UFOs Go Mainstream
Tic-Tacs and three-letter agencies
Mar 20, 2025
On November 14, 2004, two F/A-18F pilots from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz , on a routine training mission over the Pacific about 100 miles west of San Diego, were asked to investigate a strange radar signal. The account of what the pilots saw was featured in a story published December 16, 2017, by The New York Times , along with disclosure of a secret Pentagon program that investigated UFO sightings between 2007 and 2012.
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The story was picked up by mainstream media around the world, which, for the first time, appeared to take UFOs and the possibility of extraterrestrial life seriously. That touched off widespread speculation over whether the existence of ETs is finally about to be confirmed.
The main source for the Times article was Luis Elizondo, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who ran the secret program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, from the 5th floor of the C Ring at the Pentagon.[1] $22 million to fund the program was inserted into Defense Department budgets at the request of retired Sen. Harry Reid, most of which, the Times reported, was paid to Bigelow Aerospace, to which the Pentagon outsourced its UFO research. The company is owned by Robert Bigelow, a billionaire friend and supporter of Reidâs. Bigelow also owns Skinwalker Ranch, the alleged site of numerous paranormal events, and heâs a longtime believer in the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Hereâs the short version of whatâs been dubbed the USS Nimitz UFO Incident: According to F/A-18 pilot Cmdr. David Fravor, the radio operator on the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton said theyâd been tracking strange radar signals for a couple weeks. Objects appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, then dropped to 20,000 feet where they stopped and hovered. âThen they either dropped out of radar range or shot straight back up.â[2]
Fravor and his wingman, Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight, found an oval-shaped object about 40 feet long hovering about 50 feet above the ocean, directly over something just below the surface of the water. The pilots couldnât see the submerged object, but it was big enough that waves broke over it, causing the sea to âchurn.â[3]
As Cmdr. Fravor descended for a closer look, the mysterious craft began to climb, almost as if to meet him. Fravor turned toward itâand then it took off. âIt accelerated like nothing Iâve ever seen,â he told the Times .[4]
After communicating with the operations officer on the Princeton , Fravor and Slaight agreed to meet at a rendezvous about 60 miles away, called the cap point. Then the Princeton âs radio operator called back: âSir, you wonât believe it, but that thing is at your cap point.â[5]
According to Fravor, the F-18s were still at least 40 miles away. The object had covered the distance in less than a minute. Even if the travel time is rounded up to exactly one minute, thatâs a speed of 3,600 miles per hourâmore than three times faster than the maximum speed of the F/A-18F Super Hornets flown by Fravor and Slaight.
Also puzzling is how the thing knew to go to the cap point. By the time the pilots arrived there a few minutes later, the object was gone.
Oddly, the thing never showed up on either pilotâs onboard radar. A second flight of four Super Hornets from their squadron, VFA-41 âBlack Aces,â was directed to where Fravor and Slaight had encountered the object. These planes were equipped with Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensors, which enabled one of the crews to record video of the mysterious object.[6] Thatâs the video clip posted by the Times .
Whatever the thing was, the incident almost certainly wasnât a hoax. The object was seen or detected by the crews of six Navy F/A-18s, a Marine Corps F/A-18, an E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft, and the radar crew on the USS Princeton .[7]
So, what was it? And what was in the ocean directly beneath the thing? Fravor estimated the area of churning water at between 50 and 100 meters (about 160 to 320 feet) in diameter
To this day, no one knows. There are a few things to consider, however. First, the incident wasnât exactly a secret before The New York Times published its story at the end of 2017. In February of 2007, a user at the conspiracy forum Above Top Secret posted a transcript of what appears to be a genuine event summary from Carrier Air Wing 11.[9]
Then in March of 2014, the encounter was written up for a website called Fighter Sweep. Paco Chierci, a fellow fighter pilot, wrote that heâd heard the story directly from Cmdr. Fravor sometime around 2007, by which time the video from the F/A-18âs infrared sensor had been leaked to YouTube.
Curiously, by the time Chierci wrote his article, the video was no longer online.
[L]ast month when I called Dave to refresh my memory before sitting down to write this bizarre encounter, he informed me that the video had been removed from YouTube. He told me that a government agency with a three-letter identifier had recently conducted an investigation into the AAVs and had exhaustively interviewed all parties involved.
