PowerfulJRE
AI-assisted summary of Joe Rogan Experience #1361 - Cmdr. David Fravor & Jeremy Corbell — original source. Check the original for full context.
Source published:
Key ideas
- Commander David Fravor recounted his visual intercept of the 40-foot 'Tic Tac' object during a 2004 training mission off San Diego, observing instantaneous acceleration and no visible flight control surfaces or thermal exhaust. (9:02)
- The unidentified craft exhibited active radar jamming against intercepting Super Hornets, a capability legally classified as an act of war, before relief pilot Chad Underwood recorded the declassified ATFLIR footage. (13:15)
- Navy encounters off the East Coast in 2015 involved different configurations, specifically translucent spheres encasing cubes that remained completely stationary in 90-knot winds, prompting formal military flight safety advisories. (34:16)
- Jeremy Corbell and Fravor emphasized that observed craft characteristics across multiple military incidents point to non-reactionary gravitational field propulsion, which bypasses standard aerodynamic resistance and G-force constraints. (69:54)
Detailed notes
## Background This episode of the Joe Rogan Experience (#1361) was published on YouTube by PowerfulJRE on October 5, 2019. The show notes describe the discussion as featuring retired US Navy Commander David Fravor, who had a close encounter in 2004 with the famous 'Tic Tac' UFO, alongside contemporary artist and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell.
## TL;DR Commander David Fravor gives an exhaustive, firsthand technical account of his November 2004 encounter with the anomalous 'Tic Tac' craft off the coast of San Diego during training exercises with the USS Nimitz strike group. He details the visual engagement, the radar tracking from the USS Princeton, and the active jamming and flight characteristics recorded by the ATFLIR targeting pod that defied conventional aerodynamics. Alongside Jeremy Corbell, the conversation explores the East Coast 'Gimbal' and 'Go Fast' encounters, the implications of non-reactionary propulsion, and the bureaucratic secrecy surrounding government programs like AATIP and AAWSAP. The discussion highlights how vetted military testimony paired with multi-sensor corroboration has shifted unidentified aerial phenomena from fringe folklore into serious national security discourse.
## Atmosphere & style The conversation carries an engrossing, grounded atmosphere that blends clinical military precision with open-ended cosmic intrigue. David Fravor speaks with the calm, matter-of-fact sobriety of a seasoned Top Gun aviator, contrasting effectively with Jeremy Corbell's passionate, investigative urgency and Joe Rogan's intensely engaged curiosity. Listening feels like sitting in on a candid, high-level debrief, where technical sensor readouts and dogfight geometry systematically deconstruct long-standing stigmas surrounding the UFO phenomenon.
## Bulletin - [09:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=542s) Commander David Fravor recounted his visual intercept of the 40-foot 'Tic Tac' object during a 2004 training mission off San Diego, observing instantaneous acceleration and no visible flight control surfaces or thermal exhaust. - [13:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=795s) The unidentified craft exhibited active radar jamming against intercepting Super Hornets, a capability legally classified as an act of war, before relief pilot Chad Underwood recorded the declassified ATFLIR footage. - [34:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2056s) Navy encounters off the East Coast in 2015 involved different configurations, specifically translucent spheres encasing cubes that remained completely stationary in 90-knot winds, prompting formal military flight safety advisories. - [01:09:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4194s) Jeremy Corbell and Fravor emphasized that observed craft characteristics across multiple military incidents point to non-reactionary gravitational field propulsion, which bypasses standard aerodynamic resistance and G-force constraints.
## Key takeaways - [00:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=54s) Vetted naval aviators operating multi-million dollar platforms provide credible, empirical observations backed by synchronized radar and sensor telemetry. - [02:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=142s) The USS Princeton and E-2 Hawkeye radar systems tracked anomalous targets descending from above 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet for two weeks before the visual intercept. - [09:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=542s) Fravor observed a 40-foot solid white craft mirroring his descent over a 737-sized churning ocean disturbance before accelerating out of sight in under a second. - [13:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=795s) The object reappeared 60 miles away at Fravor's combat air patrol point within 30 to 40 seconds, defying conventional flight velocity envelopes. - [24:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1442s) The declassified FLIR footage was captured via passive optical and contrast tracking because the object actively jammed the aircraft's APG-73 radar. - [35:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2144s) East Coast naval aviators encountered distinct phenomena consisting of translucent spheres with internal cubes remaining completely stationary in 90-knot winds. - [38:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2304s) Radar displays during the East Coast Gimbal encounter showed a trailing fleet formation executing coordinated maneuvers that were not shown in public releases. - [41:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2500s) The anomalous maneuvers imply non-reactionary field propulsion, enabling transmedium travel between space, atmosphere, and water without generating friction or aerodynamic wake. - [01:14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4488s) Closed-door briefings with government officials and revised naval reporting protocols were spurred directly by the 2017 public reporting of Fravor's encounter. - [01:23:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5017s) Jeremy Corbell argues that theoretical physics accommodates gravity-field manipulation, while material science and atomic-scale fabrication remain humanity's limiting factors. - [01:26:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5204s) Analysis of alleged physical metamaterial samples collected by Jacques Vallée reveals atomically layered, vacuum-bonded metallic structures difficult to duplicate industrially. - [01:40:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6038s) Fravor cautioned lawmakers against bureaucratic intelligence silos, urging centralized data sharing across defense agencies to avoid duplicating pre-9/11 structural failures. - [01:42:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6174s) The declassified targeting pod footage was historically classified Secret primarily to prevent adversaries from analyzing fighter avionics symbology and sensor capabilities. - [01:45:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6342s) The initial $22 million congressional defense earmark was allocated to AAWSAP rather than AATIP, with the two government programs maintaining different investigative mandates.
## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1s) Introductions and Cmdr. David Fravor's Background
Joe Rogan opens the conversation welcoming back documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and introducing retired US Navy Commander David Fravor, expressing his genuine enthusiasm to hear the firsthand account of the famous 2004 encounter. Asked to provide his professional background, Fravor outlines a twenty-four-year military career that started with a couple of years enlisted in the Marine Corps before being sent to the United States Naval Academy.
Following the Academy, Fravor spent eighteen years flying for the Navy. He accumulated an extensive flight record across multiple platforms, piloting the A-6 Intruder, the legacy F/A-18 Hornet, and the F/A-18F Super Hornet. Over the course of his aviation career, he earned nearly every qualification available in the aircraft, including high-and-low-altitude night vision goggle (NVG) ratings, graduated from the Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun), and rose to the position of commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (VFA-41), famously known as the “Black Aces.”
[00:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=54s) Rogan's Perspective: Why Military Credibility Matters
Rogan explains his personal evolution regarding UFOs, recounting how he transitioned from an uncritical true believer to an extreme skeptic, then to an open-minded observer, and finally into being more convinced than ever before. He notes that while the topic attracts unstable individuals who claim psychic powers or communion with Bigfoot, testimony from elite military aviators operates in a completely different category. Fravor's experience demands attention because it challenges conventional physics and aerospace engineering, coming from a highly trained pilot trusted with cutting-edge equipment.
Rogan points out that the Super Hornets flown by commanders like Fravor cost around $70 million each, noting dryly: “They don't give those to morons typically not.” Fravor quips in response, “Some people in my family would probably argue that point, but better lucky than good.” Rogan stresses that for any rational person seeking objective truth about unidentified aerial phenomena, vetted military professionals with corroborated radar and sensor data provide the only truly credible basis for investigation.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Training Exercise Intercept Setup accDescr: Diagram showing the relative positions of the carrier strike group units and the real-world vector divert.
subgraph StrikeGroup ["Carrier Strike Group (60 mi off Coast)"] Nimitz["USS Nimitz (CVN-68)<br/>Center Reference"] Princeton["USS Princeton (CG-59)<br/>SPY-1 Radar Controller"] end
subgraph AirAssets ["Air Assets in Flight"] Dealer["VFA-41 'Black Aces'<br/>(Cmdr. Fravor + Wingman in 2x F/A-18F)<br/>~40 mi South"] RedAir["VMFA-232 'Red Devils'<br/>(USMC Legacy F/A-18s)<br/>~100 mi South"] end
Target["Unknown Target (Tic Tac)<br/>Dropped from >80,000 ft to 20,000 ft"]
Princeton -->|"Monitored contacts for 2 weeks"| Target Princeton -->|"Cancels 2v2 training"| Dealer Dealer -->|"Real-world vector: Heading 270°, 60 mi West"| Target ```
[02:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=142s) The November 2004 Exercise and the Secret Tracking
Fravor dates the incident precisely to November 14, 2004. The USS *Nimitz* Carrier Strike Group was conducting pre-deployment work-up exercises roughly 60 miles off the Pacific coast between San Diego, California, and Ensenada, Mexico, in preparation for an upcoming 2005 combat deployment. Fravor had taken command of VFA-41 just one month prior, in mid-October. The training evolution was designed to integrate the entire carrier strike group—combining the air wing with the carrier, guided-missile cruisers, and destroyers into a coordinated defense umbrella.
The specific mission scheduled for that afternoon was a 2v2 air defense training scenario. Two Marine Corps legacy F/A-18s from VMFA-232 (the "Red Devils"), led by Fravor’s peer "Cheeks," played the adversary "Red Air" forces positioned approximately 100 miles south of the carrier. Fravor’s two-ship flight of two-seat Super Hornets acted as "Blue Air" defense, guided by air controllers aboard the Aegis cruiser USS *Princeton* (CG-59). Unbeknownst to the aircrews, the *Princeton*, the *Nimitz*, and airborne E-2 Hawkeye radar platforms had been tracking anomalous radar targets over the previous two weeks during non-flying windows. These objects were repeatedly observed dropping straight down from above 80,000 feet to approximately 20,000 feet, hovering for three to four hours, and then climbing straight back into the upper atmosphere. Because the battle group was in local waters off Southern California rather than a designated hostile combat theater, command staff never notified the aviators about these recurring anomalies.
- **Date and Location:** November 14, 2004; ~60 miles offshore between San Diego and Ensenada. - **Participating Units:** USS *Nimitz* (CVN-68), USS *Princeton* (CG-59), VFA-41 "Black Aces", VMFA-232 "Red Devils". - **Cruiser Radar Suite:** AN/SPY-1 phased array radar on the Aegis cruiser, one of the world's premier tracking radars. - **Observed Behavior:** Up to a dozen contacts dropping from above 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet, holding altitude for 3–4 hours, then ascending straight up.
[04:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=292s) Diverted to a Real-World Vector Unarmed
Flight operations on the carrier ran on twelve-hour cyclic flight schedules, generally operating from noon to midnight. The Marine F/A-18s launched first around midday. Because the older legacy Hornets held about 30 percent less internal fuel than the Super Hornets, the controller checked their fuel states and directed the Marines to proceed directly to their designated combat air patrol (CAP) station to preserve gas. As Fravor’s flight ("Dealer 11") got airborne and joined up roughly 40 miles south of the ship, the controller on the *Princeton* checked in and asked for his weapons loadout.
Fravor found the question humorous because they were configured strictly for an air-to-air training hop. His aircraft carried only a CATM-9 (Captive Air Training Missile)—a inert blue metal canister equipped with a functioning AIM-9 infrared seeker head that is permanently locked to the wing station. Fravor laughed and confirmed his dummy loadout, at which point the controller stated: “We got real-world vector.” The controller canceled the scheduled training and gave Fravor's section an immediate intercept vector heading 270 degrees west, sending them another 60 miles out over the open ocean.
When Rogan asks why the military would direct unarmed aircraft to investigate an unknown real-world contact, Fravor explains that tactical aircraft routinely fly without live ordnance during standard training. Decades of naval and air force history proved that carrying live missiles while practicing mock engagements invariably led to switch errors and fatal blue-on-blue fratricide. Live missiles were strictly reserved for designated target ranges or operational combat zones.
