well we also dont take the word of all the other pilots regarding gimbal and gofast (who say its clearly this or that and only fighter pilots would know) do we :)

and dietrich didnt said a word until 17 years later, using Fravors exact description and wording (while his details changed from his earliest accounts, so i wouldnt put too much weight on her rcent testimony honestly)

theres a reason judges can dismiss eye witness accounts, if details about a case became public news prior to their testimony

we also have kevin day directly contradicting some fravors details according to their radio chatter etc

its a pitty we dont have video testimony from 2004
 
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all it takes for everything to make sense, is a single pilot who couldn't identify a clouding jet without any sensors and without expecting one within this area.
And possibly add, "in the middle of a UFO Flap that had been going on for several weeks." Which might well predispose him to interpret what he sees in "UFO"ish way.
 
i actually found an alleged testimony of slaight, the wso of dietrichs jet. note, the testimony is from 15 years after the incident.

he confirms the "40 feet, off white tic tac, with no fins, wings and signs of propulsion. clear defined edges and an effect of heat waves around it"

it just doesnt make sense.. im a skydiver, wingsuiter and just started my private pilot license before the pandemic. i am used to be at 4-5000 km / 15k feet altitude and how things look from this height. i just can imagine how slaight could see "heatwaves around clear defined edges" of a 12 meter / 40 feet sized object while he is at 6000 km / 20k feet altitude.

it just doesnt make any sense at all to me

what do you guys think?

source: SCU Report by Robert Powell (Page 11)
 
is the ATS thread still online? time machine backup?
The threads are still live but require a bit of wading through/parsing - a couple of different screen-names get involved. It's intriguing stuff, with the benefit of hindsight.

Server is sometimes a bit slow: https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/mem/thefinaltheory

(Not sure what the link policy is here - the below is all hearsay from the ATS boards, but I'm loathe to quote multiple pages of back-and-forth forum arguments. I can do so if required).

First, TheFinalTheory first posts a thread with a description of UFO activity around the Nimitz, and then talks about Fravor's video - which he sensationalizes somewhat (rapid accelerations etc). When doubt is cast on this, he then supposedly goes back aboard the ship in the dead of night and smuggles out the data on a disc.

TheFinalTheory creates a second thread, "Fighter Jet UFO Footage: The Real Deal". A user called Cometa2 helps to host the video, and later pastes in the Event Summary (I think TheFinalTheory was banned by this point, but had given the files over to Cometa2). There was apparently PowerPoint file too, which included radar data, but Cometa2 never had permission from TheFinalTheory to post it.

You might also want to check out TheFinalTheoryReturns, where the original poster comes back years later, after the NYT/AATIP story has broken. He then seems to needlessly get caught lying about the timeline of smuggling the data from the ship, and whether another copy of the data exists. All a bit odd.
 
There's also the whole saga of the ATS members who attempted to dox TheFinalTheory and Cometa2. IIRC they have a pretty good idea who both people really are but I don't think names have been publicly posted for obvious reasons. It's an interesting read and worth the investment if you're ever bored and want to fill in some blanks on "How did we get here?!"

A lot of UFO fans seem keen on the idea that all of this has been carefully orchestrated for years but if you read posts from TheFinalTheory it's hard to imagine any sort of intelligent effort behind his actions. He always just came off as a young guy who saw some exciting stuff and couldn't resist sharing it on a forum, regardless of the consequences.
 
He always just came off as a young guy who saw some exciting stuff and couldn't resist sharing it on a forum, regardless of the consequences.
Agreed, although I get somewhat stuck on his initial claim that he already had the evidence on disc but had lost it "at a relative's house". Then later he doesn't back down from this but simultaneously claims there's only one copy of the disc. And tantalisingly he also says there is a slightly longer version of the tic-tac video showing "more UFO movement", but which won't play due to "codec issues" - too bad they didn't think to upload the broken file anyway.
 
I followed the bread crumbs and am pretty sure I found him. I did email him, but no response

From the info I found, he was on the Nimitz at that time and was in a role that would have enabled him to do what he did
 
I followed the bread crumbs and am pretty sure I found him. I did email him, but no response

From the info I found, he was on the Nimitz at that time and was in a role that would have enabled him to do what he did

Not sure if you post on ATS but that's the point they got to as well if I'm remembering things correctly (that was a LONG thread a long time ago). They tracked him down but that was the end of it. I do think the guy was legit, I don't think he was operating under anyone's direction to kickoff a decade long "disclosure" event haha.

I'll review the thread when I have spare time and post if I find anything, I was thinking one of the guys actually did get 'Cometa2' to communicate a bit but nothing all that interesting happened that I recall.

