XPost: alt.ufo.reports, sci.skeptic, sci.military.naval   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: area18@cnn.com   
      
   he following recounts an incident in 2004 that advocates of   
   research into U.F.O.s have said is the kind of event worthy of   
   more investigation, and that was studied by a Pentagon program   
   that investigated U.F.O.s. Experts caution that earthly   
   explanations often exist for such incidents, and that not   
   knowing the explanation does not mean that the event has   
   interstellar origins.   
      
   Cmdr. David Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were on a routine   
   training mission 100 miles out into the Pacific when the radio   
   in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets crackled: An operations   
   officer aboard the U.S.S. Princeton, a Navy cruiser, wanted to   
   know if they were carrying weapons.   
      
   “Two CATM-9s,” Commander Fravor replied, referring to dummy   
   missiles that could not be fired. He had not been expecting any   
   hostile exchanges off the coast of San Diego that November   
   afternoon in 2004.   
      
   Commander Fravor, in a recent interview with The New York Times,   
   recalled what happened next. Some of it is captured in a video   
   made public by officials with a Pentagon program that   
   investigated U.F.O.s.   
      
   “Well, we’ve got a real-world vector for you,” the radio   
   operator said, according to Commander Fravor. For two weeks, the   
   operator said, the Princeton had been tracking mysterious   
   aircraft. The objects appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then   
   hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and   
   hovering. Then they either dropped out of radar range or shot   
   straight back up.   
      
   The radio operator instructed Commander Fravor and Commander   
   Slaight, who has given a similar account, to investigate.   
      
   The two fighter planes headed toward the objects. The Princeton   
   alerted them as they closed in, but when they arrived at “merge   
   plot” with the object — naval aviation parlance for being so   
   close that the Princeton could not tell which were the objects   
   and which were the fighter jets — neither Commander Fravor nor   
   Commander Slaight could see anything at first. There was nothing   
   on their radars, either.   
      
   Then, Commander Fravor looked down to the sea. It was calm that   
   day, but the waves were breaking over something that was just   
   below the surface. Whatever it was, it was big enough to cause   
   the sea to churn.   
      
   Hovering 50 feet above the churn was an aircraft of some kind —   
   whitish — that was around 40 feet long and oval in shape. The   
   craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave   
   disturbance but not moving in any specific direction, Commander   
   Fravor said. The disturbance looked like frothy waves and foam,   
   as if the water were boiling.   
      
   Commander Fravor began a circular descent to get a closer look,   
   but as he got nearer the object began ascending toward him. It   
   was almost as if it were coming to meet him halfway, he said.   
      
   Commander Fravor abandoned his slow circular descent and headed   
   straight for the object.   
      
   But then the object peeled away. “It accelerated like nothing   
   I’ve ever seen,” he said in the interview. He was, he said,   
   “pretty weirded out.”   
      
   The two fighter jets then conferred with the operations officer   
   on the Princeton and were told to head to a rendezvous point 60   
   miles away, called the cap point, in aviation parlance.   
      
   They were en route and closing in when the Princeton radioed   
   again. Radar had again picked up the strange aircraft.   
      
   “Sir, you won’t believe it,” the radio operator said, “but that   
   thing is at your cap point.”   
      
   “We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this   
   thing was already at our cap point,” Commander Fravor, who has   
   since retired from the Navy, said in the interview.   
      
   By the time the two fighter jets arrived at the rendezvous   
   point, the object had disappeared.   
      
   The fighter jets returned to the Nimitz, where everyone on the   
   ship had learned of Commander Fravor’s encounter and was making   
   fun of him.   
      
   Commander Fravor’s superiors did not investigate further and he   
   went on with his career, deploying to the Persian Gulf to   
   provide air support to ground troops during the Iraq war. But he   
   does remember what he said that evening to a fellow pilot who   
   asked him what he thought he had seen.   
      
   “I have no idea what I saw,” Commander Fravor replied to the   
   pilot. “It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s.”   
      
   But, he added, “I want to fly one.”   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-   
   flying-object-navy.html?src=trending   
      
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