(low rumbling)
- The vast expanse of Nevada's badlands stretches
endlessly to the horizon.
Hidden within these mountain strongholds
are some of America's deepest and darkest secrets.
Secret aircraft and the other legends of Area 51.
Among these sandstone canyons today
there's a new glimmer of truth.
Shrouded in mystery it's a story that demands to be told.
These are the witnesses of one of America's most unusual
UFO encounters in history.
Navy veterans and a band of brothers
that want you to know that what they witnessed is real.
This is their story.
Petty Officer Jason Turner server aboard
the USS Princeton in 2004.
His personal conviction for democracy and patriotism
guides him in his search for the truth.
- This is an actual event that happened
and I witnessed it.
Aviation tech Patrick Hughes,
a USS Nimitz veteran, he speaks for his shipmates
who choose to remain silent.
- I'm one of those who has to see to believe
and obviously I've seen the evidence of this
so it exists.
- Top Gun Air Intercept Controller Kevin Day
and Fire Controlman Gary Voorhis, both from the Princeton,
served together in the ship's Combat Information Center.
They saw them first.
Whatever it is they are.
- They wanted to show themselves, whatever they were.
I don't think they wanted anything really to do with us.
- They were literally breaking the laws of physics
in my eyes.
These sailors are here for truth and vindication.
And their story goes back over a decade to a time and place
that marked a departure for all of them,
both in their Navy careers, but also in their knowledge
of the limits of man's technological
understanding of our world.
(dramatic instrumental)
Looking out over the ocean towards the horizon,
sun, sea, and sky form an endless vista.
A never-ending cycle of tide, wind, and waves.
Here, far from shore strange events have unfolded.
These stories stretch the boundaries of our imagination
and challenge our beliefs.
This is a true story of such events from the accounts
of the sailors and naval aviators who experienced them,
professional military service members who want the world
to know that what they encountered is real.
Even more troubling, our military has no explanation.
The answers seem to elude everyone,
like reflections on the waves.
Yet, they are out there.
(jets blasting)
November 10th, 2004.
90 miles Southwest of San Diego California
in the Naval Operations Area,
the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and her compliment
of warships and the aircraft of Air Wing 11,
are conducting a routine, two-week training exercise.
Nearby, the guided missile cruiser,
USS Princeton has been tracking unknown aircraft
that appear and disappear from her sophisticated
AEGIS radar screens.
The SPY1 Bravo radar is one of the most advanced
sensors ever deployed.
Princeton's main role is air defense of the Strike Group
and Operations Specialist Senior Chief Day
is in charge of protecting the airspace around the Nimitz.
- And my job was to man the radars and ID everything
that flew in the skies.
And I also sat a position called anti air warfare
coordinator where if we ever had to go to war,
I was the guy who was going to launch
the missiles and kill shit.
In addition to that, I was an air intercept controller
when the Super Hornet is taking off the carrier,
I'm the guy that takes control
and takes them to the fight and get 'em some home safe.
There was a lot of experience in that room.
The captain had 28 years, I had 18 years,
and the AEGIS ship is our newest weapons system afloat.
And it's got the spy one radar system,
a phased array radar system.
And I was an expert on that.
- Inside the Combat Information Center
Chief Day's attention is focused on a group of unknown
aircraft on the Spy 1 screen.
He's trying to identify them.
- I was on watch and we were probably 100 miles,
I forget how far exactly that day
we were off the coast of San Diego, south southwest.
Kind of off the coast of Mexico, Baja.
And I started to notice, these weird tracks
that were popping under my radar coverage right around
San Clemente island.
And the reason why I say there are weird because they were
appearing in groups of five to 10 at a time
and they were pretty closely spaced to each other.
And they were 28,000 feet going a hundred
knots tracking south.
And in the back of my mind I'm thinking, you know,
that's Kinda odd.
I mean, what, I don't know anything that flies like that.
They weren't on the COMAIR routes,
the commercial airline routes.
I wasn't really that concerned about it
and I didn't consider them them hostile
for any reason at all.
Another watcher too as I'm watching the same formation
appeared again and over the course of three, four days
probably counted up to that point groups of five to 10
at a time, there were probably 50, 60 tracks by then.
- Today Kevin and Gary are still looking for answers.
They've known each other for over a decade
since their Navy days.
Gary was a 3rd Class Petty Officer
and Fire Controlman back then.
