[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: On November 14,
2004, Commander David Fravor
and his wingman pilot
took off from the USS
Nimitz, which was on
maneuvers south of San Diego.
DAVID FRAVOR: I was
the commanding officer
of Strike Fighter Squadron
41, the Black Aces.
We were flying brand
new Super Hornets.
It was an air defense
exercise, two good guys
against two bad guys,
probably 70 miles,
60 miles off the
coast in the gap
between San Diego and Ensenada.
NARRATOR: Suddenly, the
pilots are contacted by radar
operators on the Princeton.
DAVID FRAVOR: The Princeton
control comes up and says,
we're going to suspend training.
We have real world tasking.
NARRATOR: The pilots
are re-vectored
to a new destination
but aren't told why.
 So we start heading
off to the west.
The other airplane is
on my left-hand side.
 I was the junior
pilot, trying to keep up
with the senior pilot
in the lead aircraft.
DAVID FRAVOR: We're looking.
And we don't see anything
on the radars at all.
And we're talking to each other,
trying to figure this out.
NARRATOR: The Princeton's
Aegis Spy 1 radar system
is powerful enough to track an
object as small as a baseball
at an altitude of 80,000 feet.
But the jets are flying blind.
 We're trying to see
what was out there,
which is difficult when you
know what you're looking for.
It's even harder when you don't
know what you're looking for.
DAVID FRAVOR: So it goes
down, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20.
It gets all the way down.
They get to a point
where they can't
separate us from the blip.
They call it merge plot, which
means you're in the same space
as whatever you're
looking for, and you've
got to start looking
outside because the radar
can't help you anymore.
NARRATOR: And far
below in the water,
they see what looks
like a plane crash
or a submerging submarine.
[RADIO CHATTER]
But the weapons officer in
the rear seat of Fravor's jet
spots something else.
 I hear, hey,
Skipper, do you see?
And as he's saying that,
I noticed the Tic Tac.
It's white.
It has no wings.
It has no rotors.
I go, holy, what is that?
And he goes, I don't know.
NARRATOR: According to this
leaked summary of the incident,
contact was made here,
30 miles off the coast,
70 miles south of
the US-Mexico border.
At first, the strange craft
stays close to the surface,
moving unlike anything
the pilots had ever seen.
 This thing would go
instantaneous from one way
to another, similar to
if you threw a ping pong
ball against a wall.
And we start to kind of
orbit, because now we're
going to watch this thing.
We start a right-hand turn, and
we're going from a clock code.
The object is in the
middle of the clock.
And we're at 6 o'clock.
And we're driving
around in circles.
So we get to about 9 o'clock,
and it's just still doing
its little erratic thing,
kind of moving around
this disturbance in the water.
And I go, hey, I'm going
to go check it out.
I'm going down there.
As we're coming down
nice easy, we reach
about the 12 o'clock position.
And all of a sudden, it goes,
brrp, then it kind of turns.
And now it's mirroring us,
and it starts coming up.
We're like, OK, now
it knows we're here.
 It seemed to be aware.
And it seems to recognize him.
 It goes from
basically just almost
a hover into a pretty aggressive
climb up to our altitude.
So then there's a bit of
fear because now, you're
out there dealing with
something that you
have no idea what it is.
It's actually reacting
to what we're doing.
I kind of pull a nose, you
know, to where he's going to be.
And he's just coming up.
He just rapidly
accelerates beyond anything
that I've ever seen, crosses
my nose, and it's gone.
And I'm like, whoa.
NARRATOR: The Tic Tac
appears to have vanished.
But as the jets streak towards a
prearranged rendezvous location
known as the CAP point, the
radio chatter becomes frantic.
 The controller
from the Princeton
comes up right as we're
doing all this and says,
hey, sir, you're not
going to believe this,
he goes, but that thing
is at your CAP point.
NARRATOR: According
to Fravor, the Tic Tac
accelerated from a
standing position
and flew approximately 60
miles in under a minute,
as fast as 3,700 miles an hour.
How did the Tic Tac know
the pilot's CAP point?
And how did it
accelerate so quickly?
DAVID FRAVOR:
You've got something
that can accelerate
and disappear
and then show up 60 miles away.
Kind of in awe a little
bit, because you go,
whoa, we don't have
that, you know.
And I'm talking-- we're flying
one of the premier airplanes
on the planet.
What was this?
There is a capability out there.
Don't know where it's from.
Not saying it's from outer
space, but not saying it's
from here either.
NARRATOR: Back on The
Nimitz, the pilots
tell the rest of the
squadron what just happened.
DAVID FRAVOR: The next
crew was getting ready.
So we're talking
to them about this.
And they're like, you've
got to be kidding.
 They took us seriously.
And the WSO, the guy
in the back seat,
said, I'm going to go find it.
NARRATOR: The next jets
launch at a targeting pod with
an infrared sensor and camera.
DAVID FRAVOR: It jammed the
radar, but he got a lock on it.
And that's the
video that you see.
If that doesn't weird you out,
then I don't know what does.