[07:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=458s) Inbound to Merge Plot over the Pacific
En route to the west, both two-seat Super Hornets—Fravor with his Weapon Systems Officer (WSO), and his female wingman with her WSO—assumed they were likely being vectored toward a low-flying illicit drug smuggler transiting north along the Mexican coastline. Over the tactical radio, the *Princeton* controller briefed the pilots on the two weeks of anomalous radar tracks and began providing regular range updates, counting down from 30 miles at 20,000 feet.
As the fighters closed the distance, the controller announced "merge plot." In military radar parlance, a merge plot occurs when the radar's resolution cell—defined by azimuth and range bins—can no longer distinguish two separate targets, fusing the interceptor and the contact into a single return on the scope. At this juncture, Fravor’s flight was positioned at the conceptual six o'clock position flying toward the target area at twelve o'clock, with his wingman stepped down to his left. Looking down through severe, unrestricted visibility on a pristine Southern California day, Fravor peered at the ocean below, where the sea surface was flat and calm without a single whitecap.
- **Aircrew Configuration:** Two F/A-18F Super Hornets, each manned by a pilot and a Weapon Systems Officer (WSO). - **Target Vector:** Heading 270 degrees (due west), descending range countdown starting around 30 nautical miles. - **Environmental Conditions:** Crystal clear weather, pristine visibility, perfectly calm sea state with no natural wave breaks or whitecaps.
[09:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=542s) Visual Contact: The Disturbance and the Tic Tac
Looking down toward the ocean, Cmdr. David Fravor and the crew of the second aircraft spot white water churning on the surface. Fravor describes it looking just like waves breaking over an underwater seamount or a shallow reef, roughly the size of a Boeing 737. The disturbance has an indistinct cross-like shape, with a longer axis pointing east-to-west and lateral features running north-to-south. As the odd surface feature catches their attention, the pilot of the accompanying F/A-18 starts to transmit, manage just “hey skipper do you...”, before trailing off. Fravor breaks in with the same realization: “Dude, you see that? What is that thing?”
Hovering and darting just above this churning surface is a solid white object shaped like an elongated pill or a giant Tic Tac. It is oriented north-to-south, radically bouncing forward, backward, left, and right at will, completely unconstrained by momentum. Fravor estimates the object to be about 40 feet long—comparable in size to the fuselage of an F/A-18 Hornet, a scale he knows intimately from years of air-to-air tactical training. Their first instinct is that it might be a search-and-rescue or utility helicopter, which routinely operate below 200 feet over the water. However, the fighters are far from the ship, and Fravor immediately scans for helicopter characteristics: there is no rotor wash churning the ocean below, nor are there any main blades, tail rotors, or exhaust plumes.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Visual Engagement Geometry accDescr: The visual positioning and movement of the F-18s relative to the ocean disturbance and the Tic Tac object.
subgraph HighAltitude ["High Altitude (~20,000 ft)"] A["Wingman (High Cover / 'God's Eye View')"] B["Cmdr. Fravor (Descending Circle)"] end
subgraph SurfaceLevel ["Surface Level"] C["White Water Disturbance (737-sized cross)"] D["Tic Tac (~40 ft Object, Radical Motion)"] end
B -.->|"Visual observation & descent"| D D <-->|"Hovering & darting around"| C A -.->|"Monitoring both contacts"| D ```
[10:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=641s) Merging and the Vanishing Maneuver
From an altitude of 20,000 feet and roughly two miles lateral distance, the visibility is clear despite the object's small relative profile. Fravor decides to investigate: “I said I'm gonna go check it out, that's what we're trained to do.” The pilot in the second aircraft offers to hold high cover to maintain a God's-eye view, providing mutual support and separate vantage points. Fravor enters a controlled, gradual descent. He notes that aggressive dive profiles over featureless open water can easily cause spatial disorientation, because the ocean surface looks identical at 20,000 feet and 2,000 feet, running the severe risk of placing the jet into an unrecoverable dive.
As Fravor winds his way down through roughly 18,000 feet, the Tic Tac suddenly stops its erratic north-south hovering, reorients east-to-west, and mirrors his flight path. While Fravor circles down, the Tic Tac climbs toward him. Once Fravor reaches roughly the 8 o'clock position on the circle and the craft reaches the 2 o'clock position—separated by about 2,000 to 3,000 feet of altitude—Fravor decides to cut across the diameter of the circle to merge on it and establish visual escort. He aggressively lowers his nose to lead its flight path. Just as the craft crosses his nose, it accelerates instantaneously across his canopy. Within less than a second, “it just goes poof and it's gone.” When he radios his wingman to confirm, they report having lost sight of it completely. Fravor turns his aircraft back to the site of the sea disturbance to inspect what was beneath the surface, but the white-water formation has completely vanished, leaving only calm, featureless blue ocean.
- Lateral distance at start of engagement: Approximately 2 miles. - Fravor's entry altitude: 20,000 feet; Wingman holds altitude while Fravor descends to around 18,000–16,000 feet. - Merging maneuver: Fravor cuts across the circle from 8 o'clock toward the object at 2 o'clock, with 2,000–3,000 feet vertical separation. - Disappearance: Object accelerates across the Hornet's nose in under one second; disturbance on the surface clears immediately.
[13:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=795s) Reappearance at the CAP Point and Radar Jamming
Shaken by the encounter, Fravor heads east and admits to his backseater that he is deeply unnerved. Moments later, the radar controller aboard the USS *Princeton* breaks in over the radio: “Sir, you're not going to believe this, but that thing is back at your CAP point.” The combat air patrol point was their designated holding station 40 miles south of the carrier strike group. In roughly 30 to 40 seconds, the unknown craft has traversed approximately 60 miles across the ocean, instantly reappearing on the ship’s radar without any continuous tracked flight path between the two points. Fravor flies to the CAP point, finds no visual or radar contact, conducts a couple of sweeps, and heads back to trap aboard the USS *Nimitz*.
Back aboard the carrier, in the parachute rigger (PR) shop where flight crews strip off their gear, Fravor debriefs a relief crew scheduled for a tanker mission. Their aircraft is equipped with an advanced targeting pod, and weapon systems officer (WSO) Chad is resolved to hunt down the contact. In the back seat of a two-seat Super Hornet, the WSO controls sensors through side-stick switches rather than flight sticks, able to snap seamlessly between radar and electro-optical displays. When Chad acquires the contact on radar and attempts to lock it up, the radar immediately registers active hostile electronic jamming:
> “Technically jamming is an act of war. It starts jamming the radar, goes into a jam extrapolate, a bunch of stuff happens on the scope.”
Instead of abandoning the lock, Chad castles his hands-on controls to the targeting pod and establishes a passive optical/infrared track. This is the origin of the famous declassified Tic Tac FLIR footage, showing the craft floating motionless on screen as the crew toggles between infrared (IR) and electro-optical (EO) TV modes.
[15:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=930s) Hunting for the Uncut Video
Joe Rogan and Jeremy Corbell urge pulling up the actual declassified footage on screen. A brief debate unfolds about YouTube’s strict copyright policies, with Rogan hesitating because the channel has repeatedly skirted copyright strikes that could threaten their account standing. Corbell points out that because the material was declassified and released through the Pentagon, it sits firmly in the public domain and carries no legitimate third-party copyright claims.
While producer Young Jamie searches for an official, un-watermarked version of the FLIR tape, Corbell offers to AirDrop a pristine copy hosted on his private server directly to the studio booth. Rogan takes the opportunity to acknowledge Corbell's previous work, highlighting his production of *Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers*, noting that Lazar's earlier appearance on the podcast was a major turning point for him and many listeners regarding the reality of the UFO phenomenon.
[17:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1075s) Family Reactions and the Path to Going Public
Joe Rogan opens by observing how effortlessly people mock the UFO subject, emphasizing that hearing directly from credible, top-tier military pilots like Commander David Fravor is vital because the typical enthusiast will "believe everything and anything." When asked if he had ever experienced a UFO sighting prior to the 2004 incident, Fravor says he had not. He humorously recalls how his mother-in-law would ask him every single time he visited home, "Hey, did you see a UFO?" to which he would flatly reply no. Back when he first started dating his wife, she was an avid reader of supermarket tabloids like the *National Enquirer*, and he would relentlessly tease her about them.
For years following the encounter, Fravor kept the story restricted to casual drinking sessions with close pilot friends: “It was a great story over beers cuz they go, ‘Hey, what’s the coolest thing you ever saw flying?’ I go, ‘I chased a UFO.’ And they go, ‘Seriously?’ And I tell them the story, and they’re like, ‘Dude!’” His decision to go public only came after Luis Elizondo asked him to participate in the landmark *New York Times* article. Fravor habitually turned down media requests—admitting it took Jeremy Corbell persistent badgering to get him onto Rogan's podcast. His ultimate decision to appear on the show came after a party in New Hampshire where his contractor’s wife, Angel, urged him over drinks, saying it was the biggest podcast on the planet and that he had to do it.
At Thanksgiving in 2017, just before the *New York Times* story broke, Fravor finally let his extended family in on the secret. Once most relatives had cleared out of the house, leaving only his wife and in-laws in the kitchen, he announced that a major article was coming out featuring him chasing a UFO. His mother-in-law began laughing, while his father-in-law rolled his eyes in complete disbelief, stunned that Fravor had sat on the story for over a decade without uttering a word.
---
[19:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1199s) Debunking Classification Myths and the AATIP Investigation
Fravor directly addresses and shuts down persistent internet rumors claiming the incident was classified or that the carrier strike group was locked down. He clarifies that at no point was the encounter classified, nor did mysterious government operatives intervene: “Men in suits did not show up, no one told us not to talk about it.” Putting his role into military perspective, Fravor explains that within the strike group hierarchy—underneath the admiral, the captain of the carrier USS *Nimitz*, and the captain of the cruiser USS *Princeton*—he served as a squadron commanding officer (CO), ranking in the top 20 of roughly 6,000 personnel. Despite that senior position, nobody confiscated his flight tapes, ordered silence, or debriefed his crews. Across the entire event, only six aircrew members were directly involved: the two who recorded the FLIR footage, and the four who observed the object visually for five minutes.
Years later, while working in the aerospace industry, Fravor received a call on his personal cell phone from an investigator looking to formally probe the 2004 event. The resulting document—what Fravor refers to as the "unofficial official report" later made public by journalist George Knapp—was approximately ten pages long and exceptionally rigorous, tracking down and interviewing the aircrew, radar operators, and even the battle group's admiral.
Around six years after leaving the Navy, Fravor received an inquiry from a Navy Public Affairs officer asking if he knew of any official documentation regarding the *Nimitz* UFO incident. Knowing that the ten-page inquiry had not been filed through standard channels, Fravor replied that he knew of no official records. It was only later, when speaking with Luis Elizondo, that Fravor discovered the investigator who produced the report was one of roughly thirteen original members of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
Addressing how documents can be shielded from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Fravor notes: “I’m not a conspiracy theory person at all... I think there’s reasons that the government doesn’t tell the public everything, and I don’t speak for the government, but I think there’s a good reason for that—that not everything needs to go out to the public.” When an agency places a FOIA exemption clause on a specialized program like AATIP, public requests will come up empty. Furthermore, Fravor demystifies bureaucratic FOIA failures, explaining that requests often land on the desk of an ordinary Pentagon staffer who simply runs a routine search, finds no matching records in their immediate database, asks a colleague who knows nothing about it, and signs off that no documents exist—leading conspiratorial minds to assume an active cover-up when it is really just departmental ignorance or compartmentalized access.