- I worked on the AEGIS computer system
on a CG 59 guided missile cruiser at USS Princeton.
I'm in charge of CEC and a data recording and maintaining
and operating all the mainframes that run the system.
- They're both becoming increasingly frustrated
in their attempts to ID the strange aerial objects,
which have no transponders,
and fit no known flight profiles.
- The guys that work on Spy one Bravo radar,
they had come across and said they needed to take the system
down for recalibration cause they were getting a clutter
or ghost tracks and they needed to recalibrate
to get rid of them.
And then once they did finish all that recalibration,
bring it the tracks didn't disappear.
They were still there, but they were actually
sharper and clearer.
- They were doing diagnostic tests on everything
we had to make sure it was not a system malfunction
and it turned out that it wasn't,
these were actually real objects.
I had the highest SPY track quality possible
on these contacts.
- In this situation I actually started recording
on all four tapes at the same time.
That way it was at one continuous loop and I was just
replacing them as they were becoming full.
- We failed utterly to identify these things.
It didn't meet any of the parameters for anything
that was known.
- In some cases, they seem to descend from space,
and then suddenly plunge to near sea level in seconds.
Coupled with the unidentified nature of the craft
and lack of clearance, these extreme flight observations
are very troubling to the crew assigned to protect
the carrier group from aerial threats.
Sunday Nov 14th, morning.
The Nimitz deck crew is busy launching
F/A-18F Super Hornets, helicopters
and E2-Hawekeye Electronic Warfare Planes.
The mission?
Simulated air defense, or ADEX training over the Pacific.
The winds are calm, the skies are clear,
a near perfect day for flying.
As they launch, the Black Aces Squadron
has no knowledge of events happening nearby.
- In the back of my mind, that's when I determined
I was going to become concerned about these objects.
We were getting ready to launch a whole bunch of aircraft
in that same piece of sky.
- Fast Eagle climbs out to 20 thousand feet
and heads to the CAP station,
about 40 miles south of the carrier.
The CAP is a rendezvous point used to form up
with the other airplanes.
- There's 25 miles separation.
- The commander of Fast Eagle has over a decade
in the Air Wing.
His wingman for the day is a new pilot,
a young officer on her first carrier deployment.
She's paired with a senior pilot,
her backseat weapon's system officer for the mission.
He will manage navigation and the advanced radar
and targeting pods on the aircraft.
(jets blasting)
Overhead, an E2 Hawkeye from the Wall Bangers squadron
is on station directing the aircraft.
Banger provides eye in the sky command and control
during carrier flight operations.
Back in the Combat Information Center on Princeton
the mysterious objects are back and today is the first time
Senior Chief Day has jets in the air
that can intercept the mysterious aircraft.
- I'm seeing these contacts.
Captain Smith orders me to intercept one of them
so I just want back to the console,
I pick the closest one that was to us,
and I had intended to let the Hawkeye do the intercept
because they already had control.
It's just easier.
- Day briefs the Captain and they agree
to send the Hornets.
The Air Intercept Controller aboard Princeton,
Callsign Charlie radios the Hawkeye
and takes control of Fast Eagle.
- Banger, it's Charlie.
- Charlie this is Banger, go ahead.
- Banger to Charlie, do you hold unknown air contact
BRA 270 48 28,000 feet at Bogey.
- Charlie to Banger, negative.
Radar picture's clean.
- The E-2 radar operators have been frustrated
in their attempts to get a radar return on the unknown
aerial target that Princeton is tracking.
Even with their 24-foot radar dish,
they can't get a lock on the object.
- Banger to Charlie,
transfer Fast Eagles flight to Charlie control, button 13.
- We have a Real World Tasking for them.
- Charlie to Banger, Roger.
- Fast Eagle Charlie, stand by For Real World Tasking.
- Charlie Fast Eagle, send it.
- We vector towards that position in the sky
and real quiet on the radio,
I'm just giving him, BRA calls,
which is bearing, range, altitude
to these unknown bogey groups and basically
I'm just telling the air crew where the object is,
the bearing from them and the range from them
and the altitudes so they can drive towards it.
- Contact BRA 270 41
20,000 feet Bogey Snap 270.
Over.
- Roger Bearing 270 41 miles.
- 100 go trail.
- 100.
- Say state?
- State 12,000 pounds.
Clean, do you have it?