All of the seven flight crew, including 6 aircrew from VFA-41 and Cheeks from VMFA-232. The Fire Control Officer and Senior Chief from Princeton, and the radar operator on the E-2. They even queried the crew of the USS Louisville, a Los Angeles-class Fast-Attack submarine that was in the area as part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group who reported there were no unidentified sonar contacts or strange underwater noises on that day.[10]
A three-letter identifier? DIA, perhaps?
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Letâs ask some obvious questions: Since video of the Nimitz incident has been floating around the Internet for more than 15 years, why is it getting attention from mainstream media now ? Whatâs changed? Remember, when watching or reading news, the timing of a storyâs release is often more important than the story itself.
In October 2017, Luis Elizondo left his career as an intelligence officer for the U.S. government and took a new job as Chief of Global Security for To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, now called To the Stars Incorporated, a company that launched October 11, 2017.
The timeline of his job change means that Elizondo and TTS Academy were in talks prior to his resignation from the DOD. (It also means he waited five years to resign after funding for his program was cut off.) Just eight weeks after his departure from government service, Elizondo was featured in the Times article. And within a month of the Times story, he was interviewed about UFOs by CNN, CBS, NPR, HLN, and Glenn Beck, among others.
TTS Academyâs mission, according to its website, was to be âa powerful vehicle for change by creating a consortium among science, aerospace and entertainment that will work collectively to allow gifted researchers the freedom to explore exotic science and technologies with the infrastructure and resources to rapidly transition them to products that can change the worldâŠâ[11] In other words, it will promote the idea that ETs exist and are here to help in the âtransformationâ of humanity (whatever that means).
Now, maybe Elizondo just wanted the world to know that âthe truth is out there,â to borrow a phrase. He told CNNâs Erin Burnett, âThere is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.â[12]
On the other hand, Elizondo might have been trying to use a compelling piece of UFO video as a marketing hook to attract investors to the new company.
Still, why would one man get this kind of attention for a topic the mainstream media usually plays for laughs? A look at some of Elizondoâs colleagues is revealing.
There was a very large intelligence community presence at To the Stars Academy. Other than the president and interim CEO, Tom DeLonge, former guitarist and lead singer of the rock band Blink-182, most of the visible members of the team had long careers with American intelligence agencies or defense contractors. For example:
- Dr. Hal Puthoff (VP Science & Technology): Directed the Stanford Research Instituteâs experiments in remote viewing in the 1970s and â80s, part of the Stargate Project for the CIA and DIA.
- Jim Semivan (VP Operations): Retired in 2007 from the CIA; since retirement, consults for CIA on tradecraft training (teaching spies how to spy).
- Steve Justice (Aerospace Division Director): Recently retired after 31 years as Program Director for Advanced Systems from Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs, the âSkunk Worksâ that developed secret aircraft like the U-2 and the stealth fighter.
- Chris Mellon (National Security Affairs Advisor): Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and Bush Administrations.
- Dr. Paul Rapp (Brain Function & Consciousness Consultant): âPast honors include a Certificate of Commendation from the Central Intelligence Agency for âsignificant contributions to the mission of the Office of Research and Development.ââ
- Dr. Norm Kahn (National Security & Program Management Consultant): 30-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency, culminating in development and direction of the Intelligence Communityâs Counter-Biological Weapons Program.[13]
You get the picture. From the mediaâs viewpoint, these men are credible sources. UFO stories coming from them carry weight. From our perspective, however, their backgrounds raise additional questions. The American intelligence community has been embedded in the modern UFO phenomenon since the end of World War 2.
Now, there are a couple plausible explanations for loading up the company with IC professionals. They may have experience that makes them uniquely qualified to analyze the UFO phenomenon. Maybe these people are leveraging that experience to launch an exciting new private venture. We canât blame them for that; the private sector presumably pays better than government service.
Maybe these people are true believers who feel the time is now to share the âtruthâ about UFOs. And, for some reason, these career professionals, with decades of experience at the highest levels of the intelligence and defense industries, decided that partnering with the former guitarist and lead singer for a popular rock band was the best way to do it. (But seriouslyâwhat?)[14]
But thereâs another explanation. People like this have been connected to encounters with unidentified craft since 1947âto shape what the public thinks about UFOs and the existence of ETIs (extraterrestrial intelligences).
