Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Admits to TOP SECRET Records and SECRET Video From USS Nimitz

nivek

As Above So Below
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Admits to "TOP SECRET" Records and "SECRET" Video From USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" UFO Incident
By Paul Dean

On October the 28th, 2019, long-time researcher and friend Christian Lambright submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the US Navy’s (USN) Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) for records relating to the famed USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” UFO encounter. In it, he stated:

“This is a request for records under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552) as amended including the E-FOIA amendments. Because I am unsure of what department or agency retains the records I am requesting, I ask that you forward a copy of this request to all locations that would have been in position to receive any of the material(s) detailed in the following paragraphs.

This request is to include all releasable portions of records and reports related to investigation of the detection of and encounter(s) with Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) by personnel involved with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG) operations off the western coast of the United States during the period of approximately 10-16 November, 2004. The designation ‘AAVs’ is used here because it appeared in a summary of these events, so there may also be other terms used in the material I am requesting.

Information supportive of my request comes from a former pilot and now writer who has publicly stated he was allowed to see an exhaustive classified ONI report on these events prior to an article he published in 2015. Other supportive information comes from a contractor/analyst who has stated that an investigation had been conducted by a “GS-15” with the Office of Naval Intelligence.

If any records responsive to my request originated with another agency and require review or handling by that agency, I request that I be informed appropriately of the agency(ies) involved and actions in this regard.

I also request that ANY and ALL partially releasable information be forwarded to the appropriate agency(ies) specified for review, if any, and that I be informed appropriately of actions in this regard.

In order to help determine the category in which to place this request, please know that I am a private individual requesting records for noncommercial research and study purposes. Therefore, I believe this request belongs in the “all other” fee category. However, I am willing to pay reasonable search and reproduction fees up to a maximum of $50.00 over and above the ‘2 hours’ research time and first 100 pages free’ provisions of the FOIA for costs associated with this request if necessary.

If my request is denied in whole or in part, I ask that you explain all deletions by reference to specific categories of exempted information, but as required by law, release any segregable portions that are left after the exempted material has been redacted. I also request that redactions be made using blackout not white-out.”

Less than two months later, on December 9th, 2019, the ONI’s FOIA/PA Coordinator, Camille V’Estres, sent Lambright her reply. Her letter states, in part:

“This is a final response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of October 28, 2019, addressed to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Your request was assigned the above referenced Department of Navy FOIA number. You request all releasable portions of records and reports related to investigation of the detection of and encounter(s) with Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) by personnel involved with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG) operations off the western coast of the United States during the period of approximately 10-16 November, 2004.

Our review of our records and systems reveal that ONI has no releasable records related to your request. ONI has searched our records for responsive documents. We have discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET. A review of these materials indicates that are currently and appropriate Marked and Classified TOP SECRET under Executive Order 13526, and the Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States. Specifically, under Section 1.4, the materials would trigger protections under subcategory c), the Intelligence Activities of the United States, as well as the Sources and Methods that are being used to gather information in support of the National Security of the United States. In addition, the materials would trigger protections under subcategory e), Scientific and Technological Matters related to the National Security of the United States. For this reason, the materials are exempt from release under the (b) (1) Exemption for Classified Matters of National Defense. As a result these records may not be released and are being withheld.

We have also determined that ONI possesses a video classified SECRET that ONI is not the Original Classification Authority for. ONI has forwarded your request to Naval Air Systems Command to make a determination on releasability…”

From there, Ms. V’Estres goes on to offer Lambright his standard rights of appeal, and a non-determination of fee waiver.

Evidently, the ONI’s response contains numerous issues worth raising. The ONI reviewed their “records and systems” but found “no releasable records” regarding the USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” UFO event. At first glance, this implies that they have nothing themselves to release. But interpreted slightly differently, the statement could also suggest that they in fact do have internal, homegrown records, but those records off limits. This, however, seems unlikely, due to the candid admissions that come next. During these searches, ONI discovered records originating from another agency. Designated as “briefing slides”, these items were deemed to be “classified TOP SECRET” under the well-worn Executive Order 13526, and the originating authority determined that they must stay that way. The reasons given relate, firstly, to “Intelligence Activities of the United States” and “Sources and Methods” which are used to collection national security information, and, secondly, to “Scientific and Technological Matters” related, again, to national security. Finally, the ONI admits to possessing a video which is currently classified “SECRET”. Again, the ONI has no authority to declassify it, but they did at least confess to who does. The originating agency is acknowledged as the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). Ms. V’Estres reply letter is imaged below.