---
[24:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1442s) Frame-by-Frame Breakdown of the FLIR Video
Jamie pulls up the official FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) targeting pod video, and Fravor walks through the Heads-Up Display symbology to explain exactly what is being recorded:
```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: FLIR Display HUD Breakdown accDescr: Displays key sensor readouts shown on the Navy F/A-18 FLIR targeting pod interface.
subgraph SENSOR["Sensor Mode & Optics"] direction TB A["NAR (Narrow FOV)"] B["IR (White-Hot) / TV (Electro-Optical)"] C["3° R (Pod Azimuth off Nose)"] end
subgraph FLIGHT["Aircraft State"] direction TB D["19,990 ft (Barometric Altitude)"] E["B-ALT (Barometric Altitude Hold / Autopilot)"] end
subgraph TRACK["Target Acquisition"] direction TB F["Passive Tracking Reticle (Pixel Contrast)"] G["99.9 (Radar Unable to Range Target)"] end ```
- **Field of View and Optical Modes:** The letters **NAR** in the upper left corner designate a narrow field of view, indicating maximum optical zoom. **IR** at the top center denotes infrared mode, which displays thermal variations down to tenths of a degree rather than visible color. The **WHT** indicator in the lower left means "white hot," signifying that the target appears lighter than the cooler background air. - **Absence of Thermal Exhaust:** Unlike conventional aircraft—which produce glowing, superheated plumes of engine exhaust clearly visible on infrared—the Tic Tac exhibits zero thermal plume or exhaust wash behind it. - **Flight Condition Indicators:** The readout at the lower right confirms the Super Hornet was flying at an altitude of 19,990 feet. The annotations near the heading marker, reading **HDG** and **B-ALT**, show the jet was operating on autopilot with barometric altitude hold engaged. - **Tracking Reticle:** The two vertical brackets framing the craft represent a passive contrast lock. The sensor locks onto a cluster of white pixels against the dark sky and commands the gimbal to hold them centered. - **Switching to TV Mode:** As the footage transitions from a dark background to a light background with a dark craft, the pilot (Chad Underwood) toggles into black-and-white Electro-Optical TV mode. Narrow TV mode offers higher optical magnification than narrow IR; Fravor clarifies that narrow IR roughly equates to medium magnification in TV mode. Even under visible TV imaging, there is no black smoke or exhaust trail visible behind the craft. - **Sensor Orientation:** The indicator displaying **3 R** indicates that the targeting pod is pointing three degrees right of the fighter's nose as it flies straight. - **Debunking Video Length Rumors:** Fravor dismisses persistent internet rumors that the original recording was ten minutes long: “What you’re looking at is the entire video.” - **Radar Ranging Failure:** The **99.9** readout indicates that while the FLIR targeting pod is tracking the object visually and thermally, the onboard APG-73 radar is attempting to lock onto the craft to measure range and closing velocity, but is unable to return a valid track.
[26:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1605s) Active Jamming, Stealth, and the Rapid Departure
Jeremy Corbell and Commander David Fravor analyze the targeting pod footage, zeroing in on the system's inability to establish range. The Doppler radar functions much like a police radar, attempting to bounce a signal off the craft to measure speed and distance, but it repeatedly returns a reading of "99.9." Corbell highlights this detail, noting that the object is not merely slipping past passive detection; it is actively jamming the radar. Fravor clarifies the common misconception about stealth technology, noting that stealth does not make an aircraft invisible. Instead, stealth shaping simply reduces a radar cross-section:
> "It's just it's a technology to to basically make it harder for radars to see you you know and that's the whole thing you know if you look at you know airplanes that are nose on are harder to see than airplanes at the sides kind of like think of a barn door if you're looking at the whole barn door it's really easy to see if I turn the barn door sideways where it's really thin it's gonna be a lot harder for you to see it."
Reviewing the cockpit display, Fravor points out that the F/A-18 Hornet is cruising at 20,000 feet at 250 knots on a steady heading. The weapon systems officer tries cycling through different sensor modes to maintain a track, and the targeting pod steadily recenters as the target drifts slowly to the left. Suddenly, the object accelerates violently, zipping out of the display’s field of view. When Joe Rogan asks how fast it moved, Fravor explains that without precise ranging, an exact calculation is impossible, but the speed required to clear that viewing window from a stationary hover is unprecedented:
> "I don't care what airplane it is so let's just use the F-22 Raptor that's probably one of the it's probably the best airplane in the world right now performance wise it can't take off like that especially if it's a hover."
Corbell emphasizes that the target had no rotor blades, no wings, no tail surfaces, and no visible heat bloom, even when viewed under infrared magnification. Fravor concurs, remarking that any conventional jet engine would produce an unmistakable thermal exhaust plume. Rogan asks whether the targeting system could follow the fastest jet on Earth performing that maneuver; Fravor replies that an ordinary aircraft would stay locked right up until the pod's physical gimbal limits were reached.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Comparison of Target Behavior vs Conventional Aircraft accDescr: Diagram contrasting conventional aircraft radar profiles and propulsion with the observed Tic Tac characteristics.
subgraph Conventional["Conventional Aircraft (e.g. F-22, SR-71)"] A["Passive Stealth / Shape Cross-Section"] B["Observable Thermal Exhaust Plume"] C["Aerodynamic Acceleration & Turn Radii"] D["Visible During Horizon Runout (Mach 3)"] end
subgraph TicTac["Observed Tic Tac Object"] E["Active Jamming (Radar Locked at 99.9)"] F["No Thermal Plume under Infrared"] G["Instant Acceleration from Dead Hover"] H["Disappeared from 0.5-Mile Range in 1 Second"] end ```
[30:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1823s) Impossible Acceleration and the Return to the Carrier
Fravor contrasts the object's acceleration with standard high-speed platforms. When the Tic Tac crossed in front of his canopy, he was within half a mile of it, only to watch it vanish into thin air:
> "So take we'll just go to something that everyone knows as fast let's just say SR-71 that's doing Mach 3 you know the visibilities 50 miles so even at 35 miles a minute I'm gonna be able to see this thing turn into a little dot as it goes off into the horizon for a probably a minute the thing that we saw disappeared in a second just gone."
The wingman crew flying 8,000 feet above him at roughly 12,000 feet also lost it instantly. Fravor called over the radio asking if they still had eyes on it, and they confirmed it simply disappeared like a puff of smoke.
Upon landing, standard protocol required an intelligence debrief. Because Fravor was the squadron commanding officer, the junior aircrew members were dispatched down to CVIC (Carrier Intelligence Center) with the cockpit recording tapes:
- **CVIC Protocols**: Cockpit recording tapes from training flights are turned over to carrier intelligence analysts to practice the pipeline for future operational deployments, such as their upcoming Persian Gulf tour. - **Immediate Ribbing**: The aircrew knew they would face ridicule. Fravor recalls telling his backseater, “Dude, you know we're gonna catch maximum shit for this,” to which the backseater replied, “Yes, sir.” - **Dropping the Proof**: When Chad Underwood returned from his flight and stepped into CVIC, intelligence personnel playfully taunted VFA-41 about chasing UFOs. Underwood silently took the 8mm recording cassette from his vest, slapped it on the desk, and said, "Yeah, it's on here."
[32:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=1963s) Shipboard Reactions and UFO Rumors
Once the 8mm tape was fed into the rack system and archived to the ship’s hard drives, the footage triggered an instant reaction. On an aircraft carrier with 5,000 crew members, rumors travel like wildfire:
> "The ship spreads you know if you have a rumor on the ship 5,000 people are gonna know about it within probably 30 minutes I mean it spreads that it's like a virus so the whole ship now knows that we chased this I guarantee the whole Princeton knew this stuff was going on and it goes all the way up the Admiral knows about it the captain of the ship knew about it."
The ship’s internal closed-circuit television system leaned into the event, broadcasting a 12-hour continuous movie loop featuring alien titles: *Men in Black*, *Men in Black II*, *Signs*, and *Independence Day*. Comic strips teasing the squadron appeared in the daily flight-schedule updates. Fravor notes that the intense teasing lasted roughly a day and a half before routine deployment workups took over.
Even so, several closeted UFO enthusiasts on board approached him quietly. One Marine officer made a habit of joining Fravor in the mess hall, asking, “Skipper, can I sit with you?... You want to talk about the UFO?... I just can't get it out of my mind.” Fravor reflects on the irony that his entire 24-year military aviation career and nearly 4,000 flight hours have been completely overshadowed by five minutes spent chasing a white Tic Tac.
[34:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2056s) East Coast Encounters and the Gimbal Video
Rogan asks if Fravor has compared notes with other pilots who reported similar encounters. Fravor shares that he regularly talks with pilots involved in the 2015 East Coast incidents, specifically the events behind the declassified Gimbal footage. While his 2004 encounter off Southern California involved a smooth, solid craft, the encounters off the East Coast presented a very different picture.
Operating out of designated offshore military airspace warning areas—known on aeronautical charts as "Whiskey" areas like W-291 and W-243—Navy pilots began encountering unidentified aerial phenomena on an almost daily basis. Fravor contacted an old friend who had recently retired as the commander of Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic to understand how widespread the issue was:
> "What they started seeing originally was these things and one of them almost hit the airplane almost hit one of these things but it looks like a cube inside of a clear beach ball so they don't know if it's actually like a surrounding or it's you don't know if it's a force field and you see kind of in the Gimbal video it's got like an aura around it where ours didn't I always laugh I go ours was Tic Tac these are not that means there's different stuff out there that we don't know."
Fravor points out that unlike the smooth, clean edges of his 2004 Tic Tac, the objects captured on the East Coast appeared inside translucent spheres and radiated a faint infrared aura, indicating that the military may be encountering multiple distinct technologies.
[35:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2144s) Near Misses, Stationary Spheres, and the ATFLIR Pod
Commander David Fravor describes East Coast Super Hornet encounters where pilots flying in tactical formations experienced close calls with anomalous objects. Flying roughly a mile apart in what naval aviators call "combat spread," one aircraft flew within 50 feet of a bizarre object that resembled a cube suspended inside a translucent beach ball. Despite skeptics dismissing them as stray weather balloons, Fravor points out that these objects remained completely motionless against 90-knot winds, showing zero drift. The newly installed, highly capable APG-79 AESA radars on the Super Hornets repeatedly detected them. Although pilots initially suspected sensor anomalies, they confirmed physical returns by slaving their targeting pods onto the radar tracks and immediately acquiring infrared heat signatures.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: ATFLIR Sensor Integration accDescr: Diagram showing how Super Hornet radar passes target track coordinates to the ATFLIR pod and SA display. subgraph Sensors ["Aircraft Sensors"] RADAR["APG-79 AESA Radar<br/>(Scans airspace, tracks multiple targets)"] ATFLIR["ATFLIR Targeting Pod<br/>(Slaves to designated primary track)"] end subgraph CockpitDisplays ["Cockpit Displays"] SA["Situational Awareness (SA) Page<br/>(God's-eye tactical picture)"] FLIR_DISP["FLIR/TV Video Feed<br/>(Narrow field visual / IR track)"] end RADAR -->|"Sends track coordinates"| ATFLIR RADAR -->|"Populates contacts"| SA ATFLIR -->|"Displays target optical/IR return"| FLIR_DISP ```
Joe Rogan asks about the equipment being used, confused about what a “targeting flare” is, prompting Fravor to clarify the acronym ATFLIR—the Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared pod mounted on the Super Hornet's fuselage station. Fravor explains that it is the self-contained optical and thermal system responsible for the black-and-white targeting footage often seen in military strike briefings, equipped with high-magnification sensors, a laser rangefinder/designator, and an infrared marker. When Fravor reached out to his fellow naval aviators to determine the scale of the East Coast encounters, they revealed that between 60 and 70 personnel had tracked or observed these phenomena. In response to the hazard of mid-air collisions, the military routinely filed formal safety notices:
> “And I said, ‘Well, what do you do?’ and they said, ‘Well, we put out a NOTAM, which is a Notice to Airmen, that just says, hey, these things are out there, so just be careful because we don't want you to hit one.’”