The ATS stuff has always convinced me that if you had these young guys with access to real evidence of alien bodies, UFOs, etc. the temptation to share it would just be too great to resist.
 
Not sure if you post on ATS but that's the point they got to as well if I'm remembering things correctly (that was a LONG thread a long time ago). They tracked him down but that was the end of it. I do think the guy was legit, I don't think he was operating under anyone's direction to kickoff a decade long "disclosure" event haha.

I'll review the thread when I have spare time and post if I find anything, I was thinking one of the guys actually did get 'Cometa2' to communicate a bit but nothing all that interesting happened that I recall.

The ATS stuff has always convinced me that if you had these young guys with access to real evidence of alien bodies, UFOs, etc. the temptation to share it would just be too great to resist.

Two users on ATS spoke to him (through ATS and Facebook) when he returned under the name TheFinalTheoryReturns, and by doing so, were able to confirm he was who he said.
Those two people inadvertantly left breadcrumb of who he was as well
 
For what it's worth, in the year Fravor encountered the object.
SCORE had conducted the following wargame training exercises in the SOCAL range complex (Where the Tic Tac event occured)

Look at the FY05 line - Financial year 2005 . Tic Tac was Nov 2014 ie start of FY05






1622945089482.png

You dont know when their fiscal year started. Thats an assumption based on nothing as far as i can tell?

Nimitz happened mid Nov 2004
 
@Domzh EW is only limited to the area the mobile emitters can be placed. IT can extend throughout the SOCAL Range Complex

1623414724402.png

1623414792952.png
 
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fair enough. iirc kevin day came up
with speed and altitude at around 28000 feet, traveling south at 100 knots

INFO: Look at the historic weather data. Its a perfect match with altitude and windspeed.

Could very well been airborne radar deflectors launched by another submarine.

INFO: we dont know the location of the USS Louisville. If the Louisville was in the designated testing area of San Clemente island, she could have been easily too far away to even get sonar pings from this location (sonar range apparently is based on a plentitude of factors and can change daily), however range values i found for sonar tech in general were around 60 miles maximum.

so it could have easily been another sub launching these reflectors.

Maybe they are tethered in the beginning and then launched at a specific timing. Could explain the disturbance in the water (submarine), the ping pong effect (tethered balloon) and the parallax effect Mick described.

Maybe the balloon / blimp was deflating when the submarine "sunk" and just shrunk together, making the appearance of "disappearing in a haze" when Fravor misjudged the deflating balloon for getting smaller due to distance?
 

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fair enough. iirc kevin day came up
with speed and altitude at around 28000 feet, traveling south at 100 knots

INFO: Look at the historic weather data. Its a perfect match with altitude and windspeed.

Could very well been airborne radar deflectors launched by another submarine.

INFO: we dont know the location of the USS Louisville. If the Louisville was in the designated testing area of San Clemente island, she could have been easily too far away to even get sonar pings from this location (sonar range apparently is based on a plentitude of factors and can change daily), however range values i found for sonar tech in general were around 60 miles maximum.

so it could have easily been another sub launching these reflectors.

Maybe they are tethered in the beginning and then launched at a specific timing. Could explain the disturbance in the water (submarine), the ping pong effect (tethered balloon) and the parallax effect Mick described.

Maybe the balloon / blimp was deflating when the submarine "sunk" and just shrunk together, making the appearance of "disappearing in a haze" when Fravor misjudged the deflating balloon for getting smaller due to distance?


There is a report that says the Louisville was in the area of the Tic tac sighting. ie not near SCI

It's in the AATIP report

1623416891233.png
 
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There is a report that says the Louisville was in the area of the Tic tac sighting. ie not near SCI
yeah the same report said kurth never saw the other FA18 while he now said he did.

also "area" is not defined and besides this info we dont have even the tiniest idea where she was exactly and what she was doing at this moment
 
yeah the same report said kurth never saw the other FA18 while he now said he did.

also "area" is not defined and besides this info we dont have even the tiniest idea where she was exactly and what she was doing at this moment

That's interesting
Where did Kurth say he saw the other F-18's , got a link to that
 
fair enough. iirc kevin day came up
with speed and altitude at around 28000 feet, traveling south at 100 knots
He's changed that to 80,000 feet on some occasions. There's a variety of ways the story has been told
 
He's changed that to 80,000 feet on some occasions. There's a variety of ways the story has been told
didnt he told you personally he only heard two days later about this figure? he said something like "someone told me the missile tracking guys pinged them at 80k feet but i personally never saw them at this height" (paraphrasing)
 
didnt he told you personally he only heard two days later about this figure? he said something like "someone told me the missile tracking guys pinged them at 80k feet but i personally never saw them at this height" (paraphrasing)
Yeah, from his interview with me, he seemed to be saying they were drifting south at 28K (which is what he says in his 2008 short story). But it's gotten mixed up.
 
