Retired US Navy pilot commander David Fravor, who eye-witnessed and tracked the 2004 Tic Tac-shaped California UFO, has revealed previously unreported details about the incident in a recent interview with Russian-American YouTuber and MIT researcher Lex Fridman.
Fravor during the interview referred to the incident as “an act of war” and suggested that the object was “giant leap in technology” that would soon be disclosed.
Fravor, a former squadron leader who served in the US Navy for 18 years, told Fridman that the incident took place while he and with four other “trained observers”, were conducting a routine training mission. During the mission they watched a mysterious object perform extraordinary maneuvers off the California coast.
“This is not like we saw it and it was gone or I saw lights in the sky and it's gone – we watched this thing on a crystal clear day with four trained observers,” Fravor said in the 8 September interview.
The former pilot said that he and his crew had received an order to observe and identify a mysterious aircraft the Navy had been tracking for at least two weeks. Fravor added that he and fellow Commander Jim Slaight, along with two others, were sent out in fighter jets to observe.
Fravor narrated that the object suddenly appeared at an altitude of 80,000 feet, hurtled toward the sea, stopped instantly and then hovered at about 20,000 feet, before it all-too-quickly heading straight up into the atmosphere and away from the Earth.
“We see this little white Tic Tac because we’re about 20 feet above it and its going north, south, north, south, and it's abrupt,” Fravor said, noting that the UFO did not move like a helicopter or like any other known aircraft.
The aviator recalled that he insisted on approaching the object to “check it out”, flying to a distance of approximately half a mile away, before the unknown object flew away and disappeared within “less than a half second”.
“I’m going to meet it and I’m probably a half mile away and it’s coming across my nose …and it just accelerates and disappears at about 12,000 feet in less than a half second and it’s gone,” Fravor told Fridman. “I remember telling the guy in my back seat, ‘Dude, I dunno about you but I’m pretty weirded out’”.
After the UFO disappeared, Fravor narrated further that the team decided to fly back down towards the sea to check out what the Tic Tac-shaped object was potentially hovering around in the water, but to no purpose, as nothing notable was above the surface of the ocean when they arrived.
After landing, Fravor learned that the object had been successfully located on the radar of his colleague, Chad Underwood, and a trace video had been recorded. It was also noticed that their radar had been “jammed” at some point, something that is considered in military circles as “an act of war”.
“When you actively jam another platform, yes, it’s technically an act of war,” he stated.
In response to the host’s question on whether he believes the UFO was from another planet, Fravor responded, “I don't like to get into little green men but I don't think we've developed it [...] I think you can hide things for a while. This is a giant leap in technology”.
The Tic-Tac-shaped UFO sighting is said to have taken place on 10 November 2004. Thirteen years later, radar video of the incident was leaked and made available to the public, triggering wide media coverage and investigation, resulting in the Pentagon officially releasing the trace videos in 2020.