I’m absolutely delighted to announce the release of my new book: The Encyclopedia of Science Oddities! It’s available on Amazon in both paperback and ebook.
Do you ever feel like science is stranger than fiction?
You’re right!
The Encyclopedia of Science Oddities is a must have for every science enthusiast’s bookshelf. Featuring more than 160 sub-chapters dedicated to topics including neutron stars, quantum mechanics, disappearing polymorphs, and the human brain. This is the most comprehensive, thoroughly-researched, and mind-blowing compendium of science oddities ever written.
Did you know:
Most supermassive black holes have such low densities that they could theoretically float on water.
When you hear a faint sound, your eardrums move less than one picometre—a distance 100 times smaller than the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
The Boquila trifoliolata plant changes the shape, size, orientation, and vein pattern of its leaves to mimic other plants.
When you pour water from a kettle into a cup filled with tea leaves, some of the tea leaves can seemingly defy gravity and climb upstream into the kettle.
During the Roman era, Earth’s magnetic field was twice as strong as it is today.
There are more atoms in one teaspoon of water than teaspoons of water in all the world’s oceans.
Pictured below are three pages from the book:
I have spent several years and thousands of hours researching and writing The Encyclopedia of Science Oddities. I’m so happy to finally release it. I’m absolutely positive that you’ll love it! Check it out on Amazon here.
Ed Witten has been described by various publications as ‘a genius’s genius’, ‘the Einstein of his time’, and even ‘the Darth Vader of physics’. Time magazine ventured as far as to call him “the most brilliant physicist in the world. Perhaps the most brilliant physicist who has ever lived.” Online lists perennially herald him as ‘the smartest person alive’. Some in the physics community view Witten as the proverbial ‘chosen one’, destined to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity into a so called ‘theory of everything’, while others paint him as an anti-hero who has misled a generation of physicists down the vapid rabbit hole of string theory. This article will explore the extraordinary life of the fascinating and complex figure that is Ed Witten.
Who Is Ed Witten?
Witten is a tall, angular man, who despite being in his seventies, still has an air of teenage awkwardness about him. His prominent jawline looks chiselled from granite, as it carries a persistent five-o’clock shadow. His silver-white hair is wild, yet ordered, receding back from a high brow. Behind unassuming glasses, his hazel-eyed gaze doesn’t just peer at you, but through you, as if he were sifting through unseen dimensions. He is every bit the quintessential-looking professor, preoccupied with abstract thoughts.
Witten has a gentle, yet fast-paced, alto voice. His words are economical and flawless, like he is reading from an autocue. He has an idiosyncratic speech pattern. He talks in bursts. Then after every dozen or so words pauses. Almost as if he were giving the listener a chance to catch up with his fast-paced mind.
At Witten’s core lies a remarkable gentleness, matched only by an equally endearing humility. Yet, behind this modest demeanor is arguably the greatest scientific mind of our time. Witten is a theoretical physicist, and not just a run-of-the-mill one (if you can ever call a theoretical physicist such a thing). He currently serves as the professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. While Witten hasn’t quite reached the household name stardom of physicists like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, or Galileo Galilei, he is highly respected within the physics community. He is most famous for his pioneering work on string theory that attempts to explain the very nature of reality itself.
For the uninitiated, string theory strives to resolve a gaping, supernova-sized gap in physics where quantum mechanics and general relativity clash. Now, quantum mechanics accurately describes the delightfully quirky behaviour of particles, such as atoms and molecules, on the smallest of scales, while Einstein’s theory of relativity succinctly describes the behaviour of objects, such as majestic galaxies and stars, on the largest of scales. However, these theories have a fatal flaw—failing to describe extreme conditions, such as those present during the early Universe or inside black holes. Stop press: a new theory of the Universe is required. This new theory would merge the frameworks of both quantum mechanics and general relativity into a theory called quantum gravity. The leading candidate for quantum gravity is, in many physicists’ opinion, string theory.
String theory fundamentally uproots our entire notion of reality, creating an absurd Escheresque world where nothing is as it seems. According to string theory, our Universe doesn’t consist of point-like elementary particles but rather incomprehensibly tiny pieces of string that wriggle about in ten or eleven dimensions. These dimensions are supposedly curled up on such an incredibly small scale that we don’t perceive them directly. The way these pieces of string vibrate corresponds to the different particles.
The Early Life of Witten
Edward Witten entered the world on 26 August 1951, in the charm city of Baltimore, Maryland. He is the son of Lorraine Witten, a high school teacher who majored in biology at university, and Louis Witten, an esteemed theoretical physicist in his own right, who specialised in gravitation and general relativity.
Having a prominent theoretical physicist father, it’s very tempting to gloss over the first two decades of Ed Witten’s life and assume that his path to theoretical physics prominence was proverbially written in the stars. Yet, Witten’s trajectory into the realm of physics was anything but direct. He adopted new hobbies like they were going out of fashion and flippantly dropped interests in a heartbeat. In fact, Witten actively avoided physics in his late teen era. It was almost like a form of teenage rebellion, as if he and physics were two identically polarised magnets, intent on steering clear of each other during these awkward years.
Witten’s earliest brush with science occurred at the tender age of four. His gravitational physicist father Louis explains, “I would talk to Ed about science the way I would talk with adults.” From ages six through ten, Witten became utterly spellbound by astronomy. This obsession was fuelled by the excitement and uncertainty of the dawn of the space race. Upon turning ten, Witten was gifted a three-inch-reflector telescope, which he used to marvel at various astronomical delights; his favourite being the rings of Saturn. Witten’s preoccupation with the starry heavens above inspired him to strive to become an astronomer. However, he feared that by the time he was an adult, such a profession would require him to live in space—something that sounded far too dangerous for the young and timid Witten.
At the age of ten, under the guidance of his close aunt, Ethel Klavens, Witten learnt the card game bridge. Merely weeks later, he embarked on a voyage to Israel to visit his family. On this journey, he won the ship’s bridge tournament. This was an extraordinary feat, as although bridge is a relatively simple game to learn, mastering its strategic and bidding elements requires significant time and effort. Like chess, proficiency is not achieved instantly.
Upon turning eleven, Witten’s father presented him with an assortment of advanced maths books, thereby introducing him to the imposing world of calculus—a field typically reserved for those in their late teens. As is the case with everything Witten does, he became positively engrossed by the topic. Witten’s parents, perhaps not expecting him to become so fixated, eventually decided to wean him off calculus. They were reluctant to immerse him into too complex maths too soon—a common conundrum for the parents of child prodigies. When looking back on this decision, Witten remains uncertain whether his parents’ choice was the right one. Regardless, Witten’s brief dalliance with advanced maths meant that the maths he would be exposed to for much of his formal secondary education would no longer be novel or challenging. As a result, his interest in the field stagnated.
At the age of 12, Witten engaged in a spate of writing long, drawn out letters to the Baltimore Sun Newspaper. The recurring theme of these letters was his opposition to the Vietnam War. The Baltimore Sun published a large number of Witten’s musings, seemingly unaware of his young age.
While Witten’s precociousness outside of school was nothing short of remarkable, his performance within its walls better foreshadowed his future as an intellectual titan.
Witten skipped grades at school with the effortlessness of a stone skipping across water and was always well ahead of his teachers intellectually. Witten’s aunt, Ethel Klavens, has explained “The public schools didn’t know what to do with him. They skipped him from the fifth to the seventh grade.” Witten jumped from school to school in northern Baltimore, from Baltimore Hebrew School to Wellwood Elementary School to Sudbrook Junior High, and finally to Park School—where he would remain for the rest of his secondary education.
Witten arrived at Park School as a stereotypical bookish student. He was gangly, sported dark, thick-rimmed glasses and was both physically and socially awkward. Furthermore, he was one of those students who seemed to always be constantly sniffling, carrying a different allergy for each day of the week.
Witten’s arrival at Park School was a pivotal point in his origin story. Being younger, smarter, and seemingly more awkward than everyone else, he could have been an easy target for bullies. In one of the parallel universes predicted by string theory, Witten gets tormented by bullies, deflated of self-confidence, and never embarks on an academic career. However, in a major victory for this Universe (and physics itself), this didn’t happen. Rather than being ostracised at Park, Witten was accepted by his fellow students and lauded for his intellectual prowess.
Witten’s fellow student, Richard Kravitz, who went on to become a psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine, recalls Witten’s time at Park, “He was two years younger than anyone else and at least 2,000 years smarter than anybody else.”
This sentiment is echoed by one of Witten’s closest friends at the school, Peter Baida, “I suppose it’s common that kids in any high school sit around talking about who the smartest person in the class is. But we used to sit around—when Edward wasn’t there—and talk about how he was the smartest person in the world.”
Park School rejigged its regular curriculum to cater for Witten’s intellect. This included hiring a professor from the local Johns Hopkins University to teach him maths. Although Witten nonchalantly excelled in maths and physics, he was a well-rounded student that was equally competent in virtually every subject he tried his hand at, including history, current world affairs, literature, writing, and politics. The history teacher at Park, Brooks Larkin, recalls her time teaching Witten, “When he warmed up to a political subject, he could totally dominate a conversation in my class. I would say he has a very strong personality behind a quiet exterior.”
As is the case with many academic wunderkinds, Witten’s lone Achilles heel at school was physical education. The school’s baseball coach, Kenneth Greif, had some harsh advice for Witten, “I advised him not to concentrate on baseball. Because I was the baseball coach too, and I was concerned. He wasn’t the best athlete….So I put him way in the outfield. I didn’t want the ball to hit him in the head.”
Despite being athletically challenged, Witten was more motivated than any other student to be on the team and excel. Witten’s aunt, Ethel Klavens, explains “He always wanted to be on the team and he was always the last one to be picked.” I mention this brief anecdote, not as it pertains to Witten’s sporting ability but rather as it pertains to his determination. The hallmark of a great thinker is one who stubbornly refuses to let adversity and difficult problems defeat them. Witten possesses this trait by the bucket load.
Despite undertaking an unorthodox schooling regimen, Witten was spoken of extremely highly by his teachers and fellow students alike. Sure, he was naturally a genius. But more importantly, he is remembered for being moral, kind, humble, and teeming with integrity. Witten was well set for his next phase in life—university.
Witten The University Student
Being a polymath, it’s understandable that Witten didn’t find his single academic niche straight out of high school. Having said this, I don’t think Witten, nor anyone close to him, could have predicted the university course merry-go-round that would ensue.
Witten commenced his tertiary education at Brandeis College, Boston, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in history and minoring in linguistics. Curiously, Witten specifically chose to major in history despite the fact that linguistics was his favourite subject at the time. When a senior Witten was asked why he chose to pursue history, he responded, “Well, sometimes the choices made by young people are inscrutable.” Unsurprisingly, Witten remained unchallenged by his undergraduate course; however, he dutifully plodded through it with the goal of becoming a political journalist. While at Brandeis, a principled Witten wrote several articles for political journals, including the Nation and the New Republic. In the autumn of 1971, Witten graduated from Brandeis as a history major.
Fresh from becoming a history graduate, Witten re-evaluated his life’s goals and decided to go all in on economics. He viewed economics as a subject that directly engaged with the human condition and contemporary struggles. He enrolled at the University of Michigan as a graduate student; however, after a lacklustre one semester, he dropped out.
Being a person with strong morals, and a passion for fighting against injustice, Witten focused his attention back onto politics. Rather than reverting to his political journalism aspirations, he pivoted to a more grassroots level—helping Senator George McGovern in his 1972 run for US president. Witten was particularly enamoured with McGovern’s anti-war platform.
Witten spent six months working as a low-level aide to McGovern. Due to Witten’s subordinate status in the political pecking order, it’s highly unlikely that he and McGovern interacted in any meaningful way during this period. Several decades after Witten’s stint as a political aide, McGovern was asked what it was like having the world’s smartest person working on his campaign. Unsurprisingly, McGovern didn’t remember Witten, yet he quipped, “Well, he was smart enough to back McGovern in ’72, and I judge everybody by that criteria.” Witten ultimately quit his brief dalliance with politics, citing the fact that politics demanded qualities that he did not have—primarily common sense.
One can only empathise with Witten at this stage of his life. He was clearly brilliant, yet unchallenged. The education system simply isn’t designed for those in the 0.000001% like Witten. History was out, linguistics was out, economics was out, and politics was now out too, so what next? He was running out of subjects to pursue. Witten’s friends and family grew increasingly concerned about his future—and whether he would flip indefinitely between new careers, like a puck being hit back and forth on a frictionless surface.
It’s very easy to imagine a wide-eyed, quixotic, 21-year-old Witten striving to create a utilitarian difference in the world. However, possessing a political conscience and a deep knowledge of moral and political philosophy often isn’t enough to instigate a noticeable difference on a global scale. Indeed, there is a distinction between what a person emotionally yearns to do and what they intellectually should do to gain fulfilment. Perhaps Witten became disillusioned and realised this because at this point, something changed. Witten had the epiphany that maths and theoretical physics were the areas in which he was most supremely talented, and that he would therefore “only be satisfied with a career in those fields.”
Witten borrowed a collection of mathematical textbooks from his sister, who was a math’s student. Flipping through them, he knew he had found his calling. In 1973, Witten was accepted into the prestigious Princeton University to major in applied mathematics. However, after just six months, he did what everyone feared—he quit again.
Witten remained at Princeton, applying to the university’s physics department, where he was accepted. Thankfully, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, this time he didn’t quit. Witten has explained why he was (eventually) drawn to physics, “I was about 21 years old when I made the decision between mathematics and theoretical physics, and I made this decision based on very limited knowledge about either field. My choice was theoretical physics, in large part because I was fascinated by the elementary particles.”
Now, one doesn’t just simply get accepted into physics at Princeton on a whim. Witten demonstrated extraordinary mathematical ability in his brief stint while studying maths at Princeton and drew the eyes of the right faculty members who pulled a few strings (not of the subatomic variety). Princeton allowed Witten to transfer into their Physics PhD program, despite the fact that he lacked a formal undergraduate physics background. Although rare, elite institutions like Princeton occasionally make exceptions for truly exceptional individuals who demonstrate undeniable talent and potential in a field, even without the standard prerequisites. Witten is perhaps the most famous example of this.
Witten explains, “Of course, I learnt as much as I could before I started graduate school in physics in September of 1973. But, nevertheless, the first year was very difficult work to catch up. By the end of the year I caught up, not in the sense that I knew everything, but in the sense that I knew as much as my fellow graduate students did.” Witten clearly had the ability to rapidly absorb new topics, almost like he was a computer downloading new subject material into his brain. Witten’s friend, Peter Baida, has emphasised this fact, “He was so smart he could devour whole fields in a short time.”
Witten has described that at the age of 21, he “learned general relativity in a very exciting period of about ten days from the book of Steven Weinberg.” The book that Witten references here is ‘Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity’. This book is so dense that you could easily add just a few more complex equations to it and watch on as it collapsed into a black hole. It has the unique perspective of approaching general relativity from a particle physics viewpoint. In order to even pick up this book, one needs a solid background in classical mechanics, electromagnetism, special relativity, and quantum field theory, as well as strong muscles (it’s on the lean side of 700 pages). In essence, it’s aimed at PhD students and above. It’s remarkable that a 21-year-old, self-taught, newcomer to physics would think of reading such a book, let alone consume it in its entirety in just ten days.
During Witten’s early physics graduate years, he served as the teaching assistant and grader for Anthony Zee’s quantum field theory course. Zee had just embarked on a career as an assistant physics professor, and as he didn’t know any different, assumed that Witten was just your run-of-the-mill graduate student. Zee explains, “Ed produced lucidly written solutions to the homework problems I assigned, to the extent that the next year I went to the chairman to ask, ‘What is wrong with the TA (teaching assistant) I have this year? He is not half as good as the guy last year!’”
Witten commenced his physics PhD under the supervision of David Gross. At this time, Gross was arguably the greatest physicist in the world. He was fresh off discovering asymptotic freedom with his student, Frank Wilczek (roughly three decades later, Gross would receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery). Asymptotic freedom is the remarkably counterintuitive phenomenon that describes the fact that when quarks—the basic building blocks of matter—get closer together, the force between them actually decreases.
It was serendipitous that Witten had such an eminent physicist as Gross serving as his supervisor. It’s easy to imagine the graduate student Witten quickly surpassing the knowledge of most physics supervisors. As it was, Witten soon caught up to Gross’s level. This is emphasised in this anecdote by ‘Max Raker’, “There are many stories you hear around Princeton about how frustrating Witten was to mentor. David (Gross) would come up with a problem that he thought would take anybody a few weeks to solve and require a ton of calculations, which a person sort of needs to go through to be educated as a theoretical physicist. Witten would instead come back in a day or 2 with a one page proof that required no calculations and was based on some deep symmetry or other hidden but mathematically sophisticated technique. You can talk to some professors who were at Princeton at the time and as a school it has produced its share of talent (including Terence Tao) but I don’t think the faculty has ever been blown away like they were with Witten. He must have had one of the quickest journeys from ‘I want to be a physicist’ to ‘I am the most important person in the field’ in history.”
In 1976, Witten completed his PhD titled ‘Some problems in the short distance analysis of gauge theories’. His PhD was about how the fundamental forces described by gauge theories—the mathematical frameworks for forces—behave at small distances or high energies. His PhD built upon the asymptotic freedom work that Gross had laid the foundation for. Despite weaving through disparate fields and beginning his physics tertiary education just three years prior, Witten received his physics PhD at the tender age of 25.
In 1977, Gross wrote what has now become a famous one line recommendation letter for Witten’s application to the Harvard School of Fellows. “He’s smarter than me and probably smarter than you, so accept him.” In a surprise to absolutely no one, Witten was accepted.
Witten’s Career
The Junior Fellow position at Harvard University’s Society of Fellows is one of the most prestigious early-career academic appointments in the world. Fewer than a dozen fellows are selected annually from a global pool exceeding one thousand. The society’s honour board reads like a who’s who of the intellectual elite. Fellows are provided with three years of salary, no formal duties, and generous academic resources to enable them to devote themselves full time to their voyage of discovery.
When Witten arrived at Harvard, he encountered the familiar face of Chiara Nappi. This amiable, outgoing Italian physicist had glowing skin, prominent circular-lensed glasses, and dark springy coils of hair just long enough to obscure her ears. The pair had first met in 1975, at a physics summer school in the French Alps. Their serendipitous reunion at Harvard quickly blossomed into a romance. Nappi and Witten would ultimately wed in 1979, and have their first child while at Harvard.
Throughout Witten’s stint as a Junior Fellow, he was determined to understand quark confinement: the enduring mystery of why quarks can never be found in isolation. For some reason, the strong force acts like a subatomic gatekeeper, trapping quarks and preventing them from ever escaping their group. In an attempt to comprehend this phenomenon, Witten ventured into the realm of abstract mathematics. He hoped that possessing a broader toolkit would give him the necessary advantage to tackle quark confinement and other problems in physics. Witten explains, “We gradually learned that answering some of these (physics) questions required mathematical techniques that we weren’t familiar with that gradually brought us closer to the interests of modern mathematicians.” Although quark confinement would ultimately become Witten’s white whale, his detour into abstract mathematics would prove to be extremely fruitful over the long term.
In 1980, Witten returned to Princeton, like a boomerang that somehow circles back to its point of origin. He was appointed as a fully-fledged professor at the age of 28—one of the youngest to be bestowed with that position. Witten had spent his entire life jumping from interest to interest, school to school, and course to course. He had now finally found his niche and would spend virtually his entire career in and around Princeton, with the stable figure of Chiara Nappi by his side, immersed head-deep in physics and maths.
Although Witten was content that he tessellated neatly into the Princeton academic landscape, the rest of the world didn’t realise this. Consequently, as whispers of Witten’s genius spread through physics circles, elite universities worldwide began fiercely competing for him. This was exemplified in 1981, when the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques—a South Parisian institute devoted to fundamental research in mathematics and theoretical physics—wrote to physicist Sidney Coleman seeking an appraisal of Witten. Coleman responded with the following letter.
“Dear Professor Kuiper: This is in response to your letter of September 1, requesting my evaluation of Edward Witten. I know Ed Witten well. He was for four years a member of our group and I have followed his work closely. I think he is clearly the best physicist to enter my field since Gerald ‘t Hooft. Ed’s work is extraordinary in its originality, is clarity, its depth of insight, and its quality. Rarely has anyone published so much that is so good so young. The only criticism I can make of his career to date is that the main body of his work is rather remote from experiment; there is no Witten effect to detect or Witten sum-rule to verify. However, I suspect there will be soon; Ed did some nice work on heavy neutrinos in grand unified theories last year, and I think he will periodically return to phenomenological topics. In addition to all these virtues, Ed is a marvellous lecturer and a very pleasant person, a joy to be with and to talk physics with. I believe that the preceding paragraphs satisfy your request. Now, let me give you a further opinion, which was not requested, but which I feel is relevant. The judgements I have expressed are not mine alone, but the near universal opinions of the high-energy theory community. Ed Witten is inundated in job offers. Bures is a very nice place, but you have about as much chance of getting Ed for your staff as you have of bringing Einstein back from the dead. I have written this letter because of my friendship with and respect for Jurg Frohlich but I have wasted my time writing it and you have wasted your time requesting it of me. If we wasted less time on such futile exercises, we might have a better chance of doing something of merit. With great sincerity, Sidney Coleman.”
Witten was renowned for juggling several different fiendishly complex problems simultaneously. At this stage of his life, one such problem pertained to a newly evolving theory called supersymmetry, which proposed that every known fundamental particle (like the electron or quark) has a hidden ‘super-partner’ particle (like the selectron or squark). Witten realised that supersymmetry was a big deal, as it had the potential to solve major problems in physics, like dark matter and the unification of nature’s forces. Witten became positively obsessed in understanding the nature of the vacuum state in supersymmetry. It was like that endlessly portrayed trope in movies in which the professor becomes fixated on a single problem to the neglect of everything else around them. In the summer of 1981, Witten was lounging about in a swimming pool in Aspen, Colorado when he had a wonderful eureka moment, reminiscent of Archimedes. He recalled a lecture on Morse theory that the Hungarian-American mathematician Raoul Bott had delivered two years earlier. Morse theory is a deeply abstract mathematical concept that helps one comprehend the shape of a space by studying the hills, valleys, and saddles of smooth functions defined on it. Witten ingeniously linked Morse theory to his problem in understanding the nature of the vacuum state in supersymmetry. In 1982, Witten formalised his thinking and published a paper titled ‘Supersymmetry and Morse Theory.’ This paper made global waves in the realms of both pure mathematics and theoretical physics. Witten describes this paper as “Perhaps my first paper that was really memorable and influential.”
While deeply immersed in supersymmetry, Witten was also grappling with the positive energy theorem in general relativity. At its essence, this problem raised the possibility that gravity could harbour negative energy, meaning that the Universe itself might be fundamentally unstable and prone to spontaneous collapse. In a stunningly simply and elegant proof, Witten showed that gravity itself, or anything creating gravity (like matter), always has a positive total mass-energy. Furthermore, he established that the only thing with zero mass-energy is completely empty, flat space. This breakthrough by Witten provided the much needed reassurance to physicists that the fabric of space-time is stitched with resilience.
Witten was renowned for his profound grasp of all branches of physics. He could engage an expert in their own niche field, and with just a few probing questions, completely overturn their foundational assumptions. Researchers who had dedicated years to a single topic often found their perspective transformed after a mere five-minute conversation with him.
During the early 1980s, string theory wasn’t being taken seriously by physicists. Sure, there were a handful of physicists doggedly pursuing it, yet the general topic itself was still considered fringe science. Witten himself foresaw two major flaws with string theory that made him reluctant to get too immersed in the field. Witten’s first criticism was that its framework was so vast that, even if it were a correct theory, it would still take at least 100 years to understand. Fast forward to 2025 and this prophetic assessment still rings true.
Witten’s second critique of string theory was more technical. He pointed out that the laws of nature are not mirror-symmetric: in other words, they distinguish between left-handed and right-handed spinning particles. String theory at the time fell at this hurdle—it couldn’t do this; it treated left and right spinning particles identically. This fatal flaw meant that it was impossible for string theory to describe our real universe. Witten explained this problem to the handful of researchers working on string theory, who nodded and listened intently. In the summer of 1984, two of these researchers, Michael Green and John Schwarz, made a breakthrough—they performed some mathematical wizardry known as anomaly cancellation and hey presto, resolved Witten’s criticism. This was a watershed moment where string theory went from ‘interesting but flawed’ to ‘holy cow, this might work!’ The Green and Schwarz breakthrough became known as the first string theory revolution. A sizeable portion of the physics community began to take string theory seriously. This included Witten—he was now all in on string theory.
The original string theory was deeply flawed. It predicted tachyons—particles that always travel faster than light, failed to include all the matter particles, and required space-time to have 26 dimensions. Various physicists chipped away at this framework to develop an updated model of string theory, aptly known as ‘superstring theory’. This new theory removed the tachyon problem, incorporated all the matter particles, and reduced the necessary number of dimensions down to 10—a vast improvement on the original 26.
Up until 1984, Witten was primarily known for his groundbreaking work on quantum field theory, supersymmetry, and supergravity. Yet the first string theory revolution redirected his focus. Building on Green and Schwarz’s work, Witten teamed up with Alvarez-Gaume and demonstrated that anomalies could only be cancelled in specific dimensions—like 10. This was precisely the number of dimensions in which superstring theory operated. Witten continued to cement himself on the frontline of string theory research. In fact, throughout 1984, he wrote a record 19 papers on string theory, singlehandedly transforming the superstring landscape.
In 1985, there was enormous buzz and anticipation when it was announced that Witten was going to give a lecture at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. This wasn’t going to be your standard lecture of course material aimed at undergraduate students. Rather, it was a lecture to the world’s foremost physicists on Witten’s groundbreaking work on superstring theory. One of the top brass present was renowned mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson, who was some 20 years Witten’s senior. Freeman recalls, “In the spring of 1985, Ed Witten, one of the most brilliant of young physicists at Princeton University, announced that he would give a talk. …it was clear that this talk would be an extraordinary occasion. …our seminar room was packed with people, some old and famous, some young, all eager with expectations. Witten spoke very fast for an hour and a half without stopping. It was a dazzling display of virtuosity. It was also, as Witten remarked quietly at the end, a new theory of the universe. …When Witten came to the end… The listeners sat silent. There were no questions. Not one of us was brave enough to stand up and reveal the depths of our ignorance. …I describe this scene because it gives a picture of what it means to explore the universe at the highest level of abstraction. Ed Witten is taking a big chance. He has moved so far into abstraction that few even of his friends know what he is talking about. …He did not invent superstrings. …Ed Witten’s role is to build superstrings into a mathematical structure which reflects to an impressive extent the observed structure of particles and fields in the universe. After they heard him speak, many members of his audience went back to their desks and did the homework they should have done before, reading his papers and learning his language. The next time he talks, we shall understand him better. Next time, we shall perhaps be brave enough to ask questions.”
Witten continued to balance his impressively broad range of research with teaching in Princeton’s physics department. It was here that Witten’s students bestowed upon him the affectionate moniker ‘the Martian’. This was due to his superhuman intellect and unique approach to maths and physics that appeared so advanced that it felt like he must be from another planet.
In 1987, Witten became a permanent faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). Although the IAS is technically a distinct entity from Princeton University, it’s better to think of both institutions as separate circles on a Venn diagram, with a generous overlapping section. Walking through the IAS’s picturesque 800 acre grounds is like taking a step out of the humdrum of regular society and onto a movie set, where every tree is artfully sculptured and each individual blade of grass is trimmed to millimetre-level precision. At the heart of this property rises Fuld Hall: an ornate, multi-storey building whose veneer resembles a checkerboard grid of brick and light. Just as religions have their various temples of worship, Fuld Hall is surely that for academia. Not only for its architecture but for the work that’s done within its quiet walls.
The IAS has been described as a “haven for the exceptionally gifted.” It’s dedicated to insulating researchers from the menial work of academia, allowing them to be fully immersed in their research. There have been 34 Nobel Laureates and 62 Fields Medallists affiliated with the prestigious institute. When you enter the grounds, you are quite literally walking in the footsteps of Albert Einstein, Kurt Godel, Robert Oppenheimer, and John von Neumann, just to name a few. The IAS hosts around 30 permanent faculty members, including Witten, and 200 visiting scholars. Witten has spoken glowingly about the IAS, “It’s a very nice atmosphere to work. There are very few responsibilities. All one has to do is one’s research… Both the senior faculty and the young researchers who spend a couple years there are among the best in the field usually, so there’s lots of stimulation.” Following Witten’s arrival at the IAS, the institute blossomed into the global epicentre for string theory research.
By the late 1980s, Witten had developed a strong working relationship with the British-Lebanese mathematician Michael Atiyah. One of the more notable problems that Atiyah presented to Witten related to the Jones polynomial—a mathematical tool invented by New Zealander Vaughan Jones to distinguish different types of knots. Atiyah was dissatisfied with the current explanations for the Jones polynomial because none of them provided a fully intrinsic explanation of the knot’s symmetry. In all cases, they involved breaking the knot down into simpler pieces, studying those pieces individually, and then reassembling the information. The fact that this process worked felt like hocus pocus to Atiyah. It lacked a direct, geometric, or natural explanation rooted in the knot’s whole structure.
In what can only be described as a dazzling leap of insight, Witten stepped back from the problem and thought of the knot as the path followed by a charged particle in a world of three dimensional space-time (two dimensions of space and one of time). This novel approach uprooted the standard perspective of viewing the knot in our own familiar world of four dimensional space-time. Witten’s approach yielded a natural explanation of the Jones polynomial. Witten describes his breakthrough here as “probably one of the things I’ve done that’s had the biggest impact in math and also a decent amount of impact in physics.”
In 1990, Witten became the first—and still only—physicist to be awarded the Fields Medal. This honour is often hailed as the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, yet in reality, it’s rarer still. Bestowed just once every four years to four mathematicians worldwide, its scarcity underlines its prestige. To frame Witten’s Fields Medal win in sporting terms, it’s like Michael Phelps, the most decorated swimmer in history, turning his attention to the track and winning the 100-metre sprint at the Olympics. Sure, maths and physics have overlapping elements—just like swimming and running—yet they are distinct fields when you reach their highest echelons.
Witten was awarded the Fields Medal for his entire mathematical oeuvre, including his work on supersymmetry and Morse theory, elegant proof of the positive energy theorem in general relativity, and his natural explanation of the Jones polynomial. Michael Atiyah, a distinguished Fields Medallist in his own right, has described Witten’s foray into mathematics, “Although he is definitely a physicist (as his list of publications clearly shows) his command of mathematics is rivalled by few mathematicians, and his ability to interpret physical ideas in mathematical form is quite unique. Time and again he has surprised the mathematical community by his brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical theorems.”
In 1990, Cambridge University hosted an international conference titled ‘Cosmology and Particle Physics’. Those attending included Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, and Alan Guth, as well as an assortment of other eminent cosmologists and particle physicists. At this conference, a poll was conducted asking the attendees who they believed was the smartest living physicist. The name that received the most votes—a Mr. Ed Witten. The physicist who received the second-most votes was Steven Weinberg: the author of the book on general relativity that Witten had digested in all but ten days as a 21-year-old newcomer to physics. It’s one thing for Joe Schmo to declare someone as smart. But for a gathering that may well have held the planet’s highest concentration of intellect to single out one physicist as supreme among them—that verdict carries profound weight.
In 1994, Witten returned to a problem that had been festering at the back of his mind for nigh on two decades: quark confinement. He teamed up with Israeli-American physicist Nathan Seiberg, and building on years of interim discoveries, produced the Seiberg-Witten theory. While this theory didn’t solve quark confinement in the real world directly, it provided a working proof of concept for how quark confinement could occur.
The Seiberg-Witten theory would ultimately have a profound and transformative impact across theoretical physics and mathematics, far exceeding its original goal of solely understanding quark confinement. This is emphasised in this quote by British mathematician Richard Borcherds, “He used some sort of weird, black magic from physics to come up with these new mathematical invariants of four manifolds that mathematicians hadn’t noticed and that wiped out a lot of hard mathematical problems. That paper on the Seiberg-Witten invariants—it was a huge advancement in mathematics and it was just a tiny, incidental spin-off from something else he was working on…He’s repeated it multiple times. He came up with other Witten invariants of three manifolds and he’s done Seiberg-Witten invariants for four manifolds. And he’s not even working in that area—he’s working on physics. And these are incidental minor spin-offs. Without trying, he’s wiping out these major problems in mathematics.”
During the mid-1990s, the novelty of string theory had started to wear off. The hopes that superstrings would produce a ‘theory of everything’ that would simply fall out of the sky into one lucky physicist’s lap hadn’t eventuated. There were now five different, yet consistent, versions of string theory. The vexing problem was that physicists didn’t know which of these five theories was correct. String theory had officially reached a stalemate. Enter Ed Witten.
It was announced that Witten would address the mystery of the five string theory variants at the University of Southern California string theory conference of ‘95. Witten was like a far-eastern oracle and the physics community his devout followers, waiting with bated breath on what Witten would declare. At the conference, Witten dropped a bombshell—there were not really five disparate variants of string theory, these five versions were actually different limiting cases of the one overarching theory known as M-theory.
In order for Witten to bring the five versions of string theory into a workable equation describing M-theory, he needed to perform some mathematical wizardry. This included adding an additional dimension for space, thereby increasing the total number of string theory dimensions to 11. M-theory incorporated a number of other delightful surprises. For example, the world of strings also supposedly contained objects that resembled surfaces known as membranes. With sufficient energy, these membranes could grow to vast sizes, approaching that of an entire universe. Witten speculated that our Universe could even be sitting on a membrane at this very moment.
As Witten left it undefined, there was fervent speculation on what the ‘M’ in M-theory could stand for. Various people have speculated that it may represent membrane, matrix, mystery, or magic. Some have even suggested, tongue in cheek, that the M could stand for an upside down ‘W’ representing the first letter of Witten’s surname—although it’s laughable that a forever humble Witten would indulge in such self-referential praise. Others have derided the theory, suggesting that the ‘M’ might stand for murky. Regardless of what the ‘M’ represents, Witten’s M-theory had kicked off the second superstring revolution. Consequently, for the next few years there was a period of rapid discovery in string theory.
In his seminal 1997 paper, Argentine physicist Juan Maldacena discovered the AdS/CFT correspondence, which provided a powerful ‘dictionary’ that revolutionised our understanding of quantum gravity, black holes, and fundamental physics. Piggybacking on Maldacena’s paper, Witten realised that he could now make headway in understanding his white whale of quark confinement. Witten managed to calculate the force between quarks in a simplified world with similar equations, enabling him to concretely understand this modified version of quark confinement.
From the turn of the millennium onwards, Witten made major breakthroughs in fields such as quantum gravity, topology, and gauge theory. However, Witten’s magnum opus—at least in the public eye—has continued to be string theory, where he has remained the world’s most prolific contributor in the field. Juan Maldacena has emphasised this point, “Most other people have made one or two such contributions. Ed has made 10 or 15.”
Witten Today
Witten has now spent almost four decades stationed in the cushy confines of the Institute for Advanced Study. Within his IAS office, there is a collision of two worlds: the curated order of sentimentality against the dynamic chaos of intellect. The office walls display the precise geometry of his grandchildren’s paintings, while an attentive battalion of family photographs stands neatly marshalled facing his desk. However, if it wasn’t for the order of his family’s touch, one would easily think that an earthquake had struck the premises. His wooden bookcase is overburdened with dense theoretical texts, their spines jostling precariously this way and that. Witten’s desk—his office centrepiece—is flooded with a messy torrent of research papers enveloping his laptop and cascading onto the ground.
Physicist Brian Greene has shared a tale from an anonymous physicist who, for what was surely one humbling summer, had an adjoining wall with Witten’s office, “He describes the unsettling juxtaposition of laboriously struggling with complex string theory calculations at his desk, while hearing the incessant rhythmic patter of Witten’s keyboard, as paper after groundbreaking paper poured forth directly from mind to computer file.” Greene continues with this point, “It’s as if he was just sort of sitting there and the ideas were sufficiently formed that he didn’t even have to write anything out. He could go right from brain to finished paper. And my friend was like, you sit there and you’re like, what am I doing? Why am I in this field?”
Witten’s thought process is unique. He never does calculations, except in his mind. When grappling with a difficult equation, he stares out the window and attempts to solve it in his head. For Witten, computers, pencils, and pieces of paper are needless, other than being a vehicle to deliver his inner machinations to the outside world. Even Witten realises that he is rare in this regard, “I have a tendency, more than most other physicists, to try to figure out everything all at once, before I publish. And even to try to figure out everything in my head, without pencil and paper.”
As of 2025, Witten has arguably the highest h-index of any living physicist, estimated at 190-200+. For context, the h-index is a metric designed to measure both the productivity and citation impact of a researcher’s published work. The index has its flaws, yet most physicists would probably agree that Witten’s foundational and highly influential papers, featuring a staggering 190,000 citations, have rightly earned him top place.
Witten has never won a Nobel Prize, which has led some to claim that his work is so abstract that it doesn’t make contact with reality. However, this is not the case. Witten has introduced new ways of applying quantum field theory to pure mathematics, leading to breakthroughs in knot theory, 3D and 4D manifolds, and the invention of new invariants. While this may sound esoteric, these tools have proven pivotal in areas like cryptography, quantum computing, and condensed matter physics. Witten’s work in topological quantum field theory has also influenced topological phases of matter, such as topological insulators and superconductors. These are two of the leading candidates for robust and scalable quantum computers. Even Witten and his colleagues’ string theory research has been fruitful. For example, the concept of mirror symmetry was discovered by string theorist and has now opened up new ideas in geometry and topology. Furthermore, countless researchers have built upon Witten’s highly cited work to create their own concrete breakthroughs.
Another unfair critique of Witten is that he has led a generation of the world’s greatest physicists down the cul-de-sac of string theory. While string theory has a variety of pros and cons, it’s still considered by a large number of theoretical physicists in the field to be the leading candidate to weave quantum mechanics and general relativity into a successful theory of quantum gravity. Its first strength is that it naturally incorporates gravity alongside the other fundamental forces—an area where quantum field theory struggles. Second, it provides a consistent theory for describing gravity at a quantum level—something that plagues most other approaches. Third, its equations are highly symmetric, with deep mathematical structures, such as dualities, Calabi–Yau manifolds, and modular invariance, which have led to deep insights in physics and maths. Fourth, it provides a natural mechanism for particle variety—different vibrational modes of strings correspond to the different particles. Fifth, it predicts the existence of gauge groups—the mathematical framework for forces—which can, in principle, accommodate the standard model. Sixth, the discovery of AdS/CFT duality suggests a deep connection between gravity and quantum field theories, supporting the notion that string theory captures some fundamental truths. Seventh, there are no ultraviolet divergences in string theory: meaning that it avoids the pesky infinities that plague gravity in other quantum approaches. This gives string theory an advantage over ordinary quantum field theory.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Things aren’t all rainbows and lollipops in the world of string theory. First, and perhaps most concerning, is that no experimental evidence has confirmed predictions that are unique to string theory. Having said this, string theory does predict gravity in a retroactive sense. Second, supersymmetry, which many string theory variants rely on, hasn’t been observed at the Large Hadron Collider. It’s important to note, however, that while supersymmetry hasn’t been detected, there are no theoretical grounds to suggest that it must exist at the energies we can probe at present. Third, string theory allows for 10^500, or even more, vacuum states. This means it’s difficult to pinpoint which version, if any, describes our Universe, making the theory potentially unfalsifiable in practice. Fourth, it requires extra dimensions that we cannot directly observe. These last two points can be countered by saying that if our reality does feature counterintuitive quirks—including a multiverse and extra dimensions—then string theory is simply reflecting that reality. Fifth, it predicts string-like behaviour to be observable around the Planck scale, meaning that it’s not testable with current technology. However, in my eyes, this is not necessarily an issue with string theory itself but rather an issue with technology. The history of science is full of theories that were untestable until technology caught up, such as the existence of atoms, black holes, gravitational waves, and the Higgs boson. Witten himself echoes this point, “String theory is twenty-first century physics that fell by chance into the twentieth century.”
Witten continues to pursue string theory because it’s the most promising theory of quantum gravity. The influence he wields over others entering the field doesn’t stem from his authority but rather the persuasive power of his ideas. Those who pursue string theory research are highly intelligent, freethinking individuals. The majority of shade thrown on string theory in the public arena comes from science communicators who have been disillusioned by the lack of experimental progress. However, those who partake in the nitty gritty of string theory research still view the field as highly promising. As Joseph Conlon has written in his book, ‘Why String Theory’, “Scepticism about string theory tends to diminish as technical knowledge about the subject increases.”
Although Witten veered away from studying politics during the 1970s, he never abandoned the topic entirely. In fact, one of the things he yearns for most is peace in the Middle East. He currently sits on the board of directors of a left-wing, non-profit group called Americans for Peace Now. The stated aim of this group is to achieve a comprehensive political solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Witten also serves on the advisory council of J Street—a liberal, non-profit Zionist advocacy group that seeks a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine situation.
Witten is the nucleus of his family’s constellation of exceptional talent. His two younger brothers, Jesse and Matthew, are a lawyer and television writer respectively, while his sister, Celia, is a physician who also has a doctorate in maths. Witten’s older daughter, Ilana, is an acclaimed professor of neurobiology, his youngest daughter, Daniela, is an esteemed professor in biostatistics, and his son, Rafael, is a successful software engineering manager at Amazon. Witten’s mother, Lorraine, passed away in 1987, after majoring in biology and becoming a teacher, while his father, Louis, is 104 years old at the time of writing this article.
Witten’s wife, Chiara Nappi, is a distinguished professor of physics at Princeton University in her own right. She points out that for all of Witten’s genius, he has a single chink in his armour, “A little decision can be a big deal for Ed. Figuring out what is the best exercise bike—that is an impossible task for him.” Witten’s decision making process is reminiscent of a variant of the Buridan’s donkey paradox in philosophy. A donkey is placed precisely midway between two equally enticing stacks of hay. As the donkey is perfectly logical, it cannot make any distinction between the two piles, so it starves to death.
Ed Witten has lived a remarkable life. He has evolved from a precocious youngster to a restless polymath adrift in history, politics, and economics, to finally the nucleus of modern theoretical physics. He has forged profound bridges between physics and pure mathematics, which have not only advanced science but expanded the very toolkit of human thought. Witten remains immersed in research to this day, so the final chapters of his story are still being written.
Quotes About Witten
Here are some quotations, by Witten’s peers, that I couldn’t include in my main article.
Chiara Nappi is a professor of physics at Princeton University and researcher in string theory, mathematical physics, and particle physics. She is also Witten’s wife:
“I think Ed comes as close as you can get to being a genius. But what I think Ed really is is an accident. And accidents like Ed don’t happen so easily.”
“It’s like with Ed you have a field which is completely illuminated, totally lit up, so he just has to look around and figure out the connections. For most other people it’s dark, or mostly dark, and you go with a flashlight until you find something that makes a connection with what you have seen before. But it comes natural to Ed to be able to make a connection. And this is an advantage.”
