Navy Pilot’s 2004 UFO: A Comedy of Errors
by Joe Nickell
I already commented on my opinion of Joe Nickell in post #2916. I don't believe that Joe Nickell has any more authority in these matters than I do. He wasn't there and all he's doing is speculating, then parading his speculations as if they are authoritative answers.
To recap, we suggest that several things were going on during what was, after all, a training mission of the USS Nimitz carrier strike group.
A nice little move that Nickell slipped in there, trying to suggest that these aviators and radar operators were inexperienced newbies. The carrier group was about to be operationally deployed. Military units run exercises constantly in order to stay fresh and at the top of their games, and give everyone experience working together. There probably were some inexperienced (but fully trained) individuals mixed in, and part of the purpose of the exercise was to integrate them. The point to note was that Fravor was a very experienced
squadron commander and definitely not a newbie. (Reportedly 16 years of flying experience and a graduate of the Navy's elite "Top Gun" fighter school. The latter would qualify him as a Fighter Tactics Instructor for the other pilots on the carrier. It sounds like he was one of the most senior pilots on the ship.) The Marine was another squadron commander. The radar operator on the
Princeton was a Senior Chief Petty Officer with 17 years of experience with Aegis cruiser radar systems.
The royal "we"?
the churning water Fravor first saw was caused by a submerging sub
Nickell believes that on the basis of... what? Was there a submarine in the area? (Yes) Had it just submerged? (Unclear, but no indication that it had.) Had it just launched anything? (It says no.)
that the sightings of a UFO above the water (variously reported)—which hovered, then came toward one pilot—could have been those of a reconnaissance drone
Sure, could have been. Speculation again. But it would have had to have been a damn good reconaissance drone if it accelerated and decelerated almost instantaneously and flew 40 miles in less than one minute, suggesting speeds in excess of 2,400 mph. If it was the same thing observed on the
Princeton's radar rising and descending like a ballistic missile (and that radar contact is what initially attracted attention to that particular spot after all) it would have had to have been an even better "reconnaissance drone". But it does remain a possibility, no matter how remote it might seem, which is why I was speculating about UCAVs earlier in the thread.
JamesR didn't like it then (post #1447) and called it a "conspiracy theory". But apparently it's fine when Nickell makes a similar speculation.
that there may have been confusion (then and later) over the object or objects caused by the admixture of visual sightings with infrared video viewing
The infrared and visual video imagery came from jets that subsequently arrived on the scene and acquired the UFO while carrying targeting pods, which Fravor's initial jet wasn't carrying. The fact that the subsequent jets that launched from the carrier also acquired the unidentified object is additional evidence that something was objectively there. (That
Convergence of Evidence thing.)
and, finally, that one video image showing an object suddenly zooming off screen was likely caused by the plane’s banking while the camera was stopped at the end of its sweep.
Nickell is familiar with the technical details of the targeting pods? (Much of which is probably classified?) I doubt it. Nickell has no technical background at all that I'm aware of (his PhD is in
Literature) and has no military aviation experience either (he was a Vietnam draft-dodger who fled to Canada).
Apparently not only had the incident not been considered serious enough to have warranted a debriefing of Fravor—let alone of the several other pilots and radar operator
Nickell knows this how? His words seem to (once again) directly contradict the executive summary.
https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document_dev/2018/05/18/TIC TAC UFO EXECUTIVE REPORT_1526682843046_42960218_ver1.0.pdf
From page 9 of that document: "The flight proceeded to CVIC. Lt. [redacted] noted that the sailors in CIVC had donned tinfoil caps and wanted to know about the "UFO flight". They reviewed the tapes and described to CIVC what they had seen and what the flight had done. He was not asked to sign any non-disclosure agreement and he is uncertain how far up the chain the reporting went past his commanding officer."
Here's what CVIC is
https://fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/rfs/part06.htm
but most of the carrier group’s personnel at the time regarded Fravor’s response as laughable.
That's evidence of nothing but those individuals' own preexisting bias. It's obviously a disfunctional attitude in a military organization. The US Navy says that it's working on changing it.
CC already addressed that very well in post #2938 saying, "For security reasons, it would be irresponsible for defense forces to ignore potential spying or invasive threats entering national airspace because descriptions and accounts from their own personnel suggest something bizarre or unusual. What a free pass that would be if legitimate encroachment was occurring. 'The dimwit guards will let you enter the warehouse without consequences if you camouflage yourself in eerie costumes and play spooky music.' "
CC quotes the History Channel, "The Navy considers UAPs like these a national security and safety problem because they are not authorized to be in U.S. airspace. After a series of classified briefings featuring Navy pilots and lawmakers this summer, the Navy announced it had formalized its process for pilots and other personnel to report UAPs so that records of these sightings are more consistent, and therefore easier to investigate.
[Navy spokesman Joseph] Gradisher told HISTORY the Navy is trying to reduce the stigma of reporting UAPs, which in the past pilots may have been disparaged-or ignored-for reporting. "We want to get beyond that stigma, and encourage our aviators to report anything that they're seeing out there."
The
Navy Times reports the same thing: "The Navy is updating its guidelines to encourage pilots to more thoroughly report what they see, Gradisher said. And Navy investigators have been traveling to bases such as Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where squadrons of F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets are based, to talk to aviators."
"We need reports and data and things we can analyze and that's where our aviators come into play," Gradisher said. "We need them to participate. In years past they didn't necessarily do that because there was a stigma to reporting on something being unidentified."