Commander David Fravor is a retired U.S. Navy fighter pilot who commanded the Black Aces strike fighter squadron (VFA-41) and is the principal named witness to the November 14, 2004 'Tic Tac' encounter off the coast of San Diego. [1]
On that date, while flying an F/A-18F Super Hornet from the USS Nimitz strike group on a routine air-defense exercise, Fravor was vectored toward a radar contact the cruiser USS Princeton had been tracking for several weeks. Above the ocean surface he and his wingman, Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich, observed a smooth white object roughly 40 feet long, hovering and then moving in a way Fravor has consistently described under oath as 'not within the realm of physics I'm aware of.' [2]
The Nimitz incident sat largely outside public attention until the December 2017 New York Times investigation by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, which named Fravor and made the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) public for the first time. [3]
Fravor has since testified under oath before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs (July 26, 2023), and is one of the most frequently cited named pilot-witnesses in the modern congressional UAP record. [4]
- Commanded VFA-41 'Black Aces' strike fighter squadron and is the principal named witness to the 2004 Nimitz/Tic Tac encounter. — Wikipedia — David Fravor
- Described the object's behavior as 'not within the realm of physics I'm aware of' in public testimony. — U.S. House Oversight subcommittee hearing, 26 July 2023
- Named in the December 16, 2017 New York Times investigation that revealed the Pentagon's AATIP program. — New York Times — 'Glowing Auras and Black Money'
- Testified under oath before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Oversight Subcommittee. — U.S. House Oversight Committee press release
- Hearing
Grusch, Fravor, and Graves testify before House Oversight Subcommittee
Former intelligence officer David Grusch, retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor, and retired Navy Lt. Ryan Graves testify under oath before the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. Grusch states that the U.S. government operates a long-running classified program to retrieve and reverse-engineer non-human craft.
- Sighting
USS Nimitz strike group reports the 'Tic Tac' encounter
Aircrews from the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group report repeated radar contacts and a daylight visual encounter with a small, white, smooth, Tic Tac–shaped object during a training exercise in the Pacific. One of three Pentagon videos later released by the Department of Defense (FLIR1) documents a portion of the event.