- Encountering pilots observed cubes encased within spherical outer shells hovering motionless in 90-knot winds. - 60 to 70 naval aviators and radar operators reported encounters with these objects off the East Coast. - The incidents triggered official NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) safety advisories to prevent mid-air collisions. - Debunkers argued the objects were optical illusions or slow drift balloons, but tactical crews confirmed sharp radar returns and thermal tracking.
---
[38:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2304s) The Gimbal Footage and Unreported Fleet Formations
Reviewing the declassified "Gimbal" video in the studio, Fravor provides an insider breakdown of what the cockpit displays and voice chatter actually convey. As the pilot tracks a solitary rotating craft, the cockpit audio captures the crew remarking on the Situational Awareness (SA) page—the pilot’s digital “God’s-eye view” that maps out all sensor returns across the airspace. While the ATFLIR pod was locked onto a single target, the aircraft’s radar was actively tracking an entire formation of smaller objects escorting it. Fravor shares an unreleased detail told to him directly by flight crew members: the radar screen showed approximately five smaller objects flying in a forward wedge or V-formation in front of the main craft before executing a coordinated reversal.
Jeremy Corbell underscores the significance of this revelation, emphasizing that mainstream reporting had focused exclusively on the solitary Gimbal craft while ignoring the accompanying fleet tracked on radar. As the video transitions between infrared and TV modes, the craft displays a distinct glowing aura or field around its perimeter while tilting and rotating without decelerating or slipping sideways. Corbell connects this mechanical rotation directly to the propulsion model popularized decades earlier by Bob Lazar:
> “Lazar described that these things would lay flat, and then when they would travel, they would turn up on their side, and that's how they maneuvered.”
- The video was captured by the same weapon systems officer (backseater) who filmed the famous "Go Fast" clip. - Fravor reveals that the Super Hornet's radar screen displayed a forward formation of roughly five smaller craft flying ahead of the main object before turning in unison. - The Gimbal object rotated on its axis against heavy head winds without any visible control surfaces, exhaust plumes, or aerodynamic flight characteristics. - Corbell stresses that Bob Lazar claimed alleged recovered craft possessed three gravity amplifiers allowing them to reorient belly-forward during high-speed travel.
---
[41:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2500s) Reactionless Propulsion, Extreme Loiter Times, and Transmedium Travel
Fravor and Rogan explore the glaring gap between conventional aerodynamic flight and the physics demonstrated by these craft. In standard combat aviation, high-performance fighters like the F/A-18 Hornet, F-16 Falcon, MiG-29, and Su-27 are sharply limited by fuel capacity and weight; even with external fuel tanks, aggressive maneuvering drains fuel within an hour to ninety minutes, requiring aerial refueling tankers to sustain combat air patrols. Intercontinental platforms like the B-2 stealth bomber likewise rely on continuous tanker top-offs. In contrast, radar tracked these unidentified objects loitering effortlessly for three to four hours at 20,000 feet after plunging instantaneously from altitudes above 80,000 feet—altitudes where the curvature of the Earth is visible and atmospheric pressure is virtually nonexistent.
Fravor puts modern aerospace achievements into perspective by contrasting them with this technology:
> “SpaceX is really excited because they can launch a rocket, and then they can have the booster come back to Earth and actually land on a pad—very impressive engineering feat, next to this technology, that's like a Model T next to a Porsche.”
Fravor explains that because these objects employ non-reactionary propulsion—manipulating space or the surrounding medium directly rather than pushing exhaust against air—their external geometry does not need to conform to traditional aerodynamics. Because the Tic Tac craft resembles a smooth, sealed submarine hull, Fravor speculates that a vehicle governed by field-manipulating propulsion could transition seamlessly from vacuum to atmosphere to the open ocean, providing a plausible mechanical explanation for historical reports of transmedium "USOs" emerging directly from deep water.
- Standard fighter aircraft endure roughly 90 minutes of high-speed tactical flight before needing tanker replenishment or carrier recovery. - Radar logs confirmed the targets plummeted from above 80,000 feet down to 20,000 feet, hovered station-keeping for three hours, and ascended back into near-space instantaneously. - Corbell recounts Fravor's initial description of the Tic Tac's erratic, instantaneous movement as resembling "a ping-pong ball in a glass." - Non-reactionary propulsion eliminates the need for air intakes, exhaust nozzles, or aerodynamic lifting bodies, allowing seamless transmedium operations across air and water.
[44:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2685s) Transmedium Propulsion and the Impact of the Tic Tac Sighting
David Fravor and Jeremy Corbell discuss how manipulating gravity fundamentally alters physical movement through different mediums. Unlike a jet engine that draws in air and expels exhaust, or a propeller that displaces water through mechanical force, a vehicle that manipulates a gravitational field generates a localized void. In theory, such a craft could move effortlessly from the atmosphere into the ocean, cruise underwater, surface, and ascend into outer space without encountering atmospheric friction, drag, or creating a splash. Corbell notes that this matches descriptions famously offered by Bob Lazar regarding field propulsion, as well as numerous historical reports along the California coast of objects plunging into or erupting from the sea. When Corbell mentions that even Christopher Columbus recorded a sighting of an object moving through mediums, Joe Rogan expresses skepticism about ancient written accounts without photographic evidence.
Corbell emphasizes that while Fravor’s encounter may not be the single most dramatic encounter ever recorded, it carries unprecedented cultural and institutional weight. The combination of visual identification by trained naval aviators, gun-camera footage, and advanced shipboard radar data prompted *The New York Times* to cover the story, fundamentally altering how governments and the public approach unidentified aerial phenomena. Fravor’s credibility has led directly to revised US Navy reporting protocols, classified congressional and Senate briefings, and renewed formal scientific inquiries. Corbell explains the significance:
> “Commander Fravor’s encounter—it’s not the most documented, it’s not the most dramatic, however it has had the most impact out of any sighting because of his credibility and the mere fact that *The New York Times* picked it up with video footage, radar evidence, and somebody who is as credible as Commander Fravor.”
[46:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2816s) The Phone Call from the Navy Liaison’s Daughter
Fravor recounts an unexpected phone call he received at home. Because his wife's mobile number is listed first under his account, people trying to reach him often dial her phone. Seeing an unfamiliar California number, he picked up, only to find an elderly woman asking to speak with him. Once he confirmed his identity, the 79-year-old woman explained that she had harbored a secret her entire life and felt compelled to share it after seeing his media interviews.
She recounted growing up in a military household where her father served as a naval liaison to an intelligence agency. In the 1950s, while stationed in San Francisco—likely on Treasure Island—her father came home carrying an official telegram. Breaking typical protocol, he let his young daughter read the dispatch, which described unidentified objects plunging into and emerging from the ocean at specific latitude and longitude coordinates. When she asked about it, her father remarked that the military received such dispatches constantly in that exact corridor. She did not keep the document, as it had to be returned to his post, but she reached out because Fravor’s public testimony made her realize that the phenomena she learned about as a child were still occurring.
> “She goes, ‘I wanted to tell someone the story that I’ve never told anyone in my life.’”
[49:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=2940s) Low-Altitude Pranks and Simulated UFOs in the Superstition Mountains
Fravor explains that many domestic UFO reports can be explained by military pilots playing practical jokes. In earlier years of his career, naval squadrons regularly conducted low-altitude flights using night-vision goggles (NVGs) in F/A-18 Hornets—a training practice later discontinued due to safety hazards. Night-vision goggles amplify ambient light to such a degree that a small campfire can easily be spotted from 50 miles away across the desert.
While flying training routes near bombing ranges in Imperial County and the Superstition Mountains in Southern California, Fravor and his wingmen would occasionally spot campfires set by civilian campers. They would run their aircraft in total blackout mode inside restricted airspace, using only infrared formation lights invisible to the naked human eye. Approaching at 600 knots, the pilots would pull the throttles back to idle to glide silently over the desert floor. When directly over the campsite, they would abruptly pull back on the stick into a vertical climb, light the afterburners for a count of three, and vanish into the night sky. Fravor acknowledges that these stunts undoubtedly triggered frantic civilian reports of silent, hovering lights suddenly rocketing into space.
> “Right when you get to the campfire you pull the airplane into the vertical, you stroke the afterburners, you let them light off, you count to three to pull them off, and then you just go away—instant UFO report.”
[50:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3058s) The Mexican Air Force Sighting and Pentagon Admissions
Joe Rogan asks about the 2004 Mexican Air Force infrared footage, in which military pilots tracked multiple unidentified targets using forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras while patrolling for drug runners. Corbell confirms that although debunkers initially claimed the crew was merely picking up gas flares or lights from offshore oil platforms, analysis by FLIR specialists and former National Security Agency personnel contradicts that conclusion. The targets lacked heat exhaust plumes and displayed propulsion characteristics comparable to the object Fravor encountered off Ensenada.
Fravor recalls seeing that exact news clip on his Comcast homepage shortly after his squadron returned from their deployment, immediately recognizing that the Mexican crew had tracked roughly six similar targets along the same stretch of coastline. Corbell notes that official secrecy around these events has steadily begun to crack, citing an instance where a Pentagon official deviated from approved talking points in *The New York Times*, confirming an increasing frequency of near-miss encounters between military aviators and Anomalous Aerospace Vehicles (AAVs).
> “Pentagon spokespeople say about Commander Fravor’s experience someone went off-script last week in *The New York Times* and she admitted there’s an increased frequency of near-misses because of these AAVs—anomalous aerospace vehicles.”
[52:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3168s) AESA Radar Mechanics and the "Gimbal" Video
Addressing the famous "Gimbal" video, Rogan asks how the pilots could report a "fleet" of objects when the viewer only sees a single craft on the screen. Fravor explains the difference between the targeting pod's visual field and the jet's radar architecture. The Raytheon ATFLIR pod functions like a high-powered telephoto lens focused tightly on a single target; if other objects are flying nearby outside that narrow field of view, the camera sensor will not display them.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Radar and Optical Sensor Architecture Comparison accDescr: Diagram illustrating how mechanical radar, AESA radar, and narrow-view optical pods track aerial targets. subgraph Optical["Optical Targeting (ATFLIR)"] Cam["FLIR Camera Pod"] -->|"Narrow Field of View"| T1["Single Visual Object (Gimbal)"] end
subgraph Legacy["Legacy Mechanical Radar"] Dish["Mechanical Dish"] -->|"Sweeps back and forth"| TWS["Track-While-Scan (Limited refresh)"] end
subgraph Modern["Modern AESA Radar (APG-73 / APG-79)"] Panel["AESA Fixed Array Panel"] -->|"Electronic Beam Steering"| ScanTrack["Simultaneous Scan & Target Tracking"] ScanTrack -->|"Multi-Target Tracking"| Fleet["Entire Fleet (Weapons-Quality Track)"] end ```
The radar, however, sees the entire battlespace. Modern Super Hornets are equipped with Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars rather than older mechanically steered radar dishes that sweep back and forth. An AESA system uses a fixed panel composed of solid-state transmit/receive modules that direct radio beams electronically at near-instantaneous speeds. While older units operated on track-while-scan modes with noticeable lag, AESA systems continuously scan an entire volume of airspace while maintaining weapons-quality track solutions on multiple targets simultaneously, operating on the same principles as the Aegis SPY-1 phased-array radar found on guided-missile cruisers.
- **AESA Radar Capabilities**: An electronically scanned panel allows beam steering and beam shaping, updating tracks without physically moving mechanical hardware. - **Sensor Disconnect**: The pilot sees the full picture and tracks multiple contacts on their cockpit displays, while the FLIR recording captures only the single object locked inside the pod's narrow field of view.
