Five veterans of the US Navy, involved in the sensational story of the UFO "Tick Tac", shared interesting details.
The events that took place in 2004 during the exercises of the aircraft carrier Nimitz and the missile cruiser Princeton off the coast of Southern California continue to excite the imagination of both ufologists and journalists.
Then the pilots of the naval aviation collided with a strange object in the sky and tried to intercept it.
Recall that the story received publicity only in 2017 after the publication of the video of the interception on the Web, the authenticity of which was later confirmed by the US Navy. And the main eyewitness was the pilot of the F / A-18 Super Hornet, David Fravor.
Popular Mechanics spoke with other witnesses to the events. These are US Navy veterans Gary Voorhees, Jason Turner, P. J. Hughes, Ryan Weigelt and Kevin Day.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Gary Voorhees had served almost six years in the Navy at the time. He recalls that many new systems appeared on the Princeton cruiser then, including the Spy-1 Bravo radar.
When Voorhees heard that he was picking up some "ghostly" signals, he was worried that the equipment was faulty. He was the only technician on the ship responsible for the readiness of the CEC system (Cooperative Engagement Capability, the US Navy information system that allows several combat units to separate the functions of detecting and intercepting air targets) and the AEGIS combat system. So I decided to calibrate the equipment.
But after that, the signals became clearer.
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“Sometimes they were at 80,000 feet (about 24 kilometers) or 60,000 feet. Other times around 30,000 feet. Their signature did not match any known aircraft. No yelling, no IFF (identification "friend or foe")."
Strange signals in the area of the island of San Clemente were recorded by the chief of the operations department, Kevin Day.
Voorhees, when these objects once again appeared on the radar, having determined their relative axis, he even tried to see them through binoculars. However, I saw only something chaotically moving.
“I couldn't make out the details. They just hung up, and then suddenly, in an instant, went in another direction and stopped again,”says Voorhees. "They gave off a phosphoric glow at night and were a little easier to see."
In the end, after four days of observing these anomalies, Kevin Day convinced his commander to send a plane to try and intercept the strange objects.
In fact, this caused VFA-41 Squadron Commander David Fravor to face what he later described as "an elongated egg or 'Tick Tac' with a noticeable horizontal axis along the centerline, approximately 46 feet long."
The unidentified object easily dodged the two fighters, demonstrating "advanced acceleration, aerodynamics and propulsion capabilities."
Already during the next flight of F / A-18, thanks to the modern designator ATFLIR, Lieutenant Chad Underwood successfully captured the anomalous object on video.
Thirteen years later, a one-minute video was published and the story went public.
However, as the author of the article emphasizes, the events that took place after the interception remained in the shadows.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason Turner claims he accidentally saw that interception recording being played on one of the ship's computers. And it was different from the video that was released to the public.
“This thing was going crazy, as if it were spinning. In this case, a person would receive incredible overloads. She maneuvered as if she was being chased, then stopped spinning and just walked away. In an instant. The video you see now is just a small snippet at the beginning."
Even now, Turner still looks visibly alarmed by what he saw that day. “I asked a good friend of mine who worked in this field, is this a teaching? “No,” a friend replied. "This is real life."
Petty Officer Voorhees also told Popular Mechanics that he saw a fuller, clearer version of the video. Its duration was 8-10 minutes.
At the time, US Air Force Junior Officer Patrick Hughes was on the deck of the aircraft carrier Nimitz and was unaware of the unidentified objects.
As an aeronautical technician, he was responsible for the safety of the E-2 Hawkeye's early warning aircraft data recorders.
On November 14, Hughes sent hard drives to a secret safe, unaware that they came from an airplane that they initially tried to use to intercept UFOs.
Soon after, the commander visited him with two unknown officers. “They weren't on the ship before, and I didn't see how they got on it,” Hughes said.
The commander asked to remove the newly attached hard drives. They were put in a bag and carried away.
Voorhees also saw two strangers on the cruiser Princeton. They arrived at the ship by helicopter, and 20 minutes later he received an order from the command to transfer all data records of the AEGIS system. In addition, he was asked to reboot the ship's CEC recorders and erase all records on the system.
At the same time, the author notes that pilot David Fravor is skeptical about the story of the "men in black" and the mysterious disappearance of all records.
The pilot believes that the storage media were accidentally overwritten. This happens in their practice. He assures that mysterious people did not come to him or to other pilots who saw UFOs and asked to sign non-disclosure papers.
However, Popular Mechanics spoke to another witness who did not want to be named. He said that the Black Hawk helicopter actually landed on the ship, and the visitors took all the data from the secret rooms.
“We were all pretty shocked. But there was an unspoken rule not to talk about it, and we didn't want to jeopardize our career, he explained.
Popular Mechanics also spoke with Luis Elizondo, a former UFO researcher in the office of the US Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. In particular, he was asked about the presence of a longer video recording of the UFO interception. He replied that he could not comment on information held by the US government.
Also, a former Pentagon official assured that a comprehensive investigation was carried out taking into account various sources of data.
Author: Oleg Koryakin