@jackfrostvc These appendages may be the result of enhancing that video and thought to be there by checking a fuzzy image that was pretty bad in the first place... I doubt even the original material that Fravor mentions (has anyone besides him saw this?) shows them conclusively. And of course you need the raw unedited content to at least begin to think you are seeing said details in the first place. No way you can guess from a reencoded, inferior source.
Can we at least agree this was a flying machine? Avoid mentioning UFO reports about light sources, these are way different when compared to this case.
In order to know what was this unknown object, we need to rule out what couldn't have been. That's why I only think of two alternatives left, 1) ALIEN(s), or B) LIARS (note I am saying more than one, which reduces the chances of them being confused, believing they saw something else entirely):
1) Most of you describe the Tic Tac as a faraway aircraft, likely a business jet, observed under unfavorable angles and with ATFLIR limitations creating an illusion of shape and motion.
The problem is that the pilots saw the object visually, at close range, with no wings, no control surfaces, no exhaust, no windows, and no aerodynamic features. FRAVOR claims to have seen and there was no way he could have been confused, and after observing how it behave (thanks to the "white water", otherwise he couldn't have noticed), decided to take action.
They didn't see any thermal plume at all.
Radar from Princeton and E-2 Hawkeye tracked multiple objects performing instantaneous acceleration, rapid altitude changes, and sudden stops.
A jet cannot instantaneously drop from 28,000 ft to the surface in 0.78 seconds. No aircraft can hover, pivot, and shoot off faster than an F/A-18's radar can slew.
This hypothesis fails on shape, thermal signature, kinematics, and radar data.
2) It can't be an AIM-9, a Tomahawk, or a cruise missile test, too. This fails immediately because Fravor's engagement occurred in peacetime training airspace with zero missile activity.
Also, the white water bit of this story is intriguing, because in that area we didn't have (as far as I know) any other object that can account for that, and it gets more strange, because they report the sea coming back to normal, after the object started climbing, and left. That suggests the UFO had a direct interference on it, despite being at a higher altitude. The size of the disturbance was greater than the UFO itself.
Missiles produce extreme IR signatures, appear blazing hot on ATFLIR, leave visible contrails, and cannot hover or move laterally without aerodynamic control surfaces that would be thermally visible. Missiles have fins; the Tic Tac does not.
This explanation fails on thermal, behavior, and contextual grounds.
3) A balloon was briefly proposed because some balloon payloads have dangling structures or "L-shaped" instrument arms. But even debunkers abandoned this explanation because the object:
– maneuvered at high velocity relative to wind;
– had no balloon signature (large cold envelope + warm payload);
– displayed controlled lateral acceleration;
– left the field of view at extreme speed;
– moved in ways inconsistent with wind-borne objects.
Balloons do not shoot off the screen or pace fighter jets. So I think this hypothesis is considered dead.
4) Another hypothesis: ATFLIR optical illusions.
Everything unusual is blamed on gimbal rotation, parallax, sensor limits, and misinterpretation - essentially turning the Tic Tac into an imaging artifact instead of a real object.
But this contradicts a critical fact: the pilots saw the object visually. Fravor encountered it at close range, circling around it, observing it with the naked eye.
The radar tracked the object before, during, and after the encounter. If it were a sensor illusion, the radar would not register a target with instantaneous velocity changes. ATFLIR artifacts cannot generate multi-platform, correlated radar-visual contact.
This explanation collapses under multi-sensor corroboration.
- 5th scenario: a classified U.S. black project (hidden military craft)
- This is the "deniable but human" explanation. The idea is that it was an advanced drone or aerospace platform being tested. However, this contradicts multiple military facts:
- If the U.S. had a craft capable of instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic lateral movement, and hovering with no heat signature, it would be the single most important military asset on Earth.
- It would not be tested in front of Navy pilots without coordination.
- It would not outmaneuver an F/A-18 and then be ignored for 20 years.
- It would have required physics-breaking propulsion.
A secret craft cannot appear on 3 independent radar systems displaying behavior that matches no aerodynamic or rocket-based vehicle.
This theory fails because the performance exceeds all known or plausible classified tech.
- 6th: a radar glitch (rejected, too)
Some skeptics say the radar tracks were false returns. That fails instantly because:
- The object was visually seen.
- Was it IR-captured by ATFLIR?
- It was detected by multiple independent radars.
- Radar operators watched the contacts drop from 28,000 ft to near sea level instantaneously.
A "glitch" cannot correlate across multiple sensors and a visual pilot encounter. This hypothesis is no longer defended seriously.
- 7h hypothesis: pilot error (the weakest one)
This hypothesis ignores the fact that all four pilots witnessed the object in coordinated maneuvers. Commander Fravor was a TOPGUN graduate and squadron commander.
Trying to claim he mistook a balloon, a jet, or a reflection is not credible.
This explanation only persists among people who are unfamiliar with military aviation.
We will probably never know what EXACTLY it was, and even if one thinks it was an alien craft/drone, and present many ideas to explain the event, such as:
- They are from another dimension or a parallel space-time layer.
- They "bleed" into our reality by accident, perhaps due to fluctuations, energy phenomena, or the way their propulsion interacts with spacetime.
- They appear here briefly, are seen by some of us, and then vanish back into their native dimension.
None of this can be proven by any means so far, so it's no different than I create a report saying I saw a ghost or some alien monster.
No evidence besides eyewitness accounts, is not enough for me or anyone that is a skeptic. So until the day anyone produces any concrete proof, and by now it's safe to assume images and videos will never be fully convincing, especially in this age of A.I., it will remain speculative.
Because it's always the same, we are fed incomplete information about such UFO events, and in the end it all comes down to "trust me, bro".
That explains the skeptics filling the gaps with hypothesis they know deep down can't be sustained, and from the other side of the spectrum there are the grifters which will try to milk such stories and invent stuff they know can't be proven, either. I'm in the middle of both extremist groups, more "agnostic".
To the believers, that's all we need to say:
bring me the alien, the craft or anything that can be scrutinized, otherwise we are done.
There will be "vindication" from the ones that believe aliens have paid us a few visits only when we concentrate our efforts to anticipate these sightings. Bring better equipment, to monitor the skies, and especially the areas the military claim they were spotted. NASA would probably do this effectively if they had the military budget.
Or when we analyze if it's possible, at least, to put trackers inside all human-made flying objects, regardless of how harmless they are. That way, we can rule out the chances of one of our own planes, invade our airspace and confuse experienced pilots. Because that's another thing skeptics imply. That these people's eyes + equipments are always flawed, and/or the airspace is a mess and every hour gets violated by some unknown object, made by humans.