While I'm not sold on this hypothesis, particularly the vapor-obscured jet portion, it bears mentioning this new "revelation" that the pilots only had eyes on the tic-tac for 5-10 seconds. That would roughly fit within the realm of believability for a vapor obfuscated jet to trick Fravor for a few seconds.


Source: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1404303800001724419


5 to 10 seconds? I always thought it took minutes or even more? Why this change in narrative all of a sudden? What does Fravor say about it?
 
i actually found an alleged testimony of slaight, the wso of dietrichs jet. note, the testimony is from 15 years after the incident.

he confirms the "40 feet, off white tic tac, with no fins, wings and signs of propulsion. clear defined edges and an effect of heat waves around it"

it just doesnt make sense.. im a skydiver, wingsuiter and just started my private pilot license before the pandemic. i am used to be at 4-5000 km / 15k feet altitude and how things look from this height. i just can imagine how slaight could see "heatwaves around clear defined edges" of a 12 meter / 40 feet sized object while he is at 6000 km / 20k feet altitude.

it just doesnt make any sense at all to me

what do you guys think?

source: SCU Report by Robert Powell (Page 11)

The apparent linear size of an object is inversely proportional to its distance from an observer, so an object 12 m long at a distance of 6,000 m (not km!) would appear the same linear size as an object 2 mm long at a distance of 1 m. That's about half the size of a grain of Basmati rice held at a very long arm's length. Visible, certainly, but to see any detail you really would need 'eagle eyes'.
 
The apparent linear size of an object is inversely proportional to its distance from an observer, so an object 12 m long at a distance of 6,000 m (not km!) would appear the same linear size as an object 2 mm long at a distance of 1 m. That's about half the size of a grain of Basmati rice held at a very long arm's length. Visible, certainly, but to see any detail you really would need 'eagle eyes'.
exactly. heatwaves around the object? cmon wtf

edit: why do all my posts need mod approval at the moment? why is that?
 
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While I'm not sold on this hypothesis, particularly the vapor-obscured jet portion, it bears mentioning this new "revelation" that the pilots only had eyes on the tic-tac for 5-10 seconds. That would roughly fit within the realm of believability for a vapor obfuscated jet to trick Fravor for a few seconds.


Source: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1404303800001724419


If the total visual was 10 seconds or less as Dietrich says, a jet now makes some sense.

Lots of things now make some sense.

This is fairly key new detail.
 
If the total visual was 10 seconds or less as Dietrich says, a jet now makes some sense.

Lots of things now make some sense.

This is fairly key new detail.
EDIT

Sigh. I thought I was reacting to Mick.. LOL
Anyway, I was wondering if you can elaborate on this thought?
 
EDIT

Sigh. I thought I was reacting to Mick.. LOL
Anyway, I was wondering if you can elaborate on this thought?

Fravor hasn't commented on it. I've noticed Mick trying to nail down Dietrich into clarifying what she means but she hasn't been totally clear on the timeline. It seems she's saying the entire encounter did take 5-10 minutes (radar contact, vectoring the three jets, flying to intercept, observing surface disturbance, tic-tac sighting) but they only actually had eyes on the tic-tac for 5-10 seconds.

Over the years, Fravor has repeatedly implied he had eyes on the tic-tac for several minutes.

Since we know the altitudes at play and the rough trajectory of Fravor's jet we may be able to hash out how realistic this 5-10 second timeframe is.
 
I must admit, the more I find out about the case. The more I believe it was Douglas Kurth's jet
The timing of Kurth arriving is pretty much spot on.
The fact he was re-vectored and asked not to proceed to the Tic Tac area, yet took it open himself to go there anyway. ie no one was expecting him to be there
The fact he saw them, but they didn't seem to see him
And the fact that he didn't see the Tic Tac but they did.
And the fact he went over and circled around the disturbance in the water.
The fact Fravor/Alex were on edge when approaching the area as they had no weapons and didn't know what to expect
Fravor claims his radar was jammed, what can do that -> Another F/A-18's ECM

I mean, at this stage , it's hard to think it was anything but Kurth's jet
I tip my hat to @Domzh

Would be nice to see a pic of Kurth's jet to see the color scheme
I'd like an interview with him. I think at this point, he is the main witness.
I want to know exactly what he did flight wise at the time.

I can think of a few things now that I think of it that could make a jet look like its moving in all direction, especially if it's flying straight at you.

It may look like a tic tac , and left right movement and up down movement would look almost instantanious. Try and picture it.

