David Fravor Statement for the House Oversight Committee

The David Fravor Statement for the House Oversight Committee is a written testimony submitted on 2023-07-26 by David Fravor, a retired Commander in the United States Navy,¹ to the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. The statement constitutes Fravor’s first-hand account of the 2004 USS Nimitz UAP encounter and sets out his views on congressional oversight of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) programmes. It was submitted as part of the same United States Congress hearing at which David Grusch testified.

Fravor opens by establishing the operational context. In November 2004 he was the Commanding Officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (VFA-41), known as the Black Aces,² which was attached to Carrier Air Wing Eleven (CVW-11) and stationed aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68).³ The squadron was at the beginning of a workup cycle in preparation for a combat deployment to the Persian Gulf supporting ground forces in Iraq.⁴ On the day in question, Fravor was scheduled to lead a two-versus-two air-to-air training exercise,⁵ with his flight of two F/A-18F Super Hornets acting as Blue Air under the control of the USS Princeton (CG-59),⁶ while the Red Air opposing force was provided by Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232 (VMFA-232).⁷ After launching from the Nimitz, the Princeton controller suspended the training exercise for real-world tasking.⁸

Fravor’s flight was directed towards a contact roughly 64 kilometres south of the ship.⁹ The aircraft had nothing on their radars as they proceeded west.¹⁰ The statement relays that the air controller aboard the Princeton had been observing objects on the Aegis Combat System for the previous two weeks,¹¹ with the objects descending from above approximately 24,000 metres rapidly down to approximately 6,000 metres, remaining for hours, then ascending straight back up.¹² On arrival at the contact area, Fravor’s flight observed a small white object shaped like a Tic Tac (2004 Nimitz UAP) with its longitudinal axis pointing north-south, moving abruptly over disturbed white water in the ocean.¹³ The object displayed no rotors, no rotor wash, and no visible flight control surfaces such as wings.¹⁴ As Fravor descended towards it, the object shifted its longitudinal axis to align with his aircraft and began a clockwise climbing turn.¹⁵ When Fravor manoeuvred to pull nose onto the object at approximately 0.8 kilometres range,¹⁶ at an altitude of approximately 4,600 metres with the object at about 3,700 metres,¹⁷ it rapidly accelerated and disappeared from view; his wingman, positioned roughly 2,400 metres above, also lost visual.¹⁶ The disturbed water was gone when Fravor looked back at the ocean surface.¹⁸ The object subsequently reappeared on the Princeton’s AN/SPY-1 radar at the Combat Air Patrol point roughly 97 kilometres to the east,¹⁹ having covered that distance in less than a minute.²⁰ In Fravor’s assessment, the object was far superior in performance to his brand-new F/A-18F and did not operate by any known aerodynamic principles.²¹

The statement addresses the associated video and radar records. A crew from Fravor’s squadron subsequently took the approximately 90-second targeting pod video released by the US government in 2017,²² known as the Nimitz Tic Tac targeting pod video (FLIR1). That video shows the object emitting no infrared plume consistent with a normal propulsion system.²³ A radar tape also showed jamming of the AN/APG-73 radar in the aircraft, though this tape is not part of the released video.²⁴ Fravor states that the encounter was never investigated by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), none of his crew were ever questioned, and no tapes were collected at the time.²⁵

The statement traces the subsequent history of official interest in the encounter. In 2009, Jay Stratton contacted Fravor to investigate the incident.²⁶ Fravor identifies Stratton as part of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) — which he refers to in the statement as the Anomalous Threat Identification Program — led by Elizondo, Luis (Lue) out of the Pentagon.²⁷ Later, Alex Dietrich, the other pilot in Fravor’s flight, contacted him to ask whether he had been approached about the incident since 2009;²⁸ she had herself been invited to the Pentagon multiple times to discuss the encounter and to view other UAP videos.²⁹ Fravor was then contacted by Elizondo in 2016 shortly after speaking with Dietrich.³⁰ The statement notes that Elizondo subsequently left the Pentagon in protest and joined Tom DeLonge, Chris Mellon, Steve Justice, and others to form To The Stars Academy.³¹

The final section addresses policy. Fravor states that coverage of the encounter by The New York Times in December 2017 — with reporting by Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal, and Helene Cooper — led to interest from elected officials in understanding the nature, origin, and technology of the observed craft.³² He further states that this coverage contributed to the whistleblower protection provisions in the Whistleblower protections in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).³³ Fravor notes that multiple witnesses are coming forward with first-hand knowledge of UAP-related matters, referencing testimony by David Grusch.³⁴ He expresses concern about the absence of congressional oversight over any government programmes involving craft not believed to originate from this world,³⁵ and closes by stating his assessment that the Tic Tac object engaged in November 2004 is far superior to anything the United States had at the time, possesses today, or is looking to develop in the next ten or more years.³⁶