- I'm trying to get a track on it now.
They sent LINK 16, but my radar picture is clean.
- The next radio call takes everyone by surprise.
- Fast Eagle 110, say load out.
110 what's you weapons load out?
- The tactical action officer, the TAO,
jumps on the radio, her name was Lieutenant Elders
and she just point blank asked the Fast Eagle flight
if they were carrying any type of weapons
and there was a stunned pause on the radio.
- Wings clean Princeton.
We just have CATM training missiles
and they're not coming off the rail.
- We're in an exercise environment
and the last thing we wanted to do is start shooting stuff.
- Now the controllers have the pilot's undivided attention.
Normally, the squadron doesn't carry
live ordinance when training.
- What do you guys think that was about?
- What, about the load out?
I have no idea.
Maybe it's drug runners or something?
- Man it could be, or a lost Cessna out of So-cal.
- I don't like this.
- Fast Eagle Charlie, contact BRA 160 34.
At 8,000 feet, Bogey.
(dramatic music) (jets blasting)
- Roger, 34 miles at 8,000.
Committed, your call, continuing.
- As Fast Eagle approaches the target,
they see nothing unusual.
Their onboard radars can't get a lock on the object.
- Fast Eagle Charlie BRA 160 10 8,000 feet.
- Roger.
(dramatic music)
- Fast Eagle Charlie.
Merge plot.
- Basically what the merge plot means on the radar.
You got two objects in the same vertical piece of sky.
So when I'm looking at the 2D display,
it looks like one radar blob now.
- The object appears to be stationary.
- I had it at 17.7k
- Showing there's basically no air speed on it.
- Hey, you guys seeing this?
- What is that?
- As the Super Hornets approach the target,
they see a disturbance on the ocean surface;
it's about the size of a 737,
and it looks like something could be just below the surface.
- 100 Anchor here.
Angels 24.
- Roger.
- Charlie Fast Eagle.
- We're observing something in the water.
Possibly aircraft in the water at the merge plot
just north of our position about two miles.
- Charlie, Roger.
- I'm descending to angels 14 to take a look.
- Do you think that's our unknown?
- Not sure.
Radar's clean.
- As soon as he got to the merge plot position,
the object that he was intercepting dropped from 28,000 feet
down to 50 feet above the water in 0.78 seconds
as I found out later the next day.
- As the Super Hornets get closer to the ocean disturbance
he suddenly spots another craft above it.
A much smaller white object with an oblong shape,
hovering then darting just above the waves.
The object is moving around erratically,
seemingly focused on the white water.
The shape is similar to a Tic Tac.
It's smooth like porcelain.
It's not an airplane.
Suddenly the object begins to rise into the air.
(dramatic music)
- Hey this thing just turned on my nose.
It's Coming up!
2 miles.
- The strange craft begins mirroring
the turn rate of Fast Eagle.
- Tally one bogey 287 two miles.
Angels 5.
- The object is now at his three o'clock position
as he continues to turn with it.
- He's turning hard at 3000 meters.
- We had the external communications in the speaker
in combat so everyone can listen to it.
And the next thing I hear on the radio going,
oh my god, oh my god, I'm engaged, I'm engaged!
- 1000 meters he's southbound.
We need to avoid it.
(dramatic music)
- The commander is now about a mile away
as he maneuvers his hornet to get behind the unknown craft.
It's about the size of an F-18,
about 47 feet long and it has no wings.
As the dogfight unfolds,
he quickly turns and dives to bring his jet's nose ahead
of the object to close the distance.
- Holy!
- It jumped!
- 1000 meters he's...
(dramatic intense music)
I lost him!
Two do you see it?
- Suddenly the Tic Tac rockets past.
It's gone beyond the horizon in the blink of an eye.
- I saw it go 137.
No tally.
- That didn't just happen.
- Say again.
- Fast Eagle Charlie, sir you're not going to believe this
but the bogey group is now back at your cap station, over.
- As Fast Eagle returns to the area
of the ocean disturbance, the object is gone and the sea
is once again calm.
Soon they land on the ship.
(jet engines)
Back onboard Banger, the flight crew has been listening
to the radio transmissions from Fast Eagle.
The crew has been tracking the intercepts
on their advanced display systems, called the CEC.
One of the radar operators who wishes to remain anonymous
describes hearing the fear in the pilot's voices,
and he knows this is no drill.
