It looks like a grainy, black-and-white smudge at first. Then you notice the numbers jumping on the screen. Then you see the object move. Honestly, the tic tac ufo video is probably the most significant piece of footage in the history of aerial phenomena, not because it’s a 4K cinematic masterpiece, but because of who caught it and how they reacted. We aren't talking about a blurry photo from a shaky iPhone in a backyard. This was captured by the Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod on a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet.
The pilots involved weren't looking for aliens. They were on a routine training mission. Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich were flying over the Pacific in November 2004 when they were directed to an object that had been appearing on radar for days. What they saw defied every known law of aerodynamics. No wings. No rotors. No exhaust trail. Just a smooth, white, oblong shape—roughly 40 feet long—bouncing around like a ping-pong ball.
Breaking Down the FLIR1 Footage
Most people call it the "Tic Tac" video, but the Pentagon officially refers to it as "FLIR1." It’s one of three videos—alongside "Gimbal" and "GoFast"—that the Department of Defense eventually declassified. When you watch it, the most jarring moment happens toward the end. The object is being tracked by the sensor, locked in the crosshairs. Suddenly, it zips to the left with such high velocity that the sensor loses the lock.
It didn't just drift away. It vanished from the frame in a fraction of a second.
To put this in perspective, if a human pilot tried to pull a maneuver like that in a modern jet, the G-forces would literally liquefy their internal organs. The airframe would probably snap. Engineers like Kevin Knuth, a former NASA research scientist, have analyzed the telemetry and estimated that the object was pulling hundreds of Gs. For context, an F-35 tops out at around 9 Gs before things get dangerous.
The Radar Data vs. The Visuals
The video is just one layer of the story. The real kicker is the "CEC" (Cooperative Engagement Capability) data from the USS Princeton. Senior Chief Kevin Day was the radar operator who watched these things for nearly a week before the intercept. He reported seeing groups of these objects dropping from 80,000 feet (the edge of space) down to sea level in seconds.
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Physics says that shouldn't be possible without a massive sonic boom. There was no boom.
Why This Footage Actually Matters
Before 2017, talking about UFOs was a great way to get laughed out of a room, especially in the military. This video changed that. When The New York Times published its exposé on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the tic tac ufo video was the smoking gun. It forced the government to stop using the word "UFO" and start using "UAP" (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena).
It shifted the conversation from "Are people seeing ghosts?" to "Why is there high-tech hardware in our restricted airspace that we can't track?"
The technology displayed—if it is technology—suggests something called "trans-medium" capability. The pilots reported the water churning underneath the object, as if it were interacting with the ocean or perhaps even dipping into it. We have submersibles that go deep and planes that go high, but we don't have anything that does both seamlessly without changing its physical configuration.
Debunking the Debunkers
Skeptics have tried to hand-wave this away for years. Mick West, a well-known investigator of these things, has suggested the "movement" at the end of the video is actually the camera losing its "lase" and the object just appearing to zip away because of the plane's own motion. It’s a compelling argument if you only look at the video in a vacuum.
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But you can't ignore the eye-witnesses.
Fravor and Dietrich are highly trained observers. Their entire job is to identify every silhouette in the sky. They saw it with their own eyes in broad daylight. Fravor famously described the object as "acting purposefully." When he moved toward it, it mirrored his movement. When he tried to get behind it, it accelerated away. This wasn't a weather balloon or a sensor glitch. Balloons don't react to fighter jets.
The Five Observables
Luis Elizondo, the former intelligence officer who headed AATIP, often points to the tic tac ufo video as a prime example of the "Five Observables." These are the traits that set these objects apart from drones or secret Russian/Chinese tech:
- Anti-gravity lift: No visible control surfaces like wings.
- Sudden and instantaneous acceleration: Moving at hypersonic speeds without a heat signature.
- Hypersonic velocities without signatures: No vapor trails or sonic booms.
- Low observability: Ability to become "invisible" to radar or the naked eye (cloaking).
- Trans-medium travel: Moving between space, air, and water effortlessly.
If this were a secret US project, why would we test it against our own unsuspecting pilots in a training range? That's a massive safety risk. If it were a foreign adversary, it would mean that China or Russia has leapfrogged US physics by about a thousand years. Neither explanation feels particularly comfortable.
What We Still Don't Know
There is a longer version of the video. At least, that's what several whistleblowers and radar technicians from the USS Princeton claim. They say the high-resolution footage shows much more detail—actual surfaces, maybe even how the object was oriented. The version the public has is the "scrubbed" version, likely to protect the exact capabilities of our ATFLIR sensors.
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It’s also worth noting the location. The "Tic Tac" was seen near the Channel Islands off California. This is a heavy military testing zone. Does that mean it’s ours? Maybe. But the Navy's own internal reports labeled it as "unidentified" and "unauthorized" in the airspace.
Basically, the more you dig, the weirder it gets.
Honestly, the tic tac ufo video didn't provide answers; it just gave us better questions. We are now in an era where NASA has a dedicated UAP study team and the Pentagon has the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). All of that stems back to those few seconds of grainy footage from 2004.
Actionable Insights for Researching UAPs
If you want to look into this further without falling down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, stay close to the data.
- Read the SCU (Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies) report: They did a 270-page deep dive into the 2004 Nimitz encounter that uses actual physics calculations based on the radar data.
- Watch the David Fravor interview on Lex Fridman: It’s a long-form conversation where he goes into the technical flight maneuvers in a way that’s hard to fake.
- Check the AARO official website: They now host the declassified videos in their original format so you can see the telemetry yourself.
- Compare the sensors: Look up how ATFLIR works. Understanding the difference between "TV mode" and "IR mode" (Infrared) helps you understand why the object looks the way it does in the footage.
The reality is that these objects are being picked up on multiple sensor platforms—radar, sonar, and thermal. The tic tac ufo video is just the tip of the iceberg, the one piece of evidence that was too "clean" for the government to keep hidden forever. Whether it’s a breakthrough in propulsion or something else entirely, the footage proves that there is a physical presence in our skies that we currently cannot replicate and cannot control.
Monitor the official Congressional hearing transcripts for the most up-to-date information on sensor data releases. The shift in 2026 toward more transparent data sharing means we might see more than just "grainy smudges" in the near future. Keep an eye on the "Gimbal" video analysis as well, as it provides the rotational data that the Tic Tac footage lacks.