John Schwarz is the Harold Brown professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. He is also one of the founders of string theory:
“Ed is unique. The kind of person who comes along once a century.”
“I would say he’s the most influential theoretical physicist or mathematician in the world. And I think this has been the consensus among theoretical physicists—and most mathematicians—for a long time.”
“Witten is both deep and fast: After thinking through the ideas, he can compose an essentially error-free 100-page manuscript, often describing breakthrough original research, on his computer in a day.”
“In 1987, Michael Green and I co-authored a monograph entitled ‘Superstring Theory’ with Witten. We were thrilled that Witten agreed to join us, since we knew that his contributions would greatly improve the final product. This work, consisting of more than 1,000 pages packed with equations, was completed in nine months. For Green and me this required dedicating 100-hour workweeks to the project. Witten, on the other hand, was able to do his share while completing several major research projects at the same time.”
Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and known for his work on string theory.
“Back in the 1990s, I was at the Institute for Advanced Study and we had an idea. I had a particular idea of something—I wanted to prove that the fabric of space could rip. And Ed is at the Institute for Advanced Study, and I told him about this idea and thought it was exciting. I was working with a couple of other people—Paul Aspinwall and Dave Morrison—and Ed started to work on his own version. He didn’t take anything from us. He just went in a completely different direction, but yet converged on exactly the same question. And it was among the most exciting times that I’ve had in physics because we knew he was closing in on it. We were closing in on it. We knew that he’s a million times smarter than we are. So we had to work a million times harder and faster to try to get there and not be completely scooped. And basically at the same time, late in the fall, I guess of 1992, it was, within days, came to the same conclusion from completely different approaches. And so we were right there, head to head and it was an incredibly exciting time. He’s one of those figures whose intellect, it’s just hard to fathom.… It was one of those great achievements that I will always remember, but for Edward, it was just another day at the office.”
“Everything I’ve ever worked on, if I trace its intellectual roots, I find they end at Witten’s feet.”
Joseph Polchinski was a theoretical physicist and string theorist, as well as professor of physics at the University of California.
“We all think we’re very smart. He’s (Witten) so much smarter than the rest of us.”
“One final visitor was Edward Witten, a postdoc at Harvard. Witten asked me probing questions about Mandelstam’s program. This was startling to me, first because he was the first person I’d met who understood Mandelstam’s unconventional and technical approach, and second because he understood it better than I did after years of study. I would learn that this was a common reaction to Witten.”
“In Feynman’s Nobel speech, he tells the story of poor Slotnick, whose just finished Ph.D. dissertation Feynman had reproduced, and more, in a single night. Not surprisingly, Slotnick never wrote another paper. And stories had it that Feynman affected others the same way. I have earlier mentioned that first meeting with Witten, which was a little bit like Slotnick’s meeting with Feynman. But I don’t think that Edward has ever shown the highly competitive streak of Feynman; instead, he is competing with history. But each new paper from him gave me the joy of reading, and the question, ‘why am I needed?’”
“I had recently seen the movie Amadeus, which (a bit inaccurately) described Salieri’s torment at being unable to match Mozart’s genius. So I empathized with Salieri. I also put a picture of Witten on the back of my office door, to desensitize myself for when we met.”
Nathan Seiberg is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He specialises in quantum field theory and string theory and collaborated with Witten on the Seiberg-Witten theory:
“The main strength is that he (Witten) is powerful in everything. Both in math—the most sophisticated math—and physics. In physics one needs physical intuition. And he has remarkable physics intuition as well as complete control over the math that is needed. And in that respect I think he’s unique.”
“I think in perspective of a hundred years or three hundred years, his name will stay. It will not be forgotten–his contributions are really lasting–contributions which will stay there.”
Michio Kaku is the professor of physics at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Centre.
“I do believe there really is a category for a genius who is a supernova—a supernova that lights up the entire scientific landscape and that is Ed Witten…. I think he is as close as you are going to get to a living Albert Einstein today.”
“Edward Witten…dominates the world of theoretical physics. Witten is currently the ‘leader of the pack’, the most brilliant high-energy physicist, who sets trends in the physics community the way Picasso would set trends in the art world. Hundreds of physicists follow his work religiously to get a glimmer of his path-breaking ideas.”
Ramamurti Shankar is the Josiah Willard Gibbs professor of physics at Yale University:
“One day Ed Witten said to me, ‘I just learnt a new way to find exact S-matrices in two dimensions invented by Zamolodchikov and I want to extend the ideas to supersymmetric models. You are the S-matrix expert aren’t you? Why don’t we work together?’ I was delighted. All my years of training in Berkeley gave a tremendous advantage over Ed–for an entire week.”
Michael Atiyah was a mathematician and professor at Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He was also a Fields medallist:
“I attended a meeting, and there was this young chap with the older guys. We started talking, and after a few minutes I realized that the younger guy was much smarter than the old guys. He understood all the mathematics I was talking about, so I started paying attention to him. That was Witten. And I’ve kept in touch with him ever since.”
“In 2001, he (Witten) invited me to Caltech, where he was a visiting professor. I felt like a graduate student again. Every morning I would walk into the department, I’d go to see Witten, and we’d talk for an hour or so. He’d give me my homework. I’d go away and spend the next 23 hours trying to catch up. Meanwhile, he’d go off and do half a dozen other things. We had a very intense collaboration. It was an incredible experience because it was like working with a brilliant supervisor. I mean, he knew all the answers before I got them. If we ever argued, he was right and I was wrong. It was embarrassing!”
Dror Bar-Natan is a mathematician and professor at the University of Toronto:
“He (Witten) is able to make even very complicated things appear simple. The problem is that often you will not see that because he’s turning the hyper-complicated into merely complicated.”
“He is so much more talented, there is just no other way of saying it. The guy is smart. The guy is extremely productive. If you try to imitate his brilliance, you will fail….If you try to imitate his productivity, you will be disappointed.”
Edward Frenkel is a professor of mathematics at the University of California:
“We wrote this long paper in 2007, and we collaborated for about a year. I have known him before, and we talked before, and I’ve seen him since, and we talked, but it’s very different to just meet somebody at conferences and have a conversation, as opposed to actually working on a project together. He’s very, very serious, very focused. This is one thing which I have to say, I was really struck by this. He has had this unique vision of the subject. He was able to connect different things, especially find connections between quantum physics and mathematics. Almost unparalleled. I don’t think anyone comes close, in some sense, in the last, you know, 50 years to him, in terms of finding, just consistently, time after time, breaking ground, new ground. He would take some idea in physics, and then find an interpretation of it in mathematics, and then say, distil it, present it in mathematical terms, and tell mathematicians, this should be like that, you know? Kind of like, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4… = -1/12. And mathematicians would be like, no way. And then it would pan out, and mathematicians would then, like a whole industry would be created of groups of mathematicians trying to prove his conjectures and his ideas. And he would always be proven right.”
Richard Borcherds is a professor of Mathematics at the University of California and a Fields medallist:
“I’ve met him (Witten) and he is simply terrifying.”
“He is just so much more productive than me. He produces this endless stream of papers, each of which is 50 or 100 pages long. Many of them have incredible new ideas in them.”
Peter Woit is a mathematician and senior lecturer at Columbia University.
“When I was a graduate student at Princeton, one day I was leaving the library perhaps thirty feet or so behind Witten. The library was underneath a large plaza separating the mathematics and physics buildings, and he went up the stairs to the plaza ahead of me, disappearing from view. When I reached the plaza he was nowhere to be seen, and it is quite a bit more than thirty feet to the nearest building entrance. While presumably he was just moving a lot faster than I was, it crossed my mind at the time that a consistent explanation for everything was that Witten was an extraterrestrial being from a superior race who, since he thought no one was watching, had teleported back to his office.”
“I think he’s a truly remarkable figure. I had the pleasure of meeting him first when he was a post doc and I mean he’s just a completely amazing mathematician and physicist. You know, he’s quite a bit smarter than just about any of the rest of us and also more hardworking and it’s kind of a frightening combination to see how much he’s been able to do…I mean, he’s completely revolutionised some areas of mathematics. He’s totally revolutionised the way we understand the relations between mathematics and physics. And his greatest work is stuff that has little or nothing to do with string theory. The very strange thing about him in some sense is that he doesn’t have a Nobel Prize. There’s a very large number of people who are nowhere near as smart as he is and don’t work anywhere near as hard, who have Nobel Prizes. I think he just had the misfortune of coming into the field at a time when things have gotten much, much, much tougher and no matter how smart you were, it was very hard to come up with a new idea that was going to work physically and get you a Nobel Prize. He got a Fields Medal for certain work he did in mathematics and that’s just completely unheard of—for mathematicians to give a Fields Medal to someone outside their field. Before he came around, I don’t think anybody would have thought that was even conceivable.”
Roger Penrose is the Rouse Ball professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford. He is also a Nobel Laureate in Physics:
“There is no question of the extraordinary quality of Witten’s intellectual achievements. Where Witten goes, it does not take long for the rest to follow.”
Cumrun Vafa is a theoretical physicist and the Hollis Professor at Harvard University. He also had Witten serving as his PhD advisor and would later collaborate with him:
“He is not only brilliant, but he is also multifaceted in terms of the impact he has had, not only in physics, but also in mathematics. He’s got a Fields Medal because of his work in mathematics and rightly so. He has used his knowledge of physics in a way which impacted deep ideas in modern mathematics and that’s an example of the power of these ideas in modern high energy physics and string theory, that the applicability of it to, to modern mathematics. He’s quite an exceptional individual. We don’t come across such people a lot in history. So I think, he’s one of the rare figures in the history of the subject. He has had a great impact on a lot of aspects of not just string theory but a lot of different areas in physics and also in mathematics as well.”
This is a collection of my favourite quotes. Some elicit a feeling of awe, others succinctly describe the human condition, some make you want to laugh, while others make you want to cry. But for me, at least, they all evoke a strong emotion. And when it comes down to it, isn’t that what makes a good quote?
“A recent survey of North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey”. — Banksy
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it” — J. M. Barrie
“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited, all my ancestors”. — Jorge Luis Borges
“The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone”. — Alain de Botton
“What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?” — Bertolt Brecht
“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land”. — Albert Camus
“Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal”. — Albert Camus
“Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”. — Albert Camus
“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life”. — Confucius
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”. — Confucius
“When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty”. — Norm Crosby
“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely”. — Roald Dahl
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck”. — Dalai Lama XIV
“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink”. — T. S. Eliot
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”. — Sir Edmund Hillary
“At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box”. — Italian proverb
“What Orwell failed to predict is that we’d buy the cameras ourselves, and that our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching”. — Keith Jensen
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke”. — Soren Kierkegaard
“I think that we’re all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better – and maybe not all that much better after all”. — Stephen King
“The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantling of wisdom”. — Jacques Lacan
“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different?” — C. S. Lewis
“You have to really kind of think about our own existence here in the universe. You realise that people often say, ‘I hope to go to heaven when I die.’ In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when you’re born”. — Astronaut Jim Lovell
“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats”. — George Orwell
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favour you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy”. — Dorothy Parker
“The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed”. — Mario Puzo
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”. — Carl Sagan
“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together”. — J.D. Salinger
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it”. — Maurice Sendak
“She had blue skin, And so did he. He kept it hid. And so did she. They searched for blue. Their whole life through, Then passed right by- And never knew”. — Shel Silverstein
“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists”. — Nikola Tesla
“Nothing that grieves us can be called little; by the external laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size”. — Mark Twain
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present”. — Lao Tzu
“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, it might have been”. — Kurt Vonnegut
Prepare to be taken on a whirlwind journey through more than 1,000 of the world’s most surprising, unbelievable and downright bizarre geographical curiosities. This is the most extensive, thoroughly-researched and mind-blowing collection of geography oddities ever written.
Did you know:
New York City is farther south than Rome.
The Himalayas only began to form after the dinosaurs went extinct.
For centuries, Brazil’s northernmost point was believed to be the estuary of the Oiapoque River. In 1998, an expedition discovered that Brazil’s northernmost point is actually Monte Caburai, which is located 84 kilometres farther north and almost 1,000 kilometres farther inland.
Two African national capitals are the same word in different languages. Libreville, the capital of Gabon, is French for ‘Freetown’, while the capital of Sierra Leone is also called Freetown.
In the book, you’ll learn about:
A three-dimensional border that once existed. People would traverse the border by moving vertically up and down between storeys.
A country whose highest building was constructed back in the ninth century.
A settlement that appears on virtually all globes despite not having a permanent population.
A country that has lost 99.999% of its former territory.
This is the world’s first book containing entirely TRUE lateral thinking puzzles. All 165 puzzles in this book actually happened! If you thought fictitious lateral thinking puzzles were fantastically mind-boggling, then this book will teach you that the real world is even stranger!
In addition, all 165 lateral thinking puzzles in this book are brand new! This means you won’t be reeling off the answer before the question is finished “…the surgeon was the boy’s mother”.
These puzzles cover bizarre and seemingly impossible scenarios and range from the quirky to the macabre to the humorous. The book is jammed pack with loopholes and ingenious solutions. It will test and enhance your ability to think laterally.
Each answer contains a fascinating, factual backstory that further brings the puzzle to life. This adds another layer of intrigue to the book- you will come away with knowledge of interesting facts and true stories.
The book is designed for the intelligent individual but it can also be read with a friend or as a lateral thinking puzzle party game. If you enjoy puzzles and quirky facts then this is the book for you!
*If Sherlock Holmes and QI had a child, it would be ‘The World’s First Book of True Lateral Thinking Puzzles’.*
Can you work out…
How a man was the tallest and shortest adult in his populous city?
Why a jury member’s cough during a court case almost sent a man wrongfully to jail?
How a person had two birthdays, twelve weeks apart?
Why a group of people spray-painted graffiti on buildings every night only to eagerly clean the graffiti up the next day?
How a man who had shot himself dead made his gun disappear from the scene?
If you have a one-track mind that constantly fantasises over one thing, I can help you*. This is as long as your obsessing is over how to win AFL SuperCoach. For the uninitiated, AFL SuperCoach is an online fantasy football game for the Australian Football League. This article is focused on the strategy required to optimise your chances of winning AFL SuperCoach. Note: *If your fantasising extends beyond AFL SuperCoach, I cannot help you.
My Fantasy Sports Resume (Rap Sheet)
In this section, I will try and convince you of my non-existent credentials and thusly why you should read this article. Hopefully this will elevate my writing from random scribblings on a public toilet door to random scribblings on a public toilet door that you will read.
I have two top 20 overall finishes in Big Bash cricket fantasy as well as a 34th overall finish in the 2021-2022 SuperCoach Big Bash and a 76th overall finish in the 2022-2023 SuperCoach Big Bash.
I have 6 top 30 overall finishes in Diamond League athletics fantasy.
I came 9th overall in AFL Dream Team in 2023.
I came 4th overall in NBA SuperCoach 2025/2026.
My AFL SuperCoach rankings for the past several years:
2017: 2 out of 207,000
2018: 938 out of 199,000
2019: 430 out of 207,000
2020: I do not speak of my 2020 result…It brought great shame to my family.
2021: 219 out of 170,000
2022: 1,717 out of 173,000
2023: 49 out of 190,000
I also have a 631 ranking before this period.
All of this should tell you three things:
1. I have too much time on my hands and I use this time to play fantasy sports.
2. I have never won AFL SuperCoach hence the title of this article is clickbait.
3. If the total number of entrants in AFL SuperCoach continues to dwindle at current rates, I will come 1st in 2080 by virtue of no-one else taking part.
Part 1- Initial Team Selection
Like all fantasy sports, there is a significant luck component to SuperCoach, however by employing certain strategies, you can increase the odds in your favour.
Initial Team- General Tips
When selecting an initial team, there are a number of factors to take into account. These include:
Don’t try and be unique for the sake of it. The number one mistake I observe SuperCoach participants making is picking unique and speculative players. Although it can be fun to try and find a diamond in the rough, this strategy has a risk-reward strategy that typically doesn’t pay off.
Look for players that have a high-ceiling; players that can hit the 130+ SC point mark. Missing out on a premium with a 115 SC point ceiling isn’t going to hurt you however if you bypass those with high scoring potential, you are in for a long year.
I tend to like players who accumulate a high number of contested possessions. This means they can earn their own ball, which Champion Data favours, plus they can gather outside ball. A good example of this was Christian Petracca in the 2020 preseason who amassed 27 contested possessions against the crows. This was the most recorded in the past decade for a preseason game. Petracca went on to increase his SuperCoach average from 81 to 118 points that season.
Avoid key position players in your initial team unless they offer tremendous value. Key position players have a large standard deviation in their scoring and the few players that are potential members of your goal team will score a string of low scores at some stage of the year (or if you play for my beloved Crows, the entire year). Due to their large standard deviation in scores, you will be able to pick any desirable key position players up cheaply at various times throughout the season.
In some lines there are preseason question marks hanging over a number of the potential top 6/8 scoring players. It is okay to play it safe in this scenario and just pick a player who will average their previous season average and likely play all 22 games. A player can be a good selection because the alternatives are potentially risky or bad selections.
Always weigh up the risks and the rewards of owning a player- don’t just focus on the rewards. Josh Dunkley is a good example of this. In 2018, as a midfielder, he averaged 120 SC points. During the back half of 2019, when playing as a midfielder, he also averaged 120 SC points. There was/is however a positional forward-midfield question mark hanging over Dunkley. Whilst not being privy to the inner workings of Luke Beveridge’s brain, the risk of Dunkley being played forward would have likely resulted in an average of around 100 SC (still a top 6 forward) however the reward in 2021 was potentially a 120 + SC average. In this scenario, the risk attached to picking Dunkley was not high.
If a player doesn’t play any preseason games at all, I will almost certainly avoid them (unless they are a rookie). Players have 6 months to prepare for round 1 (although the Crows invariably have 7 months). Regardless of what the club says, alarm bells should be ringing if you are picking a player unseen for round 1 without any preseason form.
In my initial team, I like to choose at least two players who I will feel confident in making captain week in and week out. These are the types of players that I expect will average 120 SC points +. The doubling of the captain’s score and vice-captain loophole means you need to start with at least two of these types of players.
I like to comb through TOG, kick-in and CBA (centre bounce attendance) data for players that I am considering selecting. This data goes back to the past season or two and I compare it to preseason data. I also like to determine if there was a tangible reason that a player scored well towards the end of the last season- increased TOG, kick-ins or CBA that may continue into the next season.
Formation doesn’t matter too much in your initial team. Look for value players and must pick players regardless of their position. These value players will be distributed in different positions from season to season. There are two caveats to structure not mattering:
My initial structure is largely dictated by rookies who are playing, have good job security and reasonable scoring potential. If there are five solid rookies in defence, I will pick all five, leaving just 3 (or less) other positions available for premiums.
I seldom select players who won’t play in the hopes of using them for loopholing purposes. I much rather prefer having players creating cash on the bench. If you do choose to select a non-playing player, it should be a player with ruck-forward eligibility who is $102,000.
In the lead up to round 1, put together several iterations of initial teams, with differing players. Assign your expected averages to each player and determine which team you prefer.
It is difficult to justify picking a premium player who misses 3 or more games every season, unless they present excellent value.
Don’t pick a player because someone else says they are a good selection. It all comes down to the arguments for and against selecting a player. When making your selections, try and think logically and be measured.
Initial Team- Value
When selecting your initial team, you want almost every non-rookie player that you pick to end up in your round 23 team.
You can save money (and thus spend this money elsewhere) by picking players that are currently priced outside of the top 6-8 for their position but have a high likelihood of occupying these top 6-8 positions by years end.
Look for value players that will fulfil the above two parameters. Just like scandals involving Australian politicians, value can come in many forms.
1. Injury
This type of player has experienced injuries over the previous season causing their previous season average to drop. There are three primary types of these injury-value players:
1a. Players who missed the entire season. There are several factors to consider when selecting a player of this ilk. Firstly, how much of a discount has SuperCoach assigned this player? Secondly, is the type of injury they suffered from likely to affect their future scoring output? Thirdly, has the player played preseason games? Fourthly, has the player played a reduced time on ground in these preseason games? Fifthly, did the player score well in the preseason games?
An example of this type of player is Tom Mitchell who missed all of 2019 with injury. He had averaged 129 SuperCoach points in 2018 and was priced at 116 points for 2020.
1b. Players who have experienced a subpar season due to an ongoing injury for that season. I am always wary of selecting this type of player unless there is significant evidence that they have definitively overcome their long-term injury.
An example of this type of player is Patrick Cripps for the upcoming 2022 season. He appeared to play sore/injured for much of 2021 but to select him in 2022, there needs to be ample evidence that he is definitively beyond his injury woes.
1c. Players who have scored poorly in certain games due to injury/being subbed off/concussion. This is my favourite type of ‘injury’ player to select as there is a tangible reason for their lower than expected average, there is distinct value, the player hasn’t been playing with a long term injury that will affect their form and the player has a relatively predictable upcoming SuperCoach average. Each season I comb through all the potentially relevant players’ previous seasons on FanFooty. If a player was subbed off, clearly injured or concussed, then I remove that game score from their season average.
An example of this type of player is Tom Stewart. In 2020, he officially averaged 100 SuperCoach points hence he was priced at this average. This would place him outside the top 8 defenders. When Stewart’s injury game is removed from his average, his 2020 average increases to 106 SuperCoach points, placing him in third position of the 2020 defender averages.
2. Young and improving
2a. There is a natural improvement that typically accompanies players who are younger and thus on the upward trajectory of their career. Not including rucks, this youth improvement-SuperCoach scoring increase is more pronounced with younger players and diminishes as players reach their mid to late twenties. It is risky picking players aged 30 plus (no-one has told Chris Scott this) as there is often a natural age decline (although if value presents, this value can often outweigh any slight age-related scoring decline).
3. Previous season role changes
3a. One of my favourite types of players to pick are those who spent the latter part of the previous season in a more lucrative SuperCoach scoring role. The main caveat here is that the player is likely to remain in the role in the subsequent season. Be aware of any preseason interviews coaches or players at the club provide on where the player in question will play. Also, the success the player experienced in their newly found role may provide further evidence that they will retain the role.
Example: Rory Laird. In 2020 Laird averaged 118 SuperCoach points from round 10 onwards when he was moved from defence into the midfield. He continued his high scoring in 2021 as he continued playing midfield.
4. The promise of a new position
4a. The preseason new position. This is one of the more risky value selections that I tend to avoid. Playing in a new position during the preseason, by itself, often provides little evidence to support the notion that the player will A. continue playing in the position and B. become a bona fide premium. There are often other players missing during the preseason and AFL coaches tend to try players out in new positions during this trial period. To select the new position category of player, the new position should be solidified by comments from players and coaches. In addition, with such a small sample size of games, there is a risk that the player doesn’t produce premium type scores. Finally, this new position type of player is less risky if they are close to a premium level scorer as a defender or forward and are listed as such in SuperCoach, whilst they now play in midfield for their club. In this instance, the worst case scenario is that the new position falls through and the player provides close-to-premium scoring in their original position.
Example: Christian Petracca. In 2019, Petracca played predominantly as a forward however he was slated to play in the midfield in the offseason and this eventuated, resulting in a 37 point increase in his average.
4b. A new club, a new position. Once again I tend to avoid this type of player in most circumstances. The small number of preseason games provides a tiny sample size supporting the notion that a player now playing at a new club will become a bona fide premium. The alternative scenario is that the player is already a premium and has moved to a new club. In most scenarios, it is also worth avoiding this type of player due to the multitude of variables and the risk of the player producing a lower average.
Example: Lachie Neale. In his seven seasons at Fremantle, Neale averaged a maximum of 113 SuperCoach points in a season. Neale moved to Brisbane where he averaged 121 and 134 points over the next two seasons.
5. Scoring well towards the end of the previous season
5a. This is another one of my favourite value plays. This doesn’t necessarily involve a role change as in ‘point 3’ although it does typically involve a younger player. Consider players who have scored significantly higher during the second part of the previous season. This latter-part-of-season high scoring is often indicative of a high scoring subsequent season. The value lies in the player’s average being reduced by a lower scoring first part of the season. This is a doubly good strategy if you can determine the reason why the player scored so well in the second half of the season and if this is likely to continue.
Example: Sam Walsh. In the first 7 games of 2020, Walsh averaged just 78 SuperCoach points. In the last 11 games of 2020, Walsh averaged 114 SuperCoach points.
All of the above value factors should not be taken on their own. Most importantly, the player in question should be expected to finish in the top 6-8 (or within a few points of this) slots for their position. It’s also important to weigh up other factors including preseason form, any niggling injuries, the player’s injury history and importantly, how much value you are gaining.
If you manage to pick a number of these value players who both score beyond their price point and can be counted as premiums, you will be mathematically ahead of the pack.
When it comes to value, you shouldn’t just prepare for the best case scenarios. You need to be mindful of poor outcomes and weigh these up against the likelihood and benefits of good outcomes.
Tips for Picking A Premium
Be cautious of players that may be moved from a lucrative scoring role to a less lucrative scoring role. Think Tim Taranto or Caleb Daniel playing forward. It is worth weighing up the risk of these types of players playing in a poor scoring position vs the value they present.
In general, player averages don’t tend to fluctuate significantly from year to year. In the absence of evidence of other variables, you should expect a player who has averaged 90 SuperCoach points +/-5 for the past 3 years to again average in this range.
I tend to avoid players who have had an outlier high scoring season. An example is Jake Lloyd who averaged 122 SuperCoach points in 2020. Throughout the rest of his career, his highest season average was 112 points. Unless the player is young, if the player has an outlier scoring year, their scoring will likely regress to the mean. Outlier scoring seasons also reduce the chance of the player increasing their average again and thus there is no value to be gained.
If a player has an outlier high scoring year, they may be targeted more by opposition clubs and may be tagged to lower scores. Think Darcy Parish in the latter part of 2021.
Durability is an important aspect in the selection equation. Look at why a player has missed games in past seasons- is it due to recurring soft tissue injuries or issues that are unlikely to reoccur.
If the top 6 forwards average 100+ then picking a player who you expect to average 90 is an immediate compromise to your initial team. Saving a small amount of money with initial selections often results in having a stagnant player who will underscore and you end up keeping for the entire season as you can’t justify trading out.
I like to breakdown the distribution of player scores from the previous year. For example, how many games did the player score above 120 points? How many times did they fail to pass 80 points?
Sometimes a player will have an outlier game, i.e. they scored 190 points. If you remove this outlier game from the player’s previous average, they may not look so appealing. Also be mindful of whether a late goal or string of disposals has skewed a player’s score in close games, thus inflating their average.
It will be significantly detrimental to your team if you select a player that you expect to be a premium yet they fail to reach this threshold.
Tips for Picking A Midpricer
This section is empty, on to the next section…
In all seriousness, when considering a midpricer, it often comes down to a balance between how much scoring potential the player shows and their price. Tim Taranto was a classic example in 2021. He was priced at $453,000 and I expected him to average around 105 points (partly based on his 102 point average in 2019, his young age and other factors). This would make him a must pick in the forward line or defence but even at this cheaper price, this was lineball for me as a midfield pick. I would likely need to keep him all season and I expected him to be 10 points beneath a premium average however he was around $200,000 cheaper than other premiums- money that I could spend elsewhere.
Tim Taranto, above, was a rare example of picking a midpricer in the midfield- a strategy that almost always fails. If you do dare venture down the midpricer path, it is sometimes worth picking a midpricer in the defence or the forward line on the proviso that the player has been assured of playing in the midfield.
The preseason competition is the ultimate feast of midpricer temptation. Don’t try and justify to yourself why a player who scores 150 SuperCoach out of the blue is worth picking. Look for arguments against the player as a pick. Essentially, try and avoid preseason midpricer temptations for the most part unless they present remarkable value as discussed in the ‘value’ section of this article.
There is often some merit to selecting players up to $250,000 in price if they provide good scoring potential, solid job security and crucially, the alternative rookies in their line are likely to be poor on field scorers.
If you select a midpricer in your initial team and they fail, you are stuck trying to trade a player who is at an awkward price point. Alternatively, if you have your eyes on a midpricer and don’t pick them initially but rather watch them for the first two weeks, you can wait to see if they continue to score well and you can trade them in before their price changes.
This ‘midpricer’ section doesn’t apply to players whose average was reduced by injury in the previous season. I classify these players as premiums.
I prefer the guns and rookies approach to SuperCoach and if I do pick one or two midpricers, I need to have researched the players in depth, be relatively confident that they have an extremely high upside, believe they will become premiums and be prepared to trade them out if they fail.
The extra trades that SuperCoach has gifted us now means that midprice players are slightly more relevant. The above rules still apply; however, there is now more scope to trade midpriced players out if they score poorly.
Tips for Picking A Rookie
Avoid rookies that will predominantly play forward. These players have a knack of knocking out 30 point SC scores. I have few black and white rules in SuperCoach however one I tend to follow is to avoid having an on field F6 who is a rookie who plays forward for their club.
Most years, there is a rookie that scores 4 or 5 goals from 8 touches in a preseason game. It is okay to select this type of player however it is very risky having them on field. Don’t expect the same high scores from this player in the regular season that they attained in the preseason.
When picking your initial team, one of the worst things to do is to have a spate of potentially low scoring rookies on the field in the same position, with similar, low scoring bench players. This can really dent your score and it can be challenging to remedy this situation with trades.
Each season, the number, scoring ability and positions of the available rookies deviate significantly. Where the quality rookies are positioned for that season (those who you think are capable of being played on your field) should influence the structure of the remainder of your team. For example, if there are four midfield rookies who you suspect will average 85 points, it is worth placing them (or at least 3) on the field and therefore leaving just 4 places for midfield premiums.
In general, try and avoid the expensive rookies (those above $160,000) unless they have good scoring ability in tandem with solid job security. Paying $40,000 or so more for a speculative rookie is money that could be used to turn a borderline-premium into a solid premium.
If rookies don’t present (less than 160k in general) then you need to make compromises and select value players that are expensive rookies. I try and avoid rookies costing more than 160k unless they hold tremendous scoring potential and excellent job security.
The junior scoring history of a rookie- be that TAC Cup, under 18 championships, etc. is typically the smallest part of the rookie equation for me. I place a much greater emphasis on how the rookie scores in the practice and preseason games. This is because there are so many variables transferring from underage footy to senior AFL footy. In addition, underage rookies tend to dominate in the midfield for their junior teams but they rarely gain immediate, high midfield minutes at AFL level.
Mature aged recruits are golden. They are physically ready for AFL level, have a history of playing against adults and are typically selected by an AFL team to play, not to be nurtured and thus grow like younger players. They also tend to have much better job security. An 18-year-old rookie will often be relegated to the reserves or be regularly rested. I try and fill most of my rookie positions with mature age recruits if possible.
The main metric I focus on when selecting rookies is their preseason stats. This extends beyond disposals and includes other metrics like tackles, disposal efficiency etc.
Be mindful of whether the rookie is simply holding a place in their AFL team until an injured player returns.
Remember that bench rookies won’t necessarily even play on your ground. Rather than have expensive bench rookies (whose price makes it harder to generate cash) it is worth having cheaper rookies and spending the saved money on your 22 on field players.
During the preseason games, a rookie’s time on ground is generally a good litmus of whether they will play. Also look at which best 22 players are missing from these games.
One of the key takeaways from the preseason should be the positional role and value of rookies in their side. The AFL app has player heat maps that can prove useful. Also, there tends to be a few online AFL Fantasy/SuperCoach specific reviews of each preseason game.
The Goal Team
At the end of the season, your SuperCoach team will ideally contain the top scoring players from each line. From the beginning of the season onwards, your task is to create this team as quickly as possible. This will maximise your total score. Possessing the ‘goal team’ is much simpler than it sounds and in reality you will need to make compromises at times.
Prior to the start of the season, I will write down the top 8-10 players in each position based on the previous season’s averages. This can provide an insight into the distribution of scores amongst the top echelon of players in each position for the upcoming year.
For example, in the lead up to the 2021 season, the top 8 averaging defenders were:
J Lloyd: 122 SC
L. Ryan: 107 SC
R. Laird: 105 SC
L. Whitfield: 105 SC
B. Maynard: 102 SC
J. Ridley: 102 SC
C. Daniel 102 SC
C. Mills 101 SC
This data shows that players would need to acquire an approximate 100 SC average to be a top 6 defender (although the cut-off is 102, 2 points across 22 rounds is a negligible 44 points across the season). When picking your initial team, research in depth those players who you believe can average this cut off (100 SC points in this case) or more.
Creating a Spreadsheet
1. When selecting an initial team, I like to make a number of spreadsheets. This helps me to clearly visualise and compare players that I am considering for selection. I divide the spreadsheets by position and premium-midpricer vs rookie status. The spreadsheets are titled:
Premium + midpriced defenders
Premium + midpriced midfielders
Premium + midpriced forwards
Premium + midpriced rucks
Rookie defenders
Rookie midfielders
Rookie forwards
Rookie rucks
Each spreadsheet contains the following data, which I deem valuable:
The name of any player that I am at least vaguely interested in.
The player’s SuperCoach averages for the past 3 years (this is adjusted so injury affected games are removed from the average).
The player’s price.
The player’s TOG (time on ground) across the last 3 years.
The player’s age.
The player’s bye round.
The number of games they’ve played for the past 3 years.
The Spreadsheet also contains:
The player’s SuperCoach scores for each preseason game.
The player’s disposal numbers for each preseason game.
The player’s TOG for each preseason game.
The player’s preseason SuperCoach points per minute.
The player’s preseason disposals per minute (but not TOG per minute…).
Any other outlier preseason stats- goals scored, high tackle or mark numbers, high contested possessions, high or low disposal efficiency etc.
The player’s preseason AFL Fantasy scores for each preseason game (sometimes players can be scaled significantly hence their SuperCoach score is skewed e.g. by scoring a goal late in a close game. Alternatively, the SuperCoach scoring system may not favour the way a player plays) so I like to look at AFL Fantasy points too.
The most important part of my spreadsheet includes a dossier on each player. This contains relevant information about the player in word form. For cheer squad members of a nameless Victorian club, this can be in picture form.
I fill in this dossier on each player based on my own research, forum posts I read, podcasts I listen to, club news and any other sources.
Player Dossier Examples
Each season, I write a ‘dossier’ on each of the players I am considering picking. This is in addition to the statistical information I compile on every player as documented above. In this section I will present a few of my (now largely useless due to the 2021 season ending) dossiers that I wrote on players during the 2021 preseason. This is to provide an idea of what information I seek on players.
Sam Walsh: Aged 20, former number 1 pick. Had an excellent end to 2020. In his first 7 games of 2020, he averaged 78 SuperCoach points. In his last 11 games, he averaged 114 SuperCoach points. In the middle of January, Carlton’s assistant coach said “Walsh has gone to another level”. Walsh wasn’t used at centre bounces in 2020 other than the last three games in which he scored: 161, 84 and 119 points. He starred in Carlton’s 2020 intraclub and kicked 3 goals. In the first practice game of 2020, those who watched said he was fantastic and it looked like he brought his own footy. He had 19/27 CBA which was the equal most for Carlton. He had approximately 132 SuperCoach points in this game. It included 9 kicks and 12 handballs with only 2 ineffective disposals. In his second practice game, he played on the inside and spend half of the last quarter on the bench. His thigh was bandaged in practise game 2. This was a corkie possibly.
I suspect he will play on ball in 2021 like he did in the last month of 2020. He had 21 contested possessions in the last round of 2020 whilst playing on ball. He had 4 free kicks against in the last round of 2020 which lowered his SuperCoach score to 119 points. He had the third highest SuperCoach average in the entire AFL in the last four rounds of 2020. He set AFL Fantasy/SuperCoach records in junior footy.
Jye Caldwell: Traded from GWS to Essendon in the offseason. 22/27 CBA in 1st practice game 2021. This was the most for Essendon. Caldwell had 18 disposals. There was no McGrath or Shiel in this game. Caldwell himself has said he has had the best preseason of his career. Caldwell has a long injury history that extends to his junior career. His junior fantasy numbers are low. He scored 37 AFL Fantasy points in his only ever under 18 championships game. He averaged just 67 AFL Fantasy points in his 3 TAC Cup games including an injured game. Caldwell ranked 11th for disposals per minute across the second practice game 2021. Caldwell had a low TOG during this second practice game and during the 2020 season. Is this fitness related? Caldwell attended 12/24CBA in the second practice game which was the third most for Essendon. In this second practice game he played pure centre in quarter 1 and outside more in quarters 3 and 4. He scored well in quarter 1 (7 disposals and 24 SuperCoach points) but slowed in quarters 3 and 4.
If Caldwell does have high CBA at Essendon, will he score well? Caldwell had 59% CBA in 2019 from 2 games and he scored 73SC and 27SC. In 2020 he played 9 games and these were his CBA and SuperCoach scores for each game: 29% CBA and 73SC, 0% CBA and 67SC, 33% CBA and 69SC, 21% CBA and 62SC, 42% CBA and 70SC, 0% CBA and 53SC, 29% CBA and 45SC, 25% CBA and 61SC, 39% CBA and 84SC (this last 84SC score only involved 11 disposals). Caldwell has never had more than 16 disposals in an AFL game.
Patrick Cripps: Had preseason shoulder surgery and returned to full training by January 2021. According to the club, he has put muscle back on after dropping it for the 2020 season. Carlton assistant coach said, “You are going to see him back to his powerful best and hopefully dominating clearances”. Cripps battled injures throughout 2020. During 2020 he averaged 110 SuperCoach points for the 1st 5 games then 92 points from round 6 onwards. Cripps 2020 SuperCoach average is 109 minus his 4 injury affected games. Cripps lowest non-injury affected score in 2020 was 81 points. Cripps can get tagged out of games and go big in other games.
Coach said they want to get Cripps back to his strength which is his clearance work. Coach also said Cripps is in great shape now (February 2021). Coach said February 24th 2021: “Cripps has had a fantastic prep, his shoulder is strong and he’s back in full training, he has been for a couple of weeks”. In the first practice game of 2021, Cripps had 19/27CBA which was the most for Carlton. He scored approximately 125 SuperCoach in this game including 7 kicks and 13 handballs. Cripps spend a large portion of time forward in the second practice game- was this due to Carlton’s forward injuries? McGovern and Casboult are both due back for round 1. Despite spending time forward, Cripps had 25 CBA in this second practice game- the most for Carlton but he seemed to attend a CBA and drift forward. Cripps averaged 117 and 119 SuperCoach points per season prior to his 98 (109 corrected) average in 2020.
For the record, I picked Walsh and Cripps in my initial team and avoided Caldwell (which happened to be lucky as he got injured early). I also traded Cripps out after round 2 (also a lucky move). The amount of research I do on a player depends on how likely I am to pick them in my team. If I am lineball on a player, I do more research.
Hopefully this section has provided an insight into what I take into account in my preseason notes. I also have an additional stats section for each player, the details of which were mentioned earlier in this article.
PreseasonResources
Another key aspect of the SuperCoach preseason is to gain information from as many different sources as possible. There is no ultimate single resource for SuperCoach Information. It is important to scour as many different sources as possible and not to be fixated on just one perspective. My favourite preseason sources are:
DFS Australia (Round-by-round data from the previous few years for every player including: CBAs, kick-ins, time on ground and ruck contest attendances).
There are a plethora of useful SuperCoach podcasts. I only listen to one or two but all of the following have good reviews:
The SuperCoach Coach Podcast
Doctor SuperCoach
The Phantom
SuperCoach Elites
The Official SuperCoach Podcast
SuperCoach Edge
A list of some of the other popular SuperCoach podcasts can be found here.
The SuperCoach Scoring System
When selecting your team and combing through stats, it’s important to be cognizant of the scoring system in AFL SuperCoach. A system that may appear to be as bamboozling as how Geelong fit their entire squad under the salary cap. This is what is worth points in SuperCoach:
An effective kick= 4 points
An effective handball= 1.5 points
An ineffective disposal= 0 points
A clanger disposal= – 4 points
A goal= 8 points (I wish the Crows gained this many points for every goal they kicked)
A behind= 1 point
A score assist= 3 points
A tackle= 4 points
A spoil= 2 points
A shepherd= 1.5 points
A hard ball get= 4.5 points
A loose ball get= 4.5 points
A contested mark= 6 points
An uncontested mark= 2 points
An intercept mark= 4 points
A contested intercept mark= 8 points
A mark on a lead= 5 points
A handball receive= 1.5 points
A gather= 1.5 points
A free kick= 4 points
A free kick against= -4 points
A 50 metre penalty against= – 8.5 points
A hit out to advantage= 5 points
A hit out= 0 points
A hit out that has been sharked= -1 point
These are the main components of the complicated SuperCoach scoring system. There are further stats that are less relevant and occur during games less frequently.
Each AFL match has 3,300 SuperCoach points that are distributed across both teams. When the game is on the line, the above point scores are exaggerated. A goal in a close game that wins the game might be worth 25 points.
Part 2- In Season
After each preseason, I think the Crows have a realistic chance of winning the premiership. Unfortunately, it turns out that rounds 1-24 matter and the same is true in SuperCoach. For all of the above information about initial team selection, the in-season facets of SuperCoach separate the top players from the rest. Virtually at every season’s end, the number 1 ranked SuperCoach participant is thousands of places ahead of others who started with a similar or identical team. In 2021, 24 participants started with the same 30 players and their ranks were distributed from 197th down to 19,261.
It is the in-season parts of the game that will help elevate your ranking.
Selecting a Captain/Vice-Captain
Choosing who to select as your captain and vice-captain shouldn’t be a two second procedure like memorising all of the years St. Kilda have won a premiership. Research and planning is required to maximise your chances of gaining the highest possible score. There are several resources that I find useful that help provide me with data on players I may be considering for captain and vice-captain.
The SuperCoach Scores Forum has captain candidate form, player win average, player loss average and history vs opponent average.
SuperCoach Talk also has data on possible captain candidates.
Despite being a different format of the game, Calvin’s Captains on DreamTeam Talk also has useful information about top captaincy choices.
There are several facets to selecting the player in your team who is likely to score the most points in a given week. The order of importance I place on these factors, from highest importance to lowest importance is:
The player’s recent scores (5 games or so).
Is there a chance the player is tagged?
The player’s opposition team- how many SuperCoach points do they typically concede?
The player’s season average.
The venue of the game (and the player’s history at the venue).
The player’s history vs the opponent.
There are some exceptions to the above list. In terms of rucks, the standard of the opposition ruck and how many points they concede is by far the most important factor.
Once again, in general the most important factor when selecting a captain/vice-captain is the player’s recent scores. I always check the recent scores of the players I am considering for captain and vice-captain on FanFooty.
The Captain Loophole
Due to the nature of SuperCoach, there is a method to ensure that you get two chances to select your captain. This is known as the captain loophole. Prior to every round, select a vice-captain who is playing earlier in the round and select a captain who is playing after the vice-captain.