> “If the radar sees you, it has basically a weapons-quality solution, and it can do that on multiple targets—that’s the same way that the SPY radar, the Aegis system works on the cruisers.”
[53:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3233s) The Gimbal Radar Fleet and Unreleased Data
Commander David Fravor and Joe Rogan analyze what is happening behind the scenes in the famous "Gimbal" video. While the targeting pod focuses on one central, rotating craft, the aircraft's radar and situational awareness displays show a much larger operational picture. On the audio track, one pilot can be heard exclaiming, “Dude, look at the SA page, there’s a whole fleet of them.” Fravor explains that the advanced targeting forward-looking infrared (ATFLIR) pod was locked onto the larger primary craft—the gimbal object seen rotating in midair—while five smaller objects flew in formation ahead of it. According to the radar data, those five smaller objects reversed direction and began flying the opposite way while the pod remained locked on the main rotating craft.
Rogan asks whether this suggests a mothership accompanied by smaller escort craft, and whether footage of those smaller objects exists. Fravor clarifies that the public has only seen the targeting pod video. Even if the Navy recorded the situational awareness and raw radar screens, he strongly doubts those recordings will ever be made public because of the high classification levels attached to military radar operating frequencies and capabilities.
- The situational awareness (SA) display revealed five smaller craft flying in front of the primary rotating object before turning around on radar. - Military radar recordings remain tightly held under strict classification rules, preventing public release of the broader tactical picture seen by the pilots.
---
[54:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3278s) Underwater Anomalies and the Vanishing Torpedo
Jeremy Corbell prompts Fravor to share a story passed on by a fellow pilot about anomalous underwater encounters. Fravor notes that once his own encounter became public knowledge, colleagues began coming out of the woodwork because they no longer felt isolated. While working under contract in the oil and gas sector, Fravor was approached by a former Navy helicopter pilot who had flown heavy-lift Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallions out of Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico during the mid-to-late 1990s. The pilot explained that the Caribbean waters were crystal clear, and his crew was regularly tasked with retrieving recovery gear, such as BQM target drones and inert telemetry torpedoes that float after blowing ballast at the conclusion of training runs.
During the first incident, the helicopter hovered approximately fifty feet above the water to retrieve a BQM drone. Looking down through the chin bubble windows by his feet, the pilot observed a massive dark mass ascending from the ocean depths directly toward them. The rescue diver hooked up the drone, and the moment both the diver and target were hoisted clear of the surface, the dark object descended back into the deep water and vanished. Several months later, the same helicopter crew was deployed to retrieve a spent telemetry torpedo. As they lowered the diver into the water, the pilot saw a huge, circular submerged mass—distinctly not a submarine—rapidly rising toward the diver. Panicked, the pilot screamed over the intercom:
> “He starts screaming to through the intercom system to tell him to pull the diver up and the divers like feet from the water so they've reversed the winch and the divers thinkin what the hell's going on and he's getting pulled up and all of a sudden he said the torpedo just got sucked down underwater and the object just descended back down into the depths and they never recovered that that torpedo.”
The pilot explained that when reporting the incident, officials attempted to explain away the loss as a blown ballast malfunction causing the torpedo to sink. However, the pilot insisted it was visibly sucked downward by the mass. The investigative team behind the *New York Times* reporting interviewed this helicopter pilot, but ultimately chose not to include the account because the incident occurred in the late 1990s and they prioritized recent events.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Sequence of the Underwater Torpedo Incident accDescr: Step-by-step progression of the CH-53 helicopter torpedo retrieval and anomalous underwater encounter.
subgraph Operation["Standard Recovery Operation"] A["CH-53 hovers 50 ft above water"] --> B["Winch lowers rescue diver toward floating torpedo"] end
subgraph Anomaly["Underwater Contact"] B --> C["Pilot spots massive circular shape rising from depths"] C --> D["Intercom warning: winch reversed to pull diver up"] end
subgraph Loss["Disappearance"] D --> E["Torpedo is abruptly pulled underwater"] E --> F["Circular mass and torpedo vanish into depths"] end ```
---
[58:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3498s) The "Go Fast" Footage and Debunking Skeptics
The conversation shifts to the third declassified Navy video, known as "Go Fast." Fravor clarifies that this encounter took place on the East Coast in the same general timeframe as the Gimbal video. In the footage, a white oval object—resembling the Tic Tac—skims rapidly across the surface of the ocean. The weapon systems officer attempts to acquire a lock until the automated tracking system finally engages, prompting the crew's excited reaction.
Corbell and Rogan push back against dismissive skeptical claims that attribute these military encounters to common phenomena such as birds, radar glitches, or pilot hysteria. Rogan and Corbell touch upon professional debunkers, with Corbell nodding toward skeptics like Mick West who attempt to rationalize every military sighting. They argue that believing all these independent systems failed at once requires an implausible conspiracy of errors. As Rogan observes:
> “Mainstream believes everything like every single thing that's ever happened has a rational explanation yeah it's so that you know the probability that you know all the radars went off at the wrong time Commander Fravor you know had nerves and all the other pilots up there with him that you know this things shot off like a like a can like a gun instantly like that that was somehow perfectly coordinated that's a conspiracy that that's a fabrication probably Occam's razor as the events happened exactly like we're being told.”
---
[59:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3576s) The Wingman's Shock and the Two-Week Radar Precedent
Fravor recounts the initial minutes of his own 2004 intercept from the perspective of his wingman, a junior female pilot who had only been with the squadron for four or five months and was still completing her aircraft qualifications. When the controller redirected them on a real-world vector, she was excited to handle a genuine mission. Upon reaching the coordinates and spotting the white-water churning in an airplane-shaped cross beneath the surface, both crews initially assumed an aircraft had crashed and prepared for a search-and-rescue operation. The realization that they were looking at a smooth, wingless Tic Tac moving erratically above the disturbance completely inverted the situation into sheer shock.
Fravor explains that while he processed the experience pragmatically, his wingman developed a lingering frustration with carrier strike group leadership. The *USS Princeton*’s radar operators had been tracking these anomalous targets descending from high altitude for nearly two full weeks, yet no one had informed the flight crews:
> “For her when you talk to her she has a disdain for some of the leadership that didn't tell us that these things were out there you know they're here now we're getting vectored because we were the first time manned airplanes had been airborne when one of these things showed up that no one even gave us a brief that hey we're seeing these objects out here for the last two weeks they're just kind of screwing around you might want to know they're out there and they never told us.”
Prior to that morning, the objects had primarily appeared during off-flying hours—typically between midnight and midday—so no manned flights were in the air to encounter them. Fravor concludes with a laugh, imagining that if an extraterrestrial was piloting the craft, they probably returned to their mothership and got chewed out by their superiors for getting spotted by Navy fighters in broad daylight.
- The carrier strike group had been observing radar tracks of the objects for roughly two weeks prior to the November 14, 2004 encounter. - Objects repeatedly dropped from space down to sea level, but previous detections occurred outside the strike group's daily flight schedule. - The pilots were never briefed on the radar anomalies prior to launch, leading to significant frustration within the air wing.
[01:02:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3732s) The Submerged Disturbance and Theories of Intent
Joe Rogan asks Commander David Fravor about the possible motivations behind the craft's actions, inquiring whether there is consistency in their sizes or if they could be emerging from a larger mother ship. Fravor reflects on what the Tic Tac was actually doing during their encounter, proposing two primary hypotheses: observation and communication. In his view, there was something submerged beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. When Rogan asks him to re-explain the disturbance, Fravor details how it appeared in the ocean:
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Submerged disturbance observation accDescr: Process showing how the underwater object created surface whitewater that drew the pilots to the Tic Tac. A["Cross-shaped disturbance<br/>(Size of a Boeing 737)"] --> B["Submerged 10–15 feet<br/>pointing East"] B --> C["Swells break overhead<br/>like a seamount"] C --> D["Unusual whitewater patches on calm sea"] D --> E["Draws pilots' eyes to hover-state Tic Tac"] ```
Fravor explains that after chasing the Tic Tac, they turned their jets around and looked back down at the coordinates, only to find that the whitewater disturbance had completely vanished into uniform blue ocean, proving that whatever mass was there had moved on. Fravor also notes that Luis Elizondo once suggested a third possibility to him: “prepping the battlefield.”
Whether manufactured by a foreign adversary like China or Russia or something altogether different, Fravor stresses that the machine demonstrated capabilities far beyond current human engineering. He points out that if this were an experimental black project from 2004, the revolutionary propulsion system would have surfaced commercially or militarily within the subsequent 15 years, as it would fundamentally transform global travel without relying on hot exhaust plumes or visible thrusters.
> “If you have a propulsion system that made it gave the capabilities that we observed visually, that's a huge leap for mankind, period.” — Cmdr. David Fravor
- Disturbance dimensions: roughly the size of a Boeing 737, submerged 10 to 15 feet beneath the ocean surface, oriented eastward. - Visual conditions: calm sea with no whitecaps, making the localized churning water stand out dramatically. - Acceleration contrast: while conventional orbital rockets like NASA’s Apollo missions or Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches take minutes to climb out of view from Vandenberg Air Force Base, the Tic Tac vanished in mere seconds.
---
[01:05:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=3934s) Misinformation, Fabricated Tapes, and the Debunking Policy
Addressing whether other aviators have observed massive underwater objects alongside aerial anomalies, Fravor clarifies that none of the service members he has personally spoken with witnessed a submerged craft. He expresses frustration with commentators and sensationalists on television networks like the History Channel who invent details or fabricate claims. Specifically, he calls out an individual who claimed there was an unreleased ten-minute video depicting wild maneuvers, calling the claim outright nonsense. Fravor confirms that the actual ATFLIR video clip is roughly a minute and a half long, exactly matching what was publicly released, though he notes that he reviewed the squadron's internal radar data which the public has not seen. He remains skeptical of persistent stories regarding mysterious “men in black” confiscating materials, noting that investigators never approached the senior pilots who actually pursued the craft.
Jeremy Corbell joins in to explain the historical context of the military’s dismissive posture, tracing the modern policy of official denial directly back to the famous July 1952 Washington, D.C. radar/visual sightings. During that event, unidentified objects flew over the Capitol and the White House, prompting fighter scrambles and flooding the commercial and military communications lines:
```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Evolution of UFO official policy accDescr: Flow diagram tracing the origins of denial policies from the 1952 DC flyover to Project Blue Book. subgraph S1["1952 DC Flyovers"] A["Multiple radar/visual contacts"] --> B["Fighter jets scrambled"] B --> C["Mass public panic"] end subgraph S2["Infrastructure Crisis"] C --> D["Teletype networks crash"] D --> E["Vulnerability to Soviet tactics feared"] end subgraph S3["Institutional Policy"] E --> F["Policy of active ridicule initiated"] F --> G["Project Blue Book tasked to debunk"] end ```
Corbell argues that this national security scare prompted officials to implement systematic ridicule to deter hysteria and prevent foreign adversaries from jamming national communications networks. Project Blue Book, under scientific adviser J. Allen Hynek, was explicitly leveraged to demystify and debunk reports rather than openly acknowledge anomalous flight systems.
