Navy pilot on Tic Tac details: What was in the water? — Part 3

Commander David Fravor encountered the Tic Tac UFO in 2004 while flying an F-18 with the US Nimitz carrier group. In this interview segment, recorded in 2019, Fravor discusses a disturbance in the ocean underneath the Tic Tac, acknowledges there have been dozens of other pilots who have reported similar encounters, and refers to congressional interest in UFOs. Previously unaired interview from May 18, 2019. Last of 3 Parts.

George Knapp: You watched it for more than five minutes. You saw it as close as anybody got. And it was doing something really strange over a disturbance in the water.

David Fravor: Yes.

Knapp: Was there something in the water?

Fravor: We don’t know. So here’s what it is. I’ll say what drew us to it, is there was … it was a perfectly calm blue ocean day, no white caps, and there was whitewater. The whitewater was kind of in the shape of … you can call it a cross … but about the size was 737. So, take a 737, drop it, a look at it from the top, and point it to the east, and we’re down to the south of it. That’s what the whitewater look like. And the Tic Tac was moving around that whitewater. So we didn’t see if there was something below the surface. Because you know, if it’s 10, 15 feet below the surface, it’s still going to cause the waves, those swells, to break over the top of it like a seamount. So we didn’t, we didn’t see anything below. We just know there was something causing that water to break over the top of it on a perfectly … like a pristine, spectacular San Diego day, is what it was.

Knapp: As if it was docking or interacting with something?

Fravor: Don’t know. When we first came back, So what was it doing? Was it trying … was it interacting? Because obviously, we talked. When we turned around, we couldn’t find the disturbance in the water anymore. It was gone. So you know, normally if it’s a real seamount, it’s going to be there until God removes it. So in this case, I go, we said, you know, Well, was it communicating? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But it could have been.

Knapp: That video itself was not classified, but it was in a classified system and whoever … somebody stole it. Somebody took it out of there.

Fravor: That’s correct. The video at the time when it was taken was actually classified. Right. And it was put on the system and the displays because the ATFLIR’s relatively new, which is the advanced targeting forward-looking infrared receiver. It’s a targeting pod. So that … the display was actually classified at the time. Somehow it got off of that drive, which is a secret system and got put on to strangeland.com was the first one that got sent to me. And then it was on YouTube. It was on YouTube for years. I used to tell the story to my friends and they’d go, “No way.” And I’d send them the link to the YouTube video that was the video taken by one of my crews. And then it disappeared. It actually disappeared in about 2009 when the unofficial official report was done. It disappeared off …

Knapp: The unofficial official report. You’ve read it. It’s legit, right? It’s accurate.

Fravor: Oh, very much. Oh, yeah, I read it right after he got done. I talked to him when he was doing it. We talked on the phone extensively. But oh, he he did a pretty good job. He actually did a lot of research … because there was things, like people, the names of the actual people in positions, that I was like, “I think it’s this one but it might not …” because people we know, we change a lot in the Navy. So no, he did a he did a very thorough job writing that report.

Knapp: You had that experience. It was dramatic and made an effect it impacted you as well stuck in your memory. But you didn’t report it. You didn’t make a big stink about it. You didn’t go to the media and report it right?

Fravor: No, no, we were … it was a two-month at-sea period. We got to go home for Thanksgiving. We pulled in … they weren’t gonna let us go home for Thanksgiving, but they let us go home for Thanksgiving, which was nice. No, we, after about two days, some people would still come and talk me on the boat, but I was running a squadron. And I had 330 people that depended on me. We were, you know, I had all my air crew that I had to go watch as they were going out and flying. We had missions to do. I mean, we were … literally … my focus was getting ready to go over to the Persian Gulf to support the ground forces.

Knapp: Did you become a clearinghouse for UFO stories from other pilots? Did they call you up? Hey, I saw one.

Fravor: I had some call me I know after I talked to Lue (Elizondo). They had, after I came out and he got me to do the New York Times article, they had more and more people starting to report through internal chains. Chains inside DoD that were saying they saw stuff, while he was still at the Pentagon. So it probably increased because people realize, “Well, that guy just did. So why can’t we?” I also had people send me emails saying, hey, I’ve had these experiences, so …

Knapp: Gimbal. Go Fast. You’ve seen the videos.

Fravor: Seen ’em.

Knapp: You’ve been asked about them.

Fravor: I have.

Knapp: What do you think?

Fravor: The gimbal video, I’ve actually talked to some of the aircrew that were involved in that video. There’s a lot more that you don’t see that are in that … the entire radar display that we’ve discussed with them. I think it’s legit. I mean, I know there’s people disproving it, but if you understand what you’re looking at when you’re looking at the targeting pod display, and what’s happening. And this was not a secret. Off the coast of Virginia, there’s like 60 or 70 people have seen these things show up on their radar, which is one of the best radars in the world in the nose of the Super Hornet. So I would say yeah, legit. Then the guys they’re picking up the little white object — the Go Fast video. When people get really excited, especially aircrew, it’s usually something different. And then some people say, “Oh, it’s a missile, it’s that …” No. Most of the missiles get there subsonic, I’ve chased harpoon launches. I mean, you see that stuff when you’re in long enough. No. And they usually don’t shoot them in the whiskey area like that. They have to block off areas and make sure there’s no boats. So …

Knapp: One other question, I don’t know what you can say about this. A lot of reports about congressional interest, at last. From congressional interest, staff members and elected members, can you say anything about whether you’ve been involved in any of that, or whether you know that there are, in fact, inquiries?

Fravor: I won’t get into specifics, but I will say, yes, there’s an interest inside the government to actually investigate. It’s just like anything. I wouldn’t say it’s bipartisan at all. We’re not split down the middle on this. I think there’s people from both sides that say, “Hey, look, there’s a technology … there’s, capabilities out there that we can’t explain, that are able to penetrate defenses.” So just from a national security point, you would say, I’d probably pay a little attention. Are they hostile? I don’t know. We haven’t been attacked or anything like that. But I look at it for two reasons. One, is there’s a capability, we can’t explain it. Number two, is if you can explain it, then you can literally change everything that we do.