AP PRESSWhat happened
Two F/A-18Fs intercepted a 40-ft white oblong object over a sea disturbance; it accelerated out of sight in under a second.
The record on unidentified anomalous phenomena
In November 2004, one hundred miles off the coast of San Diego, the radar operators of the USS Princeton began tracking something they could not explain. Over two weeks, the objects appeared again and again — descending from eighty thousand feet toward the surface of the Pacific in moments.
On November 14th, the Navy sent two fighter jets to intercept. This episode follows what happened next — according to the people who were there, and the documents that followed: the FLIR1 tape the Pentagon released and confirmed, and sworn testimony before Congress in 2023.
Two F/A-18Fs intercepted a 40-ft white oblong object over a sea disturbance; it accelerated out of sight in under a second.
Four naval aviators, incl. Cmdr. David Fravor (VFA-41 CO), plus USS Princeton radar operators over two weeks.
DoD released the FLIR1 footage (Apr 27, 2020) and confirmed its authenticity.
Unidentified — per DoD & ODNI (2021)
The FLIR video's famous final acceleration may be a camera-zoom artifact, and the object a distant jet distorted by an infrared sensor. Those explanations address the tape. They do not address four aviators at close range, the sea disturbance, the mirrored descent — or two weeks of tracks on the Navy's most capable air-defense radar. Both readings are presented in the episode.