> “This system that we have seen for over 70 years, just documented by our military, this is so important: this is a non-reactionary field propulsion system.” — Jeremy Corbell
- Official video length: approximately 90 seconds, despite online rumors of secret 10-minute tapes. - 1952 Washington, D.C. flap: civilian teletype networks were overloaded by panic, cementing the policy of ridicule. - Pilot background: David Fravor flew defensive combat air patrols over Los Angeles immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
---
[01:09:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4194s) Non-Reactionary Propulsion and Historical Precedents
Corbell distinguishes conventional aviation technology from what pilots have logged across decades. Every standard rocket or jet engine relies on a reactionary system—pushing reaction mass out the rear nozzle to produce forward thrust. In contrast, the performance seen on military sensors implies a non-reactionary gravitational field propulsion drive, capable of speeds exceeding 20,000 miles per hour without acoustic signatures or heat signatures. Corbell emphasizes that credible aviators who were trusted with national defense are dismissed by casual internet debunkers as seeing birds or sensor glitches.
Joe Rogan and Corbell shift the conversation to ancient and historical records of unidentified flying objects. Rogan mentions Christopher Columbus logging unusual light sightings in his logbook in 1492, as well as classical religious art featuring airborne phenomena. They pull up and analyze Renaissance-era paintings, noting works where flying discs, plate-shaped aerial craft, and luminous craft hover in the sky behind central figures. In particular, they discuss a 15th-century painting depicting a radiant object high above a subject's shoulder, alongside a background observer and a dog clearly staring up at the sky in wonder. Corbell notes that because fine artists craft every detail with deliberate intent, these historical inclusions suggest that witnesses have documented non-human or anomalous craft operating in Earth's skies across centuries.
> “Somebody has a non-reactionary field propulsion system. Now, are they aliens or some subset of humans? You know, somebody has them, and they're flying through our airspace with impunity.” — Jeremy Corbell
- Christopher Columbus log (October 11, 1492): recorded an unexplained flickering light rising and falling on the horizon hours before sighting land. - 15th-century painting referenced: *The Madonna with Saint Giovannino* (attributed to Sebastiano Mainardi or Jacopo del Sellaio), featuring an airborne disc-like object and a man shading his eyes while staring upward. - Artistic intent: Corbell underlines that fine artists deliberately compose their background figures, indicating contemporary awareness of aerial anomalies.
[01:11:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4275s) Historical Sightings and the Miracle of Fatima
Joe Rogan and Jeremy Corbell examine historical art on the studio screen, focusing on a fifteenth-century painting depicting the crucifixion of Christ with strange, disc-like flying objects hovering in the sky above. Rogan questions the artist's intent, wondering whether the aerial shapes were meant to represent angels or alien spacecraft, noting how strikingly similar they look to modern UFO descriptions. Corbell brings up the Miracle of Fátima from 1917, where three young shepherd children in Portugal claimed they were receiving ongoing monthly messages promising a visitation. The gatherings grew progressively larger until an estimated crowd of tens of thousands—some reports claiming up to a hundred thousand people, including devout believers, skeptics, and doctors—witnessed the sun appear to dance or descend from the sky.
While some saw the Fátima event as purely divine and religious, others interpreted it as a technological event. Corbell emphasizes that while centuries-old paintings and historical mass visions can be endlessly reinterpreted and debated, modern encounters provide an entirely different caliber of evidence. Jeremy Corbell stressed the distinction between ancient records and modern military encounters, arguing, “I can't hold on to that; I can't hold on to an eyewitness with other eyewitnesses with radar systems and with video—we're in a different era now, we don't have to paint it, man, we get to see it.”
- The painting discussed dates back to the 15th century, juxtaposing the biblical crucifixion scene with aerial craft. - The Miracle of Fátima took place in 1917 in Portugal, drawing a crowd of tens of thousands to witness an anomalous mass aerial phenomenon.
[01:13:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4394s) The Flaws of Dogmatic Skepticism
Joe Rogan reflects on the difference between typical UFO folklore and David Fravor’s testimony, remarking that the credibility of an experienced military fighter pilot changes the nature of the conversation entirely. Unlike fringe claimants with histories of seeing bizarre phenomena, Fravor has a single, definitive encounter backed by fellow pilots and physical sensor data. Rogan expresses intense frustration with reflexive, bad-faith debunkers who refuse to examine evidence impartially. He argues that instead of objectively analyzing data to see what can be learned, self-described professional skeptics begin with their conclusion and work backward.
Rogan observes that when debunkers encounter the 2004 FLIR video showing the craft rapidly darting off to the left of the targeting screen at tremendous speed, they resort to convoluted excuses rather than acknowledging the anomaly. Rogan stated his critique of modern skepticism bluntly: “I don't like the idea of being a skeptic—not that I don't think you should be skeptical of certain things, I certainly think you should be—but there's a lot of people that brand themselves as skeptics and I think it's a lazy way to look at things, I really do, because I think you're just looking for the holes in things without looking at it objectively.”
[01:14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4488s) Military Inaction and Ongoing Pentagon Briefings
David Fravor clarifies a widespread public misunderstanding regarding the footage: his crew did not record the famous FLIR1 video. Rather, Fravor and three other aviators observed the Tic Tac visually with their own eyes for approximately five minutes from two separate aircraft before it sped away; a subsequent crew launched later and captured it on their targeting pod. Fravor highlights the strange institutional apathy that followed the encounter. He contrasts it with a Cold War-era incident when a Soviet Oscar-class submarine surfaced directly behind the aircraft carrier USS *Constellation* during predeployment workups, which immediately triggered battle-stations readiness over a foreign military incursion. Yet when an unidentified craft dramatically outperformed brand-new, factory-fresh Block II Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets, the military chose to act as though nothing had happened.
Fravor points out that official attitudes have finally begun to shift over the preceding two years following news exposés, leading to official Navy reporting protocols for unidentified aerial phenomena. He notes that the military’s investigative apparatus never truly stopped looking into these events, even after funding for the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)—which cost approximately $22 million over five years—officially ended. Fravor revealed that interest within the government remains very active: “I will tell you that I won't get into specifics, but there are people inside the United States government that are taking this serious, and I've went down to DC twice to talk to folks behind closed doors because they want to hear the story.”
- Four aviators across two Super Hornets maintained visual contact with the object for roughly five minutes. - The jets flown by Fravor's squadron were brand-new Block II F/A-18F Super Hornets recently delivered from Boeing. - The AATIP program spent roughly $4.5 million per year, totaling $22 million over its five-year lifespan. - Fravor traveled to Washington, D.C. on two separate occasions for closed-door briefings with high-level government officials.
[01:18:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4726s) Government Knowledge and Meeting Bob Lazar
Joe Rogan brings up the perennial political fantasy that an incoming president will immediately demand to see all classified UFO files on day one in the Oval Office. Rogan questions whether anyone in the government actually possesses comprehensive answers, suggesting that officials might simply be just as perplexed as the pilots. When an encounter consists of an anomalous craft defying physics for a few minutes and then vanishing, the military is left with sensor tracks and eyewitness reports, but very little else in terms of definitive explanations.
Fravor agrees, noting that people often assume a vast repository of clear answers exists behind the curtain. The conversation turns to Bob Lazar, whom Fravor recently met when they appeared at the same event. While Fravor leaves it up to each person to decide whether they believe Lazar's claims regarding reverse-engineering alien technology at S-4, he shares his personal impression of the man. Cmdr. David Fravor remarked, “Bob's a normal guy; Bob's not crazy.” Rogan agrees that Lazar’s grounded, ordinary demeanor was one of the most surprising aspects of meeting and interviewing him.
[01:19:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4796s) Reverse Engineering, 3D Printing, and the Solitude of Space
David Fravor recalls asking Bob Lazar directly how long it would realistically take human beings to reverse engineer the craft he claimed to have worked on. Lazar’s unhesitating estimate was another century: “Dave, it was so far beyond.” When Fravor watched Lazar on Joe Rogan's podcast discussing how the craft lacked wires and seams, Fravor noted how Lazar’s description evolved with modern manufacturing. Where Lazar had previously struggled to describe the seamless craft—likening it to wax poured and melted into shape—he now explained it through the lens of modern 3D printing, where an object is fabricated monolithically from the ground up without distinct panels, rivets, or fasteners. Fravor points out that if the craft depends on an exotic element like Element 115 (moscovium), which human scientists can only synthesize for fractions of a microsecond before it rapidly decays, humanity remains a very long way from replicating or even grasping the underlying technology.
Reflecting on the broader question of whether humanity is alone, Fravor describes night flights over the empty expanse of the Pacific Ocean. While hanging out on a tanker hopper in an F/A-18 on autopilot, he would turn down all cockpit instrumentation to eliminate ambient light pollution, slide up his night-vision goggles, roll his head back, and stare into the raw, unpolluted night sky. Gazing at billions upon billions of stars, Fravor found the idea that Earth is the sole harbor of life statistically absurd and philosophically bleak: “Well, if we're the only ones around and that's, and I'm looking everything I'm looking at, some it's a pretty sad place, it's a pretty lonely universe.” He recalls once asking his college astrophysics professor if she believed in extraterrestrial life; when she dismissively replied, “Of course not,” Fravor pushed back on the pure mathematical probability across billions of planets, insisting that entertaining the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence is not crazy, but an open-minded acceptance of basic numbers.
- Lazar estimated it would take at least another 100 years for humanity to understand the craft's technology. - Craft construction appears monolithic, resembling advanced atomic or 3D printing rather than traditional aviation assembly with rivets and panels. - Element 115 can only be synthesized on Earth for a fleeting microsecond before decaying, rendering it functionally unobtainable for domestic fuel recreation.
---
[01:22:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4928s) The UFO Stigma, Hoaxers, and Fravor's Pilot Reaction
Joe Rogan observes that mainstream reluctance to discuss UFOs stems from an innate human terror of looking foolish. The entire field has suffered severe reputational damage from being perpetually linked to fabricators and charlatans, such as the notorious Swiss figure Billy Meier, whose photographs and claims were widely revealed as staged hoaxes. Rogan and Jeremy Corbell discuss how genuine witnesses sometimes have a single, shattering experience, only to end up "chasing that dragon" for the rest of their lives; when they cannot duplicate or prove what they saw, their obsessive search descends into what Corbell calls "UFO disease," driving them into bizarre embellishments.
By contrast, Rogan highlights Commander Fravor’s refreshingly grounded, aviator-minded response upon encountering the anomalous aerospace vehicle (AAV). Rather than descending into mysticism or existential panic, Fravor’s instinctive thought was that he simply wanted to take the craft for a spin. Fravor chuckles and corroborates this, remembering when he landed back on the carrier and debriefed with his executive officer (XO): “I have no idea, but it was pretty freakin impressive and I'd like to fly it.” For a high-performance military pilot, seeing a machine execute impossible maneuvers produces the exact same reaction a professional race car driver feels when encountering the fastest vehicle on Earth: pure mechanical envy.
---
[01:23:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5017s) Gravity Propulsion, S-4 Witnesses, and Physical Limits
Jeremy Corbell challenges the common skeptical argument that extraterrestrial visitation is physically impossible because of the immense, light-year distances separating stellar systems. He argues that under the gravity-wave propulsion mechanics described by Bob Lazar, conventional distance ceases to be an obstacle:
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Theoretical Gravity Propulsion Framework accDescr: Diagram contrasting conventional distance-based travel with Lazar's described gravity field manipulation.
subgraph Conv["Conventional Physics Model"] A["Vast Interstellar Distances"] --> B["Speed of Light Barrier"] B --> C["Millennia of Travel Time"] end
subgraph Prop["Field Propulsion Model"] D["Gravity Field Amplification"] --> E["Space-Time Metric Warping"] E --> F["Instantaneous Point-to-Point Translation"] end
subgraph Barrier["Current Human Limitations"] G["Theoretical Physics Permits It"] H["Material Science Lag"] I["Element 115 Fuel Unavailability"] G -.-> H G -.-> I end ```
Corbell argues that if an object manipulates a localized gravitational field—falling forward into its own self-generated gravitational well—it moves like the ping-pong ball in a cup of water Fravor observed, evading extreme G-forces and inertial stress without ripping apart. Rogan compares the public's difficulty in accepting advanced propulsion to someone attempting to explain high-definition smartphone video to people who lived before the invention of still photography, when humans had to hand-paint canvas portraits just to record an image.