The most important part of the captain loophole is to determine which non-playing player you are going to pivot onto the ground to make captain if your vice-captain scores well. I can’t emphasise enough that you should work out who this pivot player is prior to the round starting. This will ensure that your vice-captain is playing before the pivot player.
Often you won’t need to select a mediocre Friday night player as vice-captain if you have a pivot player playing later on the weekend.
I generally use 120 points + as the threshold for taking my vice-captain’s score. There are some caveats. If your vice-captain has scored in the 110-130 point range, check the previous scores for your captain and if they are highly likely to score 10 points or more above your vice-captain (who has scored between 110 and 130), then don’t take your vice captain’s score.
Always be risk averse when it comes to your captain’s scores. Although your captain may average 10 points higher than your vice-captain’s score, there is a chance that they will get injured and score poorly and this will torpedo your week. I place this injury risk as the equivalent of about the extra 10 point captain gain, hence this threshold.
I like to select a vice-captain who has a high standard deviation of scoring. They may score 80 one week and 150 the next. I like to pick a captain who has a lower standard deviation of scoring but may produce a consistent 135 points every week.
Before each round, I place an alarm on my ‘reminders’ app on my iPhone at a time just after my vice-captain has played. If my vice-captain has scored well then I pivot the non-playing player onto my field and make them captain.
General Trade Strategy
SuperCoach has increased the total number of trades to 36 and has added in 5 boost trade rounds that allow an extra trade. This suits a more aggressive trading strategy.
I will always use at least two correction trades after week 2, before prices change. This 2 weeks of extra data will help me trade out underwhelming players and pick up rookies that I have missed out on or players I was considering in the preseason but opted not to pick.
I favour using at least one boost after one of the first two rounds. Players that you trade into your team early in the season have their scores counting for the entire year. This makes it critically important to quickly acknowledge any mistakes you made in your initial team so the error isn’t compounded across subsequent rounds. You also need to get any high scoring players into your team so you can have them scoring for virtually the entirety of the season.
I then generally don’t trade until upgrade season which for me typically begins in round 5.
Upgrade season begins in round 5 and continues every subsequent week until the byes. I will use my first trade each week to trade one rookie who has increased in price down to a new rookie. I will use my second trade each week to trade another rookie who has increased in price up to a premium. Using this strategy will result in having a team full of premiums as quickly as possible and thus the maximisation of your total season score.
After using one or two boosts in the first two rounds, I then tend to use my remaining three or four boosts during upgrade season. This allows me to get the highest scoring players into my team as quickly as possible- allowing them to remain in my team for the maximum amount of time.
I aim to have a completed, fully premium team during the byes.
In short, try and trade aggressively. After completing my team around the byes, I try to save around 4-6 trades for injuries. This can be viewed as a conservative approach; however, this has worked out on several occasions as other coaches tend to use up their trades and thus fall backwards in the overall rankings.
TradingTips
One of the first priorities during the season is to get the weakest scoring players off the field. This can often be achieved by trading them or a bench player to a rookie who possesses comparatively high scoring potential.
If a premium is clearly scoring worse than in previous years, they look injured or they are being played out of position, it is worth acknowledging this fact and trading them out. Sometimes being stubborn and keeping a poorly scoring premium can ruin your season. I aim to trade these poorly scoring premiums out before prices change in round 3 or at the latest, round 4. If you don’t trade these poorly scoring premiums out, you are stuck with them until the byes at which time you can justify trading them around their bye.
Sideways trading is virtually always a no-no between rounds 5 and the byes. Using a trade to sideways trade will result in you ruining your upgrade cadence during this period.
Often SuperCoach participants enjoy the satisfaction of completing a line with premiums early in the season. This tactic can be detrimental. Most seasons, a premium player will get injured on a low score and their price will plummet. If you have completed a positional line, you are excluding yourself from trading in this value player. Ideally, you want to have a defence, midfield and forward rookie as your last three upgrades.
I often observe SuperCoach participants trading in a player mid-season who has gone on a run of high, outlier scores. This typically involves a player who is experiencing their best ever season and a good patch within this season. This often takes the form of a player averaging 130 who has escalated in price to $630,000 plus. I don’t like paying top dollar for players of this ilk who A. More often than not will regress to the mean with their scoring, B. Are overpriced and C. Don’t present any value. By trading to a cheaper, value premium, you will pocket $100,000 or so which you can spend elsewhere.
When trading in an under-priced premium who has dropped in price by virtue of having a poor run of scores, it’s important to be cognizant of why the premium has scored poorly in these games. Is it due to an injury, being subbed out, having been concussed, a natural deviation in their scoring etc. If a player has scored their lowest two scores for the past 3 years in concurrent weeks, with no clearly defined reason, I would be reluctant to trade them in. In contrast, if a premium has produced these low scores due to being tagged, a low disposal efficiency, a high free kick against count, being concussed etc, there is a tangible reason to explain their low scores and an increase in scoring to their mean can be expected.
When trading in a player, always check their averages from the previous two seasons. In general, players tend to average similar SuperCoach points from season to season.
Always check the player’s recent scores (5 games or so) before trading them in. Sometimes a player’s average can be deceptive as they may have scored well early in the season and faded over the past 5 or so games.
It can be easy to get fixated on a player you want to trade out and a player you plan to trade in on a Sunday evening. It’s important to be flexible and open to other trades depending on how the week unfolds. I like to wait for the teams to arrive, check for any outs and be open to various trading strategies depending on teams.
When deciding on who to trade in, I try to avoid fixating on a single player and instead try to keep my options open and brainstorm several possible players. I like to research these players closely and thereby predict what their subsequent average will be.
If I am unable to decide which of two players I will trade in and byes are irrelevant, I like to look at both player’s opponents for the remainder of the year. The Dream Team Talk website has strength of schedule information for defenders, midfielders, rucks and forwards that provides information about which teams have the best matchups by position. Known as ‘Cal’s Scale of Hardness’, the website data is based on AFL Fantasy points but it is a good analogue for SuperCoach points.
A breakeven is the score that a player has to achieve in order to not drop in price. If the player exceeds this breakeven significantly, they will sharply rise in price. If the player scores well below their breakeven, they will drop substantially in price. Breakevens can be found on Footy Wire and Too Serious, also, Brice Mitchell posts breakevens ahead of time on twitter. I recommend following Brice (added bonus- he is a Crows supporter).
It is important to be aware of the breakevens of players you are trading in and out. Breakevens should only be used as a guide for trading, not a be all and end all. I often observe SuperCoach participants holding onto a rookie because they have an average higher than their breakeven. They will wait for several weeks to squeeze an extra $30,000 or $40,000 out of the player. Most of the time this is wasting points. The rookie could be downgraded and another rookie could be upgraded to a premium. Waiting an extra 3 weeks could mean you miss out on 200 points.
I mainly use breakevens to determine which rookie to trade out- although I also take into account their scoring ability, whether they are on field and what their replacement looks like.
I also use breakevens to determine how long I should wait to pick up a value premium. Once again, it’s not always necessary to wait until they have completely bottomed out in price.
Don’t be biased in trading out players from a game you watched over the weekend. It’s easy to get frustrated by watching a player in your team play poorly and act like a repulsive magnet to the ball. There is a natural temptation to trade players that are frustrating to watch however you should always follow the stats. The same goes for trade in targets. It can be discouraging to watch a player you don’t have gather up a stack of disposals. Don’t immediately trade this player in. Essentially, don’t be biased towards a player you watched over the weekend.
If quality rookies don’t present during the season and/or the rookies in your team don’t generate much cash, you need to be flexible and willing to make compromises with your trade-in targets.
I will typically trade an injured player if they are out for 3 or more weeks. If they are out for 1 week I will always hold them (unless I am facing a doughnut). If they are out for 2 weeks, then it comes down to who the player is, the risk of the injury being more than 2 weeks, the value in the possible replacements and the scoring potential of my bench player. It will also depend on if the player has been injured during upgrade season and if the trade will ruin my upgrade cadence.
The Jock Reynolds cheat sheet offers weekly trade ideas. The podcasts mentioned earlier in this article also analyse trade in options on a weekly basis.
AdditionalTips
As well as captain loopholing, it is also possible in some scenarios to loophole a bench player with a player on field (this typically involves rookies). Before every round, I check every line in my team to see whether I can use this bench player loophole that essentially provides a second chance at gaining the higher scoring rookie on field.
For the bench loophole to work, you require two bench players and an on field player who is typically a rookie. One of these players must be non-playing. Place the emergency on the first player to play. If they score well, place the non-playing player on the field. If they score poorly, ensure that the non-playing player is on the bench and a playing player is on the field (that’s a tongue-twister).
Be aware that placing a non-playing player on the field for captain loopholing or bench player loopholing purposes involves the risk that a late out in your team may result in a zero score. This risk can be mitigated if most of your players in that line have played prior to the non-playing player being pivoted onto the field.
Before trading out a player who may only be missing for one or two weeks, gauge what your emergency in that position scores. If they score sufficiently, you may just save a trade.
The bye rounds are a good time to move up the rankings and separate yourself from those coaches who don’t take much notice of their bye player distribution.
I don’t tend to worry too much about the bye rounds until round 5 or so. The bye rounds weigh very little into my initial team selection; injuries will often occur and circumstances will inevitably change by the time the byes arrive.
All season leading up the byes, I have a chart displaying which of my bye players will be playing in each of the bye rounds. This helps me ensure that I have an even spread of players playing in each bye round (ideally there should be a few more players playing in the first bye round and a few less in the last bye round, which will be corrected by trades during the bye period).
When making bye charts, it’s important to distinguish premiums from rookies. The rookies in your team are unlikely to remain there during the byes.
Trading and planning around the bye period is the most important part of the (non-initial team selection) season. Take your time to analyse different trading options. In the rounds leading into the byes, I will avoid trading in premiums who have the first bye round. These premiums will become useful as you can trade a player with a future bye to them thereby adding extra players to your team during the bye rounds.
Throughout the season, remember to check the teams one hour prior to game time to ensure there are no late changes.
Conclusion
Much like the chances of getting suspended at the AFL Tribunal, SuperCoach is largely a game of luck. Despite this significant luck component, by employing the above strategies, you can increase the odds in your favour *Insert now outdated Hunger Games reference*. If you don’t rank first in SuperCoach, there is always next year…a mantra St. Kilda fans have continuously parroted for 55 years. Above all else, SuperCoach is about something that is worth more than money- fun (although $50,000 can buy a lot of fun too!)
SuperCoach Resources
Throughout this article I have linked to some of my favourite AFL SuperCoach resources. Here they are in one place.
AFL Ratings Fantasy Twitter Tweets SuperCoach relevant player news, which is especially useful during the preseason.
Honeyball AFL on Twitter Tweets SuperCoach relevant player news, which is especially useful during the preseason.
Fan Footy Contains a goldmine of statistical data and in game SuperCoach scoring.
DFS Australia Shows CBAs, kick-ins, time on ground and ruck contest attendance numbers.
The Phantom and Co. articles Features useful information year round however a paid subscription is required to access these articles.
SuperCoach Data Displays live, in-round SuperCoach rankings and SuperCoach player distribution stats.
SuperCoach Talk Contains various SuperCoach articles including captain stats.
DreamTeam Talk The Calvin’s Captain article each week and Cal’s Scale of Hardness both contain useful AFL Fantasy information that can generally be applied to SuperCoach.
Footy Wire Features SuperCoach breakevens for all players which are posted at the end of the round.
Brice Mitchell on Twitter Tweets useful SuperCoach information including in-round breakevens, CBA and Kick-in stats.
Klopp on Twitter Tweets useful SuperCoach information and summarises SuperCoach relevant player news.
TooSerious SuperCoach breakevens are posted weekly.
Jock Reynolds Contains a Weekly ‘cheat sheet’ that presents trade ideas.
Podcasts:
Doctor SuperCoach
The Phantom
SuperCoach Elites
The Official SuperCoach Podcast
SuperCoach Edge
A list of some of the other popular SuperCoach podcasts can be found here.
I belong to a group of motley individuals often described as being “not very fun at parties”. I don’t believe in ghosts, astrology or homeopathy. Crucially, I believe unidentified flying objects always have prosaic explanations. That’s right- I’m a dreaded skeptic.
Since 2017, the New York Times have published a spate of positively jaw-dropping articles documenting United States fighter pilots encountering a number of unidentified objects in the sky. These objects have been recorded on camera, captured on radar and in some instances, viewed up-close. They have displayed an impressive repertoire of manoeuvres that are seemingly beyond the capabilities of human built craft. This article will focus on the most famous and compelling of these events; the Nimitz-tic tac encounter.
The occurrences, in 2004, off the coast of Mexico’s Baja, were so unusual, clandestine, impossible and downright bizarre, they challenged the very nature of my skepticism. This article aims to be as objective and nuanced as possible with the goal of making sense of the bamboozling events that besieged the Nimitz carrier group.
Part 1- A Summary of Events
“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.” ~ Stanisław Lem
As the close of 2004 approached, the United States Nimitz strike group commenced a training session in the Pacific Ocean, not far off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. The strike group is the proverbial jewel in the United States military crown and features the mammoth aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz as well as the guided missile cruiser, the USS Princeton.
On the 10th of November 2004, a number of unidentified objects began appearing on the Nimitz strike group’s ultra-powerful radar. These objects were popping up on the radar’s limit, some 80,000 feet above the ocean’s surface, a height so lofty that it’s possible to see the curvature of the earth from this unique vantage point. In some instances, the objects descended 60,000 feet in less than one second. This is in the order of 20 times faster than the world’s fastest plane. The objects didn’t gradually decelerate but rather amazingly stopped on a dime. Whilst stationed around 20,000 feet, these perplexing objects began to waft southbound in herds, at a leisurely 100 knots. This is a speed so glacial that the objects should have fallen out of the sky.
The radar operators reset the radar tracking system, in the hope that these bamboozling objects showing up on their trackers were the product of some unusual glitch. Post system reset, the objects showed up even more vividly and continued to display the same logic defying feats of flight. Fleets of these objects continued to appear at 80,000 feet and drop down to 20,000 feet in an instant before nonchalantly drifting southwards. A number of personnel aboard the USS Princeton managed to spy the objects through binoculars however due to the objects’ distance, they merely appeared as slow moving lights.
After experiencing four consecutive days of these curious sightings, on November the 14th 2004, the Nimitz strike group dispatched a pair of Super Hornets to intercept one of the objects. The first of these planes was piloted by David Fravor. He was a decorated pilot who doubled as the squadron’s Commanding Officer. The second plane was piloted by up and coming Junior Officer, Alex Dietrich. Both planes featured a weapon system’s operator in their back seat. The planes were guided in tandem to the closest of the mysterious objects via the strike group’s radar.
As the Super Hornets encroached on the unknown object, the radar operators noticed that it abruptly dropped from 20,000 feet to near sea level within the span of less than one second. The pair of planes, featuring a total of four Air Force personnel, reached the object’s supposed location and circled around at 20,000 feet. The quartet failed to observe anything out of the ordinary until they glanced down. Bubbling on the ocean’s surface was a conspicuous section of white water that appeared to resemble a cross formation. This was a most unusual sight over 100 miles out from shore. It contrasted what was otherwise a still ocean tableau.
Just fifty-feet above the water disturbance, all four pairs of eyes were drawn to the same object. It was smooth, around forty-feet long and it had a matte finish. It was shaped just like an enlarged version of the confectionery known as a ‘tic tac’ with the white hue to match. Unexpectedly, the tic tac lacked wings, exhaust plumes or any other visible tell-tale signs of propulsion. Whilst it was hovering in the vicinity of the white water, it displayed abrupt movements as it constantly flickered between a north-south and east-west orientation. The tic tac’s behaviour was akin to a table tennis ball chaotically bouncing around.
Fravor decided to navigate his plane downwards towards the tic tac whilst Dietrich remained at an elevated 20,000 feet, observing the scene from above. Fravor dropped 2,000 feet and the tic tac seemingly responded to Fravor’s movements by ascending. As Fravor’s Super Hornet descended and the tic tac rose, they were akin to two boxers walking around a ring, surveying one another only at different altitudes. The tic tac flew upwards at about the same speed that Fravor steered downwards. Both craft continued to fly around at opposite sides of an imaginary circle. A meeting was imminent.
At only 2,000 feet above the tic tac, Fravor decided to cut across the imaginary circle, making a bee-line for where the tic tac was heading. The tic tac crossed in front of Fravor’s Super Hornet’s nose and accelerated so rapidly that within a second it had completely vanished, beyond the horizon.
The four witnesses had viewed the tic tac from two, distinct vantage points. Dietrich and her weapon systems operator had been privy to a bird-eye-view of the cat and mouse dalliance. They concurred that the tic tac had exited the scene with an unfathomable, hypersonic velocity. The duo of Super Hornets proceeded to examine the ocean’s surface, where the white water had initially formed a distinctive cross. The milky froth was absent and the ocean had reverted back to a placid state.
The radar operators who had been monitoring the scene from a virtual perspective, radioed in to Fravor in disbelief, “Sir, you’re not going to believe this but that thing is back at your CAP point”. The CAP point refers to a secretive latitude, longitude and altitude position that fighter pilots can return to in order to protect assets. In this instance, knowledge of Fravor’s CAP point locale was only possessed by Fravor and a small clique of members in the strike group. The tic tac had appeared precisely at Fravor’s unique CAP point some 60 miles away, just 30 seconds post its engagement with Fravor.
Fravor and Dietrich’s pair of Super Hornets landed back on the jaggedly framed tarmac of the USS Nimitz. After hearing Fravor recount his dramatic encounter with the tic tac, Chad Underwood, a weapon systems operator, became fixated on recording the tic tac on camera. In the rear seat of his Super Hornet, Underwood jetted off with a FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) camera attached to the plane. As the Princeton’s radar operators noticed the tic tac on their radar, Underwood’s Super Hornet’s radar observed the blip.
Underwood’s camera visually locked on to the tic tac, enabling it to automatically and simultaneously track and record the moving object. Meanwhile the tic tac jammed Underwood’s radar beam: an act so brazen-faced that it qualifies as an act of war. Underwood’s attempt to determine the tic tac’s airspeed was thwarted as his screen displayed a skittish set of Mach speeds that jumped around erratically. In addition, the Super Hornet’s instrumentation displayed the tic tac’s distance as 99.9 which is the system’s equivalent of saying ‘undefined’. After a shade over one minute of approaching and recording the tic tac, the Super Hornet’s automatic visual lock was broken as the tic tac accelerated off to the left of camera at an unbelievable speed.
Over the following days, unknown military officials landed on the Nimitz vessels by helicopter and confiscated most of the evidence of the tic tac encounters. The Nimitz strike group continued to be beset by sightings of bright lights in the sky, often moving unpredictably. The strike group collectively vowed to ignore all aspects of the tic tac. They focused their attention on their training duties.
A number of years passed and Underwood’s recording of the tic tac, which became better known by the sobriquet, ‘the FLIR video’, was leaked out to the public. The Pentagon subsequently confirmed its authenticity. In more recent times, a glut of military personnel who had been stationed on board the Nimitz strike group began to publicly emerge, providing their memories of the bizarre events that besieged them in November of 2004. In one of these interviews, Fravor would characterise the tic tac as “I think it was not from this world”.
Some slight variation of the above fantastical story is often recounted by UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) enthusiasts (the UAP initialism is essentially a modern rebranding of the term ‘UFO’). As a skeptic, I don’t believe seemingly impossible stories on face value without evidence. I need to immerse myself into the story and gather every modicum of information, right down to the tiniest detail. After reading various descriptions of the Nimitz-tic tac encounter I was intrigued yet so many questions lingered:
How accurate is the story? Which events are factually carved into stone and which events have developed as a result of some evolving folklore? What do the experts in the appropriate fields say about the scenarios? How accurate are the recounts of the amazing aerial feats displayed by the tic tac? Do human-made craft have the potential to emulate these feats? Are there a prosaic series of events that can explain the encounters that are not contingent upon evoking the deus ex machina of extra-terrestrial craft?
This article will explore these questions and more with the objective of being balanced and nuanced.
Part 2- The Radars
“The secret of flight is this – you have to do it immediately, before your body realises it is defying the laws.” ~ Michael Cunningham
The aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz. (Image source: Wikipedia, John Philip Wagner Jr.)
As calendars flipped over to November 2004, the United States Nimitz strike group descended on the Pacific Ocean waters off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula to partake in a ‘Tailored Ships Availability Training’ period. The lead vessel in the strike group was the USS Nimitz. The USS Nimitz, which remains in operation today, is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that housed over 5,000 military personnel during the 2004 training regime. This gargantuan supercarrier is one of the largest warships on the planet.
The guided missile cruiser, the USS Princeton. (Image source: US Navy)
Other military assets stayed in proximity to the USS Nimitz to assist in the training exercises. This included the guided missile cruiser, the USS Princeton, which accommodated over 400 personnel. The aircraft carrier group also featured the attack submarine, the USS Louisville. Rounding out the strike group were the destroyers, the USS Higgins and USS Chafee however these vessels were situated elsewhere for at least part of the training period. The Nimitz strike group engaged in various training exercises in a designated military working area at sea. The training exercises were carried out in anticipation of the USS Nimitz being deployed to the Persian Gulf in mid-2005.
An Explanation of the Radar Systems
The Nimitz strike group featured the advanced AEGIS Combat System. One of the key utilities of the AEGIS is the trailblazing SPY-1B radar system. To describe the SPY-1 as sophisticated and deadly accurate would be an understatement. To understand how the SPY-1 radar system works, it is first necessary to have a basic understanding of the mechanics of radar. Radars operate by sending out electromagnetic pulses. The pulses travel until they strike a surface. They then reflect back to the radar’s receiver. Based on various measurements such as the time taken for the pulses to return to the receiver, a computer can determine the properties of a distant object such as its distance, velocity and size. Standard radar works by rotating whilst simultaneously sending out pulses. In contrast, the SPY-1 radar system is more advanced. Rather than rotating like traditional radars, it simultaneously sends out pulses in all directions. The SPY-1’s octagonal panels each contain hundreds of feed horn which are tiny antenna. Each one of these feed horn has the ability to be directed independently and to hold a track of an object. When used in a sequence, they combine to produce a 360 degree, real-time, comprehensive radar image.
The SPY-1 radar antennas are the octagonal ‘panel’ sections seen above. (Image source: missilethreat.csis.org)
Every ship within the Nimitz strike group had some iteration of the SPY-1 radar system providing them with radar images. Another advantage of the SPY-1 radar system, when compared to standard radar, is its lack of reliability on just one transmitter sending out and receiving pulses. The various locations of the Nimitz strike group’s ships provided numerous radar angles and a range of operating frequencies. These ship’s individual radars were integrated together using ‘Co-operative Engagement Capability’ to provide a comprehensive, 360-degree image of the entire battlefield arena. This ensures a far more accurate picture than reliance on just one, lone radar. The first time this Co-operative Engagement Capability technology was used in a large-scale, real-world setting was with the Nimitz strike group in November of 2004.
The Nimitz strike group’s SPY-1B radar ‘officially’ has a range of 256 nautical miles however its true scope is considered to be farther. Additionally, it can see upwards to over 80,000 feet. Essentially, the SPY-1 radar system provides a detailed, 360-degree image of a spatial arena shaped akin to a large dome. As well as it’s far-reaching eye, the SPY-1 radar provides a staggeringly accurate reading. It can identify and track an object as minuscule as a baseball, within the spacious, aforementioned dome shaped dimensions. Additionally, it can provide altitude data to within the accuracy of metres. The SPY-1 radar can also track hundreds of objects in the sky simultaneously. Its utility has led to it being described as the ‘eyes and ears of the battlegroup’.
The SPY-1 radar system also has the capability of tracking fast moving objects. This is thanks to its pulses being sent out in every direction in as short a time frame as every 6.5 milliseconds. Satellites travelling at the hasty speed of 7,000 miles per hour can easily be tracked by the SPY-1 radar. Petty Officer Gary Voorhis who was on board the USS Princeton in 2004, has spoken of the SPY-1 radar’s impressive ability to track fast moving objects, “Everything on the planet is too slow for our computers”. Despite 17 years elapsing since the SPY-1’s usage in the Nimitz encounter, it still remains one of the most sophisticated and advanced radars on the planet.
The individual vessels within the Nimitz strike group had imagery from their own SPY-1 radar. They also had imagery from the ‘Co-operative Engagement Capability’ system that integrated all the SPY-1 radars’ data together.
An E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft has a distinctive radar dish on its roof. (Image source: Wikipedia, George R. Kusner)
The Nimitz strike group vessels weren’t the only forms of transportation fitted with radar. During 2004, the Super Hornet planes (that encountered the unknown objects) were fitted with the APG-73 radar system. The E-2 Hawkeye airborne, early warning aircraft whose role involves detecting ships, other aircraft and a range of threats, such as missiles, whilst airborne, has a distinctive radar dish positioned on its roof. The Hawkeye uses the advanced AN/APS-145 radar which has the capability of tracking in excess of 2,000 targets at ranges of over 340 miles.
The Radar Operators
Senior Chief, Kevin Day
During the November 2004 Nimitz strike group training exercises, Senior Chief Kevin Day had a prominent role operating the radar. Day, who was positioned on the USS Princeton, had a buzz cut, mousey face and sharp jawline. Still today he comes across as a matter-of-fact sort of person, even by military standards. Day’s official title was ‘Air Intercept Control Supervisor’ for both the Princeton as well as the Nimitz strike group as a whole. On the entire USS Princeton, Day was the chief radar specialist responsible for the radar, with all other radar operators being his junior. Day worked in the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre.
Day had a history of working with the SPY-1 radar system during his time on the USS Vincennes. His career also entailed working at sea for 18 years on various AEGIS radar operating systems. Day was a Top Gun graduate in the domain of strike-fighter tactics and his awards portfolio included the Navy and Marine Corp Commendation Medal as well as the prestigious Meritorious Service Medal. Day was involved in seven deployments to the Middle-East region and had completed several hundred intercepts during his decorated career.
Gary Voorhis in the 2003 Princeton, Cruise Book.
Petty Officer Third Class Gary Voorhis worked in the same room as Day- the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre. Voorhis was a Fire Controlman (fire in the ammunition sense of the word) whose role entailed managing the Princeton’s AEGIS’s Co-operative Engagement Capability system which integrated and shared radar data amongst Nimitz strike group vessels. In 2004, Voorhis was clean shaven with neatly trimmed, jet-black hair. He harboured a deep passion and understanding of the intricacies of the complex AEGIS system.
The final witness to come forward publicly with first-hand information of the Nimitz radar system’s UAP detections is the well-spoken, Karson Kammerzell. He was a Petty Officer Third Class whose title on board the Princeton was ‘Cryptologic Technician’. This role encompasses a range of tasks centred around intelligence gathering. Although Kammerzell didn’t work directly with the SPY-1 radar system, he was present in the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre on certain occasions.
The Radars in the Lead Up to November 14th
Piecing together the bizarre events that plagued the Nimitz strike group in 2004 in akin to putting together a jigsaw puzzle that has had its pieces warp in shape due to heat. Each witness who has come forward publicly has their own perspectives and experiences that have been potentially further misshapen due to the nature of memory and the sands of time. The puzzle pieces naturally won’t produce a desired clear picture but I will endevour to portray a portrait as close as possible to the elusive series of events.
On November 10th 2004, the Nimitz strike group were approximately 100 miles south-west of San Diego’s coastline. The radar operators on board the USS Princeton began to notice stray objects appearing on their radar screens which they initially believed to be artifacts of a radar simulation exercise that was taking place. According to Kammerzell, one of the radar operators commented “There’s this one (object), that is not playing by the rules. It’s over here, it’s over here. It’s not one of the ones we created for this simulation. It keeps bouncing around. There’s no way it’s real because it’s jumping from one point to one point to one point to one point, all over our map. Nothing can actually do that. We are pretty sure it’s faulty. We keep deleting it and it keeps coming back”. The radar operator determined that the objects couldn’t have been a remnant of the training simulation known as COMPTUEX as they didn’t match the training simulation data that had been programmed into the system.
The stray objects were tagged and the operators manually deleted them from their radar screen. The objects popped up again and displayed the same brisk movements that are beyond the scope of conventional aircraft. The objects’ hypersonic behaviour led the radar operators to continue to believe that the items were fictitious figments that were the result of gremlins in the complex computer-radar system. The objects were deleted numerous times only for them to continually reappear. Diagnostic tests were run on every part of the system yet they failed to erase the objects. The difficult decision was made to restart the entire system for the sole purpose of removing these stubbornly appearing artifacts. The system rebooted and the objects again appeared on the radar screens, the only difference being that they showed up even more vividly. This wasn’t looking like a system malfunction.
Day has been asked whether the objects appearing on the radar could have been a phantom hit on the radar. He is adamant in his response. “Impossible. We had too many systems tracking it, different radar types, different radar systems, the composite from all those radar systems put together. We had a system called ‘Identification Friend or Foe’ (IFF). There was no IFF coming off those contacts at all. We had Splash-7 tracks on these things which is the highest quality track rating…I’m absolutely positive, whatever they were, they were really there”.
Voorhis agrees with Day’s appraisal that the objects being tracked were real, “They took the entire system down and calibrated everything and brought it back up and the only thing it did was make the tracks clearer. At that point, they knew they were actually tracking objects…we started getting confirmation from the other ships, they were seeing it too”.
Day was flummoxed whilst examining the objects data on the SPY-1 radar system. Part of his duty as Air Intercept Control Supervisor was to determine the identity of unknown objects appearing on the radar system. Day has commented, “In my mind I was thinking ‘I don’t know what the hell these are’. The only thing I could think it could possibly be was balloons of some type that just happened to be tracked by the radar… Something going that slow, that high, is going to fall out of the sky…We failed to identify these things. They failed to meet any of the parameters for anything that was known…There was no jamming, no electronic signs at all”. There was a mystery afoot.
How Many UAP Were There?
From this point henceforth, the objects in discussion will be referred to as UAP, an initialism for ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon’. A seemingly basic question is ‘How many UAP were there?’ There is no universally agreed upon, simple answer. According to Day who was the most senior radar operator aboard the USS Princeton, “Right around the evening of the 10th of November, all of these contacts were popping up in my radar, it was right off Catalina Island, out by Los Angeles. At first it was like 10 or 12 objects. Watching them on the display was like watching the snowfall in the sky.”
After observing this initial batch of UAP, Day intently monitored the objects as they continued to appear in the lead up to Fravor’s tic tac encounter. “Over the course of three or four days, I probably counted at that point, groups of 5 to 10 at a time, probably 50 or 60 tracks by then. Maybe they were the same objects repeating the cycle (travelling south) or maybe they were different objects, we don’t know”. Day has provided an estimate as to how many UAP he noticed appearing on the Princeton’s all-powerful radar in total during the entirety of the training exercises, “If you add them all up, there was well over 100 contacts”. The most airborne UAP that Day tallied at any one time was fourteen.
A re-creation of what Day saw on his radar screen. (Image source: Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation).
Day has explained that the individual UAP appeared identical looking on radar and seemed relatively closely spaced together. He has estimated the distance between two objects in the fleet as “About five miles”. The UAP remained the same relative distance to one another as they travelled southwards. According to Day they flew south “In what appeared to be an organised formation”.
The UAP’s Locations and Journey
San Clemente Island is situated west of San Diego.
Day recalls seeing the UAP appearing on his radar above an island situated 60 miles due west of San Diego, “I started to notice these weird tracks that were popping onto my radar coverage right around San Clemente Island”. San Clemente Island is a jagged and rocky locale that is dotted with canyons and military bases. It is home to a United States Navy Base and today remains the US’s last surviving ship-to-shore, live firing range. The entire 21-mile-long island is a restricted area that is off-limits to civilians.
San Clemente Island at sunrise. (Image source: Wikipedia, Clark Anderson)
Day monitored the UAP on the Princeton’s radar as they materialised in the sky above San Clemente Island and travelled in a southerly direction. Whilst the Princeton was positioned out at sea, south-west of San Diego, Day recollects that the UAP “Tracked past us, between us and the mainland”. Day noticed the groups of UAP proceeding south, all heading in the same direction. “These things were going somewhere. They fell of my radar down off the coast of Baja California. There’s a little group of islands down off the coast. Right there they disappeared…They all went to the same spot.” Day noted the co-ordinates of where the UAP were supposedly travelling: 28°54’36.0″N 118°15’36.0″W. These are the co-ordinates of Guadalupe Island.
Day tracked the objects moving from San Clemente Island to Guadalupe Island.
Guadalupe is a remote island peppered with volcanoes that is located some 270 miles south of San Clemente Island. It has similar dimensions to San Clemente: 22 miles north-south and 6 miles east-west. Guadalupe is situated 150 miles off the western coast of Mexico. At the 2010 census, its population was just 213 residents. Guadalupe’s few residents comprise seasonal fishermen, scientists and Mexican military personnel who operate a weather station. Due to Guadalupe Island being situated within a biosphere reserve, those who wish to visit the island require a permit from the Mexican government.
The coast of Guadalupe Island. (Image source, Wikipedia, Albert E. Theberge).
Day has described that the UAP “All disappeared in the same point in the sky” in the vicinity of Guadalupe Island. It is unclear whether the UAP vanished beyond the SPY-1B radar’s limit at this point. Guadalupe Island is approximately 180 miles south of where the Princeton may have been at sea whilst the UAP were being tracked. The SPY-1B radar has an official 256 mile range and it may struggle to detect smaller objects at further distances.
Day has elucidated, “Over the course of 3 or 4 days, I probably counted at that point, groups of 5 to 10 at a time, probably 50 or 60 tracks by then. Maybe they were the same objects repeating the cycle or maybe they were different objects, we don’t know”. Based on this statement, it seems as if a group of UAP appeared on the radar somewhere off the western coast of California. The fleet travelled the three hours journey south to Guadalupe Island’s vicinity before disappearing off the radar. The next group of 5-10 UAP would then at some subsequent stage appear off the coast of California. In other words, two flocks of UAP weren’t simultaneously airborne in the same moment.
A pertinent question that is worthy of asking is: why were these UAP only travelling unidirectionally from San Clemente Island down to Guadalupe Island? As Day alludes to, queries are raised over whether these were indeed the same individual UAP being detected that were somehow being transported north again to the Californian Islands (whilst bypassing the radar on their trip north). Alternatively, was each of the UAP that travelled south a unique object- one of a larger fleet? The short three hour journey time frame keeps the possibility ajar that the same UAP repeatedly tracked southwards before being ferried north again. If the UAP were drones or aircraft, it would seemingly be more logical for them to travel south and refuel before heading back north however the radar didn’t capture this phantasmal northwards trip.
Additionally, another key question is why didn’t the advanced SPY-1 radar system ever notice the UAP rising or settling down on land or at the very least a boat? The UAP seemingly materialised in the sky and equally vaporised in the sky, some 270 miles south.
Fravor has provided some insight regarding the time of day that the UAP travelled (prior to November the 14th), “They’d (the radar operators) been watching these things come down, go up, come down, go up but it was always when we were not flying, which is probably the midnight time frame until noon the next day”. Day recalls first noticing the UAP “At 8PM at night”.
The UAP’s Slow Speed
One of the idiosyncratic behaviours of the UAP was their glacial speed. After descending from high altitudes, potentially at unfathomably fast velocities, they would gently waft along. Day has verbalised his inner thoughts on what the UAP indeed were “I started detecting groups of these contacts, 5-10 at a time. 28,000 feet going at 100 knots which is really slow for that altitude…In my mind I was thinking ‘I don’t know what the hell these are’. The only thing I could think it could possibly be was balloons or something that just happened to be tracked by the radar…Something going that slow, that high, is going to fall out of the sky”. On another occasion, Day has commented “In the back of my mind, I’m thinking ‘that’s kind of odd’, I don’t know anything that flies like that. They weren’t on the com-air (commercial airline) routes. I wasn’t really that concerned by them. I didn’t consider them hostile for any reason at all. We were watching them for several days”.
The 100 knot speed is equivalent to 115 miles per hour. At this velocity it would take the UAP between 2 and 3 hours to complete the journey from the San Clemente and Catalina Island locale down to Guadalupe Island. To put the UAP’s standard speed into some perspective, commercial airlines fly around five times as fast as these UAPs at approximately 547 to 575 miles per hour.
Another obstacle that the pedestrian UAP would have had to contend with were the winds. According to Day, the objects consistently maintained their 100 knot velocity. Day believes that the UAP weren’t merely coasting along with the wind. He contends that they wouldn’t have maintained such monotonously regular speeds of 100 knots in the same southerly direction (and repeat this process day after day), nor the same altitude of 28,000 feet. Assuming that the UAP were real and Day’s assessment is accurate, something had to be powering the objects to defy the wind and stubbornly venture on with these constant metrics.
Voorhis public comments don’t quite match Day’s radar perceptions of the UAP’s flight patterns. Voorhis has said “Sometimes they were just going a couple hundred knots, sometimes they seemed stationary, sometimes they moved relatively fast. The way they went around us was like they were just monitoring us”.
The UAP’s Altitudes
The UAP initially appeared on the radar at an altitude of 80,000 feet. According to Day, “Our scan volume was only set to 80,000 feet at the time”. Day has speculated that due to this upper limit setting of the SPY-1 radar, the UAP may have in fact been descending from beyond this 80,000 foot altitude. Although not first-hand information, Day has commented “Our ballistic missile defence guys were tracking these things coming down from outer space, I found out later”.
80,000 feet is a remarkably lofty altitude. It is so elevated that the curvature of the earth is clearly visible from this vantage point. To put the 80,000 feet altitude into more perspective, the highest flight ever recorded by a commercial airline is a 60,000 feet flight by the Concorde. The reconnaissance aircraft, the U-2, flies at 72,000 feet. The highest flight by a military air-breathing engine plane was recorded at around 90,000 feet by the uniquely designed manned aircraft, the SR-71. This Cold War era aircraft also still happens to hold the record as the world’s fastest airplane.
Whilst the UAP were detected on radar descending from the 80,000 foot height, according to Day, “They were more at about 28,000 feet than any other altitude”. Once at this 28,000 foot altitude, the UAP tended to coast along at this steady elevation at around the 100 knot speed. This 28,000 foot height is just below the ballpark of the average passenger plane’s travelling altitude which sits somewhere in the range of 30,000 to 42,000 feet. One of the key reasons that commercial airliners fly at such high altitudes (in the proximity of the altitudes that the UAP were typically travelling in) is to fly quickly. They seek the thinner air that accompanies high altitudes which in turn enables high travel speeds. Private planes tend to fly at altitudes below 15,000 feet due to their piston powered engines which only permit short flight times.
The Rapidly Dropping and Ascending UAP
Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of the UAP’s movements wasn’t their snail-paced speeds or high altitudes but rather their unfathomably fast velocities captured by radar. It was allegedly common practice for the UAP to descend 60,000 feet in less than one second. Day, who bases his comments on seeing the radar data first hand has said, “These things would be at 80,000 feet and you would look again and all of a sudden they were at 28,000 feet or 20,000 feet”.
A second person who was stationed within the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre was Gary Voorhis who supports Day’s recollection of these UAP dropping from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet. When questioned how long these drops took, Voorhis has articulated “If you think about it, well it took faster than that. You didn’t have time to complete an entire thought in your head before it was already there”. Asked if they took less than one second, Voorhis has bluntly responded “Yeah”. Voorhis has also specifically described what he saw on the radar, “Seeing the tracks, they were actually going faster than our pulses…it was moving so quickly. It was honestly amazing”.
Fravor has discussed the length of time the UAP descended for, “They hang out for three hours and then they go straight back up”. After their three hours at around 28,000 feet, the UAP would ascend. Day has vocalised, “These things would be at 80,000 feet and you would look again and all of a sudden they were at 28,000 feet or 20,000 feet. Then they’d go back to 80,000 feet”.
November 14th– The Decision to Intercept a UAP
On the 14th of November 2004, the fighter pilots on board the USS Nimitz were scheduled to partake in simulated combat training that had been months in the planning. Mock enemy aircraft were to be launched from the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, San Diego as well as the North Island Naval Air Station, also in San Diego. The aircraft from these two stations were scheduled to attack the Nimitz Strike group. The drill was going to feature 30 real aircraft, take place off the coast and be high vitality-style, air defence training.
The simulated combat training exercise featured mock enemy aircraft being launched from Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar and North Island Naval Air Station.
Late on the morning of November 14th, Day noticed a total of 14 UAP appearing on the Princeton’s SPY-1 radar system. The UAP were spread out relatively homogeneously across a span of around 100 miles. This was in roughly the same area of sky that the training was going to unfold and at a similar range of altitudes. The UAP’s radar tracks were the highest quality radar tracks possible. The SPY-1 radar had been tracking UAP for the previous four days however the UAP’s prior flights had, according to Fravor been, “When we weren’t flying”. The combination of the scheduled major fighter pilot training exercise and proximate fleet of UAP led Day to become concerned about safety.
Captain Smith, the official with the highest rank aboard the USS Princeton, headed down to the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre. It was here that Day briefed Captain Smith, “Sir, we’ve been tracking these for several days. I have no idea what they are. No-one in combat knows what they are. I highly recommend we send aircraft and intercept one and ID these things because if we don’t and we launch aircraft into this mess and there’s an air-to-air mishap of some kind, somebody’s going to ask us why we weren’t more curious”. Smith authorised an interception of the closest UAP.
The UAP weren’t just appearing on the Princeton’s SPY-1 radar system. In addition, the USS Nimitz allegedly detected the UAP too. The Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 117 which operates the Hawkeye E-2 plane also attempted to detect the UAP that Fravor would intercept. They were initially unable to do so however after being provided with the UAP’s co-ordinates by the USS Princeton, they focused their radar beam in the appropriate area and thus weakly detected the nearest UAP. The Hawkeye’s weak detection signal meant that the Princeton would navigate the Super Hornets.
The Radars During Fravor’s UAP Contact
Fravor and Dietrich’s two Super Hornet planes launched from the USS Nimitz at precisely 1:32PM in order to partake in their air defence training exercises. At 2:00PM, the pair of Super Hornets were contacted by the USS Princeton and instructed to engage in a “real-world situation”. The USS Princeton used their radar to navigate the duo of fighter planes to the UAP that was situated around 60 miles due west of the Super Hornet’s location. At this stage, this specific UAP was flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Leading up to and right throughout the UAP encounter, the Super Hornets’ APG-73 radars failed to detect the UAP and they were reliant on the Princeton’s radar to reach their destination.
The Princeton guided the Super Hornets to the UAP’s co-ordinates. As the pair of planes encroached on the UAP, according to Day, the UAP dropped straight down to the ocean’s surface. Shortly afterwards, the Princeton informed the pilots that they had reached ‘merge-plot’ at 20,000 feet. This is the point at which the UAP and the Super Hornets were so close in proximity on a 2D bird’s-eye-view screen that the radar couldn’t distinguish between them. It was time for the four pairs of eyes to look for the elusive UAP. Fifty feet above a disturbance in the water, the two pilots and two weapon system operators visually saw a tic tac-esque object.
