The 2004 USS Nimitz Tic Tac UFO Incident - Video analysis

This analysis of the video footage taken during the 2004 Nimitz UFO incident is part of an ongoing effort to figure out what actually happened and which information can be trusted.

What the footage supposedly shows

Here are the key claims TTSA has made of that footage:

Pilot interviews state that the UAP was hovering at 24,000 feet.

there is no visible exhaust plume from the object. Mid-wave infrared images of hovering aircraft, such as the AV-8B Harrier, would clearly reveal an exhaust plume if one was present.

At 1:14, the object suddenly and instantaneously accelerates to the left, out of view of the sensor at what appears to be unprecedented velocity without a sonic boom or other associated tell-tale signatures of a conventional craft. The acceleration is so high that the sensor cannot maintain track. This type of flight performance cannot be achieved by any known aircraft.

The video along with eye-witness accounts by US navy professionals have allowed us to conclude the following characteristics about the UAP:

• Hovering without a propulsion exhaust plume.

• Extreme maneuverability and startling changes in acceleration.

• Attaining hypersonic velocities, typically referring to speeds over Mach 5 (five times faster than the speed of sound), without an indication of a sonic boom.

It is because we cannot replicate these flight characteristics with existing technology, we believe this is indicative of beyond next generation technologies and necessitates further research.

So what we are trying to evaluate here is:

• Does it hover?
• Does it show visible exhaust or other means of propulsion?
• Does it display extreme maneuverability or acceleration?

Sources

The video footage in question is available from multiple sources in somewhat different forms:

1. Archived version of an apparently leaked footage from February 9, 2007.
2. New York Times version.
3. TTSA version. 

Of these, the first one seems to be the most original and best quality. NYT version is not far from that, while the TTSA version is the worst with a lot of additional softening due to re-compression. Hence all the analysis was performed with the first video.

Note how the TTSA makes these claims on their video page:

Like GIMBAL, this footage comes with crucial chain-of-custody (CoC) documentation because it is a product of US military sensors, which confirms it is original, unaltered, and not computer generated or artificially fabricated. While there have been leaked versions on the internet, the CoC establishes the authenticity and credibility that this version is the original footage taken from one of the most advanced sensor tracking devices in use.

That is not what they actually provide. They do not provide that CoC documentation and the video they actually provide is not original and it has been obviously modified with their own marketing and explanations and re-compressed to worse quality than the leaked one. The situation is similar with all their videos.

It's obvious the TTSA is more interested in marketing themselves than actually providing original unaltered evidence that would support their claims.

Quality of the video

The resolution of that video is 352x240 pixels, but since it actually contains black borders, the resolution of the useful part is only about 238x214 pixels. So not good at all, and much worse than the original 640x480 resolution of the ATFLIR pod. Additionally there are plenty of all sorts of video artifacts.

Path of the jet

The jet was flying at an constant altitude of 20,000 feet, 250 knots CAS = 336 knots TAS, so it would have covered about 13,1 km = 7,1 nautical miles during that video.

During that time, the plane seemed to fly almost level. Due to the low quality, small banking angles are difficult to measure, but they seem to have been about 1° at most and the plane was turning more towards the right. Even if it was banked that estimated maximum of 1° all the time, it should have turned only about 4° in total.

Altitude and distance

Proper analysis of the flight path of the object would require knowledge of where the object actually was in relation to the jet, but unfortunately the Nimitz video footage doesn't contain rangefinder distance information. Part of the video actually shows the rangefinder displaying "99.9 RNG 99", indicating the pilots tried to use that but for some reason (such as being out of range) it didn't work. However, we might be able to calculate some kind of estimates from other available information, if it is reliable enough.

According to the TTSA description:

Pilot interviews state that the UAP was hovering at 24,000 feet.

But the FighterSweep article claims:

In the less precise scan mode, the return indicated that the object was, in the WSO’s words, “A few thousand feet below us.  Around 15-20K– but hovering stationary.”

The display on the video indicates the sensor was "aimed 6° above aircraft axis", according to the TTSA description, and that is consistent with the Go Fast footage, which shows negative values when the sensor is aimed below aircraft axis.

So the altitude specified in that FighterSweep article cannot be true (meaning either the radar gave incorrect information or it was reported inaccurately), since the jet was flying at 20kft and the display indicates the object was 5-6 degrees above them, not below.

Here's what it would mean if the TTSA statement is true and the altitude difference was 4000 feet:

But here's the problem: For the first 22 seconds of the video, the display indicates the object was 6° above their axis, and after that it was just 5°. If it was actually hovering and they were getting closer as they were heading almost directly towards it, the angle should get bigger, not smaller, as their own altitude stayed the same.

If the sensor angle can be trusted, it means either that:

1. Distance to the object was growing. At a very minimum, it would have been flying away from the jet at least a bit faster than the jet (if the angle just happened to be rounded to the next number).
2. Object was losing altitude.

Either way, or a combination of both, it wasn't just hovering in place.

Here's what the distance should have been in feet, meters, and nautical miles from those angles if the altitude difference was 4000 feet:

Angle	Distance ft	Distance m	Distance nm
4	57203	17435	9,41
5	45720	13936	7,52
6	38057	11600	6,26
7	32577	9930	5,36

Since the jet covered some 13 km during that time, the angle should have clearly increased if that altitude was correct and the object would have stayed in place.

Unfortunately this combination of unreliable information of altitude, movement, and size means it's really hard to get any reliable estimate on the distance either.

Sideways movement

During the video, the horizontal sensor angle changes from 4° Right to 8° Left, so a total of 12°. That rate of change increases as the video progresses and is about 1° per 4 seconds at the end for at least the last 20 seconds.