- I had a good friend who flew on the Hawkeyes.
We've been calling him Roger,
to protect his identity because he didn't want to come
forward at this time but he wanted to contribute
to the story to verify that it actually happened.
So there are five people in the airplane.
Roger would've been sitting in the radar officer's seat
which is toward the back middle of the plane
to the side of each one of them or behind them depending
how the chairs rotating as a window.
- Suddenly, his attention is drawn to something
outside the Hawkeye.
He and the entire crew watch in disbelief
as a Tic Tac object suddenly forms up on their E2
and then just as quickly shoots away from sight.
The crew is left in disbelief.
As Banger returns to the ship, the crew is shaken.
The highly unusual events are troubling,
but what happens next has haunted them to this day.
US Navy officers quickly arrive and escort the air crew
to a secure space on the ship.
As the crewmen begin to take off their flight gear,
an officer begins the debriefing by telling them,
this event did not happen
and they are given non-disclosure agreements to sign.
They are warned to never discuss this event again.
(dramatic music)
- Again we we're preparing air defense exercise
so now we got all the squadrons launching off the carrier
'cause they're all up getting to do their functional
check flights.
- Senior Chief Day watched in disbelief as the Tic Tac UFOs
reacted to the incoming fighter jets.
- All the objects in the sky, they all dropped out
of the sky from 28,000 feet down to 50 feet.
- Based on the SPY1 Bravo Radar system
the object descended at over 24,000 miles an hour.
- It was unbelievable because normally what would happen
if a normal aircraft did that, first of all
it would fly apart, it wouldn't be able to withstand
the G forces and there would be multiple sonic booms.
So it would be boom boom, boom boom boom boom boom boom.
This did not make any sonic booms.
- From what I observed, I saw that it went from, you know,
right around between 25 and 30,000 feet down to sea level
and below sea level.
- Contact.
Tag number 042--
- Below sea level was confirmed to me by the actual
sonar techs that were in combat in communications
with other techs that had said they had an active track
on it under the water.
- They're talking with their sonar guys on the sub
that was with us, you know, and I mean I was told
directly that it did go underwater, you know,
I mean it went from being in the air to underwater.
From what they were saying it was averaging
about 500 knots under the water, you know,
so it did slow down when it hit that water
but it didn't affect it inertially.
- After the intercepts, both Kevin and Gary
climbed up to the ships bridge wing to get a better
view of the objects through the binoculars.
- We go up to the bridge wing and look at them through
the big eyes, which is a heavily magnified binoculars
that are out on the bridge wing of the ship.
- Even when I was off watch I was usually up in combat
anyway and I was sitting at the console, I just picked
the closest object to us and I got the relative
bearing from the ship.
Slave over to the relative bearing of about
the right altitude and then saw this white light in the sky.
- The movements were smooth to erratic, yeah.
They just moved from one point to another.
It was always a very sharp and clean movement.
It always felt like a constant speed, not like speeding up.
Just, it needed to go to that point and it decided
to do it at this speed and then it would just go
from nothing to the speed they were going to go
and then stop at the next point.
- Meanwhile, back on the Nimitz,
aviation tech Patrick Hughes is working
to secure the classified data recorders from the Hawkeye
that encountered the Tic Tac.
- We pull out the hard drives.
We call them RMCs.
We call them bricks 'cause they're physically heavy
like a brick but they contain the software to run
the airplane and they also record a lot
of the data that the air crew sees during the flight.
So we take the removable stuff, we take it out,
we go downstairs, back to our shop.
- Patrick's job involves tracking the chain of custody
of the hard drives.
- Then we open up the safe, put them in a safe,
we've got tracking sheets so we know
what RMCs or what airplane.
We know who signed them out, who put them in the airplane,
who took him out of the airplane.
- As he gets ready to wrap up the mission,
there is a knock on the door.
- Our commanding officer's there.
Two other guys in flight suits who I'm assuming
were air force officers 'cause pretty sure
that's the insigma they had on,
but they were not on the ship earlier.
I did not seem them come on the ship,
so I'm not sure how they got there.
But the skipper basically said I need the bricks
off the flight.
We open the safe, we put them in the bags, he took them,
he took his two anonymous officers and left.
- The officers, with the classified hard drives in hand,
soon board an HS-60 Seahawk Helicopter and leave Nimitz.