The following day, on board the USS Princeton, as part of the Co-operative Engagement Capability ‘replay function’, Day decided to again watch the radar chronicle of Fravor’s intercept. “With the software and stuff, you can do analysis of the radar. That’s when I learnt it was actually less than a second it went from 28,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean in, it turns out, 0.78 seconds. It was unbelievable.” Voorhis has a similar recollection of the objects rapid drops, “It did go from approximately 30,000 feet to negative 500 feet in an unbelievable amount of time. It wasn’t even a second. It was ridiculous. We were all like ‘What the?’ It literally disappeared from tracking for a couple of seconds. When you look at the actual track data…it looks more like a broken line than an actual track because it wasn’t tracking it every single second and every single microsecond because it was moving too fast”.
The UAP’s Apparent Speeds
Day is adamant that he re-watched the radar of the UAP dropping from 28,000 feet to sea level and calculated that this journey took just 0.78 seconds. This is equivalent to travelling at approximately 24,500 miles per hour. Let’s put that rapid velocity into some context. The world record speed for a manned, air breathing jet engine aircraft (what is generally considered a plane) is 2,190 miles per hour- less than 10% of the alleged speed of the UAP. The world record speed attained by a rocket plane is 4,519 miles per hour held by the North America X-15: this is just over 18% of the UAP’s speed. The fastest unmanned vehicle in existence is the HTV-2 Falcon, a hypersonic glider that has been recorded at speeds of 13,201 miles per hour- just 53% of the UAP’s speed.
A one tonne object that is dropped from 28,000 feet (that is falling solely under the force of earth’s gravity) will reach a maximum speed of just 912 miles per hour at impact- just under 4% of the UAP’s speed. One of the few objects that can reach speeds in the realm of the UAP are meteors falling through earth’s atmosphere which generally travel at around 30,000 miles per hour. Not only did the UAP supposedly outperform all the aforementioned objects (bar the meteor), but it managed to accelerate to a phenomenal speed then decelerated from this speed all within one second. In addition, it stopped on a dime, coming to a complete, mid-air standstill. It also failed to emit a detectable sonic boom: an inevitable by-product of an object exceeding the speed of sound (761 miles per hour)- 3% of the UAP’s speed. Any regular aircraft would simply fall apart if it managed to perform the motions that the UAP in question supposedly did.
One study by Knuth et al. has taken the acceleration and deceleration of the UAP in question into consideration and determined that this would increase the UAP’s true maximum speed to 46,000 miles per hour- twice the speed of my initial calculation and subsequent comparisons. Assuming the UAP accelerated in a conventional manner, the study suggests that such an acceleration feat would require a peak power of a staggeringly high 1,100 GW- More than tenfold the total nuclear power production in the United States.
Inconsistencies and Uncertainties in the Radar Accounts
Firstly, I’d like to thank Day and Voorhis for publicly recounting their stories of the November 2004 Nimitz UAP encounters. It has been a brave act by both men to come forward and publicly speak about what is widely considered a taboo topic. Having said this, both Day and Voorhis’ accounts vary from interview to interview and contain a number of inconsistencies. In order to explain that the precise nature of the radar events aren’t set in stone, I will outline these inconsistencies here.
Day has described the initial time he viewed the objects on radar, “At first it was like 10 or 12 objects”. In another instance, Day has commented, “I believe there is 5 contacts the first time”.
The next point of contention regards something as simple as ‘How many UAP were in the group when Fravor encountered the UAP?’ Day has unequivocally answered “Five” and “Fourteen” in different interviews.
Another fundamental question is ‘How many UAP were tracked all together throughout November 2004?’ Day has remarked “There was well over 100 contacts”. On another occasion, Day has remarked, “Over the course of 3 or 4 days, I probably counted at that point, groups of 5 to 10 at a time, probably 50 or 60 tracks by then.” In contrast, Voorhis has commented “We were just seeing three tracks. Sometimes they were just going a couple hundred knots, sometimes they seemed stationary, sometimes they moved relatively fast. The way they went around us was like they were just monitoring us”. The Executive Report, whose radar section was written based on Day and Voorhis’ accounts from a number of years prior to their public statements, includes the sentence “They (UAP) were detected three separate times during the week“.
There is even conjecture over whether there was more than one UAP. Kammerzell, who was also aboard the USS Princeton, was under the impression that there was just a single object in question “I never heard anything about multiples. Only multiples in reference to ‘ghost track keeps appearing multiple times’. Every single person I spoke to that was involved to some degree only referred to it as a singular. That includes my LCPO and DIVO”.
The next query arises regarding where the UAP supposedly appeared. Day has explained that the UAP appeared around “Catalina Islands”. In a separate interview, Day has said “I started to notice these weird tracks that were popping onto my radar coverage right around San Clemente Island”. There is a significant, 30 mile differential between Catalina Islands and San Clemente Island. It’s possible that the UAP spawned above both locations however Day hasn’t explicitly said this.
Another potential inconsistency concerns the nature of the UAP’s behaviour. Day has repeatedly stated that the UAP were “All going about 100 knots”. On numerous occasions he has described tracking them from off the Californian coast down south to off the Mexican coast. He has described what he saw on his radar scope, “If you can imagine snowflakes slowly falling through the sky, that’s kind of the way they appeared and tracked towards the south”. Day appears unwavering in his belief that the UAP seemed to be travelling somewhere with a purpose. According to Day, The UAP consistently “Tracked past us, between us and the mainland”. He continuously lost them on radar contact when they reached “Guadalupe Island”.
Voorhis’ account reads significantly differently, “Sometimes they were just going a couple hundred knots, sometimes they seemed stationary, sometimes they moved relatively fast. The way they went around us was like they were just monitoring us”. It’s not clear whether the UAP were supposedly meandering southwards and happen to encounter the Nimitz strike group as Day describes or whether they were actively hovering around and focused on the naval fleet, as Voorhis describes.
There is also little clarity over how long the UAP were appearing for prior to Fravor’s encounter. Day has said that prior to Fravor’s close-up UAP experience on the 14th of November, the objects were being tracked “Over the course of 3 or 4 days”. Day has also said he saw contacts “From the 4th of November to about the 15th of November” which is a significantly longer, 12 day span. This is one person providing two notably different time frames.
Voorhis has remarked “For three and five days, we tracked a bunch of unknown aircraft”. Yet according to Fravor, “We have no idea that for two weeks, the two weeks we’ve been at sea, they’ve been tracking these things coming out of the sky”. Kammerzell also agrees with Fravor’s two week narrative, “As I understand it, it was two weeks (before Fravor’s contact)”.
The brisk 0.78 second drop of the UAP was arguably the objects’ most impressive feat, although this too has a discrepancy. The day following Fravor’s encounter, Day calculated the time it took the UAP to perform this drop. He has explained, “We have a system on board called Co-operative Engagement Capability that has the ability to record everything. So basically we just played it back as if it was actually happening live again. With the software and stuff, you can do analysis of the radar. That’s when I learnt it was actually less than a second it went from 28,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean in, it turns out, 0.78 seconds”. It is quite clear from this comment that the 0.78 second time interval refers to the UAP’s drop from 28,000 feet to ocean level.
In another interview, Day regurgitates the 0.78 second figure pertaining to a different dropping context, “These things were going down. They were starting at about 80,000 feet when I first saw them and then they would suddenly just drop down in altitude in a matter of less than a second. When I did some data retraction on it, it was 0.78 seconds. From 80,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean”.
In a separate interview, Day provides a third different context to the 0.78 second figure, “These things come straight back out of the water, again in about 0.78 seconds. Back up to 80,000 feet and continue to track south at about 100 knots, which was strange because there was a whole fleet of them above us, all going about 100 knots. Anywhere in altitude from 28,000 feet up to about 80,000 feet”. As well as the new 0.78 second context, this quote by Day also refers to the UAP entering the sea and travelling south at 80,000 feet which are two new claims entirely.
The Executive Report written up about the UAP encounter is contingent on both Day and Voorhis’ statements. The report includes the sentence, “The AAVs would descend ‘very rapidly’ from approximately 60,000 feet down to approximately 50 feet in a matter of seconds”. There is no other mention of differing drop altitudes or the 0.78 second drop. The most impressive and physics defying feat of the UAP has four different narratives- 28,000 feet to sea level, 80,000 feet to sea level, underwater to 80,000 feet and 60,000 feet to sea level. This is a significant inconsistency.
Day has also stated “Our ballistic missile guys were tracking these things coming down from outer space, I found out later. That wasn’t the view I had on my radar, I’m more concerned with 30,000 feet and below”. Day hasn’t clarified how he defines the altitude of the Kármán line which separates earth’s atmosphere from space although it is often designated as 62 miles above earth’s mean sea level. Day explains that he only learnt that the Ballistic Missile Defence Squad had been tracking the UAP from space, after several days had elapsed post Fravor’s intercept and by “Talking to the guys on the ship”. Is this when Day learnt of the UAP appearing at 80,000 feet, a fact that he has commonly referred to? Also, from Day’s quote, it is implied that he had radar imagery of the UAP only for altitudes less than 30,000 feet. In other interviews, he seems to have radar imagery of higher altitudes “Our scan volume was only set to 80,000 feet at the time”.
There is also contention over whether the UAP were displaying the quick movements in the days leading up to the intercept on the 14th of November. Voorhis has been asked ‘Before the interrogation, they never did any extreme manoeuvres?’ Voorhis has responded “Exactly. Any time they appeared, they’d just be doing this whole drift south thing at 100 knots or so”. Voorhis has reiterated this sentiment several times including this comment, “They were just like 100 knots, same direction…This went on and on for days until we got the word there was going to be an interrogation…It wasn’t until the interrogation that they started going a little nuts”. In his interview with Mick West, Voorhis makes is abundantly clear that the UAP were simply travelling along at around 100 knots and not displaying quick movements until the day and time of the intercepts.
In a separate interview, Voorhis describes the pre-November 14 ‘insane’ movements by the UAP which became the rationale for the system reset, “They’ve got a bunch of clutter and they need to take the system down to calibrate the system to try and get rid of the clutter. They basically got tracks that are coming up that can’t be there. They are basically insane tracks”. This comment by Voorhis seems to suggest that the UAP were displaying logic defying (insane) movements before the day of the intercept.
Day recalls the UAP dropping quickly in the days leading up to the intercept, “These things would be at 80,000 feet and you would look again and all of a sudden they were at 28,000 feet or 20,000 feet. Then they’d go back to 80,000 feet. This was like a number of days before (the intercept)”.
Kammerzell is also of the belief that the rapid movements occurred in the days leading up to the intercept. Prior to the system reset, Kammerzell was informed by one of the radar operators “There’s this one (object), that is not playing by the rules. It’s over here, it’s over here. It’s not one of the ones we created for this simulation. It keeps bouncing around. There’s no way it’s real because it’s jumping from one point to one point to one point to one point, all over our map. Nothing can actually do that.We are pretty sure it’s faulty. We keep deleting it and it keeps coming back”. Whether the UAPs’ rapid movements occurred in the days leading up to the intercept or just on the 14th of November as a result of the intercept is a crucial question. There is no clear answer to this question.
Voorhis has remarked, “We tracked it (the UAP) going from 30,000 feet down to sea level at no time at all. Sonar said they got a hit”. In another interview he commented “According to one of the sonar guys, they (the object) were going at 70 plus knots underwater”. Elsewhere, Voorhis has said, “It (the object) was running over 500 knots in the water. There’s nothing on this planet that can run that fast…It’s just labelled submersive on my system”.
Recently, Voorhis has divulged how he learnt of the underwater UAP details, “It was second-hand information that was told to me at the time of the event”. He continues on to state that the sonar official who informed him of the information “went dark” when Voorhis attempted to confirm the information. Voorhis adds on “I have however been able to verify that all the sonar techs are now and forever under NDA and they did indeed have a passive track”. In this most recent comment by Voorhis, he provides the addendum that he has “no clue of the speed” of the underwater UAP.
Day has mentioned in at least three distinct instances (including the Unidentified TV show, his SCU interview and these comments) that a large number of UAP intercepts occurred following Fravor and Underwood’s UAP intercept, “At that point there’s all these other aircraft we are launching off the carrier and all of these other intercepts are happening. Before I knew it, I had these objects raining out of the sky. It was raining ufos…Every time these things (the UAP) would get in the visual arena, they would fall out of the sky. They’d wait until the interceptor had left and pop right back up to 28,000 feet. Right back where they were and continue going at 100 knots. It was as if they wanted to be left alone”. Day has also commented “We probably had 8 intercepts…They were all in about 10 miles of each other”. In an interview with Mick West, Day was specifically asked whether there were any further intercepts beyond Fravor and Underwood’s. He bluntly responds “No”.
Fravor and Dietrich have presented a clear, skeleton outline of what eventuated when they intercepted the UAP (this will be analysed in more detail in a subsequent section). Fravor and Dietrich clearly recall being navigated to the UAP’s location, observing white water and then seeing a UAP above the white water. Fravor then descended whilst the UAP simultaneously ascended. Day has an entirely different interpretation of what Fravor told him eventuated during the intercept. Day claims Fravor said “As soon as I intercepted it, it barrel rolled around me and went straight down to the water. I followed it down and that’s when I saw the disturbance in the water”.
Underwood, who filmed the UAP on his FLIR camera maintains that he never saw the elusive object with his eyes and states that he was indeed a significant distance from the UAP. Day also remembers this event differently. Asked how close Underwood came within the UAP, Day has responded, “It was almost a merge plot if I recall, it was in the visual arena, he could see it with his eyeballs”. These last few recollections of Day’s don’t mesh with Fravor or Underwood’s own interpretations of their encounters.
At virtually every juncture of the radar narratives, we encounter distinctly different stories. These stories vary significantly between Day and Voorhis and even differ wildly from interview to interview by the same person. This has made it quite challenging to both present and analyse the radar hits of the UAP.
Were There Really Anomalous Radar Readings?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs and the above claims are largely contingent upon two people’s recollections of an event that occurred many years after the two protagonists made the claims publicly (although Day did present them in a fictionalised style book in 2009). The sheer number of inconsistencies in the radar narrative raises the possibility that the witnesses are not accurate and that there are in fact no anomalous radar readings to explain. It is also plausible that Voorhis’ apparent statements that support Day’s belief that the UAP displayed hypersonic velocities were in fact derived from statements that Day said to Voorhis.
Kammerzell who was present on the USS Princeton and has presented himself as somewhat of a sceptical voice in the midst of the Nimitz UAP encounters vouches for the ultra-fast track speeds that appeared on the radar. He entered the Co-operative Information Centre and spoke to the officer on watch. Kammerzell recalls the officer saying, “There’s this one (object) that is not playing by the rules. It’s over here, it’s over here. It’s not one of the ones we created for this simulation. It keeps bouncing around. There’s no way it’s real because it’s jumping from one point to one point to one point to one point, all over our map”.
It is not in the nature of Day and Voorhis to conjure up stories ex nihilo. The inconsistencies outlined in the section above are generally not contending over whether events occurred or not, they are instead more focused on the finer details of the said events such as ‘how many objects did x’. The inconsistencies in the radar accounts can at least partially be attributed to the fallibility of memory affecting the details of the accounts.
Based on the ranks, radar operating positions and holistic testimonies of Day and Voorhis, I am confident that the general narrative of the radar scenario did play out. That is:
1. There were multiple UAP detected on the radar over the course of at least several days.
and
2. The UAP were captured on radar acting both anomalously and erratically in manners that aren’t associated with standard aircraft.
The next pertinent question is- what explains these radar readings?
What Caused the Anomalous Radar Readings?
To this point, I have largely presented the radar information based upon the recollections of Kevin Day and Gary Voorhis. I will now provide a more critical and speculative perspective in an attempt to explain the aforementioned radar claims.
The proposition is that a number of unidentified, physical craft produced radar tracks that defy our understanding of terrestrial aerodynamics. The craft allegedly dropped down from an elevation greater than 80,000 feet, travelled at what would widely be considered impossible speeds for human made objects and accelerated to 46,000 miles, all before decelerated in an instant to a standstill in earth’s atmosphere. Add in the lack of sonic boom, gargantuan power usage required for such a task, defiance of our understanding of physics and you have an event that sounds so fantastical that it would be beyond the scope of many science fiction writers. To immediately invoke extra-terrestrial technology as a deux ex machina to explain the supposed flying feats would be illogical. There is almost always a prosaic explanation for impossible sounding events. Some of these more mundane theories will now be analysed in the context of providing a mechanism to explain the anomalous radar readings.
The Balloons Being Launched From San Clemente Hypothesis
Day noticed the UAP appearing on his radar “Right around San Clemente Island”. There just so happens to be a United States Navy Base on San Clemente Island. The military launch drones from San Clemente Island and also use the island to test various electronic warfare methods. There is also a plethora of various, advanced military equipment housed on San Clemente Island.
An electronic warfare site on San Clemente Island.
In addition to the UAP appearing above San Clemente Island, they travelled south, down to Guadalupe Island. The area that the UAP were tracked in is known as the Southern California Range Complex, a.k.a. SOCAL. SOCAL is the very reason that the Nimitz strike group were in this region to begin with.
The SOCAL Range Complex. It extends from north of San Clemente Island to Guadalupe Island.
If an object such as a weather balloon was launched off San Clemente Island, in which direction would it likely travel? Tyler Rogoway, Editor-in-chief of ‘The War Zone’ has determined that a jetstream is positioned in the vicinity of the Channel Islands leading down towards where the Nimitz strike group were situated whilst taking part in the 2004 exercises. It’s plausible that balloons could have travelled southwards at 100 knots in the jet stream- a velocity that is typically high by wind standards.
A weather balloon. (Image source, Wikipedia, CambridgeBayWeather).
Below I have posted the wind speed and direction data for the dates from the 4th of November 2004 to the 16th of November 2004- the approximate dates of the UAP sightings on radar (although some accounts claim the UAP were sighted for just the three days preceding November the 14th). The wind data is derived from the closest weather station to the Nimitz strike group- Miramar, Marine Corps Air Station, just 7 miles from the San Diego coast. This data provides the wind speed in knots for various altitudes for 12 hourly intervals. The direction of the wind is also provided. For the balloons to be a plausible theory, the winds would need to be northerly and close to 100 knots.
Miramar Air Station, where the 2004 wind data was recorded, in comparison to San Clemente Island.
At the closest altitude to 28,000 feet (8,534 metres), the wind speeds and directions for each day were (note, the wind direction is the direction the wind was coming from) also, midnight refers to the start of that day:
4th November midnight: 9,144m, WSW, 47 knots
4th November noon: 9,042m, SW, 58 knots
5th November midnight: 8,230m, SW, 63 knots
5th November noon: 9,144m, SW, 72 knots
6th November midnight: 8,153m, SSW, 62 knots
6th November noon: 9,144m, SSW, 78 knots
7th November midnight: 8,230m, SW, 117 knots
7th November noon: 8,155m, S, 103 knots
8th November midnight: 8,534m, S, 65 knots
8th November noon: 8,534m, WSW, 67 knots
9th November midnight: 8,595m, NNW, 75 knots
9th November noon: 8,230m, NW, 69 knots
10th November midnight: 8,454m, WNW, 42 knots
10th November noon: 8,060m, WSW, 64 knots
11th November midnight: 8,230m, WNW, 82 knots
11th November noon: 8,839, W, 66 knots
12th November midnight: 9,144m, WSW, 62 knots
12th November noon: 9,144m, W, 67 knots
13th November midnight: 8,534m, NNW, 131 knots
13th November noon: 9,144m, NW, 47 knots
14th November midnight: 8,535m, NNW, 58 knots
14th November noon: 9,144m, N, 104 knots
15th November midnight: 8,094, N, 108 knots
15th November noon: 8,839m, E, 95 knots
16th November midnight: 8,780, N, 59 knots
From the 9th of November onward, the wind tended to be coming from somewhere close to the north-west direction. For the 13th, 14th and 15th of November dates, the wind speed was in the vicinity of 100 knots at times.
There are a number of reasons that the balloons could have been launched. These include to monitor the weather conditions (weather balloons), to gain military data (surveillance), electronic warfare (to provide false information to a radar) and finally, to simply test the radar capabilities. In addition, some balloons are known as ‘altitude controlled balloons’. These balloons have the ability to settle at a specific altitude such as 28,000 feet before drifting with the wind.
Richard M. Murphy wrote a Master’s thesis on the atmospheric impact on EM propagation. Parabunk has determined that Murphy’s thesis described 21 weather balloons being launched from areas either on San Clemente Island or part-way between San Clemente Island and Santa Catalina Island. These launches were over the period from the 5th of October 2004 to the 9th of October 2004. This was just one month before the UAP were detected on radar and in the same area that Day saw the UAP appear on radar. There is no suggestion that these balloons, which would have burst shortly after launch and weren’t altitude controlled, were the UAP seen by the Nimitz group. There is however a precedent that weather balloons had been launched from the San Clemente Island area late in 2004.
NASA’s X-43A which was launched on the 16th of November 2004.
NASA’s X-43A, an experimental, hypersonic rocket, had a test flight off the Californian coast on the 16th of November 2004, just two days post Fravor’s tic tac encounter. The rocket dropped out of its mothership at 43,000 feet and broke a world speed record at 110,000 feet, reaching a staggering 9.6 Mach. The X-43A itself is unlikely to be connected to the tic tac encounter however it is plausible that altitude controlled weather balloons were deployed in the days preceding the launch to determine the best day and time to test the X-43A.
Whilst there is no publicly available data showing balloon launches in the lead up to the 2004 X-43A test, there is documentation that the 2001 launch of the X-43A (which was tested in the same vicinity as the 2004 test) involved special balloons being launched in the lead up. This paper by Carter et al. states, “During the day of June 2, 2001 upper air weather balloons were released in support of air data calibrations and trajectory analysis of the launch vehicle and the research vehicle (X-43A). Four special balloons were released at Pt. Mugu and San Nicholas Island while two special balloons each were released at Vandenberg AFB and Edward AFB”.
NASA’s X-43A was tested in both 2001 and 2004 off the coast of California. There are no publicly available details of the 2004 launch (which occurred two days after Fravor’s tic tac sighting) being preceded by weather balloons to determine ideal weather conditions however such a weather balloon launch seems likely. The 2001 launch involved special balloons being released from the four locations above. 1. Point Mugu, 2. San Nicholas Island, 3. Vandenberg Air Force Base and 4. Edwards Air Force Base.
The AEGIS Glitch Hypothesis
Another scenario that is important to analyse is whether the UAP radar hits were the result of some glitch in the AEGIS system. The Princeton was the only vessel in the vicinity with the AEGIS system on board. The USS Higgins and USS Chafee also has the AEGIS but they were elsewhere at the time (docked in San Diego and returning from Pearl Harbour respectively).
Although the entire AEGIS system was rebooted once the misbehaving objects on the screen were detected, the objects again appeared after the reset. This alone significantly reduces the possibility that the objects were gremlins in the system. Kammerzell has considered this perspective yet believes the possibility lingers that the objects were still part of some AEGIS glitch, “People are acting like the AEGIS is infallible. There’s a reason procedures exist to correct ghost tracks; the AEGIS makes mistakes”. Even Day himself has spoken of his doubts that the radar tracks were real, “Leading up to that day (Fravor’s intercept), I either thought it (the tracks) were something entirely civilian related…or I thought it was some sort of system malfunction”.
According to Voorhis, several days after the tic tac sighting, the Princeton docked and “Everything on the ship got wiped”. This included virtually everything that was unrelated to running and navigating the Princeton. Voorhis has also explained that manufacturer representatives came on board the Princeton to reinstall the CEC which was quite an undertaking. It’s theoretically possible that the reinstalling of the Co-operative Engagement Capability system removed the glitches making the mystifying tracks disappear from the radar screens. An argument against this theory is that those on board would have been aware if the tracks suddenly disappeared after the CEC was reinstalled yet no-one has suggested this.
The Radar-Deception Technology Hypothesis
The first time the Co-operative Engagement Capability system was used in real-world training on a large-scale happened to be in November 2004 as part of the Nimitz Strike group. The Co-operative Engagement Capability system essentially joins together the entire strike group’s radars and sensors to produce a shared picture of the surrounding landscape. The fact that UAP were detected during this first large-scale trial is arguably rather telling. It is plausible that the US military wanted to test the limitations of the Co-operative Engagement Capability system. Consequentially, they may have trialled whether it was possible to deceive this technology by tricking it into thinking craft were flying around- leading to the perplexing manoeuvres that were captured on board the Princeton’s radar.
There is a historical military precedent for a technology being used to trick radars into believing that aircraft are in the surrounding airspace. This belongs in the realm of ‘electronic warfare’. In 1960, the Soviet Union moved their radar system, known as ‘Tall King’ to Cuba. The CIA launched a project that was known as ‘PALLADIUM’. A military cargo plane that went by the name ‘the C-97’ was stuffed full of elaborately designed electronics. The Soviet’s Tall King radar was fooled into thinking that a fleet of planes was in the sky.
In more recent times, the US military has been developing a system known as ‘Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors’ a.k.a. NEMESIS. Using boats, vehicles, submarines and aircraft, a network of electronic sensors are deployed. They have the ability to trick the enemy’s radars and sensors thereby providing the illusion of groups of navy vessels on the sea or crucially, large numbers of aircraft in the sky.
Gary Voorhis has doubted the military’s ability to fool the advanced SPY-1 radar system. When asked whether electronic warfare such as NEMESIS could trick the Princeton’s radar, Voorhis remarked, “The systems they refer to were barely a tech at the time and not even in the test phase. And they would have been able to spoof everything but spy1-b. Spy would have not been spoofed”.
Although NEMESIS is a relatively recent innovation and despite Voorhis’ refutation, it is plausible that some beta test or equitable system was trialled in 2004. A system that depicted a fleet of erratically moving ghost planes that settled down to a 28,000 foot altitude before drifting south at 100 knots. An innovation that may have been trialled on the Nimitz strike group’s new Co-operative Engagement Capability system.
The above theories sound like reasonably logical explanations for the freely moving objects captured on radar…Until we consider that Commanding Officer David Fravor was led by radar to the location of one of the UAP. It was here that he encountered a tic tac object which he has described as “I think it was not from this world……”
Part 3- Fravor’s Encounter with the Tic Tac
“You are a ghost, driving a meat-coated skeleton, made from stardust, riding a rock, hurtling through space. Fear nothing.” ~ Anonymous
During the morning of the 14th of November 2004, Senior Chief Kevin Day, who had been meticulously tracking the UAP on the Princeton’s SPY-1 radar system, noticed a group of approximately five UAP drifting southwards. They happened to be heading for the segment of sky that a long-planned aircraft training exercise was scheduled for, featuring fighter planes from the USS Nimitz. Day spoke to the highest echelon on the Princeton, Captain Smith, detailing his safety concerns for the pilots. Day recommended that the closest UAP on the radar screen be intercepted and Smith dutifully agreed.
Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kurth was the Commanding Officer of the Marine Fighter Attack-232. At roughly 11:10AM, Kurth took off from the USS Nimitz in his single-seater, F/A-18C Hornet aircraft. Whilst Kurth was airborne he was unexpectedly contacted by the USS Princeton’s Operations Specialist. The Operations Specialist summoned Kurth to investigate an unidentified, airborne object. Kurth considered this request at the very least, curious, due to the Nimitz strike group’s fairly close proximity to the safety of San Diego. The Operations Specialist asked Kurth “Hey, what (ammunition) you got on board?” Kurth bluntly responded, “None”.
Kurth was guided by the Operations Specialist to a remote locale that was around 60 miles south-west of the Nimitz. As Kurth came within 5-10 nautical miles of the location, he was beginning to run low on fuel. Kurth was instructed to abort his mission as a pair of Super Hornets were now being redirected to the location. Before Kurth returned to the USS Nimitz, he decided to quickly fly over the area he had been navigated to. He noticed an abnormal looking, circular area of white water on an otherwise calm ocean’s surface. The white water had a diameter of between 164 and 328 feet. Kurth described the white water as resembling the disturbance that would be caused by a rapidly sinking ship. Kurth left the scene without viewing the UAP he was directed towards. His Hornet’s radar also failed to detect the elusive flying object.
David Fravor
Commanding Officer, David Fravor. (Image source: Carrier Project)
Just by looking at David Fravor, you would be unable to tell that he was one of the United States most eminent fighter pilots. At the time of the Nimitz strike group training in 2004, Fravor had salt and pepper hair that was just beginning to retreat back on his head like a surrendering army. He had a chin dimple underlining his gentle facial features that would perhaps better befit an accountant. On the precipice of Fravor’s fifth birthday, he watched on in awe as fellow Ohioan Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first person to set foot on the moon. This event inspired Fravor to become a fighter pilot. In 1988, Fravor graduated from the United States Navy Academy with a degree in Oceanography, Chemical and Physical.
Fravor rose to the rank of Commander before becoming a Commanding Officer in mid-October of 2004, just one month before his famed tic tac encounter. At the time of the November 2004 training, Fravor had every qualification that was possibly attainable for a fighter pilot. He had 16-years of experience, 3,500 hours of flying time in the cockpit and he was the leader of the VFA-41 Black Aces squadron. On board the USS Nimitz, Fravor was ranked approximately 20th out of the 5,000 plus military personnel. In short, you would be hard pressed to find a more reliable UAP witness on planet earth than David Fravor.
Alex Dietrich was the great-granddaughter of Roman Starzl, one of the early pioneers of the science fiction genre. Dietrich attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy- which is still ranked as one of the top 10 schools in the entire United States for mathematics and science. Dietrich was an energetic teenager who was always seeking out adventures. She eventually decided that becoming a fighter pilot would tick all of her thrill-seeking boxes. Dietrich attended the Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps and graduated in May of 2001. She then relocated to flight school and was in the process of embarking on her flight training when the terrorist attacks on September the 11th unfolded. These events moulded Dietrich’s world view. They motivated her to focus her efforts on both something bigger than herself and on contributing to the world in a meaningful way.
Roman Starzl was the great-grandfather of Alex Dietrich. Starzl was a pioneer in the science fiction genre.
At the time of the tic tac encounter, Dietrich was in many ways the antithesis of Fravor. She was a fresh-faced, new graduate with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade, who had to contend with the historically male-centric field of fighter pilots. In 2004, Dietrich had short, frayed, auburn hair and a carefree facade that shielded her inner tenacity. Above all else, Dietrich had a determination to pilot fighter planes.
The Super Hornets and Weapon Systems Officers
An F/A-18F Super Hornet, the same model as flown by Fravor and Dietrich. (Image source, Wikipedia, Kevin T. Murray JR)
The fighter planes that encountered the tic tac were shiny new F/A-18F Super Hornets, fresh from the production line of the Boeing factory. The Super Hornets cost roughly US$70 million each. As Fravor has succinctly put it, “They don’t give those to morons”.
Fravor and Dietrich sat in the front seats of their respective planes whilst each Super Hornet also carried a Weapon Systems Officer, known as a ‘WSO’, in the rear seat. A WSO’s role involves operating the weapon systems and all of the air operations of an aircraft.
Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight.
Fravor’s WSO hasn’t been named publicly whilst Dietrich’s WSO was the squadron’s Lieutenant Commander, Jim Slaight. The experienced Slaight, only second in the squadron’s hierarchy behind Fravor, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1993. Slaight had amassed in excess of 2,700 hours of flight time in the cockpit. He sat in Dietrich’s Super Hornet to guide her and feed her advice.
The Pilots’ Journey to the Tic Tac
November 14th 2004 was a placid maritime day in the Pacific Ocean waters surrounding the Nimitz strike group. The winds were so gentle, they would struggle to blow out the candles on a birthday cake. The sea was almost as smooth as a velvet tablecloth and there were blue skies to the horizon in every direction as far as the eye could see.
At precisely 1:32PM, Fravor’s Super Hornet took off from the USS Nimitz with his WSO in the back seat. Dietrich’s Super Hornet, launched shortly after, with Slaight in the plane’s rear, acting as a WSO for the novice Dietrich. Following take-off, both Super Hornets were provided with standard instructions by the E-2 Hawkeye plane, “‘Hey, why don’t you just go ahead and proceed to your CAP point”. Both pilots headed to their CAP point with the anticipation of taking part in the training exercises. A CAP Point is a secretive point in the sky that fighter pilots treat as their aerial home base- a location they can fly to before or after engaging in a scrimmage.
At approximately 2:00PM, with an air of worry in her voice, the Princeton controller inquired of Fravor, “Hey, this is Princeton control, say your loadout.” Fravor was taken back by this seemingly unusual question. They were only a relatively short distance from the safety of the US coastline, why was the Princeton asking if his plane has ammunition on board? Knowing that for safety reasons, training flights don’t carry weaponry, Fravor let out a slight chuckle, before responding, “I got a cat-o’-nine”. Fravor’s slang response referred to the plane only possessing a pair of captive-carry training missiles that are essentially metal tubes that don’t detach from the plane. The Princeton controller explained to Fravor and Dietrich, “Hey, we’re going to cancel the training…We got a real world vector”.
Dietrich questioned the more seasoned Slaight who was sitting in the rear seat of her plane, “What do you think it is?” Slaight pondered for a second before responding, “Drug runners” which are a semi-common occurrence on the waters spanning the coastline between Mexico and the United States. Dietrich being a novice fighter pilot who was keen for adventure responded zealously back to Slaight, “Bad ass!”
The Princeton began to guide both Super Hornets to the closest UAP, situated approximately 60 miles away, due west from the pilots’ CAP Point. Dietrich’s Super Hornet trailed behind Fravor’s plane by about 1/3rd of a nautical mile. During the journey to the location, the controller started to inform both of the pilots of the peculiar back story of the UAP. The controller explained to Fravor, “Hey Sir, we’ve seen these objects. For two weeks they’ve been coming down…We need you to go investigate, we want to know what these are”.
The Princeton continually called out BRAA (barrier, range, altitude, aspect) to the pilots. This largely consisted of phrases such as “It’s two, seven, zero at thirty miles at 20,000 feet” translated as ‘the UAP is in a westerly direction, 30 nautical miles away and it’s flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet’. The Super Hornets’ journey to the destination was fairly run-of-the-mill. Perhaps the only curious aspect was that the duo of Super Hornets failed to detect the UAP on their brand new APG-73 radars. The radars were set on an envelope setting which scanned in every direction for 20 miles. These same radars had been working perfectly during the training session only minutes earlier.
Eventually the Princeton operator radioed “Merge plot, you should have visual”. Merge plot refers to two objects occupying the same piece of sky on a 2-D radar screen. In other words, the Super Hornets had been guided to the precise location of the UAP. The planes and UAP were both inhabiting the same vertical column in the sky. The precise accuracy of the merge plot is classified however it is thought to true to less than half a mile. This half mile radius is a very short distance in aviation terms. If the object was within half a mile from Fravor and Dietrich’s Super Hornets, they should have been able to see it. According to Dietrich, “We were scanning where we would expect to see something that we are merging with and we don’t see it”.
According to Day who was simultaneously watching the radar whilst being tuned in to the Super Hornets’ radio frequency, “As soon as he (Fravor) got to the merge plot position, the object which he was intercepting dropped from 28,000 feet down to 50 feet above the water in 0.78 seconds”.
The White Water
At 2:30PM, the Super Hornets had reached the location and altitude of the object they had been navigated towards, yet anticlimactically, there was nothing to see. The four pilots surveyed the surrounding area and their eyes were drawn to a section of white water on the ocean’s surface below them. According to Fravor, the white water was spread across an area approximately the same size as a 737 plane which equates to 110 to 130 feet in length. Fravor has described the white water’s shape as resembling a cross. The lengthier part of the white water cross extended east-west, whilst there were a few sections of the white water also extending in a north-south orientation.
An artist’s impression of the white water. (Image source: reddit user /rnadal)
The white water stood out in what was otherwise a calm ocean. Fravor has described the conditions surrounding the white water, “The water is perfectly calm. No white caps. I mean it’s literally a perfect San Diego, California day”. Dietrich concurs with Fravor’s sentiment, “It was a cloudless day, hardly any wind. The sea surface was mirror-smooth”. Fravor and Dietrich’s recollections of the general lack of clouds in the vicinity are supported by zoom.earth imagery of the day and time in question.
The pilots contemplated what could have been causing the conspicuous section of white water. When there is a significant amount of white water amid a tranquil sea, there is typically an object submerged under the white water, causing the waves to break at a differing elevation to the surrounding water. Fravor has described the white water he witnessed in similar terms, “Something like if you see a seamount rock underwater when you’re standing on the shore and the waves were breaking over and you’re like ‘what is that?’ It’s usually because there’s a rock under the water”.
Fravor is adamant that some object was lurking beneath the ocean’s surface “It’s obvious there was something there”. He has continued on to state “If you took a 737, put it about 15-20 feet below the water so there are waves breaking over the top, you are going to get white water where the plane is at, you would see this kind of shape”.
When Dietrich noticed the white water, she had a similar judgement to Fravor. Dietrich believed “Somebody has crashed and this aircraft is sinking”. Dietrich began to mentally contemplate what a search and rescue mission would entail. She estimated the white water’s dimensions as 60 feet wide by 80 feet in length. Dietrich described the white area as being vaguely oval-shaped. She has additionally explained that the central section of the white water was a lighter colour and smoother than the surrounding white water.
Slaight described the white water as both bubbling and frothing. In the moment, he attributed it to being caused by a submarine that he suspected was lurking just beneath the surface.
Whilst the four pairs of eyes in the Super Hornets stared transfixed on the unusually pale section of the ocean’s surface, Slaight noticed something else just above the white water. Slaight exclaimed to Fravor, “Hey, do you…?” Before Slaight could complete his sentence, Fravor interrupted him with the words “What the hell is that?”
Observations of the Tic Tac
The four pairs of eyes that were contained in the Super Hornets at 20,000 feet saw an unusual object situated about 50 feet about the white water disturbance. Fravor has said, “We see the white water and that’s what draws our eyes down there, otherwise we’d have never seen it (the object)”.
Fravor initially suspected that the object may have been a helicopter. He reasoned that helicopters generally stay below an altitude of 200 feet at sea. He then deduced that it was unlikely to be a helicopter from the Nimitz strike group due to their remote location- away from strike group and far out to sea. The possibility lingered that the object could still be a helicopter, just not one of theirs. This theory was quickly dismissed by Fravor when he failed to notice any rotor wash: an inevitable by-product of a helicopter flying so close to the ocean’s surface. Even from Fravor’s elevated altitude he could tell there was no rotor wash. Fravor then realised that the object didn’t appear to have any rotors at all. He thought “That’s kind of weird!”
Slaight initially suspected that the object was a missile. He had only just taken his eyes off the white water which he considered to be the remnants of a submarine and he created a possible narrative in his head that the submarine had launched the missile.
From Dietrich’s perspective, the object looked like “A tic-tac coated tablet, especially the shape, but also the smooth surface. It just looked like that.” Dietrich additionally described the enigmatic object as “About the size of a normal aircraft fuselage. It was white with a matte finish”. The airborne object bamboozled Dietrich’s science-trained brain, not just for how it looked but crucially for what it lacked, “No windows, no flat surfaces… No intakes, no smoke trails…No doors or lights visible”. She described the length of the ‘tic tac’ at around 40 feet with the addendum that it was “Large enough to scare the shit out of me”. Dietrich initially believed the disturbed water was related to the tic tac and she theorised that a United States Navy submarine had just launched an unannounced, test missile before retreating back underwater.
Like Dietrich, Slaight also described the object as being identical to a giant looking “tic tac”. He also categorised it as off-white and having dimensions in the range of 40-50 feet long and 10-15 feet wide. Slaight recounted the tic tac as having quite well-defined edges however along these edges there was “a fuzzy or wavy looking border” that spanned the entire surface of the object. Slaight has continued on to describe “It looked like what the heat waves would look like coming off a hot paved road or what the carrier deck looked like if you looked across it when in the Gulf in the Middle-East”.
Fravor, who would later get a close-up glimpse of the object, also described it as a “white tic tac looking object”. Fravor has estimated the length of the tic tac to be in the 40-50 foot range, “The way I estimate that is, I mean I got a lot of time fighting other airplanes, it’s about the size of a Hornet’s fuselage”.
Fravor’s drawing of the tic tac. Based on observing the FLIR video, Fravor would later add antennas to the tic tac’s base.
Superficially, it seems farfetched that the pilots were able to describe the details of the tic tac, located just above the ocean’s surface, from a vantage point as elevated as 20,000 feet. If we take the upper bound of Slaight and Fravor’s estimate of the tic tac’s length, which was 50 feet, then the tic tac would occupy 0.14 angular degrees of sky from the pilots’ initial, 20,000 foot viewpoint. This is the equivalent of viewing an object in the sky that is approximately one third of the size of the moon. Unlike people on earth looking at the moon, the pilots’ moving observational point coupled with the tic tac itself moving, would help provide an inkling into the tic tac’s physical details.
When Dietrich first spotted the tic tac flying approximately 50 feet above the section of white water, it exhibited unusual movements, “It behaved in a way that we were surprised, unnerved. It almost didn’t accelerate. It jumped from spot to spot and tumbled around in a way that was unpredictable”.
Whilst viewing the scene from 20,000 feet, Fravor had a similar recollection of the tic tac’s initial movements, “What we see is this white tic tac looking object, just above the surface of the water, pointing north-south. It’s going (moving): north, south, east, west. It’s just radically moving: forward, back, left, right at will. It’s moving around the disturbance, the white water that we see”. Fravor has compared the tic tac’s erratic behaviour to a table tennis ball, “This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another. Similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against the wall”.
Fravor has said “It (the tic tac) was biased towards the bottom half (of the white water)” which happened to be the southern end of the white water cross. Crucially, the tic tac’s movements didn’t have any effect on the ocean’s surface as would be expected for an airborne craft hovering just above the sea.
Fravor’s Engagement with the Tic Tac
Fravor and Dietrich were circling their Super Hornets at 20,000 feet, whilst the tic tac remained just 50 feet above the ocean’s surface displaying a range of jolting, erratic movements. With the words, “I’m in”, Fravor decided to venture down to take a closer look at the mysterious tic tac object. Dietrich who was at this point was beginning to feel uncomfortable, responded with the words “Okay, I’ve got high cover”. Dietrich was going to continue circling at the 20,000 foot altitude. As Fravor has explained, “Now we’ve got some separation, we’ll get it from different views. The other airplane will kind of have a God’s-eye-view of everything that’s going on, as I go down and check this thing out”.
Fravor began to gently descend. As he circled downwards from his initial altitude of 20,000 feet down to 18,000 feet, the tic tac which had continued its jilted movements just above the ocean’s surface, suddenly turned to an east-west orientation and began to ascend. Fravor has described the tic tac’s initial rise as “It goes from a hover to a pretty aggressive climb”. Fravor has continued on to say, “You can’t just start a climb. I have to lower the nose, I have to accelerate, I have to start coming up. This thing did it like it was no big deal”. Dietrich concurs with Fravor’s general description, “The subject seemed to recognise that we were there and went from this very low altitude to manoeuvring in an erratic, very rapid manner”.
