David Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122

Fridman states that, in his assessment as an open-minded scientist, Fravor's account is the most credible UFO sighting in history that he is aware of.

his story corroborated by several other pilots... is the most credible sighting of a ufo in history at least that i'm aware of

Fridman states, framing the story before Fravor tells it, that USS Princeton began tracking unidentified objects around 28,000 feet at roughly 120 mph off the California coast starting 10 November 2004, continuing for about a week before the 14 November encounter.

they started noticing on november 10th that there is a few objects flying around at 28,000 feet with speed of a low speed of 120 miles an hour

Fravor's aircraft carried only an inert training missile (a CATM-9 'blue tube'), not live ordnance, when tasked to investigate the radar contact.

we had what's called a catm-9 which is really just a blue tube with the aim-9 seeker on the front of it, which is an ir missile

The USS Princeton radar controller told Fravor's flight they had already been tracking these objects for about two weeks before vectoring them to investigate.

sir we've been tracking these things for about two weeks

On a clear, calm day with no wind or whitecaps, Fravor and his backseater saw disturbed white water on the ocean surface with no visible cause, which drew their attention to the object above it.

there's no waves, there's no wind, there's no white caps, and we look down and we see white water

All four aircrew visually observed a smooth white object, roughly the size/shape of an F/A-18 Hornet as seen from altitude, moving abruptly side to side and north-south with none of the gradual inertial deceleration a helicopter would show.

we see this little white tic tac because we're about 20,000 feet above it and it's going basically north south and then east west

As Fravor descended toward it, the object appeared to react to his presence: it changed orientation ('went blue,' i.e. pointed west) and began ascending to meet his altitude, mirroring his flight path.

it's like it's aware of us and it just goes blue and it kind of points out towards the west and starts coming up

As Fravor closed to roughly half a mile at near-matching altitude (descending through about 12,000 feet, the object having come up from roughly 20,000), the object accelerated and visually disappeared in under about half a second.

it just accelerates and disappears, in less than probably a half second it just goes and it's gone

Minutes after losing visual contact, the Princeton radar controller told Fravor's flight the object had reappeared roughly 60 miles away, at the exact combat air patrol (CAP) point the flight had been assigned but had not broadcast over the radio.

sir you're not gonna believe this but that thing is at your cap, it showed back up, it just popped up, this is like 60 miles away, it just reappears

Fravor asserts that actively jamming a military aircraft's radar is technically an act of war.

that jamming is an act of war, active jamming, when you actively jam another platform, yes, it's technically an active work

No classified debrief team, 'men in suits,' or personnel arriving by helicopter or aircraft ever visited the ship or personally interviewed Fravor or the other aircrew after the incident.

no one ever came out in suits to talk to us, nobody, no one came out of the helicopter, no one came out on an airplane

The publicly circulated FLIR1 video is the complete original recording (about 90 seconds), not a truncated version of a longer ~10-minute tape as some rumors claimed; Fravor personally copied the original tapes.

the original video is about a minute 30 seconds long, what you see on the release video is the entire video

The object showed no visible wings, propulsion plume, exhaust heat signature, or windows; only small antenna-like protrusions were visible on its underside in the zoomed FLIR footage.

there's two little things on the bottom, there's nothing on the top, there was no plume, no ir, no visible propulsion

A roughly 2009 investigation report into the Nimitz incident, written by a former government contact tied to AATIP and never formally released, later reached journalist George Knapp via then-Senator Harry Reid, and circulates in both redacted and unredacted versions.

harry reid got it to george knapp and they were good enough to redact, there's a few versions of it unredacted

The objects tracked by the cruiser were reported coming down from above 80,000 feet (space), hovering at around 20,000 feet for three to four hours, then ascending again, with up to about 10 objects seen at once on other occasions per the radar controller.

these things were coming down, tracked from above 80,000 feet, which is space, and they would come straight down, hang out at like 20,000 feet, and three or four hours later go back up

Fravor argues that a genuine gravity-based propulsion breakthrough of this magnitude would likely be preceded by open academic research literature at leading universities (MIT, Caltech, Stanford, etc.), and that no such literature exists, implying either an extraordinarily long-hidden program or a non-human origin.

i don't think there's a whole bunch of papers on developing a gravity-based propulsion system... how much power would it cost to create a gravity field of your own

Fravor estimated the object's size (~40 feet) by comparison to the known apparent size of an F/A-18 Hornet viewed from the same altitude, based on 16 years of visually judging aircraft size and distance; all four aircrew independently gave a consistent 'about Hornet-size' estimate.

i know what a hornet looks like looking down on him because i've done it for all those years... that's why i said 40 feet because it's about hornet size

Fravor puts his confidence that his eyes did not deceive him at 99.9%, and notes that if they had, the same deception would have had to occur independently for all four aircrew.

