This former Navy fighter pilot, who once chased a UFO, says we should take them seriously. - The Boston Globe
This former Navy pilot, who once chased a UFO, says we should take them seriously
David Fravor is a recognizable type. Affable, neatly dressed, with a men’s regular haircut and semi-rimless glasses, he’s a retired military man who works as a consultant in the Boston area. He could be standing in front of you in a Starbucks line and you wouldn’t notice him at all.
But the story he has to tell is literally out of this world.
Thirteen years ago, the Windham, N.H., resident was a veteran US Navy pilot at the controls of an F/A-18-F fighter jet flying off San Diego when he sighted an unidentified flying object and tried to intercept it.
“I want to join on it. I want to see how close I can get to it,” Fravor, 53, said, describing his thinking as he began the pursuit.
Then the object, which looked like a 4o-foot-long Tic Tac candy, “goes whoosh, and it’s gone.” he said. It accelerated rapidly and disappeared like no aircraft he had ever seen in his career.
Fravor has been in the news recently after the New York Times broke the story that the Pentagon had a secret program that investigated reports of UFOs. The Defense Department says it closed down the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in 2012 after five years, but the program’s backers say it remains in existence, investigating UFO reports from service members while carrying out other duties.
The story of Fravor’s close encounter accompanied the expose, illustrating the kinds of UFO stories that are hard to explain away.
“I know what I saw,” said Fravor.
The incident occurred on Nov. 14, 2004. It was about 140 miles southwest of San Diego, Fravor said. The commander of a squadron of more than 300 service members aboard the carrier USS Nimitz, he was flying a brand-new plane with a weapons systems officer in the back seat. Another fighter from his squadron, with pilot and weapons system officer aboard, was flying with him. It was a perfect Southern California day.
The sea was calm, without whitecaps. No clouds marred the sky.
A radio operator from the cruiser USS Princeton directed them to an area where the Princeton had been tracking mysterious objects for two weeks. The objects had been dropping straight down from above 80,000 feet and stopping at 20,000 feet. “They’d hang out for hours, and then when they were done, they would go straight back up,” Fravor said.
When the two fighters got to the assigned location, they spotted a disturbance under the water, Fravor said. To him, it looked like something the size of a Boeing 737 airplane was underneath, causing waves to break over it.
“Then we see this bright white object” above the disturbance, moving erratically, back and forth, left and right, bouncing around like a ping pong ball, he said.
Full story at site
This former Navy pilot, who once chased a UFO, says we should take them seriously
David Fravor is a recognizable type. Affable, neatly dressed, with a men’s regular haircut and semi-rimless glasses, he’s a retired military man who works as a consultant in the Boston area. He could be standing in front of you in a Starbucks line and you wouldn’t notice him at all.
But the story he has to tell is literally out of this world.
Thirteen years ago, the Windham, N.H., resident was a veteran US Navy pilot at the controls of an F/A-18-F fighter jet flying off San Diego when he sighted an unidentified flying object and tried to intercept it.
“I want to join on it. I want to see how close I can get to it,” Fravor, 53, said, describing his thinking as he began the pursuit.
Then the object, which looked like a 4o-foot-long Tic Tac candy, “goes whoosh, and it’s gone.” he said. It accelerated rapidly and disappeared like no aircraft he had ever seen in his career.
Fravor has been in the news recently after the New York Times broke the story that the Pentagon had a secret program that investigated reports of UFOs. The Defense Department says it closed down the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in 2012 after five years, but the program’s backers say it remains in existence, investigating UFO reports from service members while carrying out other duties.
The story of Fravor’s close encounter accompanied the expose, illustrating the kinds of UFO stories that are hard to explain away.
“I know what I saw,” said Fravor.
The incident occurred on Nov. 14, 2004. It was about 140 miles southwest of San Diego, Fravor said. The commander of a squadron of more than 300 service members aboard the carrier USS Nimitz, he was flying a brand-new plane with a weapons systems officer in the back seat. Another fighter from his squadron, with pilot and weapons system officer aboard, was flying with him. It was a perfect Southern California day.
The sea was calm, without whitecaps. No clouds marred the sky.
A radio operator from the cruiser USS Princeton directed them to an area where the Princeton had been tracking mysterious objects for two weeks. The objects had been dropping straight down from above 80,000 feet and stopping at 20,000 feet. “They’d hang out for hours, and then when they were done, they would go straight back up,” Fravor said.
When the two fighters got to the assigned location, they spotted a disturbance under the water, Fravor said. To him, it looked like something the size of a Boeing 737 airplane was underneath, causing waves to break over it.
“Then we see this bright white object” above the disturbance, moving erratically, back and forth, left and right, bouncing around like a ping pong ball, he said.
Full story at site
