Dave Fravor

Commander Dave Fravor is a retired U.S. Navy pilot who is best known as the lead eyewitness in the 2004 Tic Tac involving the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. His account of the encounter has been part of the public discussion of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) in Congress.¹

Naval Career

A graduate of the prestigious Top Gun naval flight school, Commander Fravor was the commanding officer of the Black Aces squadron (VFA-41) at the time of the Tic Tac incident. He was considered one of the best pilots in the Navy, known for his skill and level-headedness in high-pressure situations.¹

The Tic Tac Encounter

On November 14, 2004, while on a routine training mission off the coast of San Diego, Commander Fravor and his WSO, Commander Jim Slaight, were diverted to investigate a series of anomalous radar contacts that had been tracked by the USS Princeton. Fravor, along with a second F/A-18 piloted by Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich, witnessed a white, oblong craft, later nicknamed the "Tic Tac," maneuvering erratically over a disturbance in the ocean.¹

Fravor descended to engage the object, which responded by mirroring his movements before accelerating at a speed he described as "like nothing I've ever seen." The object vanished in an instant, only to reappear on radar sixty miles away at the squadron's pre-arranged rendezvous point. Fravor's detailed and unwavering account of the incident, corroborated by the other pilots and the radar data, provided a solid foundation for the subsequent investigation by the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).¹

Service record and the 2004 report, in his own words

At the July 26, 2023 hearing of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fravor described his background to Representative Nick Langworthy: "I was an enlisted Marine, Naval Academy graduate, Navy, flew for 18 years. Got a Master's from University of Houston and I have worked in the private sector for the last ... 17 years. I do a lot of defense work."² In his written statement he said that in 2004 "I was a commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, the world-famous Black Aces," tasked to Carrier Airwing 11 aboard USS Nimitz, and that the planned two-versus-two training with the cruiser USS Princeton as control "was going to be suspended and we are going to proceed with real-world tasking."³

He testified that the controller said the objects "had been observed for over 2 weeks coming down from over 80,000 feet, rapidly descending to 20,000 feet, hanging out for hours and then going straight back up"; that all four aircrew saw "whitewater" and "a white Tic Tac object with a longitudinal axis pointing north south"; that the object "suddenly shifted its longitudinal axis, aligned it with my aircraft, and began to climb"; and that after it accelerated away the controller reported it "at your CAP point roughly 60 miles away in less than a minute."³ Of the video he said his own crew "got the video that you see, that 90-second video," and "What you do not see is the radar tape that was never released, and we do not know where it is at, of the act of jamming that the object put on an APG-73 radar."³

On reporting after the event, he told Chairman Glenn Grothman: "None. We had a standard debrief where the backseaters went down to our carrier intel center ... No one else talked to us and I was in the top 20 in the battle group. No one came. That captain was aware. The admiral was aware. Nothing was done."³ His statement: "the incident was never investigated. None of my crew were ever questioned. The tapes were never taken ... It was not until 2009, until Jay Stratton had contacted me to investigate."³ He said Alex Dietrich, "the other pilot," later contacted him; that he then spoke with Luis Elizondo; and that "a few weeks after that" Elizondo "had left the Pentagon in protest and joined forces with Tom DeLonge, Chris Mellon, Steve Justice and others to form To the Stars Academy."³ He credited Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper with the 2017 New York Times articles.³

Answers on the object and on the water

Asked by Representative Tim Burchett about the whitewater, Fravor said: "We did not see an object. There was something there to cause the whitewater and when we turned around it was gone," and "We actually joked that the Tic Tac was communicating with something when we came back."³ To Representative Langworthy he agreed that he had described "a 40-foot flying Tic Tac shaped object" ("That is correct ... it is a giant flying propane tank"), said "The Princeton tracked it. The Nimitz tracked it. The E2 tracked it. We never saw it on our radars," that the other aircraft's radar was jammed "as soon as it tried to lock it," that there was "no IR plume," and that he knew of no adversary with the capability.³ He said "the Tic Tac object we engaged in 2004 was far superior to anything that we had on time, have today, or looking to develop in the next 10 years," and called for oversight "from those people that the citizens of this great country elected."³

Navy statement and the three videos

In September 2019 Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher told The Black Vault that "The Navy considers the phenomena contained/depicted in those three videos as unidentified" and that the term "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" was used because it "provides the basic descriptor for the sightings/observations of unauthorized/unidentified aircraft/objects that have been observed entering/operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges." Fox News reported that the first video was taken on November 14, 2004, "shot by the F-18's gun camera," and that the three videos ("FLIR1," "Gimbal" and "GoFast") were "originally released to the New York Times and to The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA)."⁴ The Black Vault's compiled case file on the incident states that a second sortie carried the targeting pod, that the pod video runs about one minute sixteen seconds, and that it was recorded by Lt. Cmdr. Chad Underwood; and it describes the object as about 40 to 46 feet in length, with footnoted sources of its own.⁵

Role in Disclosure

In the years following the incident, Commander Fravor was hesitant to speak publicly about his experience due to the stigma surrounding the UAP topic. However, he was eventually debriefed by Luis Elizondo and Christopher Mellon and agreed to share his story. His testimony was featured in the groundbreaking 2017 New York Times article that revealed the existence of AATIP, and he has since become a key figure in the UAP disclosure movement.¹

He has provided briefings to members of Congress and their staff, and he testified under oath at a historic public hearing on UAP in July 2023.

Advisory role

The website of Americans for Safe Aerospace lists "David Fravor (retired Navy commander)" among its advisors; Ryan Graves, its founder, testified at the same hearing.⁶