Fravor believes that the tic tac’s rise was in response to him descending his Super Hornet. Fravor has remarked that the tic tac “Kind of recognises that we’re there and it starts to mirror us”. It is perhaps best to think of the ensuing movements of Fravor and the tic tac as analogous to looking at a mile wide clock face from above. The white water (which the tic tac was over) is at the centre of the clock face. As Fravor descended and travelled clockwise around the outer edge of the clock, the tic tac simultaneously ascended and travelled clockwise continually staying around the opposite edge of the clock to Fravor.
As Fravor observed the tic tac travelling around the opposite side of the clock face he called out “I’m engaged, I’m engaged, oh shit!” As Fravor reached the nine o’clock position on the clock, the tic tac reached the three o’clock position- the opposite side of the clock face to Fravor. At this stage, the tic tac was still around 14,000 feet below Fravor’s altitude however Fravor continued to descend and the tic tac continued to rise. The tableau was akin to two prized boxers eyeing each other off, circling the ring, staring each other down.
Fravor and the tic tac continued circling around the edge of the imaginary clock face with the tic tac continuing to remain at the opposite side of the clock face to Fravor. Both Fravor’s Super Hornet and the tic tac completed one entire lap of the clock face. Fravor was back to the nine o’clock position and the tic tac was back to the three o’clock position. Whilst flying in this circular trajectory, Fravor continued to descend and the tic tac continued to ascend, coming closer to Fravor’s altitude.
Fravor was constantly monitoring the tic tac’s movements as the two craft converged on one another. At this stage, Fravor made some mental notes about the tic tac, “It has no wings. I don’t see any exhaust plume, you know, like an older airplane would have smoke. There’s none of that”. Fravor twice attempted to slave his radar to achieve a lock on the tic tac however this endevour failed and the tic tac somehow avoided detection on the APG-73 radar.
According to the Event Summary document, Fravor estimated the tic tac’s speed, as it ascended, at 600 to 700 knots (690-805 miles per hour). The Event Summary also states that the tic tac turned inside of Fravor’s turn radius. In other words, the tic tac was travelling in circles with a smaller diameter than Fravor’s circles.
Meanwhile a WSO sat in the back of Fravor’s plane and Dietrich and Slaight watched this cat and dog dalliance from a bird’s eye view. They remained linked up to Fravor’s radio frequency and the USS Princeton radar operators were also acutely tuned it. Dietrich has described the heightened stress of the situation, “The whole time we’re on the radio with each other, just losing our minds”.
After the journey around the mile wide clock face, the tic tac was just 3,000 feet below Fravor’s Super Hornet. It had arrived at the three o’clock side of the clock face compared to Fravor’s nine o’clock side. It was at that moment that Fravor made the spontaneous decision to intercept the tic tac. He made a bee-line straight across the diameter of the clock face, aiming straight for where the puzzling craft was due to arrive. Fravor has said, “The quickest way, we know as kids, to get someone, you can keep going around the circle nothing’s going to happen. You cut across the circle”. Fravor aimed his Super Hornet at the three o’clock position on the mile-wide, superimposed clock, a position the tic tac was heading straight for. Fravor has described his manoeuvre, “I’m about two to three thousand feet above it. I just dropped my nose aggressively and I cut across the circle and it’s coming this way. It’s because I’m trying to fly to where it’s going to be because I want to join on it. I want to see how close I can get to it”.
At 12,000 feet in altitude, Fravor headed across the clock face’s diameter, drawing upon his thousands of hours of experience to perfectly time his intercept of the tic tac. Fravor was headed for the three o’clock position and the tic tac was headed for the three o’clock position. Both craft were at an equitable height. As Fravor was within half a mile of the tic tac, it accelerated in front of where Fravor’s Super Hornet’s nose was pointed.
The Disappearance of the Tic Tac
The tic tac accelerated in a southerly direction, in front of where Fravor’s Super Hornet’s nose was pointed. It left the scene at an angle slightly above the horizontal. It accelerated so unfathomably quickly that it simply disappeared from the four highly-trained pilots sights. Fravor radioed Dietrich’s Super Hornet, which was still watching from an elevated vantage point, with the question “You guys see it?” He received the response, “No, it’s gone!”
Slaight, who had a bird’s eye view of the tic tac, has described its bewildering disappearance, “It was there….then it rifled off, out of sight in a split second. It was as if the object was shot out of a rifle. There was no gradual acceleration or spooling up period, it just shot out of sight immediately. I have never seen anything like it before or since. No human could have withstood that kind of acceleration”.
Fravor had a different, close-up perspective of the tic tac’s vanishing act but he paints a similar story to Slaight, “It starts to accelerate. It has an incredible rate of acceleration. And it takes off and it goes south. And it takes off like nothing I’ve ever seen. It literally one minute it’s there and the next minute it’s like, poof, and it’s gone”. Fravor has also described how long it took the tic tac to vanish from view, “This thing disappeared in a second; it was just gone”.
Dietrich has also described the scene from her lofty vantage point,“He (Fravor) turned with it then it just disappeared. It zoomed out of the picture so fast that we all were scrambling on the radio”. Dietrich has also characterised the tic tac’s movements, “It was so unnerving because it was so unpredictable. High g, rapid velocity, rapid acceleration”.
The world’s fastest plane is the SR-71 which has reached a maximum speed of 2,193 miles per hour. This is equivalent to just under Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). Travelling at this record breaking speed it would take the SR-71 somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds to disappear from in front of you to beyond the horizon. As the experienced pilot Fravor explains, “Even at 35 miles a minute (the speed of the SR-71) I’m going to be able to see this thing turn into a little dot as it goes off into the horizon”.
The SR-71, is the world’s fastest plane. It would take 10-15 seconds for the SR-71 to disappear from in front of you to beyond the horizon and you would view it getting smaller in the distance. In addition, it would create a sonic boom. The tic tac disappeared beyond the horizon in an instant and created no such sonic boom. (Image source: Sudson Brohmer)
In contrast, the tic tac vanished in virtually an instant. Fravor has recounted, “The thing that we saw disappeared in a second. Just gone. That’s from two different angles. Remember, the other airplane is 8,000 feet above me because we get close to it about 12,000 feet”. Additionally, Fravor has described the conditions at the time of the encounter, “It’s unrestricted visibility, you can see all the way to the horizon”.
After the four pilots attempted to comprehend the tic tac object they had witnessed, Fravor said “Hey, let’s turn around and let’s go back to see what was in the water. Was there something there?” The two Super Hornets flew over the section of the ocean that had been bubbling with white water just minutes earlier. It was calm. It was flat. The water was blue.
The Tic Tac Appears at Fravor’s CAP Point
After noting that the white water was no longer visible, the quartet of shaken pilots aboard the Super Hornets began to fly back east. Fravor opened up by saying “I’m kind of weirded out”. The radar operator aboard the USS Princeton then radioed in to Fravor, “Sir, you’re not going to believe this but that thing is back at your CAP point!”
‘CAP’ Point is an acronym for ‘Combat Air Patrol’ Point. It refers to a classified location in the sky that pilots can use as something akin to an aerial home base. Pilots can prepare for a scrimmage at a CAP Point, return after a scrimmage or spend their time at the CAP Point on the lookout for any threats. The CAP Point consists of a specific longitude, latitude and altitude, all rolled into one that refers to a singular point in the space of a battlefield. A pilot’s CAP Point location is a closely guarded secret. It should only be known by the pilots and a handful of people on board the ship that need to know the location for navigating or operational purposes.
Fravor’s CAP Point was located approximately 40 miles from the ship in a southerly direction. The distance from where the tic tac vanished whilst flying past Fravor, to the CAP Point was nearabouts 60 miles. According to Fravor, “This thing went from wherever we were at to about 60 miles in maybe 30 or 40 seconds. It’s already over there. They didn’t track it, it just appeared. He just shows back up on the radar and they go ‘it’s here.’ ”
Asked whether Fravor had been to the CAP Point before, Day has responded, “No. They shouldn’t have known where it was. That was the bizarreness of it all. How the hell did it know where the CAP station was? I mean, it was right on it. Directly on it. Not close by it, on it. On that point in space.” Whilst it can’t be known for certain that the object that appeared at Fravor’s CAP Point was the identical tic tac that Fravor had viewed just earlier, according to Dietrich, it would have at least had the same symbology on the radar as the tic tac.
At approximately 3:04PM, Fravor and Dietrich landed their Super Hornets back on the USS Nimitz runway. The pilot foursome disembarked their planes and began to remove their flight gear. The four pilots enlightened fellow fighter pilot, Chad Underwood, of their encounter with the tic tac. After hearing of their adventurous account, Underwood became fixated on finding the tic tac and capturing it on camera.
Dietrich has spoken about her experience after landing back on the USS Nimitz, “We went to our intelligence officer, our intelligence team on the ship, and we gave them the information that we had. So in that respect it was taken seriously. Our colleagues, our friends, and the folks on the ship certainly teased us, and we had a good laugh about, again, the absurdity of the situation. We’re certainly conditioned as Americans, or in our culture, with all of our movies and TV shows, to make fun of UFOs and people who see them. So on a personal side, there was teasing and this banter that was happening, but then on a professional side, I did feel that it was recorded, that the incident was noted by the chain-of-command”.
Slaight was debriefed within one hour of landing as is standard practise after being airborne. It was during this debrief that he asked the intelligence officer on duty whether there was a submarine in the vicinity of the area where the quartet of pilots saw the white water. The intelligence officer checked and immediately returned to Slaight with a response- No, a submarine hadn’t caused the white water.
Upon landing, Fravor informed his WSO, who sat behind him throughout the entire encounter, “You know we’re going to catch maximum shit for this”. As news of Fravor’s tic tac face-to-face spread across the USS Nimitz, the tone on board shifted and Fravor’s premonition became reality. The four pilots had to endure a plethora of ‘UFO’ jokes. One of the intelligence officers pushed beyond Fravor’s tolerance levels by joking that there was going to be a “Wide-scale investigation of the encounter”. According to Fravor, “When I determined that was not true, we had a little talk.”
The USS Nimitz began playing a range of extra-terrestrial themed movies on a 12-hour repeat. This included: Men in Black, Men in Black 2, Signs and Independence Day. Additionally, Fravor’s tic tac encounter made its way to the comic on the back of the Air Wing’s schedule that circulated amongst the pilots.
The Hawkeye
An E-2 Hawkeye plane (Image source: Wikipedia, George R. Kusnor).
Whilst Fravor’s encounter with the tic tac was unfolding, the E-2 Hawkeye plane was airborne. Those aboard the Hawkeye had previously been contacted by the Princeton and it was as a result of this conversation that they were asked to navigate Fravor and Dietrich’s Super Hornets to the tic tac. The tic tac didn’t initially show up on the Hawkeye’s radar. The Princeton provided the Hawkeye with the precise latitude and longitude of the tic tac and the Hawkeye narrowed its radar beam to this location, detecting the tic tac but this detection blip was only weak. The Princeton then took control of the Super Hornets’ navigation. The Hawkeye tuned in to the radio frequency of the events unfolding around Fravor. This is the generally accepted story of the Hawkeye’s involvement with the tic tac. Aviation technician, Patrick Hughes who was aboard the USS Nimitz, believes that those aboard the Hawkeye had their own fleeting encounter with the tic tac.
The Hawkeye was airborne and carrying five people during the time frame of Fravor’s encounter with the tic tac. One of these five people was an inflight technician whose name hasn’t been publicly released. He is only referred to as the pseudonymous ‘Roger’. When the Hawkeye landed after Fravor’s intercept, Hughes recalls Roger entering his room on the Nimitz, “When he walks in the door (‘Roger’) he’s kind of looking not his normal self. He starts telling us, he starts to tell us what happened”.
Hughes claims that Roger told him, “The same object referred to by Commander Fravor comes up alongside the Hawkeye, forms up where everybody can see them, then takes back off again”. Hughes continues Roger’s story after the Hawkeye landed, “The entire crew was met by somebody who took them down. They got debriefed, they got talked to, they were told not to repeat it. They signed non-disclosure agreements and it was after that Roger came back to the work centre to hint to us what was going on”.
According to Hughes, Roger was part-way through telling his recount of the Hawkeye’s close-up encounter with the tic tac when his division chief walked in and reprimanded Roger with the words, “If you are told not to talk about it, we’re not talking about it”. Hughes suspects that he never managed to hear the entire Hawkeye-tic tac encounter story from Roger.
Filmmaker, Dave Beaty secured a rare and brief interview with ‘Roger’. Within this interview, Roger remarked, “I did see something that transited very quickly by our E-2, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. The ‘object’ joined up with us briefly and all on board had a view for a matter of a few seconds…It gave me chills because I was acting Radar Officer in the E-2 in the air at the time of the event”. Upon landing back on the Nimitz, Roger recalls following an individual for a below deck debriefing. Roger was informed “It did not happen” before being made to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
It should be emphasised that the Hawkeye-tic tac encounter is not part of the standard recount of the general Nimitz and tic tac narrative but it is important to be aware of this version of the story.
The Location of the Events
The location of the USS Nimitz at the time of Fravor’s intercept of the tic tac. The USS Nimitz was at the co-ordinates: 31°29.3’N 117°52.8’W.
Many of the tic tac related events can be pinpointed down to a narrow location thanks to the Nimitz deck logs as well as the event summary. At 11:30AM, the USS Nimitz was at 31°12.3’N 117°52.2’W. This location is 86 miles south-west of the Mexican western coastal city of Ensenada. At 2:10PM, around the time of the intercept, the USS Nimitz was at 31°29.3’N 117°52.8’W. This indicates that the USS Nimitz had moved approximately 19.6 miles north between 11:30AM and 2:10PM on November 14th 2004. At the time of Fravor’s tic tac encounter, the Nimitz was 73 miles off the Mexican coast and west-south-west of Ensenada.
As the Super Hornets flew south from the USS Nimitz to take part in their training exercises, they were informed of the UAP. The pilots were then instructed to fly approximately 60 nautical miles west. This suggests that the tic tac encounter occurred in a general area between 60 and 80 nautical miles south-west of the USS Nimitz’s location. This location is close to 140 miles off the Mexican coast.
The tic tac encounter occurred approximately 60-80 miles south-west of the USS Nimitz’s location.
According to Petty Officer Jason Turner who was aboard the USS Princeton, “Typically we are within a few miles of the Nimitz. Typically when they do air operations, we are right behind them, about a mile…The time that we were there (the time of Fravor’s tic tac encounter), they were doing their air warfare exercises so we were quite a few miles apart”.
At the time of Fravor’s tic tac encounter, the remainder of the Nimitz strike group was fairly well dispersed. The USS Higgins was docked back in San Diego and the USS Chafee has just started to return from Pearl Harbour. The precise location of the submarine, the USS Louisville is unknown.
Inconsistencies and Uncertainties With Fravor’s Interception of the Tic Tac
There are a number of inconsistencies between various accounts of Fravor’s interception of the tic tac. These inconsistencies will be presented here and serve to highlight the fallibility of memory, the different interpretations by multiple witnesses and possible discrepancies between early reports of Fravor’s encounter with the tic tac and later statements by the witnesses.
Arguably the most crucial inconsistency in the entire Nimitz event pertains to the length of time the four pilots in the two Super Hornets actually lay their eyes of the tic tac. Fravor has said, “There was four of us in the aeroplanes literally watching this thing for roughly 5 minutes”. In another interview Fravor has quite unambiguously re-emphasised this point, “The four of us looked at it for five minutes with our eyes”.
Dietrich who piloted the second Super Hornet has a decisively different recollection of how long she saw the tic tac for, “Visual for 8-10 seconds after merge plot”. She has again reaffirmed this timeframe by saying, “I only had visual of Tic Tac for 8-10 sec from high cover”. Additionally, Dietrich has cast aspersions on a 5-minute timeframe, “If I had a full 5 min with it I would have been able to give you a make, model and serial number!” Dietrich has also said “5 min would be a lifetime for a visual and dogfighting”.
When Fravor was told of Dietrich’s 8-10 second estimate of her visual on the tic tac, he responded “We saw it hovering and flew around the circle and then cut across to get closer. Based on a slow turn rate and slow descent I say roughly 5 minutes. Could have been less but it was way more than a few seconds”.
The next inconsistency relating to Fravor’s encounter with the tic tac pertains to the precise nature of the manoeuvrings by both Fravor’s Super Hornet and the tic tac. In the ‘Fravor’s Engagement with the Tic Tac’ section further up this article, Fravor described steering his Super Hornet downwards in a clockwise motion whilst travelling in a circular trajectory. Fravor also recalled the tic tac consistently staying on the opposite side of the circle to him as it ascended. When the two craft were at an equitable altitude, Fravor cut across the circle, headed for the tic tac and the tic tac accelerated out of sight.
According to Slaight who had a bird’s-eye-view vantage point of the encounter, in the rear seat of Dietrich’s plane, the tic tac and Fravor’s manoeuvrings were significantly different to how Fravor described. The beginning of Slaight’s recollection matches Fravor’s memory- Fravor headed downwards towards the tic tac. Slaight then believes that the tic tac travelled in a direct line towards Fravor’s plane before changing its course and physically circling Fravor’s Super Hornet. According to Slaight, the tic tac then stopped and hovered for between 1 and 2 seconds in mid-air before it accelerated rapidly from the scene.
The next potential inconsistency in the events involves the tic tac and its relation to the white water when it was first observed by the four pilots. Dietrich has commented, “I saw the Tic Tac cross directly over the water disturbance”. These words by Dietrich seem to suggest that the tic tac happened to be flying across the white water, somewhat akin to a missile. In the Nimitz Report, Dietrich described the object initially traveling from left to right over the white water at 1,000-3,000 feet in altitude. She additionally described the object as travelling in a straight line at between 300-500 knots.
The Executive Summary of the tic tac encounter quotes Fravor’s WSO who shares a similar observation of the tic tac’s initial movements to Dietrich. It states that “His (the WSO’s) report differs from CDR Fravor in that he reported the object travelling level at approximately 500-1000 feet at approximately 500 knots”. This part of the report refers to the period before Fravor began his descent.
In contrast to Dietrich and the Executive Summary accounts (which reports Fravor’s WSO’s recount), Fravor has said, “What we see is this white tic tac looking object, just above the surface of the water, pointing north-south. It’s going (moving): north, south, east, west. It’s just radically moving: forward, back, left, right at will. It’s moving around the disturbance, the white water that we see”. It is not clear from Dietrich, the Executive Summary (based on Fravor’s WSO’s recollections) and Fravor’s accounts whether the object was initially spotted simply crossing the white water or whether it was bouncing around erratically above the white water.
There are a number of further possible discrepancies between the pilot’s recollections and the Event Summary, which was written many years before the pilots made their recollections public.
Fravor has specified that when the tic tac vanished, “It takes off and it goes south”. The Event Summary mentioned that the “Last visual contact had capsule at 14kft (14,000 feet) heading due east”.
Fravor has said, “It’s unrestricted visibility, you can see all the way to the horizon”. In contrast, the Event Summary states that Fravor’s plane, “Lost visual ID of capsule in haze”. Dietrich has been asked to clarify this ambiguity. She has said “As you get further towards the horizon, there is a marine level of haze”. Dietrich has suggested that there is typically a natural haze on the distant horizon and that there was a perfect level of visibility leading up to this standard, horizon haze. This seems like a reasonable resolution however it still remains uncertain whether the pilots viewed the physical tic tac as it made its way to the horizon or whether they lost sight of it as it sped past the nose of Fravor’s plane.
Dietrich and Fravor both recall being navigated to the intercept of the UAP at 20,000 feet. In contrast, the Event Summary states that the UAP was travelling at 25,000 feet and that the Super Hornets arrived at 24,000 feet.
Day has said, “As soon as he (Fravor) got to the merge plot position, the object which he was intercepting, dropped from 28,000 feet down to 50 feet above the water in 0.78 seconds as I found out later, the next day”. Kurth who arrived in the UAP’s vicinity before Fravor has said “I accepted their vector toward the Unidentified Contact. I had Fravor’s flight on radar and was directly over the top of them when they were visually observing the Supersonic Tic Tac”. The question arises- if Kurth was first on the scene, did the tic tac drop down on his approach?
Fravor has quite clearly described the shape of the white water as cross shaped. In contrast, Dietrich and Kurth recall the white water as resembling a slightly elongated circle, perhaps more similar to an oval shape.
Fravor has recently estimated that the tic tac took between 30 and 40 seconds to travel to his CAP Point. In an interview in 2018, Fravor provides a different timeframe. “The whole time that’s elapsed is maybe a couple of minutes for us to turn those jets around and do what we did and this thing appears 60 miles away so you can do the math but let’s just say that’s really fast. Faster than we can go”. This comment by Fravor seems to indicate a “couple of minutes” of travel time for the tic tac to arrive at the CAP Point. Day has characterised the tic tac’s movement to the CAP Point as “Instant”. Dietrich has said “It didn’t make sense in terms of a time-distance problem how it would have done that. Either it was supersonic and able to get there super-fast or it dropped off and something else popped up that had the same radar signature”.
The inconsistencies and uncertainties concerning Fravor’s interception of the tic tac are by no means intended to doubt the general sequence of events that occurred. They should serve to emphasise that there are details of the event that are both contentious and unknown. There have been some questions raised about the accuracy of some of the documents written about the event and by eliminating these documents as a source, some of the discrepancies vanish however a number of inconsistencies between witness accounts remain.
The Time Differential Analysis
Fravor has estimated that he and the other three pilots viewed the tic tac for a period of time in the vicinity of 5 minutes. In contrast, Dietrich recalls seeing the tic tac for between 8 and 10 seconds. This is a discrepancy that is worthy of further analysis. The period of time during which the pilots viewed the tic tac with their own eyes is arguably the most critical timeframe within the entire UAP-Nimitz series of events. If this spanned 5 minutes, we are dealing with an event that becomes more challenging to explain. If the pilots viewed the tic tac for 8 seconds, it is easier to attribute the encounter to a visual phenomenon that doesn’t require an extra-terrestrial explanation.
‘Time perception’ is a topic within the psychology and neuroscience domains. It refers to the subjective experience of how long an individual perceives certain events to take. Studies have found that time tends to appear to slow down for people experiencing dangerous events. This includes car accidents and robberies. This ‘dangerous event’ time dilation could easily apply to Fravor who was essentially chasing an unknown craft in a fighter plane.
In the Nimitz Report, Dietrich was circumspect enough to mention that the four pilots may have experienced time dilation, “They (the four pilots) experienced some time dilation during the incident”. Additionally, Dietrich attributed this to “Their heightened state of excitement and adrenaline”.
Dietrich herself has shown insight to doubt the validity of her memories of the event, “I want to be careful because we know the science of the mind, the science of the memory, we shouldn’t rely too much on my technical account at this point”.
As well as the possible time-dilation explanation, Dietrich has said, “I only had visual of Tic Tac for 8-10 sec from high cover. The time before that I was looking at lead aircraft (flying wing), looking for visual at the merge, looking at the churning water. Maybe his ‘time dilation’ made 2-3 min feel like 5 and my 8-10 sec was at the tail end?” Dietrich seems to be suggesting that it’s possible that she only noticed the tic tac ‘at the tail end’ of Fravor’s entire encounter. Whilst this is possible, it seems unlikely that Fravor and his WSO observed the tic tac for several minutes just above the ocean’s surface without saying a word to the radio operators on board the Princeton or Dietrich’s Super Hornet. None of the pilots’ accounts of the event mention several minutes of circling the planes above. Additionally, the accounts all refer to the dialogue that was consistently occurring between both Super Hornets. Fravor recalls the pilots in both planes witnessing the tic tac for the first time at the same moment. Slaight said “Hey, do you…?” whilst Fravor interrupted him with the words “What the hell is that?”
Dietrich refers to observing the tic tac above the white water, prior to Fravor manoeuvring his Super Hornet downwards. It follows that Dietrich must have spotted the tic tac before Fravor’s downwards manoeuvre. The question lingers, how long did Fravor’s downwards manoeuvring last?
Fravor began his descent at 20,000 feet and completed it at 12,000 feet. He was travelling in a downwards spiral with a diameter of approximately 1 mile. Based on his account, Fravor seems to complete approximately one and a quarter circle circumferences in this descent. Using these variables, Fravor’s descent covered 4.2 miles. Fravor has characterised his downwards spiral as “A nice, easy descent”. Fravor’s Super Hornet has a maximum speed of approximately 1,200 miles per hour. For the sake of calculations, let’s say that “A nice, easy descent” is one third of this speed, 400 miles per hour. At this speed, Fravor’s descent would have lasted 38 seconds.
It’s plausible that the four pilots observed the tic tac for a timespan in the vicinity of 80 seconds before Fravor began his descent. A descent that I have calculated may have ensued for just under 40 seconds. Using these values, the entire encounter may have lasted somewhere in the vicinity of 2 minutes. Time dilation may have increased Fravor’s perception of the length of the encounter as Fravor was experiencing a ‘dangerous event’. Dietrich, being a novice fighter pilot, accompanied by the senior Slaight, may have perceived the frenzied and unusual two minute event as flashing before her eyes prior to the tic tac disappearing. It’s plausible that she perceived these events as lasting just 8-10 seconds.
Dietrich has also commented on her inexperience in piloting Super Hornets at the time of the tic tac encounter. Whilst going on to pave a decorated career, she has described her fighter piloting experience at the time as, “I wasn’t even a fully trained competent… I was brand new to the squadron and I was just trying to land safely on the ship and get brilliant at the basics”. It’s plausible that Dietrich was slightly more focused on the radar and screens inside the Super Hornet than observing the tic tac. This may account for a slight further reduction in her tic tac-visual time.
The Tic Tac’s Behaviour
Three of the four pilots who encountered the tic tac have come out and spoken publicly about their experience. All three paint a similar picture of the tic tac’s seemingly blatant defiance of the principles of human-understood aerodynamics.
Fravor has commented, “I can tell you, I think it was not from this world. I’ve seen pretty much everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close. I have never seen anything in my life, in my history of flying that has the performance, the acceleration. Keep in mind this thing had no wings”.
Dietrich has remarked, “There is no way any aircraft or missile that I know of could conduct manoeuvres like what we saw that day”.
Slaight has come out and voiced that he suspects the tic tac was either externally controlled or autonomous in control. He is also of the belief that regardless of whether it was being driven manually or from afar, it was undoubtedly intelligently controlled. Slaight has also explained that he doesn’t know of any technology on planet earth that has the ability to both accelerate and manoeuvre in the manner the tic tac did.
Kammerzell, who was aboard the USS Princeton, has noted that he spoke to the Operations Specialist who guided the two Super Hornets to the tic tac’s location. The Operations Specialist revealed “The pilots were unnerved by what they were intercepting”. There are additional witnesses including the pilots themselves who concur with this sentiment. The holistic tic tac experience was frightening. This provides further evidence that the tic tac’s motion was indeed abnormal enough to affect four adrenaline-charged fighter pilots, two of whom were the top ranked individuals in the entire squadron.
If the radar operator’s recollection is correct, the tic tac dropped down from 20,000 feet to the surface of the ocean just prior to the arrival of the pair of Super Hornets. A pertinent question is- why? A possible reason is to avoid detection. This raises other questions. If the purpose of the tic tac’s drop was to avoid being seen, then why didn’t it simply accelerate off at a fantastical speed like it did minutes later? Additionally, why didn’t the tic tac ascend above 20,000 feet rather than drop to the ocean’s surface? The pilots would have had a much more challenging time viewing the tic tac if it was an additional 20,000 feet above them in the sky.
If the tic tac was intent on hiding from the Super Hornets, then why did it engage with Fravor’s Super Hornet? Fravor has said that the tic tac’s movements were akin to, “A two-circle fight; when you are fighting another airplane”. These are hardly the actions of an object trying to remain inconspicuous.
How did the Tic Tac Disappear so Rapidly from the Scene?
There is a mystery lingering over how it was physically possible for the tic tac to flee the scene at such a hypersonic pace. There is a natural scepticism that should accompany any claim that the tic tac performed a rapid acceleration beyond the visible horizon in the unbelievable time frame of one second. The supposed acceleration and subsequent speed are so rapid, they defy belief and certainly any human-designed craft. Indeed, it left the F-18’s, which are capable of flying at 1.8 Mach, in its wake.
It is possible that the tic tac didn’t accelerate but rather the pilots lost sight of it. Fravor has said, “We see the white water and that’s what draws our eyes down there, otherwise we’d have never seen it (the object)”. Based on this comment, the tic tac wasn’t overtly conspicuous. Could the tic tac have blended in with the sun or a cloud in the distant background? Could it have dropped into the ocean? Could it have moved behind Fravor whilst Dietrich and her WSO were observing the radar? Perhaps the pilots’ attention was then focused on a different part of the sky to where the tic tac was; something like the psychology of being fooled by a magic trick.
There are a number of arguments against the pilots simply losing sight of the tic tac (as opposed to the narrative of it accelerating away). Fravor has said, “You’ve got a bright, white object over a deep, blue ocean. You got a pretty high contrast”. This comment by Fravor implies that once the tic tac was seen, it was fairly conspicuous. A second argument against the ‘pilots losing sight’ theory is that the pilots were well-trained, professionals, with at least two of them having spent thousands of operational hours in the cockpit. They were the crème de la crème of pilots. Engaging with a craft wasn’t some new pastime for them. A third argument against the pilots losing sight of the tic tac theory is the fact that the pilots were at two distinct altitudes; they were also viewing the tic tac from different perspectives. A fourth argument against the ‘pilots losing sight’ hypothesis is that the three pilots who have spoken publicly have each individually described the moment the tic tac accelerated. None of the pilots have said, ‘I lost sight of it’ or ‘I didn’t see where it went’. A final argument against the pilots losing sight theory, that is perhaps most compelling, is that the tic tac was last observed at an equitable altitude to Fravor’s plane and at just half a mile away. It would be challenging to lose sight of something at this proximity. This is especially true when it comes to aviation terms.
There are some other possible scenarios that can attempt to explain how the tic tac vanished from sight so rapidly. If the tic tac was a balloon or some form of inflatable object, it may have burst. This could potentially provide the pilots with the illusion that it had accelerated out-of-sight. The balloon may have been rising and burst from the proximate effect of the Super Hornet.
A final theory to explain the disappearing tic tac involves the tic tac not being a physical object but rather a hologram. The hologram may have been deceiving the pilots with the illusion of movement before being switched off and thus disappearing from the pilot’s sight. The hologram hypothesis will be discussed in more detail further down this article.
The Tic Tac’s CAP Point Appearance- Analysis
The tic tac allegedly accelerated away from the skirmish with Fravor’s plane and within an approximate 30 second time frame, it appeared at his CAP Point. This is an aerial location that was a heavily guarded secret and only privy to the pilots and a handful of need-to-know people that were part of the Nimitz strike group. The CAP Point location was approximately 60 miles away from where the tic tac took off and at an altitude of 24,000 feet, 12,000 feet higher than when Fravor last saw the tic tac. There are two aspects to the CAP Point story that make it challenging to believe. Firstly, there is the rapid speed required by the tic tac to traverse such a distance in a short period. Secondly, there is the mystery over how the craft became aware of the location of Fravor’s CAP Point.
There are a number of varying claims regarding how long it took the craft to travel from the skirmish with Fravor to Fravor’s CAP Point. Some accounts label it as taking place in a few seconds whilst other accounts say it transpired over the course of two minutes. Fravor’s current recollection is that it took a length of time between these two values and it was in the vicinity of 30-40 seconds. Using this 30 second timeframe, the tic tac would have been required to travel at 7,200 miles per hour. In the ‘The UAP’s Apparent Speeds’ section of this article within the ‘Radar’ main heading, the speeds of various aerial objects were presented. The fastest speed ever recorded by a plane is 2,190 miles per hour- 30% of the speed at which the tic tac supposedly travelled to the CAP Point. The pilots also failed to note a sonic boom from the tic tac- an invariable by-product of breaking the speed of sound (767 miles per hour).
The tic tac needed to travel in a direction close to due east in order to navigate from where Fravor’s Super Hornet was to Fravor’s CAP Point. Despite this, according to Fravor, the tic tac accelerated in front of him in a southerly direction. Slaight agrees with this observation, “It starts to accelerate. It has an incredible rate of acceleration. And it takes off and it goes south”. If this directional recollection from both Fravor and Slaight is accurate, then the tic tac would have had to travel much further than 60 miles to arrive at the CAP Point.
In a 2018 interview, Fravor remarked, “The whole time that’s elapsed is maybe a couple of minutes for us to turn those jets around and do what we did and this thing appears 60 miles away so you can do the math but let’s just say that’s really fast. Faster than we can go”. This comment by Fravor seems to imply that the CAP Point arrival took a few minutes, not the 30-40 second range he currently recalls. Even with a two minute time frame, the tic tac would have had to travel remarkably quickly.
A study by Knuth et al. has estimated what the probability is that the object turned up at Fravor’s CAP Point purely by chance. The study looked at all of the locations within a 60 mile distance from where the tic tac disappeared. The study used a one mile resolution error (more than the radar system’s actual error). Using these parameters, the probability of the object appearing at Fravor’s CAP Point by chance was 0.0088%.
Day has been asked if the tic tac was a simulation, would someone know where Fravor’s CAP Point was? Day responded, “They certainly could of, yeah. It’s standard message traffic and it’s not hard to get hold of it. I mean, if it was a simulation, sure, they had all of our stuff”. Day seems to be suggesting that there is a possibility that a third-party somehow managed to obtain Fravor’s CAP Point location. There is also an additional possible scenario: the third-party may have simply watched Fravor, or the other pilots on radar to learn of the CAP point. Fravor has said “We use the same one (CAP Point) day after day after day”. Based on this comment it seems likely that Fravor had been to this specific CAP point in the days leading up to the tic tac incident. Fravor’s CAP point therefore could have become common knowledge to anyone monitoring a radar.
There is no guarantee that the precise UAP that Fravor intercepted was the same UAP that later appeared at his CAP Point- only that is showed the same symbology signature on the radar screen. Having said this, if any of the UAP suddenly appeared at Fravor’s CAP Point, it would still be quite a remarkable feat.
There is another possible scenario in which a UAP appearing at Fravor’s CAP Point would seem less remarkable- What if an object, with the same symbology signature as the tic tac, was already at Fravor’s CAP Point before the intercept? It’s possible that the object simply waited until Fravor attempted to intercept the tic tac then turned off its radar protection so it would appear on the Princeton’s radar system. Alternatively, the radar operator may have been so transfixed with Fravor’s intercept that they didn’t notice an object already loitering at the CAP Point.
The concept of a CAP Point must be viewed as a human-centric construct. Even within the spectrum of humanness, as a concept it belongs to a very niche corner of military aviation. If the craft were extra-terrestrial, why would it be concerned or even aware of something so human centric? The CAP point appearance has the mentality that reeks of a prank by teenagers, or at the least, someone in the military.
If the CAP Point appearance wasn’t extra-terrestrial, what could explain it? The first scenario is that the appearance was a product of some NEMESIS-style system described in more detail within the subsection ‘The Radar-Deception Technology Hypothesis’ within the ‘Radar’ part of this article. This system has the ability to fool the enemy’s radars and sensors by providing the illusions of aircraft in the sky. It is not too far-fetched to see someone in the military finding it amusing to use a NEMESIS-style system to scare Fravor and those monitoring the Princeton’s radar by programming a ghost object to appear on the radar at Fravor’s CAP Point.
Another rather mundane scenario to explain the CAP Point appearance of the tic tac is that it never occurred. The radar operator may have found it amusing to tease the pilots about their alien-esque tic tac encounter by crassly joking “You’re not going to believe this but that thing is back at your CAP point”.
An argument against the ‘radar operator joking theory’ is that the operators had listened intently to the attempted intercept via their radio frequency. It was clear to them that the pilots were all visibly distressed by the incident. It would seem to be too sadistic for a radar operator to needlessly terrify the pilots further. Additionally, other officials were located in the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre during the intercept, including Day who remains adamant that the tic tac appeared at Fravor’s CAP Point.
There is scant primary evidence to support the notion that the tic tac showed up on the Princeton’s radar screen at Fravor’s CAP Point. The pilots however were almost certainly told of the CAP Point appearance in real time. If the radar operators’ observation is accurate, several questions linger. Was the object at the CAP Point the same entity that disappeared before Fravor or did it just have the same radar signature? How did the tic tac traverse the 60 mile distance in such a brief time and why did it choose to appear at such a human-centric location? If we accept the premise, it is challenging to conjure up a theory that can definitively and prosaically explain away the tic tac’s CAP Point appearance with the limited information at hand.
The Accuracy of the Pilots’ Accounts
The four people who witnessed the tic tac first-hand were professional, highly-trained fighter pilots. They also just so happened to be humans who are subject to biases, misperceptions, illusions, the fragility of memory and a whole raft of other frailties that can lead to the misreporting of an event.
When a crime occurs, it’s of fundamental importance to separate the witnesses and question them separately. This is to record individual perspectives. When the witnesses discuss the crime as a group, then tend to merge their stories together and forget their initial impressions. An equivalent scenario may have occurred in the case of the tic tac.
The four pilots each heard the other pilots’ interpretations over the radio whilst the encounter was unfolding. They also discussed what eventuated with each other post event. They continue to discuss the events to this day. Pilot ‘A’ may have hypothetically believed the tic tac was a missile based on their first impressions. After returning to the USS Nimitz, pilot ‘B’ may have recounted their version of the story and claimed that the tic tac was hovering in one place. Pilot ‘A’ may have subsequently adjusted their perception of events and ruled out the missile hypothesis on the basis that pilot ‘B’ believed the tic tac was hovering. The pilot clique may have unintentionally created a collective timeline of events that resembles the standard story we hear today.
Imagine that four friends are walking down an alleyway when one of the group sees an oddly shaped light moving across a bricked wall. One of the friends screams, the second cries out “ghost”, the third calls out “It’s definitely a ghost” and the fourth friend, who was looking in the wrong direction, failed to see the light. As the four friends subsequently discuss the sequence of events, the fourth friend becomes convinced that they too witnessed a ghost. Before too long, the fourth friend is telling their family a detailed description of the ghost’s face and physics defying movements. Whilst the hypothetical scenario I describe here is extreme, it’s almost a universal human trait to misremember how you interpreted an event both after discussing it with a group who also witnessed the event and after time has elapsed. Additionally, groupthink dictates that the event tends to become an amalgamation of the most unbelievable and interesting interpretations, not the prosaic and mundane.
Radar operator Kevin Day also spoke to Fravor in the days following Fravor’s close-up tic tac encounter. It’s easy to foresee how during this conversation, Day and Fravor’s perceptions of events became intertwined- one from the perspective of the Combat Information Centre and the other from the perspective of the Super Hornet.
On November 12th 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into the New York City borough of Queens. Over the span of the 93 seconds of the crash, the hundreds of witnesses interpreted the same event in a whole range of ways. Three hundred and forty-nine of the witnesses were gathered together and asked to recount what they witnessed. Fifty-two percent of witnesses described seeing a fire whilst the plane was airborne. There was a fairly equal distribution of eyewitnesses describing where on the plane they saw the fire: the fuselage, the left engine, the right engine, the left wing and the right wing. The plane crash investigators concluded that there was no evidence of an in-flight fire. The majority of the witnesses were wrong.
In the case of a Lauda Air Boeing 767 plane crash in Thailand in 1991, the witnesses to the incident described hearing a bomb detonate and the plane subsequently crumble into pieces amidst a fire of flames. A lengthy investigation concluded that the plane simply had a mechanical fault. According to Dr. Charles Honts, a professor of psychology, “The biggest mistake you can make is to think about a memory like it’s a videotape; there’s not a permanent record there”.
The study concluded that “Combining the high variances, the lack of any preferred observational perspective and the law of small numbers, a conclusion of eyewitness unreliability for aviation crashes is unavoidable. Although they sound compelling — ‘I saw the crash with my own eyes’ — a small group of witnesses to an aviation accident giving reports several days after the event may well not produce reliable information. This is demonstrated to be true for a crash as seemingly perceptible as a wide-body transport jet at low altitude in clear daylight conditions”. The study goes on to finish with the highly-relevant, parting words, “But the current reported practice by accident investigators of placing low value to eyewitness accounts of aircraft crashes is supported by the empirical evidence”.
Project Blue Book was the code name for the study of unidentified flying objects by the US Air Force that ran from 1952 to 1969. Those who worked on Project Blue Book including astronomer J. Allen Hynek and his colleagues, kept records of how reliable certain witnesses were, as categorised by occupation. The findings are presented in the below chart.
Hynek and his colleagues’ findings on witness reliability, as categorised by occupation. (Image Source: The Hynek UFO Report by Dr. J. Allen Hynek).
The report concluded that “It would seem that, as a rule, the best witnesses are multiple engineers or scientists; only 50% of their sightings could be classified as misperceptions. Surprisingly, commercial and military pilots appear to make relatively poor witnesses (though they do slightly better in groups)”.
The report continues on, “What we have here is a good example of a well-known psychological fact: ‘transference’ of skill and experience does not usually take place. That is, an expert in one field does not necessarily ‘transfer’ his competence to another one. Thus, it might surprise us that a pilot had trouble identifying other aircraft. But it should come as no surprise that a majority of pilot misidentifications were of astronomical objects”.
Finally, the report stated, “As one might expect, the statistics do show that multiple witnesses are slightly better than single witnesses, since it is unlikely that a group of people would misperceive the same stimulus, group pressure notwithstanding”.
In 1990, experienced British Airways pilot, Mike D’Alton was flying over Genoa, Italy when saw a craft that he described as, “This thing was not of this World…In all my 23 years of flying I’ve never seen a craft anything like this.” In addition, D’Alton described the craft as definitively coming from outer space by virtue of its “tremendous speed…Going much too fast to be a human-made aircraft” and “lack of sonic boom”. It also had a “bizarre shape” that was unlike anything D’Alton had ever seen before. The craft “made a sharp turn while flying at high speeds- an impossible manoeuvre that would rip any human-made aircraft to bits”. D’Alton and his crew observed the craft for 2 minutes before it “took a lightning fast, right-angle turn and zoomed out of sight”. There was nothing on the air traffic controllers’ radar screens. The craft was also seen by the aircrew who were equally perplexed. The object ended up being the Gorizont rocket re-entering earth’s atmosphere. D’Alton’s descriptions were significantly different from the rocket’s true movements.
If the reliability of the recollection of the four pilots who witnessed the tic tac is prone to similar errors, it’s highly likely that many of the details surrounding the standard narrative account are inaccurate.
Super Hornets typically house a large array of sensors, cameras, computers and various pieces of recording data. The Super Hornets that encountered the tic tac peculiarly lacked certain objective measurement data equipment. According to Kammerzell, “Fravor claims to have seen it in person, visually, with his eyes. And you’re telling me that not one of those planes had recording software/hardware running? I mean anything: Audio, cockpit camera, nothing? If I recall correctly, they have that on board for the sake of accident investigations, but suddenly they did not have it on during that encounter? No aircraft that I know of leaves without recording hardware on-board. It might not be FLIR, it might not be some advanced electronics pod, but they have basic cockpit hardware to run back a black box or audio capture, or something I’m sure”. A skeptic could easily dismiss the pilots’ fleeting encounter with the tic due to the nature of inaccurate eyewitness testimonies regarding plane crashes. The same skeptic would be hard-pressed to change their opinion when the objective, hard-data evidence that should have been recorded from the Super Hornet is also lacking.
