Navy pilots recall “unsettling” 2004 UAP sighting

bill whitaker on unidentified aerial phenomena   this week on 60 minutes we reported on  unidentified aerial phenomena uap more   commonly known as ufos the pentagon says this  night vision video was taken by navy personnel   and is being investigated unusual sightings like  this one continue to occur and be captured on   video last august the pentagon set up the uap task  force to collect and analyze evidence gathered by   service members who are now being encouraged to  report these strange encounters we met two former   navy pilots lieutenant commander alex dietrich  and commander dave fraver in 2004 they witnessed   something shocking inexplicable and seemingly out  of this world did the thought of ufo enter your   mind it was unidentified and that's why it was so  unsettling to us because we weren't expecting it   because we couldn't classify it but what i want to  be really careful of here is that we don't jump to   conclusions right that we don't sensationalize  this or little green men yeah little green men   or extraterrestrial you're seeing something  that defies explanation right very much yes it was november 2004 and the uss nimitz  carrier strike group was training about   100 miles southwest of san diego the advanced  new radar on a nearby ship the uss princeton   had detected what operators called multiple  anomalous aerial vehicles over the horizon   descending 80 thousand feet in less than a second fraver and dietrich each with a weapon system  officer in the back seat were ordered to   investigate and found an area of white water in  an otherwise calm blue sea it appeared to them   that an object about the size of a 737 was just  under the water so as we're looking at this her   backseater says hey skipper do you and about  that got out i said dude do you do you see that   thing down there and we saw this little white  tic tac looking object and it's just kind of   moving above the white water area do you ever  drop your phone and it sort of bounces off the   counter top and then bounces off something else  and it's sort of like no no predictable movement   no predictable trajectory i guess it was just it  was just like a ping pong ball no acceleration   very very random acceleration as dietrich  circled above fravor went in for a closer look   so you're sort of spiraling down the tic  tacs still pointing north-south it goes   and just turns abruptly and starts mirroring me  so as i'm coming down it starts coming up so it's   it's mimicking your moves yeah it wasn't where we  were there we want to see how close i can get so i   go like this and it's climbing still when it gets  right in front of me it just disappears disappears   disappears like gone and you saw no visible  propulsion no no wings or anything to make it   fly in our atmosphere no actually when it turned  and started coming up it was kind of like okay   because we have nothing that goes that  fast and just starts climbing it well   seconds later the princeton reacquired the  target 60 miles away so in a matter of like that   yeah it just appeared there in in seconds  it was 60 miles away later another flight   crew encountered what they believed to be the  same object and briefly locked onto it with a   targeting camera before it zipped off again  they didn't get a visual on it but they did   get this flare footage the forward-looking  infrared so you've got the infrared image right   yes and your eyesight yes and the princeton the  radar all saying there is something out there yes   the princeton had been tracking the anomalous  objects for days dietrich says they were unarmed   you know i felt the vulnerability of not  having anything to defend ourselves to not   having any rounds anything on the rails if this  was in fact a hostile threat and we were engaged   i felt vulnerable and then i felt confused  when it disappeared dietrich says she briefed   superiors about what they all saw in no time  the story of their encounter spread quickly   rumors like that spread within seconds  i would say with less than 30 minutes   the entire ship made this happen and what was  the reception like i actually thought it was   kind of funny and started giving us a lot  of grief ridicule yeah ridicule yeah yeah   they made cartoons and on the ship's tv they  played men in black and independence day and signs   they made fun of it oh yeah did anybody take it  seriously yeah i believe the admiral staff made   a few phone calls but that was the extent  of it the story will continue after this christopher millen served as deputy assistant  secretary of defense for intelligence   for presidents clinton and george w bush and was  on the staff of the senate intelligence committee   he had access to top secret government programs  he says what dietrich and fravor witnessed   demonstrated technological capabilities beyond  those of the u.s military's most advanced aircraft   in the case of the nimitz they seem to these  vehicles seem to have unlimited loiter time   which we don't have we're limited in terms  of of altitude it's hard to design something   that functions well at ground level that can go  you know to 60 000 or 80 000 feet and then drop   and then yeah and then drop down to the  deck or drop to 20 000 feet and you know   it's like a straight vertical line in seconds  yeah in seconds and this has been captured on   radar yeah i've talked to some of the radar  operators who observe that then the acceleration   is beyond any far beyond anything that we that  we're capable of what's the fastest one of   our jets can go probably for a very brief  period of time 1500 or 2000 miles an hour   nothing near the degree of acceleration that  has been observed in some of these cases there's   nothing we could build that would be strong enough  to endure that amount of force and acceleration

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 1,347,532

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Unidentified flying object, united states military, 60 minutes

Id: ygB4EZ7ggig

Length: 6min 45sec (405 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021