Person
Gary Voorhis
Also known as Voorhis
- Petty Officer 3rd Class, USS Princeton; CEC/AEGIS systems technician
Gary Voorhis was a U.S. Navy petty officer third class aboard the cruiser USS Princeton in 2004, near the end of six years' service that included two combat tours. He was the ship's only technician for its Cooperative Engagement Capability and AEGIS combat system, and so was responsible for the radars that tracked the "Tic Tac" objects.
He says that when the new SPY-1B radar began showing unexplained tracks, the systems were taken down and recalibrated, and the tracks came back sharper. They sat at 60,000–80,000 feet or cruised at 30,000 feet and 100 knots, with no transponder codes. In the days before the intercept he says he watched distant objects through the bridge binoculars, hovering and darting away, glowing at night. After the encounter, he says, two men arrived by helicopter, he was ordered to hand over the AEGIS data recordings and wipe the rest, and he saw an eight-to-ten-minute version of the FLIR video on the ship's classified network.
David Fravor has publicly rejected parts of these accounts. He says no one came to the ships, there were no non-disclosure agreements and no ten-minute video, and that the tapes were probably reused by accident. No official record of any data seizure has been released.
Sources: Popular Mechanics (2019) · Nimitz incident record
Facts and claims
- claimed The Princeton’s only system technician for its Cooperative Engagement Capability and AEGIS Combat System. Source: popularmechanics.com (archived)
- claimed He says the radar's “ghost tracks” persisted after the air-control systems were taken down and recalibrated: “the tracks were actually sharper and clearer … Sometimes they'd be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they'd be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots … No squawk, no IFF.” — Gary Voorhis Source: popularmechanics.com (archived)
- claimed He says that through heavily magnified binoculars from the bridge he saw objects in the days before the intercept, too far to make out detail, hovering and then darting off in an instant, with a phosphorescent glow at night; he says he did not see Fravor's intercept. — Gary Voorhis Source: popularmechanics.com (archived)
- claimed He says that shortly after two men arrived by helicopter, his chain of command ordered him to turn over all AEGIS data recordings and erase the rest, even blank tapes, and that he saw a longer, clearer version of the FLIR video, “roughly eight to 10 minutes long”, on the ship's network. — Gary Voorhis Source: popularmechanics.com (archived)
- claimed David Fravor has disputed parts of the enlisted witnesses' accounts: he says only the four aircrew saw the Tic Tac, no one was asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, “men in suits” never came to the ships, and claims of a 10-minute video are untrue; he thinks the squadron's tapes were probably recorded over by accident. — David Fravor Source: popularmechanics.com (archived)
- claimed In a 2019 interview for The Nimitz Encounters he said recalibrating the radar “only … make[s] the tracks clear”, that the objects moved faster than the radar's pulses, and that through binoculars they were only “little specks”. — Gary Voorhis Source: Tic Tac witness Gary Voorhis: interview for The Nimitz Encounters (2019) at 2:22
- claimed In the same interview he said he watched the intercept video live on the classified network, saw the object “actually changed shapes”, and found the longer video gone when he tried to copy it — which differs from his later statement to Popular Mechanics that the ship was too far away to see Fravor's intercept. — Gary Voorhis Source: Tic Tac witness Gary Voorhis: interview for The Nimitz Encounters (2019) at 5:18
- claimed He also said: “I could have gotten things wrong easy because we all remember things the way we want to remember them”, and listed a U.S. government test among possible explanations. — Gary Voorhis Source: Tic Tac witness Gary Voorhis: interview for The Nimitz Encounters (2019) at 21:47
Connected files
Claims
Incidents
- USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” encounter (witness)
People
- Kevin Day (served with) — Both served aboard the cruiser USS Princeton in November 2004
- P.J. Hughes (fellow witness) — Hughes's account parallels Voorhis's description of AEGIS data being collected on the Princeton
- David Fravor (disputed by) — Fravor has publicly rejected parts of Voorhis's account
Videos
- Tic Tac witness Gary Voorhis: interview for The Nimitz Encounters (2019) (appears in)
- Tic Tac witness Kevin Day: interview for The Nimitz Encounters (2019) (related to)