Since the speed of the jet is known and is is flying mostly level at that time, we can try to calculate where the object should have been at that time if it was actually hovering in place to result in such a change on the horizontal angle. Like this (picture not in scale):

This calculation evaluates the time period between the exact moments the horizontal angle display changes from 2°->3° and 7°->8°, so those angles should be halfway between. That period covers 19.8 seconds, in which time the jet travels 3425 meters.

Solving the equations for x and y gives the following result:
x=224 meters
y=5124 meters


Meaning the (horizontal) distance would have been 5.1 km at the beginning of that time period and 1.7 km at the end. But that cannot be right, since from that distance the object should have basically covered the entire width of the screen with that distance and FOV and estimated size and grown significantly during the video. And even more significantly, it just doesn't fit to calculations for other points of time, the angles would be just wrong.

It seems the object had to be moving towards the left instead of just hovering.

Side note: The ATFLIR horizontal angle display shows odd behavior when the angle is getting close to 0 degrees. It actually changes from 1° R to 1° L without going to zero first, but then it later also goes to 0° for some time. It seems the display is not quite as accurate I have thought it would be, at least not when it's close to 0°. Considering the overall trend of the horizontal angle change in the video, it looks as if the display erroneously changes the L/R indicator to L too soon. 0 seems to be always marked with L.

Fast acceleration?

Near the very end the object supposedly accelerates off the screen with incredible speed. However, the sequence of actions that happened around that time make that interpretation highly questionable.

Here are the highlights:

Initially the display is in NAR-mode with 1.0x zoom (=0.7° FOV).

Then a mode change from NAR to WFOV with 2.0x zoom (=1.5° FOV) begins, but the display doesn't immediately reflect that change.

The ATFLIR needs to physically switch mirrors to do that, which causes artifacts while it happens.

The target seems to move extremely rapidly within a few frames towards the lower left corner. That is probably caused by the movement of the mirror change mechanism.

After the change has been done, the display temporarily loses the target and shows other artifacts.

Then the object is visible again in the new mode, and the target indicators close in on it again as the system regains target track.

After which the object is again tracked as usual, centered between those indicator.

Soon after, another mode change back to NAR is initiated, with all sorts of strange temporary artifacts again.

At this point the object is seen to be somewhat above the target indicator bars, so not anymore in the right position.

Clearly the sensor didn't lose track because of acceleration, it lost it already at this point because of that mode change.

Next the vertical direction is corrected but the object is still to the left instead of centered where it should be.

The target indicator bars show the system trying to acquire the target, but it stays to the side and is never centered after that mode change. Indicating the system never managed to lock it again after that change.

The camera was probably still continuing to rotate until this point, and that is why the target stayed close to the same position, even though the target wasn't properly tracked anymore.

 Then the object appears to move towards left.

At the same time the (digital) zoom changes from 1.0x to 2.0x, before the display shows that change. Because of that the object seems to grow to twice the size and jump very rapidly towards the left between two frames, as it wasn't centered when the change happened.

After the zoom change is complete, The speed seems to level off again, and it continues to move to the left and the system obviously can't track it.

It takes exactly 1 second for the object to move from that initial nearly centered position towards the edge so that it's not visible anymore.

So did the object actually accelerate, or was that movement caused by the camera? Here's a slow-mo of that supposed acceleration:

First the object seems to move slowly both horizontally and vertically, then it suddenly jumps as the zoom changes, after which it seems to decelerate and perform some minor vertical changes again. It's far from some smooth acceleration to the side.

Since the NAR FOV with 2.0 zoom is 0.7°/2=0.35°, the object moved half of that, 0.35°/2=0.175° in 1 second. So what could cause the camera to create an apparent movement like that?

Remember the horizontal camera angle was moving towards the left at a rate of 1° per four seconds near the end, so around 0.250° degrees per second. That means it only needed to stop rotating and the object would have seemed to accelerate off like that. And if it lost the target it was tracking, it makes sense it did exactly that. No acceleration needed.

Visible means of propulsion?

Is it actually possible to see there's no visible means of propulsion from those low quality blobs?

Here's what the object looks like in infrared nearer the beginning of the video:

 Here's what it looks like a couple of moments later optically (TV mode):

And here's it again in infrared, nearer the end of the clip:

If there's no indication of exhaust plumes or means of propulsion, why does it look like that initially? What are those brighter areas that seem to extend to multiple directions? Why couldn't they be caused by jet exhausts or flows of hot air from lift fans for example? It certainly doesn't look just like a Tic Tac at that stage, and it's different to what it looks visually.

Near the end the IR footage looks more like a Tic Tac and its visual counterpart. Since the object seemed to be losing altitude, it could be for example that it was initially hovering and generating hot air flows to maintain the altitude, and then began coasting with little engine power and dropping in altitude.

Conclusions

The video doesn't really seem to provide reliable evidence for any of the key claims TTSA has made about it. The displayed information doesn't seem to be consistent with hovering but instead with an object that was moving for most of the time and losing altitude. The supposed fast acceleration near the end seems more consistent with apparent movement caused by the camera that stopped rotating when it lost the target it was tracking due to zoom mode changes. The object doesn't seem to display any extreme maneuvers. Since the movement could be even consistent with coasting without power, the clip hardly supports any claims regarding the means of propulsion, and might actually show signatures of hot air flows as well.

It should be noted though that the problems of this video do not invalidate other aspects of the Nimitz incident, even if it doesn't give them any support. Since the video was taken some time after the events David Fravor and others have described, there's no guarantee the video even showed the same target.