Person
Chad Underwood
Also known as Underwood
- U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot, VFA-41
Chad Underwood is a former U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot with Strike Fighter Squadron 41, the "Black Aces". On 14 November 2004, about an hour after David Fravor's encounter, he flew the next sortie from USS Nimitz, found the object on radar and recorded the infrared "FLIR1" video of it on his targeting pod. He also coined the name "Tic Tac". The video circulated within the carrier group, was published by The New York Times in 2017 and was officially released by the Pentagon in 2020. He later became a flight instructor and worked in the aerospace industry.
He stayed silent for 15 years, wary of being associated with "little green men", before speaking to New York Magazine in 2019 and, in 2020, on camera to Jeremy Corbell. He described an object changing altitude, speed and aspect erratically, dropping from about 50,000 feet to near the sea in seconds, with no visible exhaust. He ruled out birds and balloons, and judged a weather event unlikely given Fravor's sighting and the other sensors. He said he was never debriefed as he would have been about a secret test aircraft.
His two interviews differ in emphasis. In 2019 he stressed the limits of his evidence: he never saw the object with his own eyes and could not confirm that it actually accelerated, a point pressed by sceptics who attribute the dart to the pod's tracking. In 2020 he told Corbell that his jet was flying straight and level, and that the object broke the pod's lock by accelerating away. He also said the radar showed signs of jamming.
Sources: New York Magazine (2019) · Lex Fridman Podcast #122 (Fravor) · Nimitz incident record
Facts and claims
- claimed Recorded the FLIR1 (“Tic Tac”) video during the 2004 Nimitz encounter. Source: nymag.com (archived)
- claimed He says he coined the name: “The term ‘Tic Tac,’ I actually coined that.” — Chad Underwood Source: nymag.com (archived)
- claimed He told New York Magazine in 2019 that what stood out was “how erratic it was behaving”: “It was going from like 50,000 feet to, you know, a hundred feet in like seconds, which is not possible”, with “no sign of propulsion” and none of the exhaust signature the ATFLIR pod should always pick up. — Chad Underwood Source: nymag.com (archived)
- claimed On the video's final dart to the left, he said he was not manoeuvring aggressively enough to drag the pod, but also that he did not see the object accelerate with his own eyes: “I can't confirm that the object aggressively accelerated that way.” — Chad Underwood Source: nymag.com (archived)
- claimed He said that alone he might have dismissed it as a weather event, but that Fravor's sighting and other independent sensors finding an object of the same description made that unlikely; he spoke to someone he assumed was from NORAD within about 20 minutes of landing, but was never debriefed, which he takes as a sign it was not a U.S. test project. — Chad Underwood Source: nymag.com (archived)
- claimed David Fravor says Underwood's sortie, launched after his own, produced the FLIR video, which the crews recognised as the same object, and that the radar showed signs of being jammed, so Underwood switched to the passive targeting pod. — David Fravor Source: David Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122 at 1:31:30
- claimed Interviewed by Jeremy Corbell in 2020, he said Fravor sent him out with “Put your tapes on”, that the object showed no tail, wings or exhaust plume on the infrared pod, and that on radar its Mach number was “jumping all over the place” with strobe lines indicating jamming. — Chad Underwood Source: The Man Who Filmed the Tic Tac UFO: Chad Underwood interviewed by Jeremy Corbell (2020) at 4:57
- claimed In the same interview he said his aircraft was “straight and low the entire time” and that “It broke my lock by zooming off to the left”, rejecting the theory that his manoeuvring or the zoom created the dart — a firmer position than his 2019 statement that he could not confirm the acceleration. — Chad Underwood Source: The Man Who Filmed the Tic Tac UFO: Chad Underwood interviewed by Jeremy Corbell (2020) at 12:10
Connected files
Claims
People
- Alex Dietrich (served with) — Both flew F/A-18s with VFA-41, the Black Aces, from USS Nimitz
- David Fravor (fellow witness) — About an hour after Fravor's encounter he flew the next sortie and recorded the FLIR1 video
Incidents
- USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” encounter (witness)
Videos
- Tic Tac witness Kevin Day: interview for The Nimitz Encounters (2019) (discussed in)
- The Man Who Filmed the Tic Tac UFO: Chad Underwood interviewed by Jeremy Corbell (2020) (appears in)
- House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video (discussed in)
- David Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122 (discussed in)
- FLIR1: the Nimitz “Tic Tac” video (official U.S. Navy release) (filmed) — Underwood: “I filmed the Tic Tac FLIR video”, from his F/A-18's targeting pod