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At this point, we can have no firm ideas as to what this material is. Moreover, the main purpose of this short piece is not to dissect each-and-every possibility, much of which would be based on assumption. Succinctly though, at first glance one may presume that the “briefing slides” relate to a series of briefings involving the USN. Research partner Keith Basterfield has elaborated on such events here. This, however, is pure supposition. Also, it is important, I think, to reiterate that this material classified TOP SECRET, and we don’t even know who by. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)? A successor to the elusive Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)? Whatever the situation, we can say that it relates to USS Nimitz’s UFO encounter of November, 2004. Afterall, Lambright’s FOIA request asked for nothing else. As for the video, which is apparently classified SECRET and owned by NAVAIR, one is bound to think it relates to the short “Tic Tac” footage taken by pilot Chat Underwood during the famed and still unsolved encounter. Again, this mightn’t be the case. In the meantime, the ever patient Christian Lambright has taken an appropriate course of action to move all this further ahead.

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k

Honorable
And these records contain information about some remarkably maneuverable luminous objects...
 
Interesting. It seems like most of the time, the policy is to simply deny the existence of classified information by saying that the records were lost or destroyed or nonexistent or whatever...so I wonder why they're admitting to the existence of the slides and video footage in this instance.

The word choices seem to be carefully selected to give the false impression that the exotic aerial device(s) that they ran into was advanced human tech. I'm seeing a lot of that type of claim being bandied about lately - many people very badly want to believe that the Tic-Tac was some cutting-edge military research project. Maybe that's the new face of the cover-up; getting people to think that these things are "ours."

But we all know (with very few exceptions) that there's just no way that the DoD has been building UFOs since the 1940s, so even if the Tic-Tac were human in origin, it wouldn't explain the seven decades of very similar sightings. And the simple fact is that if the Tic-Tac was human tech, then right now the military possesses the capability of practical manned interstellar exploration, much like Star Trek. But none of the people embracing this explanation seem to be miffed that the DoD is building warp drives and withholding it from the rest of humanity. Imagine if the military had started building cars in the 19th century, and kept the technology secret for 70 years, forcing us to keep riding horses and donkeys...
 

Ray

Not an intellectual
I'm gonna re-post here the schematic classification under Executive Order 13526 i made yesterday, don't mind the underlined part "non-human intelligence source", i was asking if there was any specification of the term per se as DoD/CIA have a set of definitions for each word.

I believe "non-human intelligence source" are more prosaic radars/satellites.

classificazione.png
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Here's an article from the Dailymail about this, I happened to notice Dailymail used video from secureteam10 for this report, which even though its the Navy video they could have pulled it from a more legitimate source...

...

Navy admits it has secret unreleased video from infamous USS Nimitz encounters with mysterious 'Tic Tac' UFO in 2004

The U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence has revealed the existence of a classified, unreleased video relating to the USS Nimitz carrier group's 2004 encounters with a 'Tic Tac'-shaped UFO.

The existence of the video was revealed in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by researcher Christian Lambright, and published by Lambright's friend Paul Dean on Wednesday.

The video is likely the full version of a leaked 76-second video clip that the Defense Department admitted in 2017 was authentic Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) gun-pod camera footage of the object shot by an F-18 Super Hornet pilot over the Pacific.

However, the possibility remains that a separate video exists of the object, which at least six Super Hornet pilots made visual or instrument contact with on November 14, 2004.

The encounters, which are documented in numerous interviews with first-hand witnesses, have never been explained, and the object's incredible speed and movements have led to speculation, so far unconfirmed, that it was extraterrestrial in origin.


In his October 28 FOIA request, Lambright requested 'all releasable portions of records and reports related to investigation of the detection of and encounter(s) with Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) by personnel involved with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG) operations off the western coast of the United States during the period of approximately 10-16 November, 2004.'

Less than two months later, ONI’s FOIA and public affairs coordinator, Camille V’Estres, responded that the department had 'no releasable records' in response to the request.

However, the response revealed the existence of classified documents related to the Nimitz carrier groups encounters.

'We have discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET,' V'Estres wrote in the letter.

The letter goes on to indicate that the briefing slides were created by another, undisclosed, agency, but remain classified under provisions that protect the sources and methods of intelligence gathering, as well as protections for scientific and technological matters related to national security.

Then the letter reveals the existence of the unreleased video.

'We have also determined that ONI possesses a video classified SECRET that ONI is not the Original Classification Authority for,' the letter reads.

'ONI has forwarded your request to Naval Air Systems Command to make a determination on releasability,' it continues.

