By Tim Binnall
The Navy pilot who filmed the much-discussed 'Tic Tac' UFO video has broken his silence about the intriguing encounter. In a lengthy and richly detailed interview with The Intelligencer, Chad Underwood revisited the 2004 flight in which the infrared camera on the F/A-18 Super Hornet that he was piloting captured a strange unidentified object in the sky. Since the tantalizing video was released to the public in 2017, the nature of the mysterious anomaly has been the subject of considerable speculation in both UFO circles as well as the mainstream media.
While that has been unfolding, Underwood has kept quiet about the experience, he said, in order to avoid being "attached to the 'little green men' crazies that are out there." But with the two year anniversary of the video finally being seen by the world, it would seem that his reticence has rescinded and, in turn, the pilot has provided some remarkable new insight into the event. For starters and on a somewhat lighter note, Underwood revealed that he is responsible for the unique name that has been attached to the anomaly. "The term 'Tic Tac,' he said, "I actually coined that."
As for the encounter itself, Underwood indicated that he could not see the UFO with his own eyes because his jet was too far away, but was able to watch it on the radar system, which was recording the encounter as it took place. "I was more concerned with tracking it," he said, "making sure that the videotape was on so that I could bring something back to the ship, so that the intel folks could dissect whatever it is that I captured." Underwood undoubtedly did not expect that recording to make worldwide headlines when it appeared online 13 years later.
In recounting the incident, the pilot said that he was specifically taken aback by "how erratic it was behaving," explaining that "its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I’ve ever encountered before flying against other air targets. It was just behaving in ways that aren’t physically normal." Underwood went on to muse that "aircraft, whether they’re manned or unmanned, still have to obey the laws of physics," which the object seemingly did not.
Regarding the various suggestions which have been made by skeptics in response to the video, Underwood dismissed birds, weather balloons, and a cruise missile as the possible source for the odd object. He also addressed the possibility that it was a secret government project of some kind, saying that "normally, if you see something out in the middle of the ocean that's a test project, we would get debriefed on it, one-on-one, in a dark room" wherein few details would be given, but the terrestrial nature of the oddity would, at least, be confirmed. In this instance, Underwood observed, such a conversation never occurred after he reported the encounter to NORAD.
While the 'Tic Tac' anomaly has become something of a cause celebre in UFO circles over the last two years, Underwood did his best to distance himself from the oft-ridiculed field of research. "At no point did I want to speculate as to what I thought this thing was," he said, "or be associated with, you know, 'alien beings' and 'alien aircraft' and all that stuff." Ultimately, he simply observed that "it is just what we call a UFO. I couldn’t identify it. It was flying. And it was an object ... I just happened to be the person that brought back the video."