If we take the mortal danger of the "Tic-Tac" UAP maneuvers literally, we need to believe that "these objects suggest a form of physics we have not yet discovered," says one sci-fi writer.
Atop Capitol Hill in June 2023, congressional representatives sat before witnesses, experts, and the media while taking in an extraordinary hearing. They watched grainy infrared video of a small sphere flying above the ocean circa 2004, listening to the voices of veteran Navy combat pilots who laughed in amazement at the otherworldly performance of the object they pursued with futility.
The declassified videos the Pentagon later released revealed those pilots shouting into their radios, asking their wingmen if they had any idea what was playing games with the most advanced combat aircraft in the world. Meanwhile, the commanders of the flyers' aircraft carriers had to prepare for a very strange debriefing.
UAP skeptics must now wrestle with the fact that this event -- and the U.S. Navy's reports dealing with it -- are in the Congressional record. Now-retired Navy Commander David Fravor commanded the FA-18 Hornet squadron off the USS Nimitz deck on the the afternoon of Nov. 14, 2004. His statement describes his spotting an object off the coast of Southern California that was similar in size to his own fighter aircraft: Fravor and fellow Hornet pilot Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich witnessed, pursued, and recorded a white or metallic UAP. It appeared to fly without wings, airfoil, windows, or an identifiable propulsion system -- and in a death-defying manner.
The FA-18 Hornet can travel at close to 1,200 mph, which is a little more than Mach 1.5, and it can pull more than 9g -- if the pilot can tolerate it. Even with those specs, what would come to be-called the "Tic-Tac" UFO quite literally flew circles around Fravor and Dietrich. The visual and radar analysis, combined with the pilots' eyewitness reports of the pursuit, say the Tic-Tac UAP descended 80,000 feet in less than a second at one point. According to standard mathematical models, such a maneuver would require a speed upwards of 45,000 mph, while pulling more than 2,000g -- in other words, the craft and any passengers inside it would have been experiencing 2,000 times the force of Earth's gravity.
Such maneuvers would reduce a human being to a red mist if any terrestrial-engineered vehicle could even approach such extreme forces.
According to transcribed testimony, Fravor (a graduate of the fabled Top Gun Navy aviator training school) confirmed that the U.S.S. Princeton of the Nimitz carrier group also tracked the UAP. In fact, officers aboard the Princeton reported they detected multiple such contacts.
Since there are also no known drones or other remote-controlled craft capable of similar performance, capturing or even identifying the Tic-Tac remains impossible. If the target of the pilot's pursuit was real and not some radar glitch or optical illusion, humans are left to speculate on how such physics-defying motion might be possible.
SINCE THE PERFORMANCE OF THE UAP DEFIES THE LIMIT of even speculative theoretical physics and lurches wildly into the realm of science fiction, there may be only one way to explain this phenomenon.
That's where André Bormanis comes in.
Armed with a B.S. in physics from the University of Arizona and an M.A. in Science, Technology and Public Policy at George Washington University via a NASA Space Grant Fellowship, Bormanis wrote and consulted for several Star Trek series. Perhaps his flair for the creative allows him to play in the scientific sandbox more freely than academics -- more than 50 international experimental and theoretical physicists Popular Mechanics contacted failed to respond or refused to participate in an interview regarding UAP phenomena.
According to Bormanis, whether objects like the Tic-Tac are the product of secret American technology programs, the works of foreign powers or some manner of extraterrestrial craft, explaining their maneuvers requires more than the inspired application of 21st century understanding. It demands the application of entirely new, speculative knowledge that continues to elude humanity.
Science has made great strides, including discovering quantum mechanics and String Theory during the past century, and this progress will continue, Bormanis says. "But, even in the almost 50 years I've been studying and writing about these kinds of ideas -- while the technology that goes into a fighter aircraft or a guided missile or the rockets we use to explore is amazing -- we still can't explain the things these pilots spotted in recent years. We're not even close."
When Bormanis examines the same footage members of Congress witnessed in 2023, he wonders if it's advanced technology created somehow on Earth. However, such a possibility is too far-fetched for him when he considers that today's jet engines and rockets are not fundamentally different from those engineered in the 1940s.
"If these things are real, it suggests a technology beyond anything we're aware of in the present day," he adds. "I think these objects suggest a form of physics we have not yet discovered."
TRADITIONAL NEWTONIAN LAWS MAKE THE TIC-TAC'S AERIAL DANCING IMPOSSIBLE, so Bormanis lays out a way to suspend the interaction of such forces. His idea recalls his time working on Star Trek, and the concept of a warp drive that proposes the creation of a field around a vessel. The warp concept -- which theoretical physicists are actually working out using mathematical models -- could explain everything from how the Tic-Tac dances to how beings could traverse the impossible distances of space.
Newton and Einstein could ride along happily with their laws of gravity and relativity intact within that protective warp bubble. That's because the physics within are not the same as physics outside the field, and scientific laws as we know them don't exert influence over the field itself. The warp area could cocoon a craft, moving unencumbered by thermodynamics or aerodynamics -- letting the object inside stay stable while managing incredible speeds and pulling against crushing g-forces.
"Warp technology could manipulate space," Bormanis explains, "While in the warp field, if you pull space toward you at 100-times the speed of light, while also propelling space behind you at at 100-times the speed of light, you would make the distances between stars manageable."
Bormanis immediately acknowledges that humanity lacks the understanding to make the physics of a warp field work. There is also no clear way to provide the massive amounts of energy needed for such an achievement.
STILL, RESEARCH INTO OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT REPORTS CONFIRMS that the American Armed Forces and others studying the report take the sort of speculative science Bormanis describes seriously. In August 2018, Steven Aftergood, former Federation of American Scientists representative, sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). He asked for a comprehensive record of "all DIA products produced under the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program [AATIP] contract."
Aftergood declined to comment and informed Popular Mechanics directly that he is no longer working with the Federation of American Scientists in the UAP or advanced technology areas. However, a declassified copy of the DIA response to his FOIA request reveals multiple experimental projects into the sort of nontraditional realms Bormanis suggests.
A perusal of related research topics reveals work on groundbreaking sciences that could help humanity understand exceptional UAP behavior, or even create their own spacefaring craft. For example, Dr. R. Obousy of Obousy Consultants published research on Warp Drive, Dark Energy and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions. Dr. Hal Puthoff of EarthTech International looked at Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metric) Engineering. Finally, Dr. Eric Davis (also of EarthTech International) presented Traversable Wormholes, Star Gates, and Negative Energy.
Back in Hollywood, Bormanis points out that warp theory is no more than a theory, and it's just one possible explanation for what the Navy pilots reported. When dealing with evidence that can't be rationally explained with human senses and remains beyond the comprehension of our scientific progress, there's little else to do but speculate.
"Unless these things are hoaxes, I think we'd need entirely new sciences and a new understanding of physics to know what they are," he adds.