Or if he went inverted and everyone saw that Tic Tac looking tank on the bottom of the F-18. As he maneuvered, it could look like it was changing directions instantly, if at different angels you lost sight of the tank momentarily.

Perhaps, Kevin saw a Live fire test missile from the Louisville. And in the conjfusuion of trying to see what one of these objects were, he vectrored them there. As the missile was gone by then, it was deemed safe. so they all flew there and Alex/Fravor saw Kurth's jet

Or maybe it was as basic as seeing a missile test fire , and they saw that, and Kurth was a coincidence

Or maybe it was Kurth all along and he had an EW unit on his Jet, it was altered as per the reports.
Would explain a lot. Radar jams etc
 
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Fravor hasn't commented on it. I've noticed Mick trying to nail down Dietrich into clarifying what she means but she hasn't been totally clear on the timeline. It seems she's saying the entire encounter did take 5-10 minutes (radar contact, vectoring the three jets, flying to intercept, observing surface disturbance, tic-tac sighting) but they only actually had eyes on the tic-tac for 5-10 seconds.

Over the years, Fravor has repeatedly implied he had eyes on the tic-tac for several minutes.

Since we know the altitudes at play and the rough trajectory of Fravor's jet we may be able to hash out how realistic this 5-10 second timeframe is.

I guess some calcs would help on how long a decent would have taken - from Fravors start altitude when he saw it, to when it zipped past him when he was at a lower altitude

Although, that would depend on how aggressive he was in descending. So we may get a range of times it could of happened in. That window of descent times might preclude 10 seconds though, so worth calculating IMO
 
Fravor hasn't commented on it. I've noticed Mick trying to nail down Dietrich into clarifying what she means but she hasn't been totally clear on the timeline. It seems she's saying the entire encounter did take 5-10 minutes (radar contact, vectoring the three jets, flying to intercept, observing surface disturbance, tic-tac sighting) but they only actually had eyes on the tic-tac for 5-10 seconds.

Over the years, Fravor has repeatedly implied he had eyes on the tic-tac for several minutes.
Fravor still says five minutes for the visual encounter. Deitrich still says ten seconds. They exchanged texts, but it was not resolved. Discussed here: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/fr...illusion-comparing-accounts.10941/post-251567

Her Tweets:

Just had a nice text exchange with CDR David Fravor to try and sort out the time issue.
@MickWest
#ufotwitter
12:47 PM · Jun 14, 2021

His recollection: “Everything was slow and benign until I went nose low to get close and it went Poof.”
12:48 PM · Jun 14, 2021

“We saw it hovering and flew around the circle and then cut across to get closer. Based on a slow turn rate and slow descent I say roughly 5 minutes. Could have been less but it was way more than a few seconds.”
12:49 PM · Jun 14, 2021

I only had visual of Tic Tac for 8-10 sec from high cover. The time before that I was looking at lead aircraft (flying wing), looking for visual at the merge, looking at the churning water. Maybe his “time dilation” made 2-3 min feel like 5 and my 8-10 sec was at the tail end?
12:52 PM · Jun 14, 2021
Content from External Source
 
So some info on Douglas Kurth.

According to the AATIP report, Kurth was flying and testing a single seat F/A-18C that had work done on it recently
Kurth was commander of the Marines VMFA-232 Red Devils

Here is an aviation artists illustrations of each of the Red Devils jets . Problem is, we cannot be sure he was flying his own jet that day

https://markstyling.com/f_a_18s_09.htm
 
na they have an FA18 growler for EW and thats a 2 seater

At this moment its (w/o anti grav scenario):

- Kurths Jet & Weather Phenomenon & Misidentification

versus

- Some submarine launching EW balloons / blimps & Misjudging size and distance

IDEA: Maybe we can have a talk with some of the princeton radar guys or someone who used to do radar in submarines who could give some insights regarding EW training at san clemente island. If launching EW 100 miles away could be part of a training?

@Mick West Do you believe Kevin Day would be up for another chat?
 
na they have an FA18 growler for EW and thats a 2 seater

At this moment its (w/o anti grav scenario):

- Kurths Jet & Weather Phenomenon & Misidentification

versus

- Some submarine launching EW balloons / blimps & Misjudging size and distance

IDEA: Maybe we can have a talk with some of the princeton radar guys or someone who used to do radar in submarines who could give some insights regarding EW training at san clemente island. If launching EW 100 miles away could be part of a training?

@Mick West Do you believe Kevin Day would be up for another chat?


Not sure who you are talking to. But I know Gary Voorhis didn't have a clue about EW when that question was put to him via Dave Beaty.
And I have asked him directly and yet to receive an answer, I have also asked Karson Krammel and yet to receive an answer

"na they have an FA18 growler for EW and thats a 2 seater"
What's that comment in response to?
 
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