i am 99.9... so 0.1 my eyes deceive me, but remember if it deceived me it had to deceive the other four people so the percentage is even lower

Fravor argues the GIMBAL video's apparent object rotation is not explained by the targeting pod's gimbal mechanism flipping as an object passes beneath the aircraft, because that effect only occurs for objects passing underneath, not objects tracked out in front.

the pod can't move fast enough, it has gimbal rates on how fast that thing can move around... it doesn't do that when it's looking out in front, it stays like this

The GoFast object registered as colder than the surrounding ocean on the sensor's black-hot IR setting, which, per Jeremy Corbell, rules out a bird since birds are warm-blooded.

the white object is actually colder than the ocean, well birds aren't colder than the ocean, they'd be dead

The new APG-79 phased-array radar independently detected the East Coast objects (not merely a camera/sensor artifact), including a formation of about five additional objects flying near the primary GIMBAL target.

there's five other, i think it's five, they're kind of in a v like a geese would fly, that are out in front of it

After the East Coast sightings, the Navy issued a NOTAM (notice to airmen) about unidentified objects in the warning area rather than restricting the airspace, because a military warning area has no authority to exclude other aircraft.

we got to notam out, which is a notice to airmen, which means there's these objects out there in the warning area

A near-midair collision was reported in which an aircraft passed within roughly 100 feet of an object described as a cube inside a translucent sphere, logged as a hazard report to the Naval Safety Center.

that thing passed between two airplanes and it was, i think it was in like 100 feet or something like that, of the airplane that almost hit it

Fravor states that as squadron commanding officer responsible for 17 aircrew and 300 sailors, and given the intense pace of a two-month at-sea period, he had little time to focus on the Tic Tac afterward, and no one above him in the chain of command (ship's captain, air wing commander, admiral) ever raised it with him.

i have 17 air crew and 300 sailors that i'm responsible for... the captain of the ship never said anything to me, the admiral never said anything to me, no one ever came and talked to me

Of the thousands of sightings investigated under Project Blue Book, roughly 10-15% remain officially unexplained, and the government has stated it does not know what the Nimitz Tic Tac was.

there's a percentage, it's like 10 or 15 percent they still can't explain, like our tic tac is one of them

Given the number of historically unexplained sightings worldwide, Fravor speculates it is plausible that at least one such object has crashed somewhere on Earth and been recovered by some government, intact or in pieces.

what are the chances that not one of them crashed somewhere on the globe and was recovered

Fravor personally characterizes Bob Lazar, whom he has met socially, as a straightforward, sane, and highly intelligent person.

bob is a straightforward very sane normal super smart guy

Fravor relays that Lazar's own stated justification for publicly discussing classified propulsion work despite his oath was that he believed the technology could benefit all of mankind and should not be locked away.

i felt that the technology could benefit all of mankind and it shouldn't be locked away

Fravor cites the historical precedent that when the US XB-70 Valkyrie bomber program became known, the Soviet Union developed the MiG-25 interceptor fleet specifically to counter it, as an illustration of why revealing advanced capabilities invites rapid rival development.

when that got out that we were developing it, the soviet union developed the mig-25 literally a high-altitude interceptor to counter that bomber

Fravor names the Rendlesham Forest (UK) incident as one of the most credible other UAP cases he is aware of, stating that US servicemen involved reportedly sustained radiation burns, one was medically disabled, and Senator John McCain's office helped get that person's disability status reinstated.

the u.s. guys that saw stuff and actually got radiation burns, one guy was medically disabled... john mccain's office helped get the guys disability reestablished

Fravor states the Phoenix Lights mass sighting remains unexplained in his view, and specifically disputes the Air Force's flare-drop explanation on the grounds that flares do not burn long enough to match witness reports.

the phoenix lights is unexplainable, although i know the air force had said something about it was an a-10 drop in flares, no, i don't think so... flares don't burn that long

Fravor states the US government, about a month before this interview, publicly acknowledged possessing material whose origin it cannot explain, without releasing further detail such as the Roswell wreckage.

the us government came out a month ago and said we have material that we cannot explain the origin

Fravor states he does not discuss the details of his personal religious beliefs but affirms that he believes in God, citing having seen things he cannot otherwise explain.

i don't get into my religious beliefs or what i am but i will tell you that i do believe in god, i've just seen too many things

The night before a close friend and fellow Navy pilot ('John') died of cancer, Fravor had a vivid dream in which John appeared in his Navy dress whites and told him 'it's all gonna be okay'; Fravor experienced the dream as carrying more significance than an ordinary dream while acknowledging it could be explained as his own subconscious.

about the day before he died... i had a dream... he was there, just him and i... he looked at me and said, dave, it's all gonna be okay