(helicopter propellers spinning)
Soon thereafter, Petty Officer Voorhis
has his own visit by unknown officials on the Princeton.
- Once they landed and everybody got off then about maybe
20 minutes later I got called in to have all my data
recording tapes turned over and then also told that I needed
to reload CEC 'cause it had been wiped.
So I turned over all the tapes and then they also said
if there's any even blank tapes to erase anything
else that's in the shop.
Well they were plain-clothes people that came on board
on the helicopter.
It was my chain of command,
that took control of the tapes from me.
The Helo left with them after that.
So, cause we went right back to flight ops.
- The link between the Tic Tacs and these men is unknown.
How they became aware of the UFO encounters
and how they arrived so quickly onboard
after the event is also a mystery.
- The video you are now watching is the actual gun camera
FLIR footage of the Tic Tac taken by a later flight.
This is the first video ever released by the US Government
showing military planes engaging UFO's.
The advanced targeting pod, known as ATFLIR,
works in both TV mode and infrared mode.
The film reveals no control surfaces, no exhaust plume,
a uniform heat signature and no visible means of propulsion.
Gary and his shipmates saw the FLIR film on their consoles
and on the secret LAN aboard the Princeton.
- It was a much clearer video.
You could see the shape of the ship, you could see it,
you know, moving.
I tried to go and get a disc to come make a copy of it
and by the time I got back it was already off
of our hard drive, off the secret LAN.
Yeah, no access to it whatsoever.
- Petty Officer Jason Turner also saw a much higher
resolution version of the FLIR film showing strange
appendages extending from the object.
- But it did have some protruding at the bottom of it.
I couldn't tell if they were curled back or straight down.
- Jason says the video was approximately 10 minutes
in length and much longer than the video
that has been released.
- I saw this video playing and I'd ask him,
is this what we're training or was this part of this
training that we're going through and he said, no,
this is real life and when I saw it,
it was a very clear image, a very clear video,
and this thing was going berserk, like making turns like
it's incredible.
The amount of G forces that it would put on a human
that this thing was doing.
The jets were like trying to trail this thing
and it would just run off and leave them.
It would just pfft gone and then it would come back
and then you would see it.
And then it, I mean, it was, it made a maneuver,
like they were chasing it straight on.
It was going with them.
This thing stopped turning, just pew, gone.
I mean, that's the only way to describe what it looked like.
- This is a fucking droilet bro.
- There's a whole fleet of them.
- My gosh.
- Just 11 years later, fighter jets from USS Roosevelt
filmed this anomalous object in 2015.
- Look at that thing!
It's levitating.
- Like the Nimitz Encounter,
they too were conducting routine training
when fleets of UFO's were encountered by the pilots.
The Nimitz encounter remained cloaked secrecy
for over 13 years.
The first hand testimony about UFO sightings
is practically unheard of from military service members.
Thanks to the brave and honest accounts of the sailors
and naval aviators who have come forward to relate
their experiences, and of the remarkable videos
they filmed that day, the silence has been broken.
- I dealt with this all on my own for many, many years.
And it was not a very pleasant journey to go through.
'Cause no one really believes you.
But now things have changed and anyone out there
that's struggling with this and wants to reach out,
there is now a group that you can reach out to
and get help and support and vindication.
- It's honestly been a little relieving to be able
to talk about it and how important that event really was
and not just keep blowing it off.
There's people out here that, you know,
really need to know and want to know
and you have the support of, you know, me and Kevin
and my other shipmates that have come forward
and decided to talk about it.
- My role is to describe the story and convince people
that yes, this event really happened and these objects
were really real, but what they are, I have no idea.
- It is something, I want to know what it is.
That's the whole reason I chose to come forward
to contribute to this story because there is a story here,
there is more information here
and more of us that talk about it, the better chance
of the full story coming together.
And it's almost, it's vindication for us
that other people are looking into it and you know,
we finally tell our story and people listen.
- If you need to get ahold of us
or would like to talk to any of us, Kevin,
me or any of the other guys that have come forward
there'll be an email address at the end of this video
that you can contact them and they can get ahold of us.
- If you or someone you know has witnessed unknown
objects from military ships or planes,
please contact us at the address on your screen.
You can remain anonymous.
As we strive to understand these encounters
and come to terms with what they mean,
there's something far beyond the horizon and the limits
of our comprehension waiting, waiting for all of us.
(dramatic music)