"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Hamlet says in Act I of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. For U.S. Navy Cmdr. David Fravor, the unknown thing from the heavens he saw in 2004 looked like "a white Tic Tac, about the same size as a Hornet [fighter jet], 40 feet long with no wings," he told The Washington Post on Monday, two days after the Pentagon confirmed the existence of a secret program that searched for alien spacecraft and other potentially dangerous aircraft. "It was a real object, it exists, and I saw it," Fravor said, and it was clearly "something not from the Earth."
Fravor told the Post that on Nov. 14, 2004, he was ordered to lead his Navy strike fighter squadron, the A-41 Black Aces, off the California coast to check out some fast-dropping unidentified flying objects officials had been tracking for a few weeks. When they arrived, he saw the oblong object "just hanging close to the water," and "as I get closer, as my nose is starting to pull back up, it accelerates, and it's gone," Fravor told the Post. "Faster than I'd ever seen anything in my life."
A separate squadron of planes arriving as Fravor's crew left shot the following video of the "anomalous aerial vehicle". A private company, To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, annotated the video after one of its consultants, Luis Elizondo, got the Pentagon to declassify and release it and two other cockpit videos before he left the government. Elizondo led the UFO-seeking Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Fravor retired in 2006 and mostly kept quiet about what he saw until 2009, when an unidentified government official approached and put him in touch with Elizondo. The AATIP started in 2007 and officially closed in 2012, though some of its research reportedly continues. You can read more about Fravor's experience at The Washington Post.
-
Taps could run dry in drought-stricken TehranUnder the Radar President warns that unless rationing eases water crisis, citizens may have to evacuate the capital
-
Alaska faces earth-shaking loss as seismic monitoring stations shutterIN THE SPOTLIGHT NOAA cuts have left the western seaboard without a crucial resource to measure, understand and predict tsunamis
-
10 great advent calendars for everyone (including the dog)The Week Recommends Countdown with cocktails, jams and Legos
-
Trump pardons 2020 fake electors, other GOP alliesSpeed Read The president pardoned Rudy Giuliani and more who tried to overturn his 2020 election loss
-
Supreme Court to decide on mail-in ballot limitsSpeed Read The court will determine whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day
-
Democrats split as Senate votes to end shutdownSpeed Read The proposed deal does not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Democrats’ main demand
-
USDA orders states to ‘undo’ full SNAP paymentsSpeed Read The Trump administration is telling states not to pay full November food stamp benefits
-
Senate takes first step to end record shutdownSpeed Read Eight senators in the Democratic caucus voted with Republicans to advance legislation to reopen the government
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