Addressing Lazar's original 1989 testimony, Corbell emphasizes that Lazar was forced to interpret revolutionary technology through the conceptual toolkit of the late 1980s, comparing atomic bonding to injection-molded plastics until advances in nanotechnology and atomic printing provided more accurate vocabulary. Corbell insists the fundamental stumbling block to reverse engineering is not theoretical physics, but industrial metallurgy and fuel: “It is my knowledge that we understand exactly how these crafts work; our one limiting factor is our material science, we can't replicate that, the fuel source itself is another.” Corbell reveals that he has spent years interviewing additional witnesses to substantiate Lazar's presence at S-4 and Papoose Lake. These sources include personnel who watched Lazar board the unmarked red-and-white Janet flights out of McCarran Airport, an individual stopped by armed, non-military security contractors near Papoose Lake, and an SR-71 Blackbird pilot with direct knowledge of military exploitation programs targeting non-human technology.
---
[01:26:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5204s) Metamaterials and Jacques Vallée's Physical Samples
The discussion turns to physical evidence and the revelations initiated by the December 2017 *New York Times* investigation into the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which acknowledged ongoing military and private-sector research into anomalous metamaterials. When Rogan inquires about the specific provenance of these physical fragments, Corbell brings up veteran scientist and ufologist Jacques Vallée, noting that Vallée has amassed a personal collection of 17 distinct physical debris samples from purported anomalous crash sites and trace-deposition incidents.
Corbell points out Vallée's historic pedigree: “He is the guy, first ever for the United States military created a computer program for, you know, for the study of UFOs for Project Blue Book.” Beyond serving as the inspiration for the French scientist Claude Lacombe in Steven Spielberg’s *Close Encounters of the Third Kind*, Vallée had unmatched clearance and access to early governmental databases. Corbell reveals that five years prior, he personally acquired some of the famous layered material samples and brought them to New Mexico to be analyzed by five separate research scientists. The scientific interest in these fragments centers not merely on their chemical elements, but on their structural configuration: ultra-thin, vacuum-layered metal laminates bound together at the atomic level, exhibiting structural properties that current industrial terrestrial manufacturing cannot easily duplicate.
[01:28:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5316s) Metamaterials and the Material Science Limiting Factor
Jeremy Corbell details physical samples of alleged crash debris currently in the public domain rather than under strict government control, describing pieces that range in size from an orange down to a quarter. He explains that scientists have been analyzing these samples isotopically and elementally to determine whether they show signs of artificial engineering. Corbell provides the "cliff notes" version of the findings, pointing to evidence of atomic layering reminiscent of how graphene is engineered. When atomically layered materials are precisely machined and oriented at specific angles, they can exhibit extraordinary properties such as superconductivity. Corbell notes an eerie physical demonstration where a piece of such material can pass through thick ice like a hot knife through butter simply by conducting the ambient warmth of a human hand.
Corbell argues that this kind of metamaterial does not occur naturally and must be purposefully fabricated at an atomic scale. In his view, human theoretical physics has already outpaced our manufacturing capabilities, leaving material science as the sole bottleneck preventing us from developing field propulsion systems. The intense secrecy surrounding UFO research, Corbell insists, is driven by the desire to crack this engineering puzzle before hostile foreign powers do: “Whoever exploits it first wins it's a game changer we don't want Russia to do it we don't want China to do it if we had a non reactionary propulsion system the world would look different instantaneously.”
- Alleged crash debris samples in the public domain range from the size of an orange to the size of a quarter. - Material analysis focuses on isotopic composition, elemental makeup, and micro-engineered atomic layering. - Superconductive materials can melt through solid ice effortlessly using only the heat conducted from a person's fingers. - Corbell asserts that material science has remained humanity's primary limiting factor from 1989 up to the present day.
[01:30:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5447s) Expanding the Aperture: Non-Reactionary Propulsion and Dogfighting in 3D
When Joe Rogan asks how the 2004 encounter altered his worldview, Cmdr. David Fravor explains that he had never believed humanity was alone in the universe simply by looking up at the sheer volume of stars. After the encounter, however, his questions became far more immediate: where did the object come from, what was it doing, and why did he happen to be the one to intercept it? He expresses frustration with skeptics who reflexively dismiss the event as a radar malfunction or a camera artifact, pointing out that humanity's technological trajectory has been heavily biased by historical accidents. Because early engineers harnessed combustion, civilization standardized around reactionary propulsion, but discovering an alternate path early on would have made internal combustion look utterly bizarre: “Had we done something different or we developed non reaction we might look at something like a gasoline engine go holy cow how's that thing work right we wouldn't have that idea.” He notes that radical ideas often face ridicule before being validated, citing how Albert Einstein was initially viewed as eccentric before his theories were continually verified.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Paradigms of Propulsion Technology accDescr: Flowchart contrasting human combustion-based reactionary propulsion with advanced field-based non-reactionary propulsion.
subgraph Reactive ["Human Reactionary Baseline"] A["Combustion Engines"] --> B["Suckers and Blowers (Jet Turbines)"] B --> C["Mass Expulsion & Energy Bleed"] end
subgraph NonReactive ["Advanced Field Propulsion"] D["Metamaterials & Atomic Layering"] --> E["Magnetics & Field Manipulation"] E --> F["Non-Reactionary Lift & Gravitic Travel"] end ```
Fravor emphasizes that true non-reactionary propulsion would transform civilization far beyond the military sphere, though he jokes that ordinary people already struggle to operate vehicles in two dimensions, let alone three. Drawing on his experience as a fighter pilot, Fravor observes that humans are fundamentally flat-plane creatures who treat vertical space as an unnatural obstacle. In tactical aviation, operating in the vertical plane requires managing extreme energy costs; an F/A-18 executing a split-S maneuver—rolling inverted and performing a half-loop downward to reverse direction—demands roughly 2,500 feet of vertical airspace while bleeding massive amounts of kinetic energy. While conventional aviation remains trapped refining traditional "suckers and blowers" (jet turbine engines), Fravor argues humanity should invest heavily in alternative physics like magnetics. He recounts conversations with Steve Justice, the former director of advanced systems at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, who had allocated Internal Research and Development (IRAD) funding to explore exotic propulsion concepts before retiring.
- A split-S vertical reversal in an F/A-18 Hornet requires approximately 2,500 vertical feet, representing a tight turn that burns significant aircraft energy. - Fravor characterizes conventional jet engines as merely refined "suckers and blowers" that push mass to achieve thrust. - Steve Justice funded unconventional propulsion and magnetics concepts using internal research and development (IRAD) budgets while at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works.
[01:35:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5716s) The Technological Divide: From the Manhattan Project to Modern Cavemen
The discussion turns to the profound geopolitical and philosophical dilemmas that arise when game-changing technology is kept secret. Fravor draws a parallel to the Manhattan Project during World War II, noting that once the United States successfully detonated the atomic bomb ahead of Germany and the Soviet Union, the geopolitical balance shifted overnight and forced every major power into an existential arms race. If a nation cracked non-reactionary field propulsion in total secrecy, it would face the monumental question of whether to weaponize the monopoly or release the discovery for the collective advancement of humanity. Fravor admits that while the ethical dilemma is profound, “Right now it's not for me to decide I'm just Dave.”
Joe Rogan reflects on the hubris of modern society, observing that people living in 2019 tend to view electricity, smart devices, and LED screens as the absolute summit of scientific achievement. However, to an interstellar civilization that commands gravity propulsion and stable superheavy elements, modern human infrastructure would appear primitive: “If you're some creature from some other planet that has got easy access to element 115 and some gravity propulsion system you're looking at us like we're digging holes in the side of a mountain to protect ourself in the rain we're a cave people.” Fravor wholeheartedly agrees, pointing out that vast technological disparities exist right here on Earth. Just as an uncontacted Amazonian tribe drawing water from a pit would be completely astonished by a live high-definition video feed of themselves on a flat screen, humanity's most sophisticated aerospace systems are likely rudimentary when measured against the technology seen maneuvering over the Pacific.
[01:37:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=5855s) Perspective Shifts and Briefings in the Pentagon
Joe Rogan asks David Fravor whether witnessing the object firsthand fundamentally changed how he looks at life, noting that while looking up at the stars might give someone an inkling that humanity is not alone, actually seeing an anomalous craft must cause a dramatic shift in perspective. Fravor clarifies that while it certainly altered his viewpoint, it functioned primarily as a confirmation of something he had long suspected: “It shifted my perspective, but it was more of a—it's a validation, a confirmation.” He explains that seeing an object perform impossible maneuvers brings you to the threshold of certainty, quipping that only having one physically land on his front lawn would make him 100% sure. He points out that he got within half a mile of the craft—a distance civilians often assume is far away, but one that is remarkably close when maneuvering high-speed aircraft.
Rogan asks how long conversations typically last when Fravor is called in by high-level government officials. Fravor recounts that after the December 2017 *New York Times* article was published, he briefed three distinct groups. The outreach began after his wingman—the female pilot flying the other F/A-18—reached out to him. She had been summoned to Washington, D.C., multiple times, being shuttled between off-site Starbucks locations and secure vaults inside the Pentagon. Interrogators repeatedly showed her unrelated footage like the Gimbal video, asking if her sighting resembled it. Frustrated, she reminded them that they dubbed it the "Tic Tac" for a literal reason: “We called it the Tic Tac because it looked like a Tic Tac—what part don't you get? I mean, go get a thing of Tic Tacs and look at it.” When she asked Fravor if he would be willing to speak, he agreed without hesitation, offering his contact information to her handlers.
During one subsequent briefing, Fravor and his colleagues were allocated a strict twenty-minute time slot with high-ranking officials whose schedules were notoriously packed. Instead of a quick dismissal, the meeting extended to an hour and a half because the officials were completely captivated by the account. While aides occasionally walked in and out, several key leaders stayed glued to their seats, asking if the pilots were joking before recognizing the gravity of the situation. Fravor observes that senior decision-makers were forced to acknowledge that if craft can appear in controlled airspace at will and operate completely unhindered, national defense leadership has an obligation to pay serious attention.
- Fravor merged within half a mile of the Tic Tac, which represents extreme proximity in tactical jet aviation. - The other pilot involved in the intercept made half a dozen visits to the Pentagon, meeting officials everywhere from public coffee shops to secure SCIF vaults. - High-level briefings scheduled for twenty minutes routinely stretched past ninety minutes due to intense official interest.
---
[01:40:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6038s) Defense Budgets, Oversight, and the Threat of Siloed Intelligence
When Rogan asks what senior government officials could realistically do beyond spending money to observe the phenomena, Fravor contextualizes the financial realities of black-budget research. When media reports broke about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) championed by Senator Harry Reid, public outrage erupted over the $22 million price tag. Fravor points out that $22 million spread across five years equals just $4.4 million annually—a sum so minuscule relative to the $750 billion defense budget that it does not even register as a rounding error. Because Project Blue Book historically showed that only 10 to 15 percent of sightings remain genuinely unexplained after filtering out misidentifications and military pranks (such as pilots buzzing campfires in full afterburner), concentrating funding on the credible core does not require a massive workforce.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: UAP Funding and Cross-Agency Oversight Model accDescr: Flowchart contrasting fragmented intelligence silos with a unified program oversight model.
subgraph Problem["The Silo Problem (Pre-9/11 Model)"] direction TB F1["Taxpayer Funding"] --> A["Agency A"] F1 --> B["Agency B"] F1 --> C["Agency C"] A -. "No communication".- B B -. "No communication".- C A & B & C --> FAIL["Fragmented Intelligence / Waste & Abuse"] end
subgraph Solution["Recommended Oversight Model"] direction TB F2["Targeted UAP Funding"] --> OVERSIGHT["Central Program Director"] OVERSIGHT --> S1["Joint Taskforce (Agency A, B, C)"] S1 --> OUTCOME["Shared Data, Tech Analysis & Public Value"] end ```
Fravor recounts consulting former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon, who provided critical insight into the mechanics of government bureaucracies. Fravor’s primary warning to officials allocating funds was to avoid repeating the intelligence partitioning that preceded the September 11 attacks, where separate agencies held critical puzzle pieces but refused to talk to each other:
> “My fear [is] that you go, ‘Hey, we’re gonna take a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money, we’re going to fund a program to actually seriously investigate this stuff and look at the technology,’ but there are three different entities working on their own and not talking to each other.”
