A former Navy pilot described to ABC News his encounter with a UFO studied by a secretive Pentagon program that reportedly was shut down in 2012 because of budget restraints.
Retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor told the network that he was on a training mission on Nov. 14, 2004, off the California coast when he saw what appeared to be a 40-foot-long wingless object that flew at high speed in an uneven pattern.
"I can tell you, I think it was not from this world," Fravor told ABC News. "I'm not crazy, haven't been drinking. It was — after 18 years of flying, I've seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close."
The New York Times reported that $22 million was spent annually on what was called Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification. While the Pentagon said it has been shut down and not funded since 2012, others told the newspaper that it is still intact.
The Times said parts of the program, which started in 2007, remain classified. It was funded with support from former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had had a long interest in space phenomena, the newspaper said.
Fravor's sighting 13 years ago appeared to be something out of the "X-Files." Controllers on one of the Navy vessels in the area reported objects dropping out of the sky from 80,000 feet and going "straight back up," ABC News said.
"So we're thinking, OK, this is going to be interesting," Fravor told ABC News. As they looked about for the object that was spotted on radar, they find an object in the water.
"We look down, we see a white disturbance in the water, like something's under the surface, and the waves are breaking over, but we see next to it, and it's flying around, and it's this little white Tic Tac, and it's moving around — left, right, forward, back, just random," Fravor told ABC News.
Planes flew in closer for inspection, Fravor said.
"As we start to cut across, it rapidly accelerates, climbs past our altitude and disappears. When it started to near us, as we started to descend towards it coming up, it was flying in the elongated way, so it's [like] a Tic Tac, with the roundish end going in the forward direction ... I don't know what it is. I don't know what I saw. I just know it was really impressive, really fast, and I would like to fly it."
Fravor told ABC News that there is still no rational explanation for what was seen that day.
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