The Submarine Hypothesis
The USS Louisville submarine was part of the Nimitz strike group. (Image source: Wikipedia, US Navy)
There are two parts to the submarine hypothesis. A. The object that had caused the white water and was lurking just beneath the ocean’s surface was a submarine. B. The tic tac was actually a missile. ‘A’ and ‘B’ can be viewed as combining to form one narrative; the submarine launched a missile or alternatively, they can be viewed on their own merits. The submarine beneath the surface may have been dealing with a balloon, launching a drone or been there incidentally. Alternatively, a missile may have been launched some distance away before arriving at the white water locale.
There are a number of circumstantial pieces of evidence supporting the theory that the object causing the white water was a submarine. Fravor has said, “It’s obvious there was something there”. He has continued on to state “If you took a 737, put it about 15-20 feet below the water so there are waves breaking over the top, you are going to get white water where the plane is at, you would see this kind of shape”.
Slaight described the white water as both bubbling and frothing. He attributed it to being caused by a submarine that he suspected was lurking just beneath the surface. Dietrich had a similar initial appraisal, “Were we vectored into some sort of live training range? What we saw in the water was a submarine and the tic tac was some sort of surface-to-air missile?” Dietrich estimated the white water’s dimensions as 60 feet wide and 80 feet in length.
The video below shows the process of a submarine submerging underwater. There is a section of white water above the submarine, on the ocean’s surface. After viewing this video, it is understandable why Dietrich and Slaight believed they were witnessing the resultant white waters caused by a submarine.
A video showing the white water that results from a submerging submarine.
Let’s step back for a second from the extra-terrestrial hypothesis and everything else about the Nimitz events. Following Occam’s razor, an object of the dimensions supplied, lurking beneath the ocean in the vicinity of navy exercises, causing white water is most likely to be a submarine. This is doubly true when the white water only lasted for a short period of time- the submarine would have simply submerged deeper under the ocean’s surface.
The Los Angeles-class, attack submarine known as the USS Louisville was part of the Nimitz strike group. According to the tic tac Executive Report, the USS Louisville “Was operating in the vicinity of the USS Nimitz as part of the CSG (Carrier Strike Group) during the detection and intercept of the AAV (Anomalous Aerial Vehicle)”. The Executive Report crucially goes on to state, “There was a live fire exercise conducted by the USS Louisville during the period of and in the vicinity of the AAV sightings; however, the weapon in use did not match the flight profile or visible characteristics of the AAV. Additionally any live fire would have been coordinated throughout the CSG and all air traffic would have been well aware of the launch and operation of the weapon system. Aircraft would not have been vectored for the intercept of a US weapon in-flight”.
During Slaight’s debrief, post-tic tac encounter, he asked the intelligence officer on duty whether there was a submarine in the vicinity of where the pilots saw the white water. The intelligence officer immediately checked and returned with the answer- No, there had been no submarine in the area proximate to the white water.
The Louisville submarine was conducting live fire exercises in the vicinity of the tic tac at the time the tic tac was observed. Despite the intelligence officer refuting the suggestion that a submarine was the cause of the white water, there is the potential that they were mistaken or that the submarine launch wasn’t acknowledged to the pilots. Another pertinent question is- if the Louisville was conducting live fire exercises near the tic tac, why were the pilots navigated to the tic tac’s location without being aware of the nearby live fire exercises?
The Missile Hypothesis
The second part of the submarine equation is the scenario that a missile, balloon, drone or other aeronautical craft was launched- perhaps from the submarine. This secondary object may have been mistaken as the ‘tic tac’ by the quartet of pilots who viewed the object ascend from their high vantage point in the sky.
Slaight initially suspected that the tic tac was a missile. He had just taken his eyes off the white water which he suspected was a submarine and he created a possible narrative in his head that the submarine had launched a missile.
When Dietrich landed back on the USS Nimitz, she pondered the following, “Were we vectored into some sort of live training range? What we saw in the water was a submarine and the tic tac was some sort of surface-to-air missile?”
The Executive Summary of the tic tac encounter quotes Fravor’s WSO. It states that “His (the WSO’s) report differs from CDR Fravor in that he reported the object travelling level at approximately 500-1000 feet at approximately 500 knots”. This part of the report, with a missile-like description, seems to refer to the time before Fravor began his descent.
Submarines typically fire one of two types of missiles. The first is the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and the second type is the submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM). SLBM are launched from a submarine in a vertical manner whilst other types of submarine-launched missiles are launched through a submarine’s torpedo tubes.
There are some arguments for the tic tac being a submarine launched missile. Firstly, out of all of the United States military’s publicly known weaponry and transportation arsenal, the missile shape perhaps most closely resembles the pilot’s tic tac description. Secondly, the pilots reported the tic tac as having a rapid velocity, in the same vein that a missile would. Finally, “There was a live fire exercise conducted by the USS Louisville during the period of and in the vicinity” of the tic tac sighting.
The Tomahawk cruise missile as tested by the US Navy in 2002. (Image source: Wikipedia, The High Fin Sperm Whale)
Out of all of the known submarine launched missiles used by the United States in 2004, the tic tac perhaps most resembles the Tomahawk missile. The Tomahawk is 20 feet long whilst some estimates of the tic tac’s length were as little as 25 feet. The Tomahawk has a flight altitude of between 98 feet and 164 feet whilst estimates of the initial altitude of the tic tac varied from 50 feet by Fravor to 500-1000 feet by his WSO. Fravor’s WSO estimated the tic tac as travelling at 500 knots (575 miles per hour). The Tomahawk has a remarkably similar maximum speed of 480 knots (550 miles per hour). Additionally, the Tomahawk is white in colour and shaped like an elongated tic tac.
The video below depicts a Tomahawk being launched from a submarine. There is a significant amount of smoke residue as a product of its launch that is far more distinctive than the Tomahawk itself. This suggests that if the tic tac was a Tomahawk, it had been fired significantly earlier than when the pilots observed it. The Tomahawk produces this smoke trail for approximately the first 18 seconds post launch. After this time, the smoke trail stops visibly seeping from the Tomahawk.
This video shows a Tomahawk missile being launched from a submarine.
There are two videos below. The top of these videos shows a harpoon missile travelling over an ocean. It looks similar to physical descriptions of the tic tac. This bottom video below provides another perspective of a missile test. The missile in this video could easily be characterised as tic tac-esque.
This video of an anti-ship missile test resembles a tic tac in motion.
This video showing a harpoon, anti-ship missile test looks somewhat like a flying tic tac.
There are many, convincing arguments against the tic tac being a submarine-launched missile. Firstly, out of the known submarine-launched missiles in the United States armoury, none, including the tomahawk, closely resemble a tic tac. The tic tac is notably fatter than all of the missiles. Secondly, missiles are typically propelled thanks to either a rocket motor or jet engine. The result is a significant smoke trail many times larger than the missile itself. This smoke trail is impossible not to notice. It is not feasible for the USS Louisville to have been causing the white water and to have launched a missile from this location without the copious amounts of residual smoke that would have exceeded the missile’s size by many magnitudes.
A third argument against the missile theory is that the behaviour of missiles doesn’t align with anything closely resembling the reported behaviour of the tic tac. Missiles typically reach a certain altitude (dependant on the type of missile) before travelling horizontally. In contrast, all reports described the tic tac as manoeuvring erratically, responding to and mirroring Fravor’s Super Hornet’s movements.
A fourth argument against the missile theory relates to the question- how did the missile suddenly accelerate beyond the horizon in less than one second? The maximum speed of the United States most famous cruise missile, the Tomahawk is less than half the speed of the Super Hornet. There are missiles that can travel quickly such as the Indian-Russian, BrahMos, which holds the missile world record speed at close to Mach 3. This missile is not even twice as fast as the Super Hornets. Also, it lacks the hypersonic acceleration described of the tic tac.
There are some additional arguments against the missile theory. If a missile almost struck Fravor’s Super Hornet, there was a real lack of investigation. The military takes near misses very seriously and a cover-up and lack of acknowledgement of what happened (at least to Fravor) seems unlikely. Additionally despite Dietrich and Slaight considering the missile hypothesis, they never seriously believed this scenario. Dietrich has specifically said “There is no way any aircraft or missile that I know of could conduct manoeuvres like what we saw that day”. Finally, within one hour of landing back on the USS Nimitz, Slaight asked the Intelligence Officer on duty whether there was a submarine in the vicinity of the area where the white water was sighted. The Intelligence Officer immediately checked and returned to Slaight with the unambiguous answer- “No”. In addition to this comment, the Executive Summary definitively ruled out the USS Louisville as launching any weapon even vaguely resembling the tic tac.
The Hologram Hypothesis
It is difficult to conceive of a mechanism by which a terrestrial vehicle could manoeuvre and accelerate at the rate reported by the four pilots. By eliminating the hypersonic craft theory, we are left with the possibility that the tic tac wasn’t a physical object moving rapidly at all. Rather it was a high tech hologram.
Slaight made a unique observation regarding the tic tac’s appearance. He characterised the object as having quite well-defined edges however along these edges there was “a fuzzy or wavy looking border” that spanned the entire surface of the object. Slaight continued on to describe “It looked like what the heat waves would look like coming off a hot paved road or what the carrier deck looked like if you looked across it when in the Gulf in the Mid-East”. Slaight’s description resembles two distinct, physics concepts- 1. Refraction caused by the bending of light as it passes between substances of different indices; the same reason that it’s possible to observe wavy lines on the road in hot weather. 2. The fuzzy, wavy border described by Slaight is actually the product of the tic tac being a hologram.
On the surface, the hologram hypothesis sounds like a valid explanation for the tic and its observed behaviour. However, if one delves into the science of holograms, the hologram theory can virtually be ruled out. The most state-of-the-art ‘volumetric images’ (holograms can only be viewed from certain angles, whilst ‘volumetric images’ can be viewed from all angles) are still very rudimentary. The video below shows the most advanced volumetric imagery on the planet in 2018.
This video documents the state-of-the-art ‘hologram’ technology of 2018.
These volumetric images are created by an array of lasers trapping a single particle of cellulose. The lasers heat the particle unevenly allowing the particle to be moved around in space. A secondary array of lasers are used to illuminate the particle as it moves, painting it various colours. The most advanced volumetric images as of 2018 were created in a laboratory environment and surrounded by a room full of physics equipment. The resultant product was a simple line drawing image that was a few millimetres across. The image provided the illusion of very basic movement that was essentially created by flashing. Think of the movement as akin to a drawing in a flipbook that continually alternates between two poses. The Nimitz encounter occurred 14 years prior to the basic volumetric images that were created in a lab in 2018.
The Parallax Hypothesis
Famed skeptic, Mick West, has proposed the ‘parallax illusion’ as an explanation for the perceived behaviour of the tic tac as witnessed by the quartet of pilots. West’s parallax hypothesis proposes that the pilots were accustomed to dealing with fighter planes such as Super Hornets in the sky which measure nearabouts 40 feet. When the pilots observed the tic tac, they erroneously believed that it was also 40 feet in length. West suspects that in reality, the tic tac was actually around 20 feet long. West believes that this mistaken length assumption by the pilots resulted in the pilots believing that the tic tac was twice as far away as it truly was. When the pilots believed the tic tac was situated just above the surface of the water, it was actually mid-way between the pilots and the water. Let’s say this means the tic tac was close to static for the entire encounter and positioned at 10,000 feet (Fravor was initially at 20,000 feet).
The second part of the parallax illusion theory suggests that when Fravor descended (whilst thinking the tic tac was near the water’s surface) his perceptions were tricked by virtue of misjudging the tic tac’s size into believing that the stationary tic tac was rising. Each of Fravor’s manoeuvres were reflected on the other side of an imaginary sphere by the tic tac. As Fravor travelled south, the tic tac appeared to travel north. As Fravor descended sharply, the tic tac seemed to ascend sharply. From Fravor’s perspective, each of his movements appeared to be mirrored by the tic tac due to the illusion of parallax. In reality, the tic tac was stationary for the duration of Fravor’s descent.
West posits that when Fravor cut across the circle and headed for the tic tac, it appeared from his perspective that the tic tac had accelerated away from the scene. In reality, Fravor had just flown past the tic tac. West also speculates that the tic tac could have been an object such as a balloon (the balloon hypothesis will be discussed in more detail in the next section).
There are some arguments for the parallax hypothesis. The tic tac was an unknown, abstract looking object that was monochromatic. This suits the parallax theory as the pilots were unfamiliar with the tic tac hence estimating its size without any relative objects would be problematic. If the pilots had viewed a familiar object such as a plane, it would be unlikely for the parallax illusion to deceive the pilots’ minds. This is because they would have had a ballpark estimate of the size of the plane and therefore would be aware of its approximate distance from them.
Just because the four people who viewed the tic tac were pilots, it doesn’t make them infallible to illusions, which are part of what it means to be human. The fact that Fravor’s general description portrays the tic tac as mirroring his movements is another argument for the parallax theory. If the parallax theory did occur in Fravor’s tic tac encounter, we would expect the stationary tic tac to rise when Fravor began to descend and we would expect the tic tac to remain on the other side of the imaginary circle to Fravor. West has demonstrated the parallax illusion in the below video.
Mick West provides a visual explanation of the parallax illusion.
Before I lay-out the arguments against West’s parallax theory, I’d like to say that it is easy to criticise theories but substantially more challenging to create them- especially regarding all facets of the Nimitz UAP events.
My first argument against the parallax theory is the fact that Dietrich’s Super Hornet remained at a constant 20,000 feet for the duration of the tic tac encounter. The parallax illusion relies solely on positioning. Dietrich’s plane with its bird’s-eye-view would have been able to objectively view the relative positioning between Fravor’s Super Hornet and the tic tac. It would have been abundantly clear to Dietrich and Slaight that the tic tac wasn’t mirroring Fravor’s movements. Although Dietrich and Slaight may have been circling around, their constant 20,000 foot height would mean that the tic tac would not appear to rise from their perspective if the parallax illusion was taking place.
My second argument against the parallax theory is that Dietrich and Slaight specifically saw the tic tac accelerate and vanish at the same moment that Fravor did. It was already a stretch to suggest that one of the best fighter pilots on planet earth travelled past a stationary balloon and somehow believed it to accelerate and vanish but to suppose that Dietrich and Slaight’s elevated plane somehow lost sight of the object and believed it to have accelerated at the exact same moment as Fravor, whilst observing it, seems highly unlikely.
My third argument against the parallax theory is that Fravor described the tic tac accelerating past the tip of his Super Hornet’s nose when it was in front of him and half a mile away. According to West’s theory, the tic tac should have appeared closer and closer before Fravor flew past it. It shouldn’t have vanished at a half mile distance, right in front of Fravor.
My fourth argument against the parallax theory is that Fravor (and Dietrich) didn’t flee the scene instantaneously after he supposedly passed the tic tac. They lingered around the area, looked for the tic tac and examined the water before departing. When the tic tac was reportedly 20,000 feet below the pilots, it had an apparent size equivalent to one third of the size of the moon. This wasn’t some dot. Fravor has also described the tic tac as, “You’ve got a bright, white object over a deep, blue ocean. You got a pretty high contrast”. By all descriptions, when Fravor was at an equitable altitude to the tic tac, it would have been rather easy to view it.
My fifth argument against the parallax theory is that the illusion would have been distorted by the white water beneath the tic tac. If the object was a balloon at 10,000 feet and the pilots were subject to parallax, Fravor and Dietrich circling at 20,000 feet would have meant that the object would have only appeared above the white water momentarily, during one very short arc of their aerial circling path. In reality, the pilots describe the object consistently hovering over the white water. This would only be possible if the tic tac was close to the white water. These well-trained pilots were accustomed to looking at ships, people, birds and helicopters on or just above the ocean’s surface. Objects on or just above the ocean’s surface are less prone to the parallax illusion, especially when there is a static white section on the ocean and the observer is circling.
A sixth argument against the parallax theory is that the Princeton’s radar detected an object that was travelling south at 100 knots and specifically at 20,000 feet above the ocean’s surface. The pilots flew to this object, had the interaction and the object disappeared from the Princeton’s radar, just like the tic tac did according to the pilot’s accounts. If, like West suggests, the balloon was constantly at 10,000 feet, it should have appeared on the Princeton’s advanced radar at this height, it should have stayed there when the Super Hornets arrived and it should have remained there after Fravor’s attempted intercept. None of these events occurred. If the parallax theory was correct, we would have expected the Princeton’s radar to have detected the balloon at this height, before, during and after the encounter.
A seventh argument against the parallax theory is the collective description of the tic tac’s movements from both plane’s vantage points. If the parallax theory was correct, the pilots would have simply reported the tic tac as moving smoothly as the parallax illusion is dependent on the pilots’ own movements. Dietrich said, “It behaved in a way that we were surprised, unnerved. It almost didn’t accelerate. It jumped from spot to spot and tumbled around in a way that was unpredictable”. She also said, “It was so unnerving because it was so unpredictable. High g, rapid velocity, rapid acceleration.” Fravor said, “This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another. Similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against the wall”. Fravor has also said, “I can tell you, I think it was not from this world. I’ve seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close. I have never seen anything in my life, in my history of flying that has the performance, the acceleration”. Slaight has said that it was undoubtedly intelligently controlled. Slaight has also explained that he doesn’t know of any technology on planet earth that had the ability to both accelerate and manoeuvre in the manner the tic tac did. It seems unlikely that these professional fighter pilots, with different viewing perspectives, would use these words to describe a stationary balloon.
Once again, I should emphasise that it is challenging to put the puzzle pieces together using any theory to explain the UAP events that besieged the Nimitz strike group in 2004. Despite my criticisms and the unlikeliness of Mick West’s parallax theory, it could theoretically be valid.
The Balloon Hypothesis
Balloons in general can come in a range of appearances. (Image source: JeremyUnidenti1)
Intertwined with West’s parallax theory is the scenario that a balloon wasn’t statically sitting at 10,000 feet in altitude but rather that it was situated near the ocean’s surface before rising up. This scenario could help eliminate some of the arguments against the parallax theory.
Within ‘The Time Differential Analysis’ section earlier in this article, I estimated that Fravor took in the vicinity of 38 seconds to descend his Super Hornet from 20,000 feet down to 12,000 feet. According to the pilots’ recollections, the tic tac began to rise shortly after Fravor began his descent. Let us say there was a 4 second lapse between Fravor’s descent and the tic tac’s ascent. Using these values, the tic tac supposedly rose from 50 feet to approximately 12,000 feet in 35 seconds. How does this compare to the actual time it would take a balloon to rise to this altitude?
The video below shows a weather balloon being launched from the ground. It eventually reached 98,000 feet in altitude. It took 11 minutes for the balloon to rise from the ground to 12,000 feet above the ground. This is significantly longer than the 35 seconds that it may have taken the tic tac to rise an equitable altitude.
This video demonstrates the lengthy time it takes a weather balloon to reach 12,000 feet in altitude (as well as almost 100,000 feet).
If the tic tac was a balloon that did ascend, where was it deployed from? Based on the white water beneath the tic tac, the balloon’s most likely origin would be from a submarine launch. There are arguments against this scenario. Balloon launches from submarines are exceedingly rare. A member of the United States Navy who spent the majority of their career on submarines, never witnesses any of their submarines ever launch balloons. Despite this, ‘The Drive’ has reported that there are historically documented cases of submarines launching balloons. Nonetheless, balloon launches from submarines are virtually unheard of.
Fravor was familiar with seeing weather balloons whilst practising bombing in his fighter plane. Fravor has commented, “You’d be on the downwind, away from the target and they’d have the weather balloons that would be in the restricted”. Fravor knew what weather balloons looked like and how they acted.
Weather balloons are typically shaped differently to the pilots’ descriptions of the UAP which they collectively characterised as ‘tic tac’ shaped. Weather balloons, for the most part, are spherical and a subset of weather balloons can have a tear-drop form. The ‘tic tac’ description doesn’t mesh with the known shape of weather balloons. Additionally, a tic tac shaped weather balloon would be less aerodynamic. Weather balloons are most commonly white coloured which matches the pilots’ description of the tic tac they witnessed.
The Fulton balloon somewhat resembles descriptions of the tic tac. It was used in the latter half of the 20th century to pick people up from the ground and bring them into a flying aircraft. The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system is unlikely to the be tic tac as it was obsolete by 2004, primarily used over land and the Fulton balloon would be visibly attached to an aircraft. (Image source: Sgt. Samuel King Jr, Wikipedia).
The tic tac does resemble the Fulton balloon. The Fulton balloon was part of the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system which was used by the US Air Force and Navy. The system was used to retrieve persons on the ground, James Bond-style, and bring them into a flying aircraft. It involved an aircraft, a harness and a self-inflating balloon. The system was primarily used from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s. It has now been retired from the US Air Force. Whilst the tic tac itself perhaps most closely resembles the Fulton balloon, it was almost certainly not the Fulton balloon. The Fulton balloon was obsolete by 2004 and when operational, the balloon was attached to an aircraft from a relatively short distance via a wire and typically picked people or objects up over land. The video below depicts the Fulton recovery system in action.
The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system in action.
If the tic tac was a balloon or some other inflatable object, it may have burst when it came within half a mile of Fravor’s Super Hornet, perhaps due to the plane’s pressure waves. This may have provided the illusion to the four pilots that the object accelerated from the scene. Despite a rising balloon, potentially in combination with parallax, providing a possible explanation for the tic tac encounter, it relies on many exceedingly unlikely scenarios and fails to explain the full gamut of events that occurred. It also fails to mesh with the pilots’ descriptions of the erratic movements of the tic tac.
All of the bizarre events that had eventuated so far were challenging enough for the scientifically trained pilots and radar operators to explain. Then pilot Chad Underwood recorded one of the UAP on camera and things got even weirder.
Part 4- The FLIR Footage
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
In November of 2004, Lieutenant Commander Chad Underwood was serving in the elite Black Aces squadron that was commanded by David Fravor. Underwood was an experienced pilot with short hair, piercing eyes and a can-do attitude. He also harboured a deep, booming voice with a loose tone that would have camouflaged him well amongst a clique of surfers. Underwood, who held the call sign, ‘Nuts’, was every bit the adrenaline junkie.
Just after the clocks struck 3PM and minutes after the tic tac encounter, Fravor and Dietrich’s Super Hornets landed back on the jagged-edged yet smooth USS Nimitz runway. The quartet of pilots disembarked their planes and encountered Chad Underwood who was preparing to take part in the next wave of aerial training exercises. Underwood donned his flight gear as the four pilots, who seemed rather shaken, removed theirs.
Fravor enthusiastically remarked to Underwood “Hey man, we saw something out there and I want you to go and investigate it. Put your tapes on”. The four pilots recounted the details of their tic tac ordeal. Underwood intently listened to the peculiar story before informing the pilots that he had already been tasked to find the tic tac. Underwood explained “The Princeton is reporting that there’s an object out there that they wanted us to see if we could find and if we’re able, track”.
Fravor’s tic tac story only fuelled Underwood’s motivation to find the elusive object. A determined Underwood exclaimed to his fellow pilot, “Hey, we’re going to find this thing”. Underwood was positioned in the back seat of the F/A 18 Super Hornet as a Weapon Systems Officer (WSO). The plane’s front-seated pilot hasn’t been publicly named.
Underwood’s Super Hornet was fitted with a crucial fighter plane component that Fravor and Dietrich’s planes lacked- an ATFLIR Pod. ATFLIR stands for ‘Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared’. The ATFLIR is best thought of as the Swiss Army Knife of cameras. It contains an infrared camera that provides those onboard the Super Hornet the ability to view and record objects based on their temperature as relative to the background. It also features a low-light television camera in addition to an array of lasers. The head of the ATFLIR most closely resembles a domed CCTV camera, the type typically hidden in shop corners, that rotates like an owl’s head. It is found at the end of the ATFLIR pod’s missile-shaped body.
At 4:20PM, Underwood’s Super Hornet took off from the USS Nimitz alongside another Super Hornet that also had an ATFLIR clinging to it. Once airborne, the pair of Super Hornets parted ways with Underwood’s Super Hornet heading south towards his CAP Point in anticipation of the training exercise. Underwood was keeping an eye out on his radar for the tic tac yet nothing was showing up.
As Underwood travelled towards his southern CAP Point, he was contacted by the USS Princeton. According to Underwood, “That’s when we got a vector from the Princeton, saying ‘investigate target on this bearing and range’. Lo and behold, you get a blip on the radar”. Underwood’s ‘range while search’ scan mode of his radar had identified an unknown object. The object also appeared on Underwood’s situational awareness page which provides the pilots with a God’s-eye-view of the scene. The object was situated 30-40 nautical miles south of Underwood’s Super Hornet, in the vicinity of his CAP Point. He approached the unexplained object. As Underwood had an ATFLIR camera on his plane, the stage was set to solve the tic tac mystery once and for all.
Underwood’s Observations of the Tic Tac
Underwood’s radar had initially detected the object whilst in a sweeping mode. Underwood then decided to focus his radar beam onto the object, attempted to lock onto the object as a single target track. This process should have resulted in Underwood leaning the object’s speed, altitude, distance and other vital metrics. Underwood’s radar lock failed to provide him with a concise airspeed of the object such as 0.7 (Mach), instead “It was jumping all over the place. It was 0.8, 0.4, 0.2, 0.1, 0.9”. Underwood’s radar also tried in vain to work out precisely how far away the object was located. The object showed up as a distance of ’99.9’ which is the radar’s equivalent of saying ‘undefined’ or ‘I don’t know how far away the object is’.
The object showed up on Underwood’s radar at a distance of ‘99.9’ which is the equivalent of saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘undefined’.
Underwood’s radar attempted to get a track again and again. These single target track attempts were futile. For the duration of the encounter, Underwood’s radar was never able to track the object and thus he failed to learn of the object’s metrics. Underwood’s attention shifted.
Underwood’s ATFLIR pod which is akin to a Swiss Army Knife of cameras, automatically focused on the unknown object that his radar had detected. A number of the systems on Underwood’s Super Hornet were interconnected. By virtue of his radar detecting the unknown object, these other sensor, including the ATFLIR (camera) simultaneously honed in on the object. This was thanks to the ATFLIR being set to ‘slave mode’- it is ‘slaved’ to the radar.
The FLIR footage captured by Underwood.
Underwood’s ATLFLIR initially captured the unknown object in the infrared ‘white hot’ mode. The object appeared relatively warm, tiny and white coloured, contrasting the cool, black background. Underwood zoomed in on the object, changed the ATFLIR camera to the TV setting and panned through an array of different modes. He was intent on recording as much evidence as possible relating to the mystery object, “I wanted to bring every single mode and zoom that the FLIR is capable of back to the carrier so we could analyse this thing”.
The letters ‘WHT’ on the bottom-left of the screen indicate ‘white hot mode’. In this mode, warm objects are displayed as white in colour. The object in the centre of the screen is warmer than the background. This is an infrared camera mode.
Underwood watched the object intently on his screen, like a person sitting at home, in front of a TV, focused on the final moments of a nail-biting sport’s final. He attempted to understand the object’s unusual appearance, “It is featureless, it’s just this elongated thing… I have no idea what this thing is”. Underwood would go on to be the first person to label the object as a ‘tic tac’, a tag that lives with the mysterious object to this day.
By virtue of the tic tac being in the sky and vaguely plane shaped, Underwood looked for details that would classify the object as a plane. Underwood has explained, “Any aircraft of any type, whether we are talking a helicopter or a fixed wing aircraft or a fighter or commercial, you should be able to see a tail and you should be able to see wing….These should be very, very obvious on a FLIR pod”. Underwood couldn’t detect these features on the object.
Whilst observing the tic tac in the infrared mode, that distinguishes between temperatures, Underwood didn’t observe the tic tac emitting the typical, scorching hot exhaust plumes of a plane. Underwood has commented, “The biggest giveaway is the exhaust plume because that is nothing but heat. Once I saw it on the FLIR pod, I was like, ‘this is not a conventional aircraft’.”
As Underwood progressed through his mental checklist of plane characteristics, he eliminated the possibility that the object was a plane, “This is not a conventional aircraft of the US military, it’s not a civilian airliner…I’m close enough to the object, I should be able to tell whether it’s a military aircraft versus a civilian aircraft…There’s no distinguishing feature that says ‘this is an aircraft’.”
The Tic Tac Leaves the Tracking
Throughout Underwood’s entire encounter, the tic tac was being tracked by the Super Hornet’s ATFLIR. This is denoted on the FLIR footage by the vertical white line flanking each side of the tic tac. Underwood switched the lens from a narrow field-of-view to a medium field-of-view and back to a narrow field-of-view. Whilst performing this action, the ATFLIR tracker failed to keep track of the tic tac. The tic tac travelled to the left of screen and out of shot.
Underwood believes that the last seconds of the FLIR footage captured the tic tac accelerating away at astonishing speed. Underwood has commented, “To go from whatever its air speed was to something that is impossible by any physical standard, instantaneous acceleration that would crush a pilot just from a structural engineering standpoint, it would just rip the wings right off the aircraft. It’s something that I can’t describe from a physics based perspective”.
The object leaves the tracking (the vertical white bars) and moves to the left of screen.
The object continues to move to the left of screen, giving the impression that it is accelerating.
Underwood has articulated what he witnessed whilst watching the ATFLIR, “I saw it shoot off to the left and then I start to manoeuvre the aircraft to the left to try and reacquire it”. Underwood has described the tic tac’s surprising vanishing act, that resulted in it seemingly defying his radar and ATFLIR as well as the Princeton’s radar, “My radar has a certain scan volume and my FLIR for that matter. Once it (the tic tac) flies out of that field-of-view, let’s just call it + or – 70 degrees of my nose, I’m going to have to manoeuvre the aircraft towards the direction that thing went and try and reacquire it on my sensors because I don’t have 360 degrees worth of radar scan in my aircraft. The Princeton does. It can look in all directions and work out where things are and give me a vector and say ‘hey, it’s back behind you’ so that way I can turn around and get all my sensors back in that sector”.
Underwood was determined to reacquire the tic tac on radar. He asked the Princeton and Hawkeye, “Where did that thing go?” The Princeton and Hawkeye responded, “Negative radar contact”, indicating that they too had lost sight of the tic tac on their radar scope. Underwood’s dalliance with the tic tac was over, “There was nothing there. It wasn’t for a lack of effort. I was trying to reacquire the thing but that was it”. The whole encounter was rather curious, especially so considering that the tic tac was never viewed on Fravor or Dietrich’s radars in their encounter.
Throughout Underwood’s entire run in with the tic tac, he didn’t view the elusive object with his eyes. Instead, he spent his time focused on the FLIR screen and switching between modes. Underwood believes the tic tac was relatively close to his Super Hornet but still beyond a distance from which he could view it with his own eyeballs, “It was inside of 20 miles. You’re not going to see it with your own eyes until probably 10 miles, and then you’re not going to be able to visually track it until you’re probably inside of five miles”.
Underwood has used the word ‘erratic’ to describe the tic tac’s behaviour during his encounter, “That was the thing that was the most interesting to me: how erratic this thing was. If it was obeying physics like a normal object that you would encounter in the sky — an aircraft, or a cruise missile, or some sort of special project that the government didn’t tell you about — that would have made more sense to me. The part that drew our attention was how it wasn’t behaving within the normal laws of physics. You’re up there flying, like, ‘Okay. It’s not behaving in a manner that’s predictable or is normal by how flying objects physically move’.”
The Aftermath of the FLIR Footage
Underwood landed back on the USS Nimitz and came across a friend from another one of the fighter plane squadrons. Underwood’s friend sarcastically asked Underwood, “Hey, did you see something out there too?” Underwood retorted, “Actually, because I know you want to make fun of me, I got it here on video” as he waved the FLIR recording before himself. Underwood inserted the FLIR tape into a playback machine and showed his friend his footage of the tic tac.
Whilst still decked in his flight gear, Underwood spoke to someone he believed was from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), to whom he recited his encounter. No-one ever debriefed Underwood on his sighting, nor was Underwood made to sign any form of non-disclosure agreement. Underwood’s FLIR video was widely circulated by crewmates aboard both the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton via the SIPRNet which is essentially an internet for the United States Defence Force.
In 2007, the FLIR video was uploaded to a website called ‘Vision Unlimited’ as well as a forum called ‘Above Top Secret’. Those who watched the video suspected that it was inauthentic. The video was removed from these websites and was uploaded to YouTube but failed to garner many views. In 2017, the FLIR video made waves around the world when the New York Times published it alongside a story on the Nimitz encounter. The Pentagon declassified the footage and officially released the FLIR video in 2020, alongside two other videos depicting different UAP encounters that occurred many years later (these more recent videos are discussed in ‘Part 7’ of this article). In 2021, the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of the FLIR video. Their statement included the words, “The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified’.”
An Explanation of ATFLIR
An ATFLIR pod being installed on a Super Hornet. (Image source, Wikipedia, Ukuran asli)
ATFLIR which stands for ‘Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared Radar’ is a specialised, military camera that attaches to an aircraft’s fuselage or wing. The camera has an amazing array of capabilities. It can capture infrared imagery and this is depicted in much of Underwood’s FLIR footage. At the very top, centre of the FLIR footage, the letters IR are visible when the ATFLIR is in ‘infrared mode’. In this mode, gradients of temperature variation are shown so that objects appear as a different colour to the background simply because the objects have a different temperature to the background. The infrared mode is sensitive to tenths of a degree.
When the letters ‘IR’ appear on the top of the FLIR footage, it indicates that the video was being shot in infrared mode.
The infrared mode uses two types of infrared settings- white and black. When the bottom left corner of Underwood’s FLIR footage shows the letters, ‘WHT’, the sensor is in ‘white-hot’ mode. This mode shows hot items as white and cold items as black. The start and end of Underwood’s video were recorded in this mode- the tic tac appears white because it is hotter than the background which appears black. The infrared setting has up to a 30x magnification option.
The letters ‘WHT’ on Underwood’s infrared setting means ‘white hot mode’. This indicates that warmer objects appear white.
The centre segment of Underwood’s FLIR footage was shot in ‘TV mode’. The top-centre of the screen displays the letters ‘TV’ in this mode. TV mode is essentially the equivalent of a normal video camera recording. The TV mode has up to a 60x magnification option. The closest views of the tic tac in the FLIR footage were shot in TV mode.
The central timeframe of the FLIR footage is shot in TV mode. This is denoted by the letters ‘TV’ at the top of screen. TV mode is akin to a normal video camera.
The ATFLIR pod is forward looking. This means that it can capture imagery in front of where the plane’s nose is pointing. Half-way up Underwood’s FLIR footage, on the left-hand side, ‘6°‘ is shown. This number changes to ‘5°‘ partway through the footage. This number indicates that the tic tac is 5 or 6 degrees above the plain that the Super Hornet is flying in. In other words, the tic tac had a higher elevation than Underwood’s Super Hornet which was at approximately 20,000 feet for the duration of the encounter.
This number denotes how many degrees above the Super Hornet’s nose, the object being recorded was situated. Throughout the video the object changes from 6 to 5 degrees above the Super Hornet’s nose.
At the start of Underwood’s footage, the upper-centre of the screen displays the number ‘4° R‘. This indicates that the ATFLIR pod is looking 4 degrees right of the nose of the Super Hornet. Throughout Underwood’s FLIR footage, this number gradually changes down to 1 degree right before gradually increasing up to 8 degrees left as the tic tac travels off screen. This information tells us that the tic tac was very closely lined up in front of the Super Hornet’s nose for the duration of the FLIR footage. The maximum 8 degree left variation is a very narrow, acute angle.
This number and letter indicate how many degrees and in which direction, left or right, the ATFLIR pod is facing.
The vertical bars on either side of the tic tac indicate that the tic tac was being passively tracked by the FLIR. The ATFLIR system is able to continually pivot to keep track of the tic tac by focusing on the white pixels on the screen whilst in white-hot infrared mode. It tracks the black pixels comprising the tic tac whilst in TV mode.
The vertical bars denote the object being tracked by the ATFLIR. The ATFLIR tracking system is focusing on the different coloured pixels of the object compared to the background in order to track the object.
The numbers in the bottom-left corner show the speed that Underwood’s Super Hornet was travelling at. This flickers between 0.54 and 0.55 Mach, which is the equivalent of approximately 420 miles per hour- relatively slow by Super Hornet speeds. At this speed, Underwood travelled 8.75 miles towards the tic tac throughout the 1 minute 15 seconds of the FLIR footage.
The Super Hornet’s speed is denoted by this number. The speed is measured in ‘Mach’ with 1 Mach being the speed of sound. The Super Hornet remains at 0.54 or 0.55 Mach throughout the FLIR footage.
The horizon indicator appears in the centre of the screen, above the tic tac and resembles the head-on view of a bird flying, wings outstretched. Throughout the video, the flatness of the horizon indicator shows that Underwood’s Super Hornet isn’t turning.
This is the horizon indicator. It is flat, meaning that the Super Hornet is level and not turning.
The letters NAR that are displayed in the top-left corner of the screen indicate a narrow field-of-view which is the equivalent of 0.7 degrees. Toward the end of the video, just prior to the tic tac’s leftward movement out of picture, Underwood switches the lens from a narrow field-of-view to a MFOV which is medium field-of-view. Medium field-of-view is the equivalent of 2.8 degrees. This is why the tic tac appears tiny in the medium field-of-view mode. After less than one second in the medium field-of-view mode, Underwood reverts the lens back to a narrow field-of-view, as the ATFLIR lock loses track of the tic tac.
These letters indicate the ATFLIR pod’s field-of-view. In this example, the field-of-view is ‘NAR’ which means ‘narrow-field-of-view’. This is the equivalent of 0.7 degrees.
Towards the end of the FLIR footage, Underwood switches the ATFLIR’s lens to a medium-field-of-view (MFOV). This is the equivalent of 2.8 degrees.
Independent of the type of lens, is the zoom function. Underwood toggles this between 1.0 and 2.0 throughout the FLIR video, with 2.0 indicating an increased level of zoom. There is a slight lag between the zooming process occurring and the zoom level number changing on the screen. As the object breaks lock at the end of the FLIR video, the screen is in 1 times zoom. As the object moves to the left, Underwood switches to 2 times zoom, making the object appear larger.
As the object breaks visual lock and moves to the left of the tracking bars, the system is in 1 times zoom.
As the object continues to move to the left, Underwood changes the zoom to 2 times. This makes the object appear larger.
Underwood’s FLIR footage was originally significantly clearer. As the video was copied a number of times, its quality degraded. Additionally, the true clarity of the ATFLIR’s capabilities may have been classified. The Pentagon would not have necessarily wanted a crystal-clear view of the FLIR screen shared publicly. Although the tic tac looks something like an indistinguishable blob in much of the public footage, it was much sharper when both Underwood recorded it and the Nimitz strike group viewed it on SIPRNet.
The Exhaust Plume
One of the many capabilities of the US$6 million ATFLIR pod is the option of capturing infrared footage. Underwood’s FLIR video recorded the tic tac in infrared mode for the majority of the encounter. Within the final five seconds of the video, a zoomed in and relatively clear infrared depiction of the tic tac is captured in 2 times zoom mode. The tic tac appears elongated and there is no clearly visible exhaust plume being emitted by it.
The tic tac in infrared, 2 times zoom mode just prior to it leaving the tracking. There doesn’t appear to be a clear exhaust plume being emitted by the object in this image .
There are two main sides to the exhaust plume debate. 1. The lack of visible exhaust plume in infrared mode is evidence that the tic tac is not an aircraft. 2. The object is an aircraft and there is a perfectly good reason that no exhaust plume is visible/an exhaust plume is visible in parts of the footage.
A number of fighter pilots have come forward claiming that at the very least, it is unusual that no exhaust plume is visible in Underwood’s infrared FLIR footage. Underwood and Fravor, who both viewed the FLIR footage in its original, crystal clear state, are both adamant that the tic tac was not an aircraft by virtue of the lack of exhaust plume.
What a F-35 plane looks like in FLIR at a certain distance.
This video shows the exhaust plume as captured by an ATFLIR in infrared for an F-35 plane.
This video shows how the B2 plane appears in infrared. This plane is designed to have a hard-to-detect infrared signature.
Underwood has explained, “Normally, you would see engines emitting a heat plume. This object was not doing that. The video shows a source of heat, but the normal signatures of an exhaust plume were not there. There was no sign of propulsion. You could not see the thing that the ATFLIR pod should pick up 100% of the time: the source of heat and exhaust that a normal object flying would give you”.
Fravor concurs with Underwood, “What you also notice is that there’s no plumes. If you are looking at an airplane, when you get closer, you’ll actually see the exhaust coming out and there will be a really glowing plume…All of a sudden it accelerates. Airplanes don’t work that way…You would see a plume if that was an airplane”.
Chief Master at Arms, Sean Cahill, was on the USS Princeton in 2004 during the tic tac encounters. Cahill, who saw the original, clear footage has said, “I understood how to read the FLIR imagery so I knew it was not the temperature I was expecting to see. It had no exhaust plume”.
Former Super Hornet pilot, Vincent Aiello, who has been interviewed by ‘The Intelligencer’ and has commented on Underwood’s FLIR footage has remarked, “Where it looks different to me is that…there’s no perceptible heat signature from the engines or from the intakes like an aircraft. If you’re close enough to an actual aircraft and you’re tracking it, you can see heat spots at different places either leading edges of wings, where it’s hotter because of friction, or exhaust ports from where bleed air comes out, and, of course, the actual exhaust of the engines themselves”.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Cooke is a former Top Gun pilot who has also weighed in on the exhaust plume debate concerning Underwood’s FLIR video. Cooke has explained, “Everything we know about propulsion systems is that they create an intense amount of heat. If it (the tic tac) was a conventional type of aircraft, you would most definitely see some type of an IR (infrared) signature plume, behind the airplane…I’ve got no idea what that thing is”.
Skeptics have argued that Underwood’s FLIR footage simply captured an aircraft, be it civilian or a fighter plane. The skeptic’s argument centres on a number of factors conspiring to make the exhaust plume undetectable in the majority of the FLIR video. Firstly, the plane may have been too far away for the ATFLIR to have recorded the exhaust plume. What we see in the FLIR footage is essentially an elongated blur. The skeptics argue that it is not surprising we can’t see an exhaust plume as the plane is so distant. The plane is so far away we can’t even easily make out any of the plane’s features.
Another argument by the skeptics supporting the conclusion that the tic tac is a plane involves the aircraft’s angle of the trajectory. If the plane was travelling at some sort of angle away from Underwood, its exhaust plume may have merged in with the plane itself. Alternatively, if the plane was orientated at another angle, the exhaust plume may have been obscured by the plane’s fuselage.