You might ask why the intelligence community would encourage belief in UFOs and ETIs. Good question. From the Pentagonâs point of view, is it better for the Kremlin to think weâve invented a new aircraft that can make 3,600 miles an hour or to believe Earth is being visited by ETs?
That may seem flippant, but itâs true. Itâs documented fact that the Department of Defense command tasked with âstrategic deception,â Joint Security Control, contacted the Army Air Forceâs public relations staff in July of 1947, just a few weeks after Roswell, to advise them on addressing the UFO phenomenon.[15]
That leads to a key point: Just because those F/A-18 pilots canât identify what they saw doesnât mean the craft is extraterrestrial . It may have been an experimental drone. And while those Navy and Marine Corps pilots are professionals and patriots, if they didnât need to know about a secret project, the government agency conducting the test isnât going to tell them what it was.
But even if that unidentified craft wasnât one of ours (and by âoursâ we mean âhumanâ), that still doesnât mean itâs extraterrestrial.
The difficulty of space travel has been vastly understated by movies and television. Wormholes and warp drive are convenient devices used by writers to explain away the time and energy requirements of interstellar travel, but they are science fiction . Itâs one reason that serious, secular UFO researchers like Jacques VallĂ©e, John Keel, and J. Allen Hynek came to believe that UFOs are more likely extra-dimensional than extra-terrestrial .
And now youâre speaking our language. We Christians know that Earth has been visited by non-human entities who seem to defy the laws of physics for thousands of years. The UFO phenomenon is realâitâs just not what most people in the UFO community think it is.
Weâre not saying those pilots in 2004 saw an angel or angelic craft. We are saying we need to apply more critical thinking to UFO accounts. âWe donât know, ergo aliens,â is not an example of thoughtful analysis.
Summing up: There is no evidence that the 2004 Nimitz UFO was extraterrestrial. That itâs been featured by mainstream media twenty years later is curious, especially considering the nature of the group behind the re-release of the video. Their motive for pushing the incident into the spotlight may be as simple as profiting from the publicity. Or they may be true believers spreading the ET gospel. Or it might be the intelligence community doing what the intelligence community doesâspreading disinformation in the service of government.
Orâconsidering that we wrestle not against flesh and bloodâin the service of principalities, powers, and cosmic rulers over this present darkness.
Jesus commanded us to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds . Asking intelligent questions when the media serves up stories like this is one of the ways we do it.
[1] Helene Cooper, Leslie Kean, & Ralph Blumenthal, âGlowing auras and âblack moneyâ: The Pentagonâs mysterious U.F.O. program.â The New York Times , Dec. 16, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html, retrieved 4/2/24.
[2] Helene Cooper, Leslie Kean, & Ralph Blumenthal, â2 navy airmen and an object that âaccelerated like nothing Iâve ever seenâ.â The New York Times , Dec. 16, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html#story-continues-2, retrieved 4/2/24.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Kyle Mizokami, âThat time the U.S. Navy had a close encounter with a UFO.â Popular Mechanics , K. Dec. 18, 2017. That Time the U.S. Navy Had a Close Encounter With a UFO, retrieved 4/2/24.
[7] Paco Chierci, âThere I was: The X-Files edition.â Fighter Sweep , Mar. 14, 2015. There I Was: The X-Files Edition | Fighter Sweep, retrieved 4/2/24.
[8] Ibid.
[9] User âcometa2.â (2007, February 13). âFighter jet UFO footage: The real deal.â Above Top Secret . Fighter Jet UFO Footage: The Real Deal, page 9, retrieved 2/4/24.
[10] Chierci, op. cit.
[11] âMission.â To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. https://web.archive.org/web/20171231152554/https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/#mission, retrieved 4/2/24.
[12] Eli Watkins & Brian Todd, âFormer Pentagon UFO official: âWe may not be aloneââ. CNN.com . http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/politics/luis-elizondo-ufo-pentagon/index.html, retrieved 2/4/24.
[13] âThe Team.â To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. To The Stars Academy retrieved 4/2/24.
[14] As noted, the company has rebranded as To the Stars, Inc., âan award-winning, vertically integrated entertainment company,â which may be better suited to the talents of CEO Tom DeLongeâalthough CIA veteran Jim Semivan is still on the board of directors. About To The Stars*, retrieved 4/2/24.
[15] Derek P. Gilbert & Josh Peck, The Day the Earth Stands Still (Crane, MO: Defender, 2017), p. 74.