(more on the link)

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Standingstones

Celestial
Ever since this tic-tac business became known, I have had one question floating around in my mind. What if these objects are actually Top Secret Black projects of the terrestrial type. Something that the Navy Department, Navy personnel or even politicians would never have knowledge of.

Most of the speculation that I read about seems to be centered on the possibly that these are extraterrestrial. I can well imagine some Deep Black group could be flying unknown craft and jerking everyone’s chain into thinking that the “aliens” are here. Just a thought....
 
Ever since this tic-tac business became known, I have had one question floating around in my mind. What if these objects are actually Top Secret Black projects of the terrestrial type. Something that the Navy Department, Navy personnel or even politicians would never have knowledge of.

Most of the speculation that I read about seems to be centered on the possibly that these are extraterrestrial. I can well imagine some Deep Black group could be flying unknown craft and jerking everyone’s chain into thinking that the “aliens” are here. Just a thought....
If some black program within the military has leapt ahead of global theoretical physics and technology by a few millennia, then sure that's possible. It would mean that they have the capability for conducting rapid manned interstellar missions, like in Star Trek.

This interview with pilot Chad Underwood, who captured the footage of the Tic-Tac that we've seen, offers some compelling reasons to conclude that it wasn't secret US military technology:
Navy Pilot Who Filmed a UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Laws of Physics’

But I find the logic of the situation to make an even more compelling argument. First, objects with this type of performance profile have been around for over 70 years...and there's no way that any military project could've been building AAVs like the Tic-Tac when the vacuum tube was our most cutting-edge technology. So we know that our skies have been visited by others since the late 1940s. It's logical to assume that they're still coming around. Also, we've seen no curve of development for this type of technology - there were never sightings involving a crude modest approximation of these types of performance characteristics: they arrived with radical and sublimely perfected performance characteristics - a strong indication that these craft represent the end of a long technological evolutionary process, not the beginning of such a process. And finally, our top Nobel laureate theoretical physicists still have no clue how to move so much as a mote of dust using an artificially generated gravitational field, so for the military to develop this type of gravitational field propulsion device in secret, they'd need to be drawing upon intellects surpassing Einstein and Tesla - and minds of that caliber are hard to find, and typically become well-known to the public at a pretty early age. So where did the military find these supergeniuses, and how are they hiding them so well?

I've been focusing on this question for over 40 years - and I really wanted to find any way to tie these sightings back to our military. But try as I might, I just couldn't do it. Terrestrial physics and technology haven't yet made the first faltering steps on the path to developing a gravitational field propulsion device with interstellar spaceflight capabilities, like the Tic-Tac. I wish I could see any reason to believe that humans could've developed this type of technology in secret, because then it would be a comparatively simple matter of getting that know-how released, in order to launch global humanity to the status of a freely roaming interstellar civilization. But the truth is that we just haven't built the first pillars to reach that kind of capability. In fact we're only beginning to suss out the possibilities of such technology at the theoretical level - and even that work is highly contested.

So in many respects this hypothesis would be analogous to the hypothesis that UFO sightings in the Dark Ages were Boeing passenger jets that were very cleverly hidden from public view until the 20th century. It was theoretically possible to imagine the potentiality of such technology back then, but none of the requisite global levels of advanced industry were around to produce such a thing. So while it's an imaginable possibility, the complete absence of any empirical evidence that such a capability existed at that time, makes a compelling argument that it didn't, and in this case, doesn't exist within human capabilities.

God I would love to be wrong about this. But the reality seems to be inescapable that we silly little primates still have an incredible amount of brilliant progress to make before we can achieve rapid manned interstellar spaceflight capability, as the Tic-Tac AAVs represent.
 
I can also offer this sad observation as proof that Tic-Tac technology didn't originate with any terrestrial military: the military has used every advancement in technology to commit mass murder. But the Tic-Tac's haven't killed anyone, so they must not be of human origin.
 

Standingstones

Celestial
I can also offer this sad observation as proof that Tic-Tac technology didn't originate with any terrestrial military: the military has used every advancement in technology to commit mass murder. But the Tic-Tac's haven't killed anyone, so they must not be of human origin.
Yes, there is always genocide to prove any technology advances.
 

Ray

Not an intellectual
If some black program within the military has leapt ahead of global theoretical physics and technology by a few millennia, then sure that's possible. It would mean that they have the capability for conducting rapid manned interstellar missions, like in Star Trek.

This interview with pilot Chad Underwood, who captured the footage of the Tic-Tac that we've seen, offers some compelling reasons to conclude that it wasn't secret US military technology:
Navy Pilot Who Filmed a UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Laws of Physics’

But I find the logic of the situation to make an even more compelling argument. First, objects with this type of performance profile have been around for over 70 years...and there's no way that any military project could've been building AAVs like the Tic-Tac when the vacuum tube was our most cutting-edge technology. So we know that our skies have been visited by others since the late 1940s. It's logical to assume that they're still coming around. Also, we've seen no curve of development for this type of technology - there were never sightings involving a crude modest approximation of these types of performance characteristics: they arrived with radical and sublimely perfected performance characteristics - a strong indication that these craft represent the end of a long technological evolutionary process, not the beginning of such a process. And finally, our top Nobel laureate theoretical physicists still have no clue how to move so much as a mote of dust using an artificially generated gravitational field, so for the military to develop this type of gravitational field propulsion device in secret, they'd need to be drawing several upon intellects surpassing Einstein and Tesla - and minds of that caliber are hard to find, and typically become well-known to the public at a pretty early age. So where did the military find these supergeniuses, and how are they hiding them so well?

I've been focusing on this question for over 40 years - and I really wanted to find any way to tie these sightings back to our military. But try as I might, I just couldn't do it. Terrestrial physics and technology haven't yet made the first faltering steps on the path to developing a gravitational field propulsion device with interstellar spaceflight capabilities, like the Tic-Tac. I wish I could see any reason to believe that humans could've developed this type of technology in secret, because then it would be a comparatively simple matter of getting that technology released, in order to launch global humanity to the status of a freely roaming interstellar civilization. But the truth is that we just haven't built the first pillars to reach that kind of capability. In fact we're only beginning to suss out the possibilities of such technology at the theoretical level - and even that work is highly contested.

So in many respects this hypothesis would be analogous to the hypothesis that UFO sightings in the Dark Ages were Boeing passenger jets that were very cleverly hidden from public view until the 20th century. It was theoretically possible to imagine the potentiality of such technology back then, but none of the requisite global level of advanced industry was around to produce such a thing. So while it's an imaginable possibility, the complete absence of any empirical evidence that such a capability existed at that time, makes a compelling argument that it didn't. And in this case, doesn't exist within human capabilities.

God I would love to be wrong about this. But the reality seems to be inescapable that we silly little primates still have an incredible amount of brilliant progress to make, before we can build our own Tic-Tac AAVs, and thereby achieve rapid manned interstellar spaceflight capability.

It's not exactly true, since the second half of 1800 we started to study the concept of chirality even if this wasn't completely grasped back then (Lakhtakia, A. (ed.) (1990). Selected Papers on Natural Optical Activity (SPIE Milestone Volume 15). SPIE. | Pasteur, L. (1848). "Researches on the molecular asymmetry of natural organic products, English translation of French original, republished by Alembic Club Reprints (Vol. 14, pp. 1–46) in 1905) and at the beginning of 1900 electromagnetic waves & meta-materials had already gained traction among engineers and physicists.

That's 5 years before the Special Relativity was published by Albert Einstein and roughly 10 before General Relativity, but much like the chirality of molecules the study was at its infancy and only 40 years later we could see the first results of these studies.

We tend to discard our past success in favor of a more "mystical" perspective because we can't make sense of many of the previous ideas born as goo in a moment of profound revolution in our history.
Any new idea was stigmatized and the Universal rules were pretty much established by Newton, Hooke, Bernoulli, Kelvin, Cavendish and other important contributors.

Gary Voohris and Patrick J. Hughes for one are not completely sold on the idea of extraterrestrials and they still think it could be our tech. Does that mean the we must have anti-gravity or at least a way to reduce the load of g-force on a body and the associated effects? not necessarily.
The famous Tic-Tac hasn't broken the law of physics as we know it, at least it's not something we can affirm with absolute certainty until the NIMITZ Hawkeye Radar Data can be studied extensively and a better footage is shown, as the classic version of FLIR-1 isn't exactly telling.

Add the fact that we don't know if the vehicle was manned and if the pattern described by the various witness (Fravor has seen directly seen it, but we are not sure of who else did) are completely correct or have been tampered with emotions, exaggerations and a list of possible technical issues that have enhanced the perceived "erratic patterns" of the object.