It has been posited that the time period 15 seconds into the FLIR video depicts the object with an exhaust plume. This infrared mode vision potentially shows a series of stray lines emanating from the object, somewhat like an exhaust plume signature. In later infrared vision, these lines are absent. It is plausible that the plane was angled so that its rear was facing the camera originally, hence the visible exhaust plumes (as seen below). The plane may have then changed orientation, causing no exhaust plumes to be subsequently visible.
This is the infrared vision of the ‘tic tac’ 15 seconds into Underwood’s FLIR footage. There may be radial lines stemming from the tic tac, which some have suggested could be a plane’s exhaust plume.
The Shape of the Tic Tac
Another of Underwood’s central arguments that the object he recorded wasn’t a standard aircraft involves the shape of the object. Underwood has explained, “Any aircraft of any type, whether we are talking a helicopter or a fixed wing aircraft or a fighter or commercial, you should be able to see a tail and you should be able to see wing….These should be very, very obvious on a FLIR pod”.
Former Super Hornet pilot, Vincent Aiello has spoken of the object in the FLIR footage, “Where it looks different to me is that it has no wings like an aircraft”. Former Top Gun pilot and retired Lieutenant Colonel, Christopher Cooke, shares a similar opinion of the object captured in the FLIR forage, “It doesn’t appear to have any characteristics of any normal aircraft that I’ve witnessed flying….it does not look like an aircraft to me”.
Chief Master at Arms, Sean Cahill, saw the original tic tac footage whilst he was on board the USS Princeton during the tic tac encounters. Cahill has said, “It was obvious what I was looking at had no wings…There were no tethers to it, so it was not a balloon”.
Those skeptics who believe that the tic tac recorded by Underwood was simply a plane, have cited several arguments to support their conclusion. Firstly, they claim that a plane recorded on ATFLIR from a significant distance would look exactly like what we see in Underwood’s footage. The fact that we can’t make out the plane’s tail or wings is not surprising considering the sheer distance of the recording, coupled with the grainy quality.
Other skeptics believe that they can see an outline of a plane, during the 2 times zoom, TV mode of the FLIR footage (see the image below). There appears to be a cluster of pixels extending downwards from the centre of the object; this could be the plane’s nearest wing. There may also be another clustering of pixels on the upper, right side of the object. This could either be the plane’s far wing or tail. Is this simply a case of pareidolia; seeing patterns in random stimulus or is this evidence that the tic tac was indeed a plane?
Some people have speculated that the outline of a plane is visible in TV mode. (Image source: Agent K, Metabunk).
The object recorded by Underwood in TV mode has a cluster of pixels stemming from the base, which may be a wing. There also appears to be a cluster of pixels on the right side of the object which could be a wing or tail.
This plane in TV mode somewhat resembles the object recorded by Underwood. Alternatively, is this conclusion just pareidolia?
Fravor has addressed what he believes the downwards facing pixels could possibly be- little antennas. Fravor, who saw the FLIR footage in its original clarity, on a large screen has said, “When you get to the TV mode, when I say there are little things coming out of the bottom of it, you could see those. It was very clear… He’s (Underwood’s) coming almost co-altitude with it, if you look at a Cessna, there are little antennas hanging out the bottom, kind of like that. There’s two little things on the bottom”. Fravor is referring to the Cessna’s landing gear which obtrusively sticks out from the base of the plane when airborne.
An artist’s depiction of the tic tac with downwards facing antennas. (Image source: JMK [CC BY-SA], Popularmechanics.com)
In another interview, Fravor has elaborated on the antennas, “They almost look like they could be feet sticking out the bottom. Could be antennas…I believe they both went to the right. So we’re looking at it, you know, it goes to the left side. They came down and pointed out to the right side…We don’t see the little things on the bottom of it until we see the video in the TV mode”.
Petty Officer Jason Turner who was on board the USS Princeton during the tic tac encounters, saw the original, clear FLIR footage. Like Fravor, Turner saw appendages under the tic tac, “It did have something protruding from the bottom of it. I couldn’t tell if they were curled back or straight down”.
Dietrich also recalls viewing a pair of appendages hanging down from the tic tac whilst viewing the initial version of the FLIR video, “I didn’t get a look at the belly real-time, but on the FLIR tapes (Underwood’s follow-up flight) we saw something that looked like 2 pitot tubes”.
Editor-in-chief of ‘The War Zone’, Tyler Rogoway, has speculated that these antennas may be one of two things. Firstly, they could be pitot like tubes (a description that meshes with Dietrich’s observational analogy). These tubes form part of an aircraft’s instrument system and are involved in taking various measurements. Rogoway has proposed a second explanation for Fravor’s antennas that he believes may be more likely- they could be electronic warfare emitters.
A drawing of a pitot tube. (Image source: Tyler Rogoway)
A plane’s pitot tube. (Image source: Tyler Rogoway)
There are some arguments against Rogoway’s theories. Pitot like tubes are typically fairly small, not positioned one after the other and they point in the direction that a plane is travelling. According to Fravor’s description, the tic tac’s antennas were relatively large, there was one towards the front of the tic tac and one towards the back and they pointed towards the rear of the tic tac. Despite being closer in size to the tic tac’s supposed antennas, Rogoway’s second theory of electronic warfare emitters also has its counter-arguments. Electronic warfare emitters typically hang down, one from each wing and point forwards. The antenna arrangement was supposedly one in front of the other and pointing backwards.
An electronic warfare emitter. (Image source: Tyler Rogoway)
Jamming Analysis
Radar jamming is a form of ‘electronic countermeasures’ that involves purposefully sending out certain radio frequency signals in order to interfere with a radar. These radio frequency signals typically overwhelm the radar receiver with either false information or noise. As a result, when jammed, the radar will receive false or misleading information.
On several occasions, Underwood attempted to get a ‘single target track’ lock on the tic tac. In each instance, Underwood’s radar failed to lock onto the elusive tic tac. If Underwood had succeeded in locking his radar onto the tic tac, he would have been able to determine the tic tac’s speed, altitude, distance from him, heading (the direction the tic tac’s nose was pointing) and other metrics. He was unable to receive any of this information.
Underwood also explains that whilst trying to get a single target track lock on the tic tac, unusual readings started to pop-up on his radar display. Underwood has said “What was different about this was as soon as I took that lock, the track started doing all sorts of little things that are not normal. The heading was erratic. It should be able to tell me your airspeed and also your Mach number so it should say like, 0.8 Mach for example, so 80% the speed of sound. It should say that. It was jumping all over the place. It was 0.8, 0.4, 0.2, 0.1, 0.9. My radar just can’t hack it. In all instances it should be able to hack that”.
On the right side of the FLIR footage screen, approximately one quarter of the way down, the number 99.9 is visible (see the image below). This number indicates that the radar was unsure of the tic tac’s distance from the Super Hornet’s radar. The number 99.9 is the equivalent of saying ‘undefined’. This may be due to the tic tac prohibiting the Super Hornet from getting a radar lock on it. Alternatively, the tic tac may have been at a distant point beyond where Underwood’s radar had the ability of reaching. The ATFLIR system was unable to obtain this distance information for one reason or another hence the number 99.9 appeared on the screen.
Within this section of the display screen in the FLIR footage, the number 99.9 appears. This is the equivalent of saying ‘undefined’ and informs us that Underwood’s radar was unable to determine how far away the tic tac was positioned.
Fravor has spoken about the 99.9 reading on Underwood’s FLIR, “Notice where it says 99.9, what that means is that he’s got the targeting pod, because that’s his primary sensor right now. The radar is still trying to look at this object and trying to range it and the radar can’t get ranging on it. The object is doing something to say ‘I’m not giving you back’ because it’s just a Doppler radar, just like a police radar is a Doppler. It’s trying to get a ranging on you and it can’t do it. When it says 99.9, the radar cannot see this object right now, it’s not allowing it to get”.
The Executive Summary includes a section claiming that Underwood said there were no jamming cues; that is, the tic tac object wasn’t sending out certain radio frequencies to interfere with Underwood’s radar. Underwood has recently spoken out about the ‘no jamming cues’ line within the executive report that was attributed to him. Underwood has emphatically denied making this statement. He also explains that he was never interviewed for the Executive Summary, “Regarding the jamming indications in the report, I was not consulted for that report”.
In his recent public interviews discussing the FLIR footage, Underwood has unequivocally claimed he was jammed, “I was also receiving strobe lines. It’s basically just lines on your radar that are indications you are being jammed. That tic tac jamming us would be an act of war. It’s not that I’m going to shoot down an aircraft because it’s jamming me but I’m going to report back to my boss that it’s jamming me and I’ve got proof of it that’s going to make its way to the Pentagon. It has consequences. It was offensively jamming us just outside of international waters at peacetime operations. It’s an act of war and we are going to go out of there and make you pay for that”. It seems most likely that Underwood has always believed that he was jammed and that the Executive Summary was erroneous in its ‘no jamming cues’ line that it attributed to him.
Like Underwood, Fravor is also of the opinion that Underwood’s Super Hornet was being jammed. Fravor has commented, “He picks up a hit on his radar and he goes to lock it up, because I watched all the tapes. He goes to lock it up and immediately the radar can tell, it gets signals back, that it’s being jammed. Technically, jamming is an act of war. It starts jamming the radar. It goes into a jam extrapolate. A bunch of stuff happens on the scope. He’s smart enough to castle to his targeting pod and he takes a passive track”.
Dietrich is also emphatically of the same opinion that Underwood was jammed. She has said, “I can say with confidence there was jamming because we had (an) extensive conversation about it while reviewing the tapes immediately after the incident. It was a notable technical detail in the debrief. Can’t get any more specific than that”. On another occasion, Dietrich has specified that the pilots collectively saw clear signs of jamming whilst reviewing Underwood’s video immediately following Underwood touching down. “I’ve always remembered clear jamming indications (from when we huddled around the video that afternoon 11/14/04) and it’s always been confirmed by others involved when we ‘testified’ at the Pentagon and Congress”.
If Underwood’s radar was being actively jammed, it’s plausible that the antennas Fravor believes he saw in the original FLIR footage, beneath the tic tac, were electronic warfare emitters that have the ability to release electromagnetic radiation energy and subsequently jam. If jamming did occur, Underwood’s encounter becomes markedly more unusual although it is not definitive proof of extra-terrestrial involvement as planes and other human built craft have the ability to jam although this rarely takes place especially in peacetime operations in the SOCAL range.
In contrast to the jamming accusations, a number of skeptics have suggested that there was no indication Underwood was jammed by the object. They cite the Executive Summary which explicitly quotes Underwood as stating that no jamming occurred. The skeptics posit that Underwood’s radar was simply unable to lock onto the object, which they believe to be a plane. This could be for a number of reasons including a failure by the radar lock or as a result of the sheer distance away from the radar that the plane was situated.
The trio of pilots who viewed the tapes post flight are unwavering in their opinion that jamming occurred. Such an act would be highly unusual just off the coast of Mexico Baja during peacetime operations. What is certain is that Underwood’s radar was unable to perform a ‘single target track’ on the tic tac and thus it failed to determine the tic tac’s metrics.
The Tic Tac Leaves the ATFLIR’s Visual Lock- Analysis
Underwood’s radar was unable to track the tic tac however his ATFLIR system was able to get a lock on the tic tac visually. This is represented in the FLIR footage by the two parallel, vertical lines- one on each side of the tic tac. The ATFLIR’s optical lock works thanks to the system focusing on the different coloured pixels that comprise a target (in this case the tic tac), in contrast to the target’s background.
As soon as the public, FLIR video begins, Underwood’s ATFLIR has locked onto the tic tac. At approximately the 50 second mark of the video, the tic tac seems to break the ATFLIR’s lock as it moves outside the vertical, tracking lines. The ATFLIR’s lock easily reacquires the tic tac in less than one second (see the images below). When these vertical lines spread apart and lengthen, the ATFLIR’s visual lock is trying to reacquire the tic tac.
At the 50 second mark of the FLIR video, the object leaves the vertical, tracking lines.
At the 51 second of the FLIR video, (one second after the previous image) the vertical, tracking lines expand and reacquire the object.
In the last few seconds of the FLIR video, Underwood changed the field-of-view from narrow to medium and back to narrow as the tic tac simultaneously broke the lock and appeared to accelerate to the left of the screen, never to be captured by Underwood again, despite his best efforts (see the image below). The million dollar question is- Did the tic tac happen to perform a rapid acceleration causing the lock to drop or was the tic tac simply flying along at a steady pace and the ATFLIR lock just happened to drop for some other reason?
At the end of the FLIR footage, the tic tac breaks the ATFLIR’s visual lock and travels off the left of screen. Was this lock break the result of the tic tac’s acceleration or the result of some other more mundane reason?
There are a number of primary reasons that an ATFLIR lock can be dropped. The first scenario is if the plane with the ATFLIR pod conducts an aggressive manoeuvre. The second scenario involves the ATFLIR pod reaching the limits of its viewing ability. It is only forward facing and also has a specific and restricted left-right and up-down field-of-view. Anything beyond these specific limits, the ATFLIR won’t be able to record or lock onto. Finally, a third reason that a lock can be dropped is if the object being tracked accelerates at a rate that is beyond what the ATFLIR pod can track.
There are some additional reasons that an ATFLIR lock may drop: locks can fail on their own accord due to a system failure. Additionally, the object being tracked can travel to a point that is too distant for the ATFLIR to track.
Underwood has spoken about the trajectory and conditions required for the ATFLIR to drop a lock, “Anything greater than about 40 to 45 degrees angle of bank and greater than 3g to 5g rate of heading change”. James McGaha, a former Air Force Major who worked with military transport planes, has suggested that the tic tac’s acceleration to the left was actually an illusion and the result of Underwood’s plane banking in the opposite direction. Underwood has responded to this theory, “I was not aggressively manoeuvring the aircraft in the manner that would make the FLIR pod do that”.
Underwood has continued on with his point, “Aircraft was straight and level at that point. You look at the FLIR pod, there’s no change of heading or altitude or air speed. Our aircraft was straight and level the entire time…I’m not manoeuvring the aircraft in a manner in which in those circumstances would cause the FLIR to drop track. That did not happen. I was at a very benign heading, airspeed, altitude and bank angle that the FLIR will not drop that track”. Steven Cummings who was a technical director for Raytheon, the company that created ATFLIR, has viewed the FLIR footage. He agrees with Underwood that the Super Hornet wasn’t making a sharp bank when the tic tac disappeared off screen.
During the FLIR video, we can observe the direction of the tic tac relative to Underwood’s Super Hornet’s nose. The tic tac begins at 4 degrees right and its relative position gradually changes to 8 degrees left before it travels off screen. This is a very acute angle which is essentially in front of the Super Hornet’s nose. The ATFLIR’s left-right field-of-view limit is significantly wider than this. The tic tac’s position throughout the FLIR footage is constantly at 5 or 6 degrees above the horizontal plane of the Super Hornet. Once again, this is a slim field-of-view. The ATFLIR pod has a much greater up-down potential range. It is unlikely that the tic tac reaching the ATFLIR pod’s range limits explains the tracking being dropped.
The specific model of ATFLIR that Underwood’s Super Hornet was fitted with was the ASQ-228. How rare is it for this model of ATFLIR to lose a track? According to a member of the Canadian Air Force who has spent thousands of hours using the specific ASQ-228, he had only ever noticed this ATFLIR model having its lock broken once. This lock break occurred when the ATFLIR was situated inside a vehicle that was travelling on a road whilst the ATFLIR was tracking an object. The vehicle hit a bump in the road and the lock was broken. The Canadian Air Force member has also underlined the fact that they used the ASQ-228 whilst launching missiles. The lock was able to track the high acceleration of the missiles during the launch phase.
Fravor has been asked if the ATFLIR system would be capable of keeping lock on the world’s fastest plane. Fravor responded, “Yeah, it would stay with it. Until it got to the limits of the pod”.
The ‘tic tac’ moves off to the left of screen at the end of the FLIR footage.
Fravor and Underwood have both spoken about how awe-struck they are over the tic tac’s acceleration in the FLIR footage. It wasn’t simply the supposed speed of the tic tac in the last few seconds of the footage but the tic tac’s ability to travel from what they believe was virtually a stand-still to a rapid velocity. Underwood has remarked, “To go from whatever its airspeed was at the time to something that’s just impossible by any physical standard is just something I just can’t describe from a physics based perspective…Even an SR-71, it’s a Mach 3+ aircraft, doesn’t just go from 250 knots to 2,000 knots instantaneously. That’s just not how conventional propulsion systems that we know are capable of. That’s the part that blew me away”.
Fravor agrees with Underwood’s assessment, “For something to leave the field-of-view that fast with the pod just staring, is pretty fast…Let’s just use the F-22 Raptor. It’s probably the best airplane in the world right now, performance wise. It can’t take off like that. Especially if it’s a hover. You’re talking something that’s just sitting in space, in the wind, then all of a sudden accelerates. Airplanes don’t work that way”.
A study by Knuth et al. examined the last 32 frames of Underwood’s FLIR video. The study concluded that the tic tac had an overall acceleration of 75.9 +/- 0.2g. For comparison, studies have found that an average male being subject to an equitable amount of g’s (75) would experience severe injury or death. Note that this study makes some assumptions and it is not definitive that the tic tac is accelerating at this rate.
In contrast to the Knuth et al. study, Mick West believes that the object continues travelling at a constant speed when it appears to accelerate off the screen. West proposes that the ATFLIR pod simply dropped visual lock of the object and thus stopped following the object. The object’s movement off the left of the screen is simply the object’s consistent, regular motion. Mick West has made calculations in two times narrow mode, at 0.35 degrees. Using these measures, it takes approximately 1.5 seconds for the object to move across one frame. West suggests that if the ATFLIR pod suddenly physically stopped and therefore no longer tracked the object, it would take approximately 0.75 seconds for the object to travel from the centre of the screen to off the screen. In the FLIR video, when the ATFLIR does lose visual track of the object, it takes approximately 0.75 seconds for the object to disappear off the screen- precisely the speed that would be expected to occur if the ATFLIR stopped tracking and the object was travelling at a constant speed during the video and not accelerating at the end of the FLIR footage.
In this video, Mick West proposes that the object was travelling at a steady speed. He suggests that when the object appears to accelerate at the end of the FLIR footage, what is actually happening is that the ATFLIR pod has stopped tracking the object and thus stopped moving. The object continues travelling to the left of screen at its steady speed- the difference being that it is not being tracked by the ATFLIR. This provides the illusion of it accelerating.
Another argument put forth by those who believe that the object recorded in the FLIR footage is a plane, involves Underwood’s control of the field-of-view function. Underwood switched the lens from a narrow field-of-view to a medium field-of-view then back to a narrow field-of-view and the object subsequently broke lock. Skeptics have suggested that the ATFLIR system lock struggled to reacquire the object after this mode change. The ATFLIR lens change caused the object to appear outside of the vertical lock bars. The object’s steady leftward motion kept it outside of the vertical lock bars post lens change. After the object had broken lock by virtue of the field-of-view change, the ATFLIR no longer moves to track the object. This provides the illusion that the object is accelerating. In addition, Underwood zooms in on the object which adds to the illusion that the object is brisking moving. In reality, the object has a constant velocity. A visual depiction of the changing lens contributing to the broken lock can be viewed below.
At the 1:10 mark of the FLIR video, the ATFLIR is in the narrow-field-of-view mode. (The tic tac appears large due to the 2 times zoom).
At the 1:12 mark of the FLIR video, Underwood changes the ATFLIR lens from narrow to medium. As a result of the lens change process, the ‘tic tac’ is refracted and appears to vanish from the screen.
At the 1:13 mark of the FLIR footage, the tracking bars are able to reacquire the tic tac in medium field-of-view mode.
At the 1:13.5 mark of the FLIR footage, Underwood changes the AFLIR lens back to narrow field-of-view. This involves the physical ATFLIR lens changing. As a result of this change, the tic tac is again refracted so it again disappears from the screen.
At the 1:14 mark of the FLIR footage, the lens change is complete and it is back to narrow. The tic tac appears on the edge of the left, vertical, tracking bar.
At the 1:14.2 mark, the tracking bars expand however the tic tac has travelled to the left and is unable to be reacquired. It continues on to travel left and off the display screen.
The ‘tic tac’ moves off to the left of screen at the end of the FLIR footage.
The lens change theory causing the ATFLIR to break lock has some strong arguments to support its validity. In the moments leading up the tic tac travelling off to the left of the screen, the lens is changed from narrow to medium. This lens change involves the actual physical ATFLIR pod itself changing its lens. For a fraction of an instant, the tic tac appears to vanish from the screen- this is a product this physical lens change and the subsequent refraction. When the lens change is complete, the tic tac is reacquired by the ATFLIR lock. The lens then changes from medium back to narrow. During this transition period, the tic tac reappears on one of the vertical lock lines then travels to the left and out of shot before the vertical lock lines can reacquire it. It seems plausible that the lens change caused the ATFLIR to lose lock.
On several occasions throughout the FLIR footage, the vertical lock bars expand as the ATFLIR tries to reacquire the tic tac. It is not unreasonable to think that the lens change in combination with the ATFLIR’s general tenuous visual lock on the tic tac conspired for the ATFLIR to lose its lock. The lens changes viewed in slow motion and the seemingly consistent speed of travel of the tic tac before it loses lock and when it stops being visually tracked, amount to further substantial evidence for this prosaic theory that doesn’t involve a fantastical acceleration of the tic tac.
If one accepts that the ATFLIR lock was lost by the change of lens perhaps in combination with other factors that don’t involve the object’s acceleration then it doesn’t preclude the object being a tic tac. In other words, the object recorded by Underwood may well be the mysterious tic tac and rather than accelerating off, beyond the FLIR screen, the ATFLIR may have innocuously dropped lock due to the lens change.
There is one further unusual aspect of the tic tac’s disappearance that is challenging to explain away- Its vanishing act away from the ATFLIR coincided with its exit from the collective systems and radars of the strike group. The Princeton and according to Underwood, the Hawkeye, were both tracking the tic tac on radar as the Super Hornet approached the unidentified object. Underwood’s radar whilst in sweep mode also detected the tic tac and it appeared on his SA page. When the tic tac seemingly accelerated out of view of the ATFLIR, Underwood manoeuvred his plane to realign its nose with where the tic tac should have been yet he was unable to view it via any of his systems. Not only this, when the tic tac vanished, Underwood radioed in to the Princeton and Hawkeye. They also lost sight of the tic tac on their independent radars at the same time that it seemingly accelerated from the ATFLIR.
The object captured in the FLIR footage was visually locked by the ATFLIR system. The ATFLIR system lost its lock on the object at the end of the video. Like so many elements across the entire tic tac series of encounters, there are two schools of thought regarding precisely why the lock was dropped. Was it as a result of some mystifyingly fast acceleration by the tic tac? Was it as a result of the ATFLIR system struggling to track an innocuous distant plane in combination with Underwood changing the lens and poor radar returns?
The Length of the FLIR Footage
The FLIR footage initially circulated amongst crewmates aboard both the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton via the SIPRNet, which is akin to a United States Defence Force internet. A number of these personnel who viewed this original, clearer footage have spoken publicly about what they observed.
Jason Turner as shown in the 2003, Princeton Cruise book.
Petty Officer, Jason Turner, initially saw the FLIR footage whilst aboard the USS Princeton. Turner has described what he recalls of the video, “When I saw it, it was a very clear video and this thing was going berserk, like making turns like, it’s incredible. The number of g-forces it would put on a human, that this thing was doing. The jets were trying to trail this thing and it would just run off and leave them. It was just, pew, gone and then it would come back and you would see it. It made a manoeuvre, like they were chasing it straight on and it was going with them. This thing just stopped, turned and pew, gone. That’s the only way to describe it, what it looked like. The video you see now is just a small snippet in the beginning of the whole video and you are seeing smooth little turns lefts and rights. This thing, it was so much more than what you see in this video”. When asked how long the video he observed ran for, Turner has commented, “Between 7 to 10 minutes”. Turner claims that the original video is significantly longer than the publicly available video which runs for approximately 1 minute and 17 seconds.
Ryan Weigelt, who worked on the USS Princeton, also recalls a longer original video, “What you see in the film is really what I saw…It was a lot longer than a minute or two”. Gary Voorhis who was also on the USS Princeton has a similar recollection to Turner and Weigelt. When asked if the video he viewed was the same length as the public vide, Voorhis responded, “No, it was longer”. Kevin Day from the USS Princeton also agrees there was a longer video, “The video on the New York Times was probably about, I would say maybe, a half to a third as long as the original one that I received”.
Karson Kammerzell who was on the USS Princeton has provided some context for the alleged longer video, “I saw the video that you see online now, without all the editing. It ran somewhere between 1:15 and 2:00 minutes. My video was better clarity but that’s not as impactful as some hope because it was still a rough-looking image even then…I firmly believe that Turner’s video could have been 7 minutes long. I doubt, highly doubt, that the aircraft intercepted this thing and snapped only 1-2 minutes of footage. There’s no way. There isn’t a video capture operation on the planet that starts recording during and stops during an event unless someone forgot or was under extreme duress… The flight recording wouldn’t start after contact and stop during contact. Not a chance”.
Fravor believes that what is publicly available is the entirety of the original video, “There are rumours that this video is like 10 minutes long. No, what you’re looking at is the entire video…It’s a minute and a half long”.
Underwood believes that the tic tac was 30 nautical miles away from him when he acquired it on his radar. He also believes that it disappeared when he was 10-15 nautical miles away from it. Underwood’s Super Hornet was travelling at between 0.54 and 0.55 Mach. Assuming a right to left motion of the tic tac, an immediate FLIR recording and using the extreme 10 mile value of the 10-15 nautical mile estimate, the entire FLIR recording should last in the realm of 2 minutes and 50 seconds. This is a maximum possible value and it assumes that the tic tac wasn’t travelling away from the Super Hornet.
These varied recollections of the video’s length encapsulate the potential fallibility in recalling the details of an event that occurred over a decade prior.
Was the Object Captured in the FLIR Footage a Plane?
An unnamed aviation technician who worked for the US Air Force and regularly dealt with targeting pods has said of the FLIR footage, “Looks like a plane. Looks like every other plane I’ve seen…A plane, it’s a plane that’s backlit that looks like it’s going away from us, at like 35 degrees left, and it’s backlit”. This aviation technician has estimated the plane’s distance from Underwood’s Super Hornet, “Judging from what I’ve seen, like planes in holding patterns and coming into (the airport), I don’t know, probably 45 to 60 miles”.
Renowned skeptic Mick West also believes that the object captured by Underwood was a plane, “So I’d say the entire incident likely consisted of dodgy radar returns and a distant plane not on the radar”. The seemingly logical deduction is that the elongated, blurred shape in the sky, recorded by the FLIR footage is a run-a-mill plane. In reality, this simple conclusion is anything but clear-cut.
Underwood encountered the unidentified object when he was scheduled to take-part in an air training exercise. Underwood was flying in the SOCAL range complex- a dedicated tactical training area skirting the waters off the south-western part of California and flanking Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. It spans a significant square mileage. Commercial airlines typically avoid the SOCAL area. This is doubly true during vitality-style aircraft training sessions. Despite being in the vicinity of the dense commercial plane Mecca that is California, the SOCAL area is almost always void of commercial aircraft. This is also evidenced by the website Flight Radar which shows live flights. There is virtually always a permanent commercial plane absence within the SOCAL area. To my knowledge, no-one has been able to propose a possible commercial flightpath that corresponds even roughly with the tic tac’s position at the appropriate time.
Underwood has been asked whether there was other air traffic in the area, near the CAP point, when he attempted to intercept the tic tac. He has answered, “No, nothing at all and we were flying what we call the whiskey areas. They are restricted for military aircraft and we scheduled those, more or less for a safety of flight to make sure that any other military aircraft, or civilian aircraft for that matter, are not flying in that sector of airspace”. A whiskey area is another name for a warning area offshore. They start three miles from the shoreline and extend outwards. It’s recommended that any aircraft travelling through a whiskey area make contact with the air traffic control before flying through the locale in order to determine what exercises are taking part.
The Princeton’s radar operators were aware of the tic tacs’ radar symbology, altitudes, speeds and lack of electronic signature. The Princeton’s SPY-1 radar was highly advanced. It should have been elementary for it to identify the tic tac as a commercial plane, if it was one. In fact, the SPY-1 has the ability to track objects the size of a baseball. Day has commented, “It’s very easy for the AEGIS system to detect and identify commercial airlines”. The Princeton’s SPY-1 radar range is 256 miles- significantly further than the relatively short distance to the object captured on its system and on Underwood’s FLIR. The object was thought to be less than 30 nautical miles away from Underwood when he initially noticed it. The Princeton were on the cusp of navigated Underwood towards the object when the object appeared on his radar. It is highly unlikely that the best radar operators in the United States directed Underwood towards a commercial airplane.
What if the Princeton radar operators directed Underwood towards the tic tac and his radar just happened to identify a commercial plane; which he ultimately caught on FLIR? For starters, Underwood was psychologically predisposed to assuming the object was a tic tac thanks to his talk with Fravor before his flight.
The ATFLIR systems are all synchronised across multiple platforms; be it plane or missile cruiser. The Princeton would have known if Underwood’s FLIR happened to lock on to a commercial plane. This synchronisation of the Super Hornet’s systems, including ATFLIR will be discussed further down this section.
Commercial aircraft emit electronic signals as part of the ‘Identification friend or foe’ (IFF) radar system. Had Underwood’s Super Hornet encountered a commercial airline, he should have also received an IFF signature from it, identifying it as such. According to the manufacturers website, “ATFLIR can locate and designate targets day or night at ranges exceeding 40 nautical miles and altitudes surpassing 50,000 feet, outperforming comparable targeting systems”. The Executive Report states that the tic tac’s “Initial tracks were at approximately 30-40 nm to the south of the aircraft”. Additionally, Underwood travelled 8.75 miles towards the mystery object during the 1 minute 15 seconds of the FLIR video (although he estimates to have been even closer and within 10-15 miles of the tic tac when it vanished). His radar and ATFLIR, both of which are designed for military combat, should have both been able to detect and track a run-of-the-mill commercial plane. According to Underwood, the Hawkeye was also airborne and tracking the tic tac just prior to it vanishing. The Hawkeye uses the AN/APS-145 radar which has the capability of tracking targets at ranges of over 340 miles. Underwood has described that the Hawkeye also lost sight of the tic tac and was unable to reacquire it- just like the Princeton and his Super Hornet’s systems.
Commercial aircraft travel along standard routes known as airways. They don’t typically pass through military warning areas during training. Day has commented, “I got my display. I can display all the commercial airline routes. There is no commercial airline route right there”. Commercial aircraft also travel at set speeds and elevations and have a distinctive radar signature that is easily identifiable.
Dietrich and Fravor, who both watched the original, clear FLIR footage on high-resolution, large screens, have identified the object as the tic tac they had encountered hours before. Dietrich has said, “From my perspective, he absolutely captured what we saw earlier in the day”.
A number of personnel on board the USS Princeton and USS Nimitz, who viewed the original FLIR footage, have also come forth. None of those who have spoken publicly have claimed that the object was a plane. The question arises- how rare is it to view an object from a fighter plane (via FLIR or otherwise) that is not readily identifiable? Former Super Hornet Pilot, Vincent Aiello, had a decorated and protracted career. The metric for a fighter pilot’s career experience is cockpit hour. Aiello spent a total of 3,800 hours in the cockpit. Aiello has said, “I have never seen anything in the air that I could not identify”.
If the tic tac was unlikely to be a commercial plane, could it have been one of the many fighter planes in the vicinity, taking part in air training exercises? To make some progress in answering this question, we must first understand the datalink system on Underwood’s Super Hornet. Datalink is a system that essentially connects every aspect of a strike group. The USS Nimitz, the Princeton, the Hawkeye, all of the Super Hornets and all of the other strike group vehicles were connected by datalink which is somewhat akin to an internet. When Underwood locked the tic tac, every fighter plane in the air and everything in the strike group became aware that Underwood was locking onto a target. This information would have appeared on their situational awareness screen in front of them.
If Underwood had locked onto another fighter plane, the ‘Identification friend or foe’ (IFF) radar system would have identified the plane to Underwood. Additionally, Underwood’s situational awareness screen would have constantly been showing him where the planes, ship and other vehicles in the strike group were located- independent of radar. This also works in reverse. Not only would have Underwood known where all the other planes were situated, the other planes would have known Underwood’s location and crucially they would have all been informed that Underwood was attempting to lock onto another plane.
If Underwood did lock onto another fighter plane, an alarm would have sounded in the other plane’s cockpit. Additionally, everyone in the strike group would have been informed that Underwood had attempted to lock onto another fighter plane.
It is almost unthinkable that Underwood locked onto another fighter plane. There is one caveat- the aircraft, including Underwood’s Super Hornet, were taking part in training drills when he saw the unknown object. The training drills consisted of a ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ style scenario in which Underwood’s Super Hornet was playing the ‘good’ role. It is plausible that the datalink wasn’t sharing data to all airborne planes when Underwood encountered the object. It’s possible that the ‘good’ planes were sharing their positions on datalink with each other. It’s possible that the ‘bad’ planes were sharing their positions on datalink each other. There may have been no cross-over. This may have provided a mechanism for Underwood to not identify the alleged fighter plane he encountered.
There are some counter-arguments to this ‘not sharing datalink’ theory. It is likely that the USS Princeton and AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) would have had the collective information of all airborne planes. It’s also unlikely that the Princeton navigated Underwood towards a ‘bad’ plane which would have had quite a distinct and recognisable symbology on its radar scope. Furthermore, the USS Princeton and Hawkeye lost sight of the tic tac on radar when it travelled off Underwood’s FLIR screen. If the tic tac was a ‘bad’ plane, the USS Princeton and Hawkeye would have almost certainly been able to track it with their advanced radars.
Underwood’s plane was one of the first launched as part of the new session of the training exercises. Underwood has been asked “There was no red air in the area from the previous exercise?” Underwood has responded, “That’s correct. Yeah, there was nothing that would be identifiable in the sector of airspace that we were flying”. Nonetheless, as unlikely as this good vs bad datalink dichotomy is, without all the information pertaining to the nature of the air training exercises, I can’t definitively rule out this scenario.
On the surface it is tremendously easy to dismiss the object captured by Chad Underwood’s FLIR as a plane. To analyse the object in a more nuanced fashion, it is vital to have an understanding of the ATFLIR capabilities, the radar, the concept of jamming, the standard infrared signatures of a plane such as the exhaust plume as well as the entire context of the FLIR footage. When these factors are taken into account, a richer, deeper perspective of the object emerges. An object that becomes more challenging to dismiss as a plane. The object still could potentially be a plane however an astounding number of major coincidences and errors would have had to likely eventuate stemming from the ATFLIR system to the radar operators, to the other pilots right through to Underwood himself.
Part 5- The Additional Sightings from the Nimitz and Princeton
“I saw the world from the stars’ point of view, and it looked unbearably lonely.” ~ Shaun David Hutchinson
In November of 2004, the baby-faced Omar Lara was aboard the USS Nimitz during the tic tac encounters. His job involved working on the Nimitz’s aviation fuel systems. A number of days post Fravor and Underwood’s tic tac encounters, Lara was stationed on the deck of the Nimitz when a man fell overboard.
The man overboard protocol was initiated which involved those on deck reporting in person to a specific section of the Nimitz. Lara ended up positioned on the fantail of the aircraft carrier, looking outwards towards the ocean. Lara recalls the time as between 8PM and 11PM. The night was clear and the Pacific Ocean waters were calm.
An object abruptly descending into the peaceful scene that Lara was surveying, “Out of nowhere, this object drops out from the sky at incredible speed. It just plants itself right above the ocean… This thing did not stop or slow down up until maybe 100 feet above the waterline. It stopped on a dime”.
Lara has described the position of the object as being suspended in mid-air, “It stopped in between the horizon….just above the water. It’s almost directly behind the sailor but it’s still miles away. We see it. The deck department holding the light on the sailor (in the water) turns his light to try and illuminate this object”.
According to Lara, the object then suddenly moved horizontally at an incredible rate, “At that moment, the object goes from right to left in a split second. It went so fast we had to turn our bodies to see it”. The object then shot upwards at an equally impressive velocity. Lara describes it leaving the scene “It went from 5 o’clock (relative to where he was standing) to 7 o’clock then went up at an acute, 90 degree angle, then it shot off and went straight into space or the air or wherever it came from”.
According to Lara, the object had a round shape, was bright, close to white in colour and luminescent. In general, Lara has portrayed it as “A nice, white porcelain kind of looking light”. He estimates it as being the size of a jet or perhaps marginally larger. The apparent size of the object, from Lara’s vantage point was also relatively large. Lara has said, “Compared to the stars it was a quarter size (a quarter coin, at arm’s length away). The stars are a nice, little tiny dot”.
Lara has also provided a description of the movements of the object, “The speed and manoeuvrability of this object is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my 10 years in the United States Navy. I do not believe that what I saw was made on this planet…I don’t know what they are but I know what they can do and it’s unbelievable…We know out fighter pilots are the top fighter pilots in the world. When you see that thing move the way it did, it makes you feel almost small on the earth”.
In total, Lara estimates that between 30 and 50 people viewed the object across its 8 to 15 second appearance. Lara recalls a reaction to the object rippling throughout the USS Nimitz hierarchy, “Combat systems had seen this object. They called general quarters (general quarters is an alert meaning there is a thread on board the ship) and flight deck control called for all non-essential personnel on flight deck to leave now. They were going to launch the alert six. I guess they were going to try and chase this thing but he wasn’t going to catch up to it. They called it and they stopped it right away”.
Lara returned to flight control and despite being with other crewmates, an eerie silence had enveloped the quarters. One of his fellow personnel called out an expletive and another person was positioned on the ground praying. According to Lara, the lieutenant entered the emotionally-charged flight control, oblivious to what had just eventuated. The lieutenant enquired, “What happened?” The lieutenant was informed of the event the sailors had just witnessed and he subsequently went to speak to those ranked in the upper echelons of the USS Nimitz. When the Lieutenant returned to flight control, according to Lara “He wasn’t saying anything about it”.
The Sean Cahill Sighting
Chief Master-at-Arms Sean Cahill.
Sean Cahill was chief master-at-arms aboard the USS Princeton. It is best to think of Cahill’s role on the Princeton as that of a sheriff. At first glance at Cahill, it’s not hard to see why he inherited this position. He stands as an imposing, solid figure with a baritone voice.
When Cahill was on watch he was often stationed on the bridge of the USS Princeton. It was here that Cahill received phone calls from radar operator, Kevin Day. Cahill has explained, “He was trying to figure out whether these tracks they were picking up on radar were real tracks or whether they were ghosts in the system after they had done an upgrade…I was steering the ship on certain courses to match what Kevin (Day) needed”.
In the days prior to Fravor’s tic tac encounter, Day continued to phone Cahill who was stationed prominently on the Princeton’s bridge, whereby he would help direct the ship towards the objects in the sky that Day had spotted on radar. Cahill has remarked, “Over the course of days, we kept playing this cat and mouse game with them (the objects in the sky). I was getting increasingly frustrated trying to figure out why we were doing this. Finally, Kevin asked me very seriously, ‘Keep looking for this, it’s not nonsense’.”
Just prior to Fravor’s encounter, Cahill looked up at a 45-degree angle on a cloudless night. Cahill saw the most peculiar sight in the sky, “At around 2,000 feet there were around 5-7 lights in the sky. They began swirling towards the centre of this grouping and each individually blinking out and disappearing”.
Cahill was familiar with the range of typical night-time phenomenon by virtue of often being stationed on the bridge outside, “Being a Chief and being on the bridge I was very familiar with what could be expected to be seen of any type of aircraft or phenomenon out to sea at that point. I knew that what I had seen was exotic”.
The Gary Voorhis Sightings
Petty Officer, Gary Voorhis (Image source: contact in the desert)
The goatee sporting Gary Voorhis speaks with confidence and a purpose. In 2004, he managed the Princeton’s AEGIS Co-operative Engagement Capability system within the Combat Information Centre of the USS Princeton. Voorhis was privy to the radar data, as discussed in more detail in the ‘radar’ section of this article.
As well as tracking the hypersonic objects on radar, Voorhis saw the objects in person from the USS Princeton. Voorhis has said, “All week we’ve been looking at these things through the big eyes”. The ‘big eyes’ is the colloquialism for the Princeton’s inbuilt, military grade binoculars. According to Voorhis, a number of people on board the Princeton viewed the flying objects through the big eyes across several days.
Voorhis looked up the locations of the objects on the radar whilst in combat and observed the objects in these precise areas through the big eyes, “Whenever we’d get within 70 miles or so of them, I’d always try to get a bearing of at least one of the targets, whichever one’s the closest. I’d try and go and see it…It would be at the exact bearing that we would be checking on the radar. I’d be going back and forth just to make sure I’m still looking at the right one…I was trying to use the scientific method”. Voorhis recalls observing the objects approximately five times during the week.
Despite the big eyes’ telescopic capabilities, according to Voorhis, it wasn’t possible to view the details of the aerial objects, “It’s one thing to see it from a heck of a distance through the big eyes and the big eyes are pretty good binoculars. You still couldn’t quite grasp the shapes. You knew it was there but you couldn’t quite grasp the shape, the design or the way it looked”. Voorhis describes the objects he viewed as “glowing”.
After observing the flying objects a few times through the big eyes, Voorhis reverted back to viewing the objects through his own, personal binoculars. These provided him with a better visual, “They basically just looked like little specks. They’d be there then they wouldn’t be and then you’d see another one and you don’t know if it’s another one or if it’s the same one but it had just disappeared and came back to the same spot. It’s like seeing a bunch of gnats but you know that they are tracks and that they are large objects, they are not just a random pattern in the sky”. Voorhis attempted to view the flying objects through his binoculars during the daylight hours however he could only make them out at night.
The Kevin Day Sighting
Senior Chief, Kevin Day
The USS Princeton. (Image source: Kelsey J. Hockenberger, Wiki Commons)
Senior Chief Kevin Day was the individual who featured most prominently in the ‘radar’ section of this article for his role as the head radar operator on board the USS Princeton. He experienced a persistent curiosity with the supposed physics defying objects that he viewed on radar.
As the sun had receded below the horizon on the 14th of November, just hours after Fravor and Underwood’s encounters with the tic tac, Day was determined to view the tic tac with his own eyes, “I wanted to make sure it was real so I went up to combat, off-watch…I was sitting at the console. I just picked the closest object to us and I got the relative bearings from the ship, ran up to the bridge and we have a big set of binoculars up there called ‘big-eyes’.”
Day has recalled how he matched the co-ordinates of the tic tac on his radar to a piece of sky, “I slaved over to where the relative bearing was, up about the right altitude and I saw a white light in the sky”.
Day has described what he witnessed through the big eyes against the darkening sky, “I have to confess, it was a pretty boring white light. Nothing special about it but it was definitely there. It was round, kind of a white, fuzzy light…It was about 40 miles (away) from the ship at that point… I observed it for about 10 minutes…It was a clear night and it was definitely moving across the sky. Not fast. It was going pretty slow actually”.