Fravor insisted to officials that any funded program must have strict central oversight and force participating agencies to share data in a collaborative sandbox, preventing wasted expenditures and accusations of government abuse.
---
[01:42:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6174s) Video Leaks, Classified Sensors, and AAWSAP Origins
Rogan asks about the variety of craft documented on military video, pointing to the Gimbal footage as a noticeably different shape from the Tic Tac. Fravor acknowledges that while the GoFast target appears similar to a Tic Tac, there are multiple configurations flying. He explains why military officials guard sensor recordings so jealously, comparing it to intelligence methods: if the government releases a video, foreign adversaries learn sensor capabilities and collection locations. He invokes the story of drug smuggler Barry Seal, whose covert surveillance camera inside a cargo plane—publicly exposed by President Ronald Reagan—revealed to Pablo Escobar exactly who had supplied the evidence, resulting in Seal's assassination.
Fravor shares the bizarre history of how the 2004 Tic Tac footage first surfaced in the public domain. Around 2008, while he was already retired, his former backseater (Weapon Systems Officer) emailed him a link asking if the footage looked familiar. The video had leaked onto a website called *strangecosmos.com* (referred to colloquially as a strange-land site) before making its way onto YouTube. For years prior to the 2017 *Times* scoop, Fravor casually sent that YouTube link to friends to show them what he had encountered. When an unofficial official investigation was later initiated, the video was scrubbed from YouTube. Fravor told investigators the core question was not the object itself, but how secret operational data escaped the ship:
> “What you really need to look [at] is how did this thing come off of a classified drive system on an aircraft carrier and end up on strange land.com and YouTube?”
Fravor emphasizes that the video was initially classified Secret not because it depicted a UFO, but to conceal the operational performance numbers of the Raytheon ATFLIR pod, although in the released clip the jet was simply cruising at 250 knots on autopilot. Jeremy Corbell adds that historical accounts document hundreds of distinct craft geometries, from classic cigars to the nine distinct craft configurations Bob Lazar claimed were housed at S-4. Corbell clarifies a common media error regarding the funding: the $22 million allocated by Senator Harry Reid did not go directly to AATIP, but went entirely to its predecessor program, AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program).
- The ATFLIR video was classified Secret to protect aircraft avionics readouts, system symbology, and sensor capabilities. - The Tic Tac footage had been circulating on informal discussion boards and YouTube since roughly 2008 before being taken down prior to official release. - Corbell notes that Bob Lazar described nine distinct craft models at S-4 sharing a common propulsion mechanism. - The original $22 million congressional earmark secured by Harry Reid was awarded to AAWSAP rather than AATIP directly.
[01:45:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6342s) AATIP, AAWSAP, and Non-Reactionary Propulsion
Jeremy Corbell clarifies the administrative and financial confusion surrounding government UFO investigations, pointing out that The New York Times misreported the funding details. The widely cited $22 million budget was not actually for AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), which was focused specifically on military encounters with unidentified craft. Instead, that funding was allocated to AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program), an initiative established to investigate Skinwalker Ranch and associated anomalous phenomena. While both independently funded programs communicated and exchanged intelligence, Corbell emphasizes that they operated as two distinct entities, adding that the public will likely learn about additional secret programs in the near future.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Government UFO Programs and Funding Breakdown accDescr: Diagram showing the separation of funding and scope between AAWSAP and AATIP, along with their information sharing.
subgraph DefenseInvestigativePrograms["UFO Investigative Programs"] direction TB AAWSAP["AAWSAP<br>(Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program)"] AATIP["AATIP<br>(Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program)"] end
Funding["$22 Million Budget"] -->|"Allocated to"| AAWSAP AAWSAP -->|"Triggered by"| Skinwalker["Skinwalker Ranch & Related Phenomena"] OtherFunding["Separate Funding Sources"] --> AATIP AATIP -->|"Focused on"| Military["Military Sightings & Encounters"] AAWSAP <-->|"Shared Intelligence & Collaborated"| AATIP ```
The conversation shifts to the physical crafts observed over the decades. Joe Rogan notes that among the nine distinct craft shapes Bob Lazar claimed to see at S-4, none closely matched the Tic Tac. Corbell acknowledges this, but explains that military sighting archives over the decades contain high-speed craft exceeding 20,000 miles per hour taking the form of Tic Tacs, triangles, and rectangles. The core unifying feature of all these objects is their non-reactionary propulsion system. Commander David Fravor reflects on the Tic Tac's behavior during his encounter, observing that it initially drifted aimlessly left and right without turning its body, but immediately became aware when he engaged. It turned to point toward him, mirrored his descending circle with an aggressive climb, and actively jammed the fighter's radar when his crew attempted to lock onto it.
- The $22 million widely cited in the media belonged to AAWSAP (sparked by Skinwalker Ranch), not AATIP. - Bob Lazar reported seeing nine different craft shapes at S-4, inspecting only one up close. - When Commander Fravor descended in a circle toward the Tic Tac, the object climbed upward to mirror his flight path. - The Tic Tac actively jammed the fighter jets' radar, which Commander Fravor highlights as an aggressive military-level countermeasure before Chad Underwood captured it on the ATFLIR.
---
[01:47:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6455s) Firsthand Encounters and Presidential Access to UFO Secrets
Joe Rogan expresses the deep yearning that many enthusiasts feel: while listening to an extraordinary account is fascinating, nothing compares to seeing it with one's own eyes. Commander Fravor relates this to an interaction he had with a prominent, boastful figure in the UFO research community who tried to interrogate him about various famous historical sightings. After Fravor answered that he knew nothing about multiple famous UFO incidents, the man dismissively told him he was not really a "UFO guy." Fravor quickly put him in his place: “I go, 'No, but I chased one, have you?' He goes, 'No.' I go, 'I'm an expert, you're the guy in school.'” Rogan compares the UFO researcher's attitude to sports fans who memorize baseball statistics down to the decimal point but have never stepped foot on the playing field.
The discussion turns to executive secrecy. Rogan jokes that he would run for president just to win, demand to see the classified UFO files, and immediately quit. Corbell notes that several U.S. presidents genuinely pushed to uncover the truth and hit brick walls. When Bill Clinton entered office, he reportedly tasked Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell with finding answers to two specific questions: who killed John F. Kennedy, and the truth about UFOs. Clinton was denied access to both, later commenting on how often he had been lied to or refused information after asking for it. Similarly, Jimmy Carter—who had witnessed a UFO himself before entering politics—publicly pledged on the campaign trail to uncover and disclose the government's files, only to fall completely silent on the topic following his presidential intelligence briefings. Corbell argues that the subject remains hidden from presidents because it is buried within deep, insulated compartments of the national security state.
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[01:49:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=6583s) The Storm Area 51 Phenomenon and Final Thoughts
Jeremy Corbell recaps the cultural fallout of the viral "Storm Area 51" movement, playfully holding Rogan partly responsible. After Corbell's documentary *Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers* and their joint appearance on the podcast went viral, a young man created the satirical Facebook event "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us." As the meme exploded and millions signed up, concerns grew that crowds would descend upon Rachel, Nevada—a desert outpost with only 52 residents and a single business. Fearing a disaster or military confrontation, Corbell got in touch with the organizer and helped pivot the gathering away from Rachel to Hiko, Nevada, roughly 50 miles away.
Contrary to mainstream media reports claiming only 150 people attended—a figure Corbell says only reflected the small group loitering directly at the military gate—more than 3,000 people safely gathered at the Hiko festival. The event featured live discussions with actor Dave Foley, DJ Paul Oakenfold, and investigative journalist George Knapp, all with zero arrests or rioting. Commander Fravor makes it clear he had no desire to attend, viewing any call to storm a military facility as inherently reckless: “That's like, let's jump the White House fence. I'm like, are you fucking—that's the dumbest idea on the planet.”
Corbell emphasizes that despite the meme origins, the gathering proved a massive, genuine public appetite for answers about real physics and military engagements: “You've got fighter pilots that engage them, it represents a non-reactionary propulsion system, and that's a physics that would change the world.” Rogan concludes by expressing his deep gratitude to Commander Fravor for coming on the show, noting that credible, eyewitness testimony from seasoned aviators is the only thing that genuinely moves the needle for him, before thanking Corbell for arranging the interview and for his Lazar documentary.
- The town of Rachel, Nevada, which borders Area 51, has an estimated population of only 52 people and one local business. - While news outlets reported that only 150 people showed up, Corbell insists over 3,000 attendees gathered safely in Hiko, Nevada. - Guests and performers at the Hiko event included Dave Foley, DJ Paul Oakenfold, and journalist George Knapp, with attendees drinking novelty "alien Budweiser."
## Notable quotes > [13:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=795s) Technically jamming is an act of war. — Cmdr. David Fravor
> [01:09:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4194s) Somebody has a non-reactionary field propulsion system. Now, are they aliens or some subset of humans? You know, somebody has them, and they're flying through our airspace with impunity. — Jeremy Corbell
> [01:13:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ&t=4394s) there's a lot of people that brand themselves as skeptics and I think it's a lazy way to look at things, I really do, because I think you're just looking for the holes in things without looking at it objectively. — Joe Rogan
## Mentioned Cmdr. David Fravor, Jeremy Corbell, Joe Rogan, Young Jamie, Luis Elizondo, George Knapp, Bob Lazar, Jacques Vallée, J. Allen Hynek, Steve Justice, Billy Meier, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg, Harry Reid, Christopher Mellon, Barry Seal, Ronald Reagan, Pablo Escobar, Chad Underwood, Bill Clinton, Webster Hubbell, Jimmy Carter, Dave Foley, Paul Oakenfold, Mick West, USS Nimitz (CVN-68), USS Princeton (CG-59), USS Constellation, VFA-41 (Black Aces), VMFA-232 (Red Devils), Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic, United States Navy, Mexican Air Force, National Security Agency (NSA), The Pentagon, NASA, SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, A-6 Intruder, F/A-18 Hornet, F/A-18F Super Hornet, F-16 Falcon, F-22 Raptor, SR-71 Blackbird, B-2 stealth bomber, MiG-29, Su-27, Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion, E-2 Hawkeye, BQM target drone, AN/SPY-1 radar, APG-73 radar, APG-79 AESA radar, ATFLIR, FLIR1, CATM-9, AIM-9, Top Gun (Navy Fighter Weapons School), Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), Project Blue Book, The New York Times, Carrier Intelligence Center (CVIC), Element 115 (moscovium), Skinwalker Ranch, S-4, Area 51, Rachel, Nevada, Hiko, Nevada, Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, Treasure Island, Superstition Mountains, Miracle of Fátima, Manhattan Project, The Madonna with Saint Giovannino, Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers, Men in Black, Signs, Independence Day
## Video description Commander David Fravor is a retired US Navy pilot, who has a close encounter in 2004 with the so-called Tic Tac UFO, and Jeremy Corbell is a contemporary artist and documentary filmmaker.
[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ)