David Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters send people here for a detailed first-hand account from the pilot, and some say it changed their view on the sightings.
What it is
Lex Fridman interviews Navy pilot David Fravor, a primary witness of the 2004 Tic Tac UFO encounter, about the sighting, military aviation and aerospace engineering. The conversation runs close to four hours.
Recommended by 8 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2020 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec RobertoG · 2021-06 · on “There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here”
You should check the interviews (there are several, including a 60 minutes) with the pilot David Fravor (1). There are two pilots and two wizards that saw the same with their own eyes (even I have only see the other pilot confirming it). That's an UFO. That doesn't mean that it's extraterrestrial. To say that it's extraterrestrial at this point, is, in my opinion, so ridiculous like to say that there is nothing to explain (like the author of the article seems to believe). (1) - [this video] (this is a great interview interesting in its own right, even without the UFO part)
Strong rec bostonsre · 2021-08 · on “Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence”
Lex did one [1] with the same pilot that saw the ufo (commander fravor). I went from "no friggin way do they exist" to "shit... it actually sounds plausible". [1] [this video]
Recommends mindcrime · 2020-09 · on “Fighter pilot says UFO he chased in 2004 committed 'act of war'”
I guess somebody had to cherry pick that line from the 3+ hour long interview, because it makes a good click-bait headline. But there's a lot more to the interview with Fravor than that. I still have over an hour of it left to watch, but I'd already say it's well worth watching. And don't get me wrong: I'm not some "UFO believer" or member of the "UFO community" or anything. I'm a skeptic by nature and I'm definitely a skeptic when it comes to some of the more radical claims made by ufologist types: the "extraterrestrial hypothesis" in particular. But Fravor does come off a very reasonable, intelligent, level-headed, sincere witness to something highly unusual. And he makes a point of distan
Recommends pp19dd · 2021-01 · on “US Navy – Tic Tac UFO – High frequency gravitational wave generator”
Might be worth something to watch part of the Lex Fridman interview with one of the pilots, David Fravor. The entire podcast is four hours long and goes over his career and experiences, I'd argue establishes him as a competent naval officer and pilot. The timecode is when he describes the actual event- [this video] In the interview he also describes the record keeping process and basically some of the head scratchers you're bringing about. One other thing the pilot confirms in that interview is the validity (authenticity) of the leaked "Executive Summary" report, which, was leaked to media and (as far as I know) not really pursued for authenticity verification by others (PDF): [LINK]
Recommends tristanj · 2021-05 · on “Radar data confirms: USS Omaha was surrounded by swarm of UFOs”
That article completely ignores the eyewitness testimony from the navy pilots of the Tic Tac incident where they visually identify that the Tic Tac: 1) can hover a few meters above the ocean without generating rotor downwash 2) can accelerate away at 100+g Both of those rule out any known drone or helicopter. David Fravor, one of the pilots, explains this in an interview here [this video]
Recommends grimgrin · 2021-06 · on “Experts Weigh in on Pentagon UFO Report”
Here's a _long_ conversation with one of the pilots with eye visibility that day, David Fravor, though I'm linking you to the start of that specific topic: [this video]
Recommends subsubzero · 2022-03 · on “Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests”
So actually Commander Fravor saw the object with his own eyes, he is one of the pilots who was sent in to engage the craft after it appeared on radar from the carrier group, here is a detailed video of him talking about the incident with Lex Fridman(AI reasearcher - MIT) on his podcast - [this video]
Recommends cronix · 2022-03 · on “Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests”
Here's a 60 Minutes piece discussing it: [LINK] Here's a 4 hour interview with the pilot, David Fravor, on Lex Fridman's show where he goes into much more detail than you'll probably read elsewhere: [this video] This wasn't just a single radar. It was an AEGIS system compromised of multiple ships with state of the art radars, multiple plane radars, and visual confirmation by several pilots. They were tracking it for multiple days.