USS Theodore Roosevelt UAP Encounters

What Happened

Between mid-2014 and early 2015, aviators assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 11 (VFA-11 "Red Rippers") and associated squadrons attached to Carrier Air Wing 11 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) experienced persistent, near-daily encounters with unidentified aerial objects while conducting pre-deployment workups off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.

The sightings began shortly after the squadron's F/A-18F Super Hornets were upgraded from older analog APG-73 radars to state-of-the-art AN/APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar sets. Almost immediately, radar intercept officers and pilots began detecting multiple anomalous radar tracks loitering within active military warning areas (including W-72 and W-122) at altitudes ranging from sea level to 30,000 feet. Initially dismissed by aviators as software false tracks or radar anomalies, pilots subsequently locked onto the radar returns with their helmet-mounted cueing systems and ATFLIR (Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared) optical pods, confirming physical objects present in designated flight paths.

The encounters escalated in late 2014 when two Super Hornets flying in tactical section formation entered a training block. A pilot and weapons systems officer observed an object pass directly between their two aircraft—separated by approximately 100 feet. The pilot described the object as a dark gray or translucent sphere encasing a black cube, with the corners of the cube appearing to touch the inside of the sphere. The object displayed no wings, forward propulsion, or exhaust trails, and remained completely stationary despite strong winds. The near-miss incident prompted an immediate safety stand-down and the submission of an official safety hazard report to the Naval Safety Center.

In January 2015, as the USS Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group transited south toward Florida for composite training unit exercises (COMPTUEX), pilots recorded two landmark infrared video sequences that were subsequently declassified by the Pentagon: the "Gimbal" video (depicting a disc-shaped craft rotating against prevailing winds) and the "GoFast" video (showing a high-speed low-altitude contact skimming the ocean surface).

Witnesses and Sensor Evidence

The USS Theodore Roosevelt encounters are notable for the caliber and public openness of direct military participants. Lieutenant Ryan Graves, an F/A-18F pilot who served as an operations officer in VFA-11, came forward on the record in the New York Times in May 2019, on 60 Minutes in May 2021, and provided sworn testimony before the United States Congress on July 26, 2023.

Other pilots who stepped forward publicly or in declassified reporting include Lieutenant Danny Accoin and multiple weapons systems officers. Their eyewitness accounts were bolstered by multi-sensor electronic corroboration:

• AESA Radar Returns: The AN/APG-79 radar sets repeatedly locked onto tracks executing sustained stationary hovers in hurricane-force winds (up to 120 knots at altitude), followed by sudden accelerations to supersonic velocity without generating audible sonic booms.
• Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR): The ATFLIR pods captured distinct thermal signatures confirming physical geometry in both white-hot and black-hot modes, displaying cold leading edges and anomalous localized energetic halos.
• Near-Midair Collision Hazard Reports: The Naval Safety Center recorded multiple aviation hazard filings from 2014 and 2015 where tactical aviators documented near-misses with airborne objects of unknown origin in restricted airspace.
• All-Day Loiter Times: Witnesses noted that conventional jet aircraft carry roughly one to two hours of fuel before requiring air-to-air refueling. The unidentified contacts remained on station continuously for ten to twelve hours at a time, vastly outlasting any known military fighter or drone platform.

Official Investigations

The volume and frequency of reports off the Atlantic coast triggered major procedural changes within the U.S. Navy. In April 2019, the Navy formally updated its standardized operational reporting procedures to encourage naval pilots to report unidentified aerial phenomena without professional stigma or career repercussions.

The Navy submitted the Roosevelt squadron sensor recordings to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) and subsequently to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). In April 2020, the Department of Defense authorized the official release of the Gimbal and GoFast recordings, acknowledging that the phenomena captured in the videos remained officially classified as unidentified.

In July 2023, during open Congressional hearings before the House Oversight Committee, Ryan Graves founded Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA), an advocacy organization composed of commercial and military aviators aimed at destigmatizing UAP reporting for national security and flight safety. Graves emphasized that if commercial or military aircraft repeatedly encounter unidentifiable obstacles in domestic warning areas, it represents an urgent airspace safety failure regardless of the objects' ultimate origin.

Proposed Explanations

Radar Calibration Errors and Artifacts: Initial skepticism centered on whether the newly installed AESA radar systems generated ghost tracks or synthetic targets due to software bugs or electronic feedback. However, pilots verified that radar targets correlated directly with infrared imaging, helmet visor tracking, and direct visual sightings through the canopy, refuting pure sensor malfunction.

Advanced Foreign Adversary Drones: Defense officials explored whether Chinese or Russian surveillance platforms or uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) operating from covert maritime vessels had penetrated US training ranges to collect electronic signals intelligence on the newly deployed AESA radar. While plausible for low-speed observations, foreign drone capabilities do not account for sustained station-keeping in 120-knot winds, 12-hour continuous flight endurance, or acceleration to Mach velocities without heat signatures.

Balloons, Radar Reflectors, and Airborne Clutter: The "cube-within-a-sphere" visual description bears similarities to airborne radar calibration targets, such as dual-reflector weather balloons carrying corner radar reflectors. A drifting balloon could appear stationary or drift at wind speed. However, pilots documented objects maneuvering actively against wind currents, tracking fleet vessels over hundreds of miles, and descending from 30,000 feet to sea level in rapid tactical maneuvers inconsistent with passive balloon drift.

Electronic Warfare / Spoofing: Another hypothesis posits that advanced electronic warfare systems—either adversarial or classified U.S. testing—projected phantom radar signatures and targeted sensor decoys. While electronic spoofing can produce phantom radar returns, it cannot account for pilots visually dodging physical structures that pass within 100 feet of an aircraft canopy.

Current Status

The USS Theodore Roosevelt incidents remain a foundational cornerstone of modern UAP disclosure. They represent the primary impetus behind the enactment of comprehensive UAP reporting legislation in successive National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA).

While AARO continues to evaluate individual sensor clips (such as its 2025 case resolution study addressing the motion parallax of the GoFast clip), the broader operational pattern—including dozens of near-misses, multi-hour loitering, and multi-sensor military tracking along the eastern seaboard—remains unresolved. The case fundamentally changed how the United States military approaches unexplained objects in sovereign airspace.