Tic Tac UFO: the mystery of ufology, let's try to reveal

In 2004, American pilots encountered an unidentified object off the west coast of the United States. The case seriously stirred up the public and almost became a sensation.

This is contact with an extraterrestrial civilization

the ufologists were delighted.

The incident in the Pacific

The story of the most sensational recent "contact" with UFOs began on November 14, 2004, in the Pacific Ocean, 150 kilometers southwest of San Diego. The aircraft carrier Nimitz and the missile cruiser Princeton conducted exercises there, preparing pilots for a trip to the Persian Gulf. In the middle of the day, two F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft — one with an experienced crew and the other with green novices who were performing a training flight-received an unexpected order from the exercise manager onboard the Princeton: stop maneuvers and immediately go to the specified square.

The pilots were particularly surprised to find out whether they had a ready-to-use weapon on board. Fortunately or unfortunately-the planes were " empty."

For three days now, Princeton's radars had been picking up unusual objects in the air. At first, the strange contacts were mistaken for a malfunction of the equipment, but the observers were confused by the flight altitude of 24 kilometers and a large number of targets. Sometimes up to fifty similar objects were observed. The equipment was checked and no problems were found. In addition, it was found that some objects sometimes descend to the surface at high speed, and then soar up again.

Then the idea was born to intercept one such object at a low altitude. Apparently, the idea was not agreed with the higher command, who feared bureaucratic delays. This task was assigned to the F/A-18F duty pair.

Arriving at the specified square, the fighter pilots at first did not find any air targets. But they noticed a slight disturbance on the calm sea. It turned out that at a shallow depth there is some large underwater object of an oblong shape, over which the water boils and foams. An aerial target was soon discovered.

It was an elongated cylinder of white color, according to the pilots ' estimates about ten to twelve meters in length

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The mysterious aircraft had no wings or propellers. According to the pilots, it"danced" about 15 meters above the rushing water, and, as it seemed to the radar operator from the cruiser, he sharply dived from a height just at the moment when the fighters approached the underwater object.

On the approach to the UFO went more experienced crew, newcomers left behind. After the approach, the object sat on the tail of the leading fighter and, pursuing it, performed completely wild maneuvers, sharply accelerating and slowing down, instantly changing the direction of movement. According to the pilot of the slave plane, it was one of the most terrible situations that she had ever seen.

They watched the " maneuvers " on the Princeton and on the E-2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft that was in the air at that time. Soon the object abruptly disappeared from radar, and a few seconds later reappeared-but 97 kilometers from the previous position!

After that, both F/A-18fs were ordered to return to the aircraft carrier.

Further events are much less known. Most sources agree that another pair of patrolling fighters were sent to intercept the unknown object. Moreover, it is reported that the aircraft carrier began to raise additional machines-already with a combat load. But then all flights abruptly stopped — according to rumors, after the order "from above".

A few hours later, a Marine helicopter landed on the Nimitz, carrying an unknown group of naval officers. They interrogated the participants of the event and took the records from the onboard cameras of the fighters.

However, there is also other information — that this story did not cause any excitement and became rather an occasion for making fun of its participants. That was the end of the incident.

An unidentified object

The materials of the "collision" were included in the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which investigated contacts with unidentified flying objects, looking for unmanned scouts of unfriendly states among them.

Interestingly, a partial retelling of the story surfaced back in 2007 on one of the UFO forums, but at that time went unnoticed among the sea of similar, and often more exciting (and most importantly, extremely true) cases.

The real glory of the 2004 episode found ten years later. Then Luis Elizondo - the former head of the AATIP program (closed in 2012) - achieved partial declassification of materials, believing that this would reveal to people the truth about contacts with extraterrestrial intelligence. The most detailed version was described above.

Not only did the journalists and ufologists have a report and a recording from the cameras — but they also managed to contact many participants in the events.

Both pilots, the Princeton radar operator, one of the Hawkeye's crew, and several members of the Nimitz's deck crew all confirmed what had happened.

The publication of the material in 2017 was a significant milestone for the UFO community (and not only).

Finally, they had a case of UFO sightings, the reality of which was impossible to deny.

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It was the journalists who came up with the name "Tic Tac" — the UFO described was very similar to these candy‑dragees.