With that i'm not saying what could be and that is certainly ours, what i'm saying is that we don't know what that Tic-Tac was and how it behaved exactly.
Pilots and Radar Operators are not physicists and physics is more tricky than it appear.
While an engineer certainly can chew physics and may have a vast knowledge in that field, it's hard to process what you're seeing directly in the field during an engage, especially if is out of your normal routine.
It could've been very well an advanced drone that didn't behave exactly as described, but during the fuss and the excitement was incorrectly described and "identified" as something different from a F18-Superhornet or any other aircraft that you can name.

This hypothesis isn't aimed at discrediting the pilots and the data operators involved with the USS NIMITZ case, i have absolute respect for them, but we can't ignore how fallacious we are and how despite all the training we are subject to, we can still fail. We can't ignore that is the era of drones and it was the era of drones even in 2004, they were just less common and mainly used in a military ambient as most of the common technologies we become acquainted with, after they find their own place in our every day life.
We can't ignore how uSAP and wuSAP are still a thing and PALLADIUM/NEMESIS projects are something real and still receive funding as we speak. We can't for sure discuss the extend of their capabilities because those are information we're not privy of, but certainly if are still researched and funded it means they work very well.

When i mean they work very well, i mean that they work very well on spoofing instrumentation and confusing pilots/radar operators or else these anti-air warfare systems wouldn't be researched and possibly deployed.

What is the Tic-Tac? i don't know nor i claim any special knowledge. Until proven otherwise, for me it's not necessarily alien.
 
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Ray

Not an intellectual
there's no way that any military project could've been building AAVs like the Tic-Tac when the vacuum tube was our most cutting-edge technology.

With "It's not exactly true" i was referring to this part, but i can't edit my post anymore. Sorry but i have still to figure out how a forum works exactly.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
As of late I have been more open to the possibility the tic-tac may have been ours or maybe it could be a hybrid using alien technology found from past ufo crash sites...To me it would seem to be a logical first step to build a drone from alien tech recovered in order to test the technology under our conditions...

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Ray

Not an intellectual
As of late I have been more open to the possibility the tic-tac may have been ours or maybe it could be a hybrid using alien technology found from past ufo crash sites...To me it would seem to be a logical first step to build a drone from alien tech recovered in order to test the technology under our conditions...

...

It could very well be alien and i truly hope it is, what i said is just to keep things from a certain perspective.
As it stands right now, i see weird and uncommon circumstances that certainly should be analyzed from every angle and we should turn every rock and house in order to do so, but i wouldn't bet all my money in any of the scenario available.
I learn more towards a Earthly explanation because we've never had aliens landing in plain sight and the Tic-Tac video doesn't display the erratic pattern described by Fravor, but it's a 70/30. 30 being possibly extraterrestrial.

Here's a study published in Sept. 2019 to counter what i just said in my own post, a study called "Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles" by Kevin H. Knuth, Robert M. Powell and Peter A. Reali which examines some UAP cases (including NIMITZ).

Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles

If you want my 2 cents, ignore the slap at SETI in the end for the following reasons (feel free to skip them as they're not strictly pertinent):
  • - It's not funded by the government, but through private donations, so they don't swim in money as many believe including some University professors. The maintenance, use and upgrade of telescopes and instrumentation is costly and searching through the sky is a gargantuan job that doesn't present any opportunity to make money anytime soon;
  • - Collateral projects about UAP could be funded separately. It's not SETI fault if no one did or succeeded in officially asking for funds;
  • - We have the suspect of being visited by extraterrestrials, but to this date no confirmation of the presence of extraterrestrial life in our Solar System or in any other star system.
    As far as we know the Universe could be literally teeming of life but for certain factors we'll never discover it or they didn't reach us yet (?). Another possibility is that life is rare, but i personally don't think so for reasons that i'm not gonna explore. To get to the SETI point, what i mean is that we have no confirmation whatsoever of the existence of another form of life, therefore the SETI project is important because even if we'd ever receive the signal of a now extincted civilization in 10 weeks or 5000 years, it'd be per se a confirmation that other intelligent life exist and that we may be capable of interstellar/intergalactic traveling. Out of all UAP cases, many have been proven to be hoaxes or simply Earthly tech, only a small percentage is truly unknown.
    As the nature of this beast isn't exactly reproducible, other factors play a role that further complicate it (witness reliability, impossibility to analyze alleged UAP directly, shortage of videos or poor quality of those) and the possible involvement of other organs certainly doesn't make any easier to study it (Navy, DoD, foreign nations, etcetera), in my opinion these money are better allocated in a project like SETI that may be a waste of time & money but at least can't be falsified or is too much subject to human interpretation & emotions. But that's just my opinion, nothing more.
 
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