Kevin Day is a retired United States Navy (USN) chief petty officer and radar specialist who served as a TOPGUN air intercept controller, and who monitored the craft videoed and tracked by Navy pilots during the 2004 USS Nimitz UAP encounter.1 Aboard the USS Princeton (CG-59), Day served as the ship’s Operations Specialist Senior Chief, responsible for coordinating the systems protecting the entire carrier group,2 and was manning the radar during the encounter.3
In the days before 2004-11-14, Day and his team grew increasingly concerned by anomalous radar tracks appearing on their screens.4 From 2004-11-10 he tracked numerous unidentified aerial objects with no transponder return, clustering in groups of five to ten at a time, at an altitude far above normal commercial or military aviation traffic,5 which he verified using the Princeton’s Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system, merging radar data from every source into a single picture.6 During a training exercise Day observed a formation of unidentified objects on his radar screen rather than the simulated adversary aircraft he had expected,7 and initially thought the contacts were civilian-related and that the crew had not been aware of operating in that airspace.8 He grew concerned because of an ongoing air defence exercise, and reported that his captain confirmed the objects had been tracked for days.9
On the late morning of 2004-11-14, in the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre, Day again saw a cluster of 14 unidentified objects on his radar screen,10 and confirmed that the USS Nimitz (CVN-68)’s radar was tracking the same cluster.11 Day said corroborating returns from multiple systems reassured him it was extremely unlikely the contacts were false readings.12 At one point the cluster appeared at approximately 24,000 metres or higher, with some contacts lower at approximately 8,500 metres,13 before, by Day’s calculation, plummeting in about 0.78 of a second from around 24,000 metres to hover at altitudes ranging from approximately 8,500 metres down to just 15 metres above the ocean surface.14 Speaking at a UFO conference in 2019-03, Day described the objects as ‘raining UFOs’ making a repeated sound down to the surface of the water.15 He recommended to USS Nimitz Captain James Smith that aircraft be sent to investigate, and Smith concurred.16 Day subsequently tracked the unidentified object on radar during David Fravor’s intercept,17 and recalls that pilots and everyone on the radio were screaming at the peak moment of the encounter.18
Day said he decided the objects posed a serious threat to air navigation.19 He said he is very sure the objects he tracked on radar were real, solid objects.20 He said he believes some of the objects were underwater just before zooming back up to approximately 24,000 metres, possibly higher, reasoning that this was above the scan volume of the Princeton’s radar at the time.21 Day said he learned from crewmen who worked in the Princeton’s anti-ballistic missile defence area that they had tracked some of the objects from orbit,22 and said he believes some of the objects came from space, though he did not see them directly on his own radar.23 He also said he considers the full video of the encounter would have to be at least ten minutes long, reasoning from the standard practice of ordering ’tapes on’ before an intercept begins.24
The morning after the encounter, Day went to the Princeton’s communications room to obtain a copy of the previous day’s radio communications in order to write an after-action report.25 He discovered that the recordings had been erased from the ship’s optical disk, even though the date and time stamps for them remained.26 Day said he considers it should not even have been possible for the data to go missing while the time stamps remained intact, yet in this case it happened.27 Day recalled that when he asked his captain what he thought the objects were, the captain told him he thought they were spontaneously forming ice falling from space.28 Day said he considers that explanation absurd,29 and said his captain left him with the clear impression that he knew a lot more than he was letting on.30
According to Ross Coulthart, the encounter had a profound effect on Day, rocking his world view.31 Coulthart has said that the g-forces implied by the acceleration Day observed on his radar screen during the encounter would make human survival impossible.32