Of course, history quickly began to acquire new "facts". There were anonymous "eyewitnesses" who told almost about the counterattack of UFOs on aircraft carriers and that on that day, more familiar "saucer-shaped" objects were observed in the sky.

There were also uncorroborated episodes that "Tic Tac" was observed by sailors and aviators over the Pacific Ocean after 2004. Well, with the promotion of the story in the media, unidentified flying " dragees "in the sky began to see ordinary people — this form began to sharply crowd the usual flying" service " and black triangles in observations.

So maybe the story of "Tic Tac UFO" is a real case of contact with an alien civilization?

The truth is somewhere near

To begin with, let's ask another question: which of the completely earthly objects can soar in the air without wings, propellers, and jet thrust?

And immediately we come to the conclusion — a banal balloon. This is also hinted at by the shape of the object in the form of an elongated cylinder, devoid of hatches, aerodynamic planes, and generally any prominent parts.

Analyzing the" behavior "of the mysterious UFO, let's pay attention to this: the pilots reported that the object "randomly danced" about 15 meters above the water. This is quite consistent with how a tethered balloon would behave, connected by a cable to a submerging submarine (remember the seething water under a UFO!). From the close flight of the F/A-18, the tethering cable apparently snapped, and the light balloon was pulled into the airstream behind the fighter. So there was an impression that the aircraft "chased" the plane.

Let's move on. The most inexplicable feature of the "Tic Tac UFO" was its ability to move almost instantly from place to place — both in height and in range. However — and this is an important point! — these 'teleportations' were not detected visually, but only on Princeton's radar. That is, the signature of the object disappeared from the radar screen, and a moment later a similar one appeared in another place.

Similar, but is it the same?

Recall that the whole story began with the fact that the radars of the carrier connection detected groups of unidentified objects, slowly flying more or less in one direction.

If we assume that on November 14, 2004, not one balloon was present in the air, but several, then everything immediately falls into place: the cruiser's radar, tracking objects with a very small, and apparently unstable EPR, lost sight of one balloon and then detected another in the distance.

The sharp "decline" of the UFO, apparently, is due to the fact that the device lost sight of the rapidly gaining altitude balloon and immediately spotted another one below — just launched.

In the United States, the development of low-visibility balloons was carried out, but information about them is still secret to this day

So, let's reconstruct the situation. The most logical explanation for the appearance of a UFO "TicTac" is the launch of certain balloons from a submarine at periscope depth. Several groups of balloons were launched on November 11-13 and flying downwind, they were seen by the radars of the carrier compound.

The reports indicate that the objects flew relatively slowly, at a speed of no more than 190 km / h — which is quite consistent with the performance of the balloon, drawn by the air current (just such a maximum speed was developed in 1945 by Japanese bomber balloons "Fu-Go").

Unique footage: "Tic Tac UFO" lands on the cruiser "Russia"! What is the tsarist government hiding?!

Apparently, on November 14, the aircraft carrier group "Nimitz" accidentally got close to the submarine that was launching. The pilots who flew out to investigate found another balloon in the process of launching.

Balloons, it seems, had a very low ESR, but some element of their design (or installed equipment) in certain angles worked as a corner reflector: depending on the angle, the radar "Princeton" clearly saw the UFO, then lost sight of it.

The operator — quite possibly impressed by the words of the baffled pilots-mistook the successive detection of several balloons for "teleportation" of the same object. So there could be an interpretation of this case about UFOs.

Launching a balloon from a submarine in the 50s

The idea of launching reconnaissance aircraft from submarines is not new: back in the 1950s, the Navy and the CIA jointly practiced launching weather balloons from the decks of submarines. Did we get all the answers? I think not.

In the end, deny the version with a UFO still should not be.

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About author:

Serg Toporkov Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me

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Related tags:

tic tac  ufo  ufo sightings  disclosure  UFOs  Pacific Ocean  Nimitz  F/A-18F  aircraft  2004  unidentified aircraft  unidentified aerial phenomena  unidentified flying object  unidentified flying objects  unidentified object  usa  AATIP  Luis Elizondo  Tic Tac UFO  ufo sightings  TicTac  Fu-Go  ESR  CIA