The Karson Kammerzell Sightings
Cryptologic Technician Karson Kammerzell, (Image source: The Nimitz Encounters)
In November of 2004, the bespectacled Karson Kammerzell was a Cryptologic Technician on board the USS Princeton, a role that largely focused on intelligence gathering. Kammerzell, who speaks his words articulately, has been one of the few personnel connected to the tic tac events who has provided somewhat of a skeptical voice regarding the series of strange encounters. Despite this questioning undertone, Kammerzell had his own visual encounters with unexplained objects in the sky around the USS Princeton.
Post the Fravor and Underwood encounters, for three consecutive nights during which there was no moon visible, Kammerzell observed an unidentified series of lights in the sky. Kammerzell has chronicled the ambient darkness as “No moon black”. According to Kammerzell, “What I saw was much closer than one to two miles (away). Unless this thing was super massive but I doubt that”.
Kammerzell witnessed a formation of lights that formed a triangle, “It had running lights in a triangular pattern that made me originally think it was our aircraft”. Kammerzell dismissed the aircraft theory when he realised that there was no sound coming from the object, “It did not make any sound that I could hear above the ship, and you can absolutely hear those aircraft above the ship’s operational noise. I saw it for three nights in a row just meandering in the sky and moving around in a manner that wasn’t consistent with any aircraft I could think of”.
Kammerzell went through a mental checklist of other terrestrial crafts that could have been responsible for the light formation. He considered the possibility of the object being a helicopter but once again, the lack of audible sound precluded the theory. Kammerzell contemplated, “I don’t think we are doing operations right now…what is this thing, what is that?” He became fascinated by the lack of sound being emitted by the object, “I distinctly remember every time I saw it, I couldn’t help but be sort of intrigued by the fact that it made no sound at all”.
Kammerzell has described the unique movements of the object, “(It was) like it was sliding around the sky. Like if you were on the underside of an air hockey table. You just kind of watch it going left, right, up, down. It wasn’t descending or ascending. It was sliding around the sky. It was really, really interesting”. Kammerzell has ruled out the object as being a forward propulsion craft, “It was moving in a way that really wouldn’t be possible for something with forward propulsion, like aircraft. Like its turns were not banking. It was sliding or at least gave the appearance of it”.
Kammerzell has compared the object’s movements to modern-day drones, “The movements it did can all be done by racing drones right now. Granted not on that size”. Kammerzell describes the manoeuvres of the object as lateral and back and forth. The object Kammerzell’s witnessed on three consecutive moonless nights sounds somewhat distinct to the more distant, single light objects witnessed by the other crewmates. Did Kammerzell get a closer perspective of the object? Was it a different object? Were there multiple unidentified objects swarming the Nimitz strike group?
The additional curious sightings provides another layer of unexplained events around the Nimitz strike group in November of 2004. Were the various witnesses’ eyes drawn to the sky due to the series of tic tac stories which made their way around the strike group? Is there some simple explanation for the lights in the sky that were described by so many independent witnesses? Did the various eyewitnesses simply view a drone?
The Drone Hypothesis
The drone hypothesis can potentially be invoked to explain a number of the tic tac-related events. The objects detected on radar by Kevin Day, travelling south at 100 knots could potentially be drones. Aspects of the tic tac’s movements, as part of Fravor’s encounter, could be attributed to a drone. The object captured in the FLIR footage could even be suggested to be a drone. The drone theory can also be applied to the unexplained sightings, largely consisting of lights, by Lara, Cahill, Voorhis, Day and Kammerzell. The most pertinent questions are: what are the capabilities of drones and which, if any, of the aforementioned events can be ascribed as potentially drone related?
When most people conjure up the image of a drone in their mind, they will picture a lower-end drone that they have witnessed some local hobbyist flying. In contrast, military grade drones and upper-tier drones are virtually unrecognisable in ability and often appearance.
A Northrop Grumman Bat. This is a drone variant used for intelligence gathering. (Image source: Wikipedia, Lt Jessica Crownover)
Drones can look like virtually anything and can come in all shapes and sizes. There are a whole range of drone designs with many being positively unrecognisable as drones. Certain drones have the ability to act as a mothership and launch smaller drones. Topically, submarines can launch drones into the sky and have had this ability for years preceding the Nimitz tic tac events. As early as the 1990s, the Sea Ferret was created. It had the ability to be launched from a submarine and travel a distance of 370 nautical miles. The sea ferret is more recently referred to as a loitering munition- a weapon that can loiter around a target.
Drones have the ability to fly through the sky in a formation and communicate with one another. Drones can be programmed pre-flight to traverse a specific route or they can be programmed to find certain stimulus such as specific radar signatures. Drone designs lend themselves to stealth, with a low cross-section that can make it challenging for radars to detect.
A general Atomics MQ-9 Reaper is a surveillance drone. (Image source: Wikipedia, Lt, Col Leslie Pratt)
Iran has developed copious numbers of cheaply-built drones that can fly distances of hundreds of miles as well as stay in a specific position in the sky for a number of hours, all while carrying a payload. Whilst drones can be used to fire weaponry, they commonly have electronic warfare capabilities and spy potential that make them a cheap and efficient alternative to manned planes.
Tactical drones can fly at an altitude of 18,000 feet, with a range of 100 miles. HALE drones can fly even higher; above 30,000 feet with a significant range. The Lockheed D-21 supersonic reconnaissance drone can fly at 2,200 miles per hour and at 90,000 feet in altitude. The Ravn X drone has a wingspan of 60 feet and weighs a massive 28 tonnes. Drones have a significant range of sizes, appearances and capabilities.
Also in 2019, a swarm of drones descended on California’s Channel Islands, just north of where the tic tac encounters occurred. Over the course of a number of evenings, these drones circled around United States navy ships. The drones performed aggressive manoeuvres for long periods of time. They travelled distances that exceeded 100 nautical miles. Who sent the drones, where they took off from and where they landed remains a mystery.
Kammerzell has speculated that at least part of the tic tac encounters involved test platform drones. Kammezell has commented, “If you trace the time-line, drone/UAV tech really took off the next four years or so after the UFO event with the Nimitz and Princeton”. He goes on to point out that military technology is typically clandestine and a number of years ahead of what the public is aware.
From October the 4th to the 15th 2004, just one month prior to the Nimitz- tic tac encounters, the US Navy conducted a range of tests of new military equipment in the vicinity of San Clemente Island. These tests were known as ‘Trident Warrior’ and involved a significant number of ships, submarines, planes and drones. One of the experiments within the Trident Warrior umbrella was known by the code name, ‘Silent Hammer’. Part of the Silent Hammer tests included the test launching of drones from submarines.
The War Zone has an excellent article proposing that many UAP sightings in recent years may be the result of foreign drones infringing US airspace. Just how well does the drone hypothesis explain the tic tac events of 2004?
Day’s claim of the objects being detected on radar dropping 20,00 feet in 0.78 seconds far exceeds even modern-day drone technology. The objects dropping down from above 80,000 feet, travelling at 100 knots for 3 hours and then ascending also appears beyond 2004 drone capability, even when taking into account the military’s technological and secretive advancements. The manoeuvres performed by the tic tac according to Fravor and his clique also defy modern-day drone movements. Likewise does the rate of disappearance of the tic tac beyond the horizon. The tic tac’s appearance at Fravor’s CAP Point also exceeds any modern-day capabilities.
The object captured by Underwood on the FLIR footage at above 20,000 feet, could have fallen within 2004 military drone abilities. Although the FLIR object was estimated to be relatively large and to have potentially dropped the ATFLIR’s lock. That leave the strange lights surrounding the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton. By Day and Voorhis’ accounts, these lights were matched to the objects travelling along at 100 knots for hours on end. It seems unlikely that these were 2004 military-grade drones. Lara’s description of the large ball of light dropping down from a high altitude, hovering in mid-air and zipping off at a tremendous speed is also significantly beyond modern-day drone abilities.
The only tic tac related sighting that could plausibly be explained by drones is Kammerzell’s observation of the triangular lights that were close to the Princeton and performing lateral manoeuvres. He seems unconvinced that this is the definitive answer to what he viewed only that it is a possibility that military drones were sufficiently advanced in 2004 to perform the required manoeuvres. If Kammerzell’s sighting was indeed a drone, there are further questions raised regarding where it was launched from and where it landed. These are doubly perplexing considering the distance from the coastline that the Princeton was positioned- a length that would have almost certainly exceeded 2004 military drone capabilities. It is perhaps more plausible that if Kammerzell had viewed a drone, it may have been launched from a proximate ship or even a submarine, à la the submarine launched drone ‘Silent Hammer’ tests from October 2004.
All in all, on the surface, drones may seem like a good candidate to explain away the tic tac events. Especially when coupled with the witnesses’ potential ignorance of drone capabilities thanks to the 2004 timeframe. Despite this, virtually every alleged, remarkable event that comprised the tic tac encounters fails to fall within 2004 military drone capabilities and typically modern-day drone capacities.
Part 6-The Cover-Up?
“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.” ~ William Shakespeare
Following David Fravor and Chad Underwood’s encounters with the tic tac, there are claims that a number of unfamiliar government officials arrived on board the USS Princeton and confiscating significant amounts of data relating to the inexplicable events of the preceding day. Just how accurate are these Hollywood movie-esque cover-up claims and what do they tell us about whether the tic tac was a classified government project, a foreign adversary spying or something extra-terrestrial?
Fravor’s Perspectiveon the ‘Cover-Up‘
Following the tic tac being recorded by Chad Underwood, David Fravor copied Underwood’s FLIR video onto a pair of 8mm video tapes (these are now an outdated format that was used to record video in yesteryear). Fravor has explained, “I copied the tapes. I took two brand new 8mm tapes and I copied the sections that I wanted (of the FLIR video)”. Fravor placed these two tapes, featuring the FLIR footage, inside a shared safe on the USS Nimitz with a note attached. At some later stage, Fravor returned to the safe only to find the two tapes with the FLIR footage missing.
Fravor has suggested that the tapes weren’t confiscated via some ‘Men in Black’ style scenario but rather that someone most likely happened to see the tapes in the safe and decided to reuse them. Fravor has described the regularity in recycling tapes whilst at sea “We use those tapes over and over again. They are consumable. Remember, I have a budget so I have to buy those tapes. I have to buy all that stuff that we use. I’m accountable for it”.
Fravor staunchly denies the idea that unfamiliar men arrived on the Nimitz to confiscate any tic tac related data or video, “There are a lot of rumours out there that it was classified and the ship got locked down. No, it wasn’t. Men in suits did not show up. No one told us not to talk about It”.
Fravor has emphasised that by being a Commanding Officer, he was ranked in the 20 highest positions on the USS Nimitz, out of the 5,000 plus personnel on board. His argument follows that if there was any inkling of a cover-up, his high rank would have made him privy to this information, “No one came to talk to me. No one came to take my tapes. No one showed up in a suit. No one told me not to talk. No one talked to any of my air crew that were involved in this, there were six people total involved. The two who shot the video and the four of us that looked at it for five minutes with our eyes”.
Finally, Fravor makes an excellent point; if there was some high-level, pressing Pentagon cover-up of the tic tac, why weren’t he or the other pilots who viewed the tic tac immediately questioned and made to sign a non-disclosure agreement? Fravor has commented, “Why wouldn’t they show up and talk to the guys who actually witnessed it, chased it and one is one of the senior guys in the battle group?”
Underwood’s Perspectiveon the ‘Cover-Up‘
Like Fravor, Chad Underwood wasn’t debriefed on his up-close, tic tac experience. Underwood has remarked, “The interesting thing was, 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. Whether it’s from the folks at Edwards test site (a Californian Air Force installation) or something like that”.
Underwood has continued on to describe the normal processes that would have occurred if he had viewed a United States test project. The government would say “Hey, yes, we were testing a project. This is what you saw… This is project ‘Umptysquat’ and basically, this is what you saw. Don’t talk about it.” Underwood has said that this conversation never occurred regarding the tic tac, “That never happened, which leads me to think that it was not a government project”. Underwood also held a top-secret clearance “With a ton of special-project clearances”.
The Intelligencer interviewed a retired fighter pilot who confirmed that the absence of any military-Underwood debrief is strong evidence that the tic tac was not related to a United States classified program.
Both Fravor and Underwood, who were aboard the USS Nimitz, paint a picture that no-one from the upper echelons of the US military were concerned with confiscating with data relating to the tic tac encounters. In sharp contrast, a number of other personnel in the Nimitz strike group provide a differing perspective.
Patrick Hughes is a quick-talking aviation technician who was on the USS Nimitz in November of 2004. His job involved removing hard drives from planes that had landed and locking them in a safe, so if need be, they could be analysed at a later date. These hard drives are known colloquially as ‘bricks’ due to their weighty similarity to bricks. ‘Bricks’ harbour the software that can run the planes. In addition, they can record a significant amount of data that the aircrew view during a flight.
Hughes remembers the E-2 Hawkeye plane landing back on the USS Nimitz on the 14th of November 2004. The Hawkeye is a specialised plane known as an early warning aircraft. Its role involves detecting ships, other aircraft, missiles and various other threats whilst it is airborne. The Hawkeye has a large, idiosyncratic and advanced radar dish on its roof. As was customary, when the Hawkeye landed, Hughes removed the six bricks that were on board before he locked them in a safe. This is the standard procedure.
Twenty minutes after locking the Hawkeye’s bricks in the safe, there was a knock on Hughes’ door. Hughes vividly recalls the situation, “Our commanding officer never bothered us…all of a sudden, there is a knock on our door. There’s him (the commanding officer), he’s in his flight suit, two guys behind him in flight suits. They weren’t our officers, they weren’t shipborne officers, I had no clue who they were….He’s (the commanding officer) like ‘I need the bricks that were on the plane (the Hawkeye)’…And that was the last we saw of those”.
When asked what information would have been housed on the bricks that were confiscated, Hughes has commented, “We were heavy in testing with CEC stuff, which is the Co-operative Engagement Capability. They can record a lot of the stuff that the plane does…It records a lot and you can tell a lot about the flight by what they record. It would have been on those bricks, it would have been on those hard drives. Chances are there’s something on there they wanted to see or something they wanted to see if they could see”.
Shortly after relinquishing the Hawkeye’s bricks, in what Hughes describes as unusual circumstances, Hughes friend ‘Roger’ walked in the door, not looking like his normal self. Roger was an inflight technician who had just disembarked the Hawkeye. Roger was one of the five people on board the Hawkeye during the period that Fravor encountered the tic tac. It was the bricks from Roger’s flight on the Hawkeye that had just been confiscated.
Hughes recalls what Roger told him, “The same object referred to by Commander Fravor (the tic tac) comes up alongside the Hawkeye, forms up where everybody can see them, then takes back off again”. Hughes then informed Roger that upon landing, the five-person Hawkeye crew were met by someone who escorted them to be debriefed. The five-person group “Got talked to, they were told not to repeat it. They signed non-disclosure agreements and it was after that Roger came back to the work centre to hint to us what was going on”.
Hughes never managed to hear Roger’s full story, “He starts to tell us what happened and never really got to the point of telling us the whole story because our division chief walked in and basically put a squash to it and said ‘If you are told not to talk about it, we’re not talking about it’. So before we could get the whole story, it got squashed, it got shut down and we were basically told not to talk about it”.
Hughes has been asked why Fravor’s quartet of pilots and Underwood and his pilot didn’t sign non-disclosure agreements and additionally why they weren’t asked not to speak of their encounter. Hughes has speculated, “It probably has a lot to do with the information Fravor had access to, the information the Hawkeye had access to. The fighter pilots are restricted in a lot of the information they get. They can record a lot of information but they don’t actually see it, whilst we can see and record it. There’s a big difference between the environments they operate in. My guess is it had a lot more to do with what the Hawkeye saw and the Hawkeye recorded…I’m sure it has a lot to do with the divergence of technology between the two aircraft”.
‘Roger’s’ Perspective on the ‘Cover-Up’
The Hawkeye plane was airborne during Fravor’s interception of the tic tac. During this time, ‘Roger’ was an inflight technician on the Hawkeye, alongside another four individuals who filled the remaining seats on the plane. ‘Roger’ has provided a rare interview with filmmaker Dave Beaty. In this interview, Roger explained, “First off, I did see something that transited very quickly by our E-2, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. The ‘object’ joined up with us briefly and all on board had a view for a matter of a few seconds. I can also say that the radio chatter and the scared tone in many voices we heard that day was legitimate and we were mostly glad that there was not a hostile incident.” Roger describes the event giving him “chills”.
When Roger landed back on the Nimitz he was informed to stand by on the Hawkeye for a period of 20 minutes. This wasn’t standard practice. According to Roger, upon disembarking the Hawkeye, “We were told to follow an individual down below deck for a debriefing (again, not standard). We made our way to a secure area on the ship where the events were discussed individually, then we were told ‘it did not happen’ and asked to sign NDAs. Then (we were) escorted back to our ready room to drop our gear where, for the first time, we were not allowed to discuss mission ops, safeties, or any post flight call-outs”.
Roger’s claim of signing an NDA upon landing may provide a slit of light in helping to solve the Nimitz-tic tac conundrum. Alternatively, it may have never occurred or it could be a false lead. Firstly, why is Roger speaking about the event if he signed an NDA? Although only providing fleeting details, this is most unusual. Despite using a pseudonym, he is easily traceable by the military as he has revealed his role on the Hawkeye. If most members of the military were made to sign an NDA by the government and had a specific, unique and traceable role, they wouldn’t be providing interviews about the said event.
Another pertinent question is- why didn’t anyone else sign an NDA, including Fravor, Dietrich and Underwood, who all experienced more than a fleeting glance at the tic tac? Finally, the process that Roger undertook post-landing makes it sound like the tic tac was a military test. If the military was unaware of the identity of the tic tac, standard post-flight interviews would have occurred and the military would have then decided how to act. The military wouldn’t have necessarily left Roger and his crewmates on the Hawkeye for 20 minutes after landing. They also likely wouldn’t have promptly escorted them down to a secure room and made them immediately sign NDAs.
Like Hughes and ‘Roger’, those who were on the USS Princeton also experienced the hallmarks of a cover-up that was seemingly ordered from the higher echelons of the US military.
Voorhis’ Perspectiveon the ‘Cover-Up‘
Gary Voorhis’ role on the USS Princeton involved managing the Princeton’s AEGIS’s Co-operative Engagement Capability system. For some extra cash on the side, he also helped out with the smash and crash team; a group of personnel on the Princeton whose role is to run out, douse fires and rescue those aboard if a helicopter crashes. Within 12 hours of Fravor and Underwood’s FLIR encounters, Voorhis recalls a helicopter landing on the Princeton, a helicopter that Voorhis suspects had just flown across from the USS Nimitz. Disembarking the helicopter, Voorhis witnessed “Plain clothes guys come on board in just normal suits and it looked like a couple of officers”.
Fifteen to twenty minutes later, Voorhis was called down to the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre. The plain-clothed officers asked Voorhis to hand over all of the Co-operative Engagement Capability (CEC) data. The CEC is a radar and sensor network that houses a large amount of data from various sensors situated on different vehicles in the strike group, such as ships and aircraft. This data is combined into a live, picture of the surrounding battle area. The CEC would have potentially held a treasure-trove of information relating to Fravor’s tic tac encounter, Underwood’s approach of the tic tac and the general behaviour of the tic tac objects over the preceding days.
Voorhis was accompanied by his Chief as he signed custody for the CEC tapes. Voorhis has recalled the event, “Basically I signed my name and this person picked them up, I have no idea who they were, I signed them and they took it. I was told if there was any other tapes to delete them, even if they were brand new”.
How uncommon is it for CEC tapes to be taken by officials? Voorhis has provided an explanation on the rarity of such an event, “If we did field testing or if we went out to the missile range, stuff like that, they’d come take the tapes but it was basically only for environmental data, to see how well the system’s working, stuff like that…The only other times that we had anyone come and take tapes was when he had a drone crash into our ship…It wasn’t like this, they waited (regarding taking the tapes for the drone crash) until we hit port then they came in and said ‘hey, we just need your tapes for the drone crash’ and we just handed it over to them. There was no chain of custody, nothing”.
Two days after the officials had confiscated the CEC tapes, the Princeton docked in Puerto Vallarta. According to Voorhis, whilst the Princeton was docked here, another batch of non-uniformed officers came on board (Petty Officer Jason Turner also confirms that the Princeton docked in Puerto Vallarta and that individuals came on board). According to Voorhis, when these people came onto the docked Princeton, “Everything on the ship got wiped”. This included virtually everything that was unrelated to running and navigating the Princeton. Voorhis has continued on to explain that manufacturer representatives then had to board the Princeton to reinstall the CEC which was quite an undertaking.
Voorhis has outlined the invaluable nature of the CEC data removed from the Princeton by the officials, “You could literally plot the entire course of the object (the tic tac), you could extract the densities, the speeds, the way that it moved, the way it displaced the air, its radar cross-section, how much of the radar itself was reflected off its surface. I mean you could pretty much recreate the entire event with the CEC data.”
In November 2004, Leading Petty Officer Ryan Weigelt was working on the USS Princeton. He was in charge of 20 people and his role was largely focused on helicopter maintenance. Following Fravor and Underwood’s tic tac encounters, Weigelt noticed a pair of Air Force personnel, who were unconnected to the Princeton, landing on board via a helicopter. Weigelt distinctly remembers, “The uniforms I could see underneath the flight suits, it was an Air Force uniform”.
After landing on the Princeton, the two Air Force personnel took a Princeton helicopter and flew it away from the Princeton. Some time later, the Air Force duo landed back on the Princeton, carrying an assortment of items in a number of bags.
According to Weigelt, the two Air Force personnel confiscated sensors from the Princeton’s helicopter that they had just flown in, rendering it unable to fly. The sensors needed to be replaced. Not only had vital helicopter sensors been removed but Weigelt suspects that this Air Force personnel duo were the two people responsible for taking the CEC tapes that Voorhis described as being confiscated, documented in this article in the ‘Voorhis’ Perspective on the Cover-Up’ section above. Weigelt has commented, “That has to be the same people (the same as those who took Voorhis’ tapes). Knowing his story and knowing what I know personally, they are the same people”.
As the Princeton’s helicopter was now rendered unusable, the two Air Force personnel needed to be dropped off in San Diego Harbour. This meant that the Princeton had to leave the battlegroup in the middle of training. This was highly unusual according to Weigelt, “We were gone for two days of operations and training that we missed (in order to drop off the two men at San Diego Harbour). To be the biggest support vessel for the carrier (the Nimitz) is a big deal”.
The Princeton had made an unexpected detour and was sitting anchored in the centre of San Diego Harbour. According to Weigelt, the two Air Force personnel “Were transported to an ammo pier on North Island”. This was done via a rigid inflatable boat. North Island is the home of the Naval Air Station just across the harbour from San Diego. The Princeton then sailed the short distance to the docks in San Diego Harbour.
Day’s Perspectiveon the ‘Cover-Up‘
In the lead up to the Air Force personnel arriving on the Princeton, Day has explained that the Princeton was sending details of the UAP back to headquarters on the terra firma of the US, “We were reporting to the Beach over our datalinks and stuff…Our radar picture goes to the Beach, put it that way. Yeah, (to) people on the Beach to see what we’re seeing”. In other words, Day is detailing that the military hierarchy were being sent datalink information of the UAP, captured from numerous sensors across vessels and planes.
On the morning of the 15th of November, the day after Fravor’s tic tac intercept, radar operator, Kevin Day, planned to compile an ‘after action report’ of the events of the 14th. Day scoured the Princeton’s computers for the key data relating to Fravor’s tic tac encounter. He sought the communication logs.
Much to Day’s chagrin, all of the relevant data had been erased. According to Day, “Strangely enough, all the comms were gone. All of our external communications for that whole intercept were gone”. What was doubly perplexing to Day was the fact that just the time and date stamps remained. The computers that housed the communication logs had a foolproof method to avoid data being deleted- communication data was automatically copied onto a number of disks. Yet despite this failsafe method, all the information relating to the Princeton’s communications with Fravor and Dietrich’s Super Hornets had intentionally been erased.
Kammerzell’s Perspectiveon the ‘Cover-Up‘
Cryptologic Technician, Karson Kammerzell, who was also aboard the Princeton recalls his own curious series of events during the ‘cover-up’. According to Kammerzell, after Fravor and Underwood’s tic tac encounters, Kammerzell’s Division Officer and Leading Chief Petty Officer both left the Princeton to take part in a debriefing on the Nimitz. When the two senior ranked officials returned back to the Princeton, the Princeton’s crew received an email featuring Underwood’s FLIR footage. Attached to the FLIR footage was the official statement that the fast moving objects captured by the AEGIS system that the Princeton had been tracking for a number of days were ‘falling ice’. The nature of this being an excuse was emphasied; if anyone was to ask, the official line was- falling ice.
Kammerzell’s Leading Chief Petty Officer informed Kammerzell that the Air Chief laughed when informed of the falling ice excuse before quipping, “Falling ice doesn’t turn 90 degrees and accelerate 600 miles an hour”. Kevin Day was also informed of a similar falling ice story. Captain Smith told Day that the objects captured on radar falling rapidly before wafting southwards at 100 knots were spontaneously forming ice crystals. Day laughed in response before Captain Smith also began to laugh. (Voorhis has explained why the SPY-1 would have easily been able to identify the objects as ice crystals had they been so in this interview).
In addition to Kammerzell witnessing the ‘falling ice’ faux-story, he also encountered additional anomalous events. Kammerzell has commented, “I recall faces I did not recognise arriving on my ship and then being told within the same day that I was not to discuss what happened”.
Kammerzell also had a conversation with a Boatswain’s mate whose role entailed keeping a watch log whilst stationed on the Princeton’s bridge. The Boatswain’s mate asked Kammerzell, “Hey Kamme, do you know what’s going on with this thing?” to which Kammerzell responded “Not really dude, like I don’t know much more than you”. The Boatswain’s mate answered, “Well, my deck logs got rewritten…So I was writing in the deck logs that I was seeing it at night and an officer relieved me early. When I came up for watch the next time, my deck logs were rewritten. It was not my handwriting. They were rewritten to include nothing”. The Boatswain’s mate had viewed an object in the sky from the Princeton’s bridge and documented it in his deck log only for this seemingly relatively innocuous piece of information to have been rewritten by an anonymous person.
Kammerzell is adamant that a cover-up did occur on the Princeton and he takes umbrage with Fravor’s suggestion that there was no such cover-up, “I disagree with Fravor’s claims that nothing was hidden, nothing was taken, and there were no debriefings. A debriefing did occur, on the Nimitz and information was taken from the Princeton”.
Kammerzell also finds two aspects of Fravor’s cover-up denial rather odd. 1. Why wasn’t someone of Fravor’s elite rank not involved in the debriefing, “There was a debriefing on the Nimitz with a cover story and Fravor mentions nothing. And you’re going to tell me that the commanding officer of the Black Aces wasn’t involved in that debriefing?” and 2. Kammerzell is uncertain why the group of pilots that encountered the tic tac haven’t once referenced the falling ice cover-story, “Why have none of the pilots mentioned falling ice? Even if just to make light of the attempted cover-up. Falling ice was the Nimitz’s upper chain’s idea. As far as I’m aware, of course”.
‘Cover-Up’ Analysis
There are a number of explicitly contradictory statements regarding the ‘cover-up’ made by crew members on board the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton and it is challenging to reconcile these statements. Those personnel who were aboard the Princeton seem to be unanimous in their assertion that unfamiliar faces arrived by helicopter onto their cruiser following the tic tac encounters of the 14th of November. They are equally as resolute that crucial data was removed that was related in some way to the tic tac events. The sheer number of first-hand witnesses who viewed this process adds credence to this claim. Despite Fravor’s confidence that anonymous officials didn’t land on the strike group and remove data, the evidence suggests that they did. Fravor was positioned on a different ship, amongst 5,000 others and it seems likely that someone ranked much higher than Fravor in the US military made the decision to remove the data, thereby bypassing Fravor’s knowledge of such an event.
As well as the fact that data was taken from the Princeton, another likely conclusion can also be drawn- Fravor and his fellow pilot who viewed the tic tac weren’t debriefed. What do these two inferences tell us about the tic tac encounters?
Although not gelling with all of the eye-witness accounts, it’s plausible that the confiscated Princeton data related solely to the AEGIS or CEC system. It’s also plausible that if a NEMESIS- style test was taking place to determine whether the newly adopted CEC system could be tricked into believing there were false tracks, the higher echelons wanted this data and solely this data. This could potentially explain why Fravor and Underwood’s pilot clique weren’t debriefed on their encounter- the military was only concerned with the NEMESIS style system test and determining whether it could fool the CEC system into thinking real world objects were flying around.
Kammerzell has speculated that a testing platform was taking place to examine whether the AEGIS system could be tricked. A system which according to Kammerzell, was only on the Princeton, “I know only one ship had the AEGIS system. The Princeton. And only one ship had everything supposedly taken. The Princeton. In fact, it wouldn’t even surprise me if the Nimitz squadron was actually aware of a testing platform. But the only reason it got to this point was that the Princeton picked it up and that wasn’t part of the plan”. Despite lacking explanatory power for the Fravor and Underwood tic tac encounters, Kammerzell’s theory provides another perspective on why the data was potentially only confiscated from the Princeton.
Voorhis and Turner have both confirmed that the Princeton docked in Puerto Vallarta. Voorhis has also stated that the CEC was reinstalled during this docking. Without a timeline on when the anomalously behaving objects stopped being detected on radar, it’s difficult to determine if there was a mundane explanation for why they stopped appearing. It’s plausible that when the CEC system was reinstalled in Puerto Vallarta, the glitch in the system was fixed and thus the objects stopped appearing. An argument against this theory is that surely someone would have mentioned this abrupt ending of the objects appearing on radar being clearly linked with the CEC system’s reinstallation.
Another statement that is also worthy of analysing is Hughes recollection that ‘Roger’, who was on board the Hawkeye plane during Fravor’s intercept, had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. ‘Roger’ himself also provided a rare interview supporting this notion and outlined some scarce details of the event, which would be a potentially risky move for someone who has signed an NDA. The NDA claim also has doubts attached to it as all of the pilots who physically saw the tic tac with their own eyes, never signed such agreements.
It is also unusual that no-one debriefed the pilots who physically viewed the tic tac- if the tic tac was part of a secret US test program, a debrief would be standard protocol and the military would surely be keen to hear the pilot’s perspective of what they saw. At the very least, this would also help the military gauge how enemy pilots might view such an unusually looking flying craft. The lack of any such debrief- as corroborated by three pilots and Underwood, is rather telling. It suggests that the tic tac they viewed wasn’t part of a secret government program.
Alternatively, let us assume that the US military was unaware of the identity of the tic tac. It would be expected that the upper echelons of the US military would be curious about an unidentified, unique-looking, flying craft within the SOCAL range- especially given the possibility that it could have been possessed by a strategic enemy and used for spying purposes. Using this logic, the US military may not have questioned and debriefed the pilots as the military was all too aware of what the object was.
The ‘cover-up’ related statements made by the personnel aboard the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton only add to the lack of resolution regarding the entire tic tac series of encounters. There is seemingly no simple, logical explanation for the totality of the ‘cover-up’ perspectives.
Part 7- The East Coast UAP
“Stars, too, were time travellers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was”. ~ Ransom Riggs
In order to gain a richer understanding of the Nimitz-tic tac evidence, it’s imperative to step back and examine the milieu of such an encounter. There have been a spate of unidentified aerial phenomenon sightings in recent years off the East Coast of the United States. Identical to the tic tac encounters, these sighting have been documented by Super Hornet pilots. The East Coast UAP have also been captured on video, with a compelling back-story to match that rivals the Nimitz-tic tac encounters in bizarreness stakes. Just what are these objects that have been caught on video by the US military off the East Coast and crucially, do they relate to the tic tac?
Ryan Graves
Lieutenant Ryan Graves. (Image source: Fox 8 News)
In 2014, a decade after the tic tac encounters that besieged the Nimitz strike group off the west coast, an entirely new set of UAP encounters unfolded, this time off the East Coast of the United States. Lieutenant Ryan Graves was a fighter pilot whose education dossier included becoming an aerospace engineer. Graves had slicked back, fair hair that was teetering on blonde. He had dimples, framed by his prominent jawline that made him look every bit the quintessential, Hollywood depicted fighter pilot. When Grave recounts the bizarre series of events that his squadron encountered, he speaks slowly and deliberately, carefully considering each word.
Grave’s squadron was based in Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
In 2014, Graves was an accomplished fighter pilot who was flying Super Hornets- the same plane in which Fravor’s clique encountered the tic tac. The experienced Graves, who had amassed over 2,000 hours in the cockpit, flew as part of the Red Rippers who were based out of Naval Air Station Oceana, situated in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The squadron regularly trained over the Atlantic Ocean, flanking the United States East Coast. In 2014, the squadron trained in conjunction with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Graves squadron and the Roosevelt strike group were training in anticipation of their deployment to the Middle East which would eventuate in March of 2015.
The Red Rippers squadron had historically used the APG-73 radar system that falls within a class of radar known as ‘Mechanically Scanned Array’ radars (MSA). This was the precise radar system used by the Super Hornets in the Nimitz tic tac encounters. In the summer of 2014, the Red Rippers squadron were the first squadron to upgrade their plane’s radars to the APG-79. The new radars functioned in a novel manner and fell within a class known as ‘Active Electronically Scanned Array’ radars (AESA). This was a generational jump in radar capabilities.
The new AESA radars were superior in every facet. They had the ability to see further distances, they provided a more accurate summation of what they had detected and they had a significantly improved ability to pick up slow moving, low flying and stealth objects.
Coinciding with the Red Ripper’s upgrade to their new, state-of-the-art radars, the squadron, flying off the coast of Oceana, began detecting unusual tracks that the pilots initially attributed to a glitch in the radar system. According to Graves, “Sometimes you get reflections off clouds with older radars, so we were somewhat accustomed to seeing stuff on the radar that didn’t necessarily mean an object was actually there. The APG-79 wasn’t supposed to have this issue but it was pretty new, so we just assumed at first this was a bug in the software”.
All of the boxed areas on the map of the East Coast can be used for restricted military training. (Image source: skyvector.com) The Red Ripper pilots initially detected the objects off the coast of Oceana.
The Red Rippers continued their training unperturbed, in the exclusive airspace stretching along the Atlantic coast. Lieutenant Danny Accoin, who was a member of Grave’s squadron, detected one of the objects on his radar. Accoin made the decision to encroach on the entity. He directed his Super Hornet towards the object and reached precisely 1,000 feet below the supposed object’s location. Accoin’s proximity to the object as well as the radar alerting to its position meant that Accoin should have been able view the object with his helmet camera, yet visually, nothing was there.
A few days elapsed and Accoin was airborne when his radar again detected the mystery object. On this occasion, his ATFLIR pod locked onto it. The ATFLIR is the hybrid advanced TV and infrared camera that was used in the Nimitz tic tac encounters by Chad Underwood to capture the FLIR footage. Graves has described how Accoin and other pilots’ infrared FLIR cameras latched on to what the radars had been detecting, “We started locking these things up as solid returns and then slaving the FLIR to it, meaning you’re seeing an IR [infrared] source. That’s when we realized this wasn’t necessarily some type of radar malfunction. There were physical objects out there”. Despite determining the objects to be real-world entities, they remained elusive to the pilots who failed to see them. Accoin said, “I knew I had it, I knew it was not a false hit…I could not pick it up visually”.
The pilots now had to contend with competing airborne objects that were occupying their airspace. Graves remarked, “We’ve now verified there’s a physical object out there, it becomes a major issue”. The objects were real and likely wouldn’t have been noticed if it wasn’t for the new and advanced radar system on the fighter planes. The pilots’ initial theory was that the objects were part of some secretive and highly advanced United States drone program.
The Objects’ Appearance
By 2015, the objects were being seen on radar every time the squadron flew. They were also regularly captured on the FLIR cameras however it remained a rarity to view one visually. Graves has stated, “I never personally saw one. I know two people who visually saw these”. Graves has estimated that between 50 and 60 people saw the objects via some medium, be that radar, visually or via FLIR.
The few pilots who managed to view one of the objects up close have described their physical appearance. The object consisted of a dark silver coloured cube that was housed in a transparent sphere. The corners of the inner cube extended to the sphere. The pilots were reluctant to estimate the size of the objects due to the difficulties in estimating an irregular object’s size in the vastness of the sky. When pressed, they speculated the objects to be between 20 and 30 feet in size.
The East Coast pilots described the UAP they witnessed as a silver cube inside a transparent sphere.
A notable trait of the objects when viewed through the infrared ATFLIR was their unusual temperature. The infrared ATFLIR is a thermal camera that is capable of distinguishing between temperatures down to gradients of one tenth of a degree. The strange objects were surprisingly colder than their background. Graves has explained the temperatures of the objects, “When we are in the IR (infrared) mode, there is a, I wouldn’t call it a heat signature…Typically they would actually be colder than the surroundings. When we look at it, it would show up as a cold object”.
In addition, the objects, despite being viewed up-close in the powerful infrared FLIR, didn’t show any signs of an engine or exhaust plumes. Graves has remarked, “Typically when we are looking through our FLIR at close distances, you can make out the skin of an aircraft, you can see the exhaust coming out the back of the engine, pretty good detail…When we looked at these objects they essentially looked like someone was shining a flashlight right at our sensor. So it just looked like a bright spot, which was very unusual”.
The objects also showed no signs of a propeller system when viewed both in person and via the FLIR. Based on the seeming lack of propulsion system, it would be reasonable to conclude that the objects were weather balloons however they displayed unusual and idiosyncratic movements that potentially ruled out this hypothesis.
The Objects’ Behaviour
The objects appeared on the pilots’ screens with a rather unique radar signature. Graves has elaborated on this, “There were some distinct things we’d notice. Typically they were stationary, but sometimes they were moving, rarely at slightly supersonic speeds, but most of the time, they weren’t going incredibly fast,”
The objects were spotted right across the pilot’s training area which began 10 miles from the coast and extended out to 180 miles. Members of other squadron’s also started detecting the objects as their radars were updated. The objects were typically spotted on radar either at an altitude of 30,000 feet, 40,000 feet or just above the ocean’s surface.
Graves has spoken about how fast the objects travelled, “Up and down, not super-fast, usually about 0.6 or 0.8 Mach…Not neck breaking speed. I’d occasionally look over and see one at 1.1, 1.2 Mach”. Despite Graves classifying their typical speed as “Not super-fast”, the objects’ maximum recorded speed of 1.2 Mach is relatively sprightly. It is equivalent to 921 miles per hour which is only marginally slower than the Super Hornet’s maximum speed of 1,190 miles per hour. In contrast, the commercial A380 Airbus has a cruise speed of 561 miles per hour or 0.85 Mach- on par with these objects typical speeds and well below their maximum speeds. The objects also spent copious amounts of time stationary- defying any wind. Curiously, despite Graves observing the objects on average between 2-5 times per day whilst airborne, he rarely saw them accelerate.
The Super Hornets’ radars have a feature known as a ‘target aspect indicator’. This is essentially a line on the radar screen extending from the detected, target object and indicating in which direction the object is moving. According to Graves, “When these things were stationary, the aspect indicator kind of jumped around. For example, it would be going to the 12 o’clock position on one pass, then suddenly at the 6 o’clock, 3 o’clock, etc. This would maybe make sense for a stationary target. But we saw this same type of jitteriness when they were moving targets as well. The target aspect wasn’t smooth like an aircraft”. Another pilot has compared this jittery behaviour to the movements of a housefly. Graves’ depiction of the target aspect indicators of the objects appears below.
Graves has produced this image of the objects’ typical aspect indicator. The circle represents the object and the line stemming from the circle indicates the direction the Super Hornet radar believed the object to be travelling. 1, 2 and 3 show the progression of time. This jittery target aspect indicator has been compared to the movements of a housefly. (Image source: Graves speech at AIAA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R34a9_sRKQ)
Graves has proposed two theories to explain the objects’ bizarre aspect indicators. Firstly, the Super Hornet system may not have been able to read the objects aspect indicators and the subsequent jitteriness may have been the computers way of conveying uncertainty. Secondly, Graves theorises that the jittery target aspect indicators may have been accurate and conveying the physical rotation of the objects.
As well as their stationary movements, Graves personally observed the objects (via radar) displaying three primary manoeuvres. Firstly, they would travel in a racetrack pattern. Secondly, they would fly eastward towards the open waters. It was during these easterly journeys that the objects would reach the 1.1-1.2 Mach speeds. The objects’ third type of movement involved either climbing or descending. Graves has estimated that the objects completed these drops or rises at a speed of between 1,000 feet/minute and 4,000 feet/minute.
For all of the quirks in the objects’ aforementioned behaviour, Graves was most impressed by another of its idiosyncrasies. The objects apparently stayed airborne for 12 hours straight at a time. Graves has said, “These things would be out there all day… Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect”.
Graves has expanded on why this lengthy airborne display of the objects amazed him beyond all else, “As pilots, that’s very interesting because we understand better than anyone, how limited we are in fuel, how much we can stay airborne, how long we can stay airborne when manoeuvring tactically, compared to more straight and level flying…The fact that these are out there all day and doing things such as hovering, such as moving pretty quick. That’s not an efficient airspeed, especially supersonic. We don’t have an energy system that can provide that”. In contrast to the objects’ perpetual state of flight, Grave’s and his squadron’s Super Hornet’s needed to return to the tarmac every one and a half hours to refuel before the next flight would take off.
Despite being tasked with training duties, there were times when members of Graves’ squadron detected one of the objects on radar and navigated towards it. The Super Hornet pilots wore a Joint Helmet Mounted Cuing System (JHMCS) that displayed information on their visor. The JHMCS is used operationally by the pilots when in combat and is specifically designed to help direct the pilot to observe real-world objects when flying. The JHMCS provided the pilots with the precise location in the sky to view the bizarre objects as they came to a merge. Despite utilising the advanced JHMCS which directed the pilots where to look in the sky, the pilots still found it difficult to observe the objects. Graves has explained, “As we are zooming up to these things, we’ve got a radar on it, we have a FLIR on it, all those sensors sending information to our helmet…We basically merge with it…It would take a tenth of a second and we zipped by at 800 miles at relative velocity but we’d almost never see them”.
The objects would routinely avoid the Super Hornets by changing their altitude. Graves has explained this, “Typically if you were going to try and find it, you typically weren’t able to see it…It would just move altitude”. Graves has emphasised this important point, “When they (the pilots would) get close, the things would move a little bit up or down. Just enough so you’d miss them”.
The Objects vs the Pilots
In a few instances, the pilots managed to narrowly avoid a collision with the objects. In one of these incidents, two Super Hornets were flying side-by-side approximately 400 feet apart. The pilots were conducting a training manoeuvre and were oblivious to one of the objects. All of a sudden, the pair of planes approached the stationary object head-on and the object happened to pass in between the Super Hornets. The object got within 150 feet of one of the planes which in aviation terms is an agonisingly close near miss. In passing, one of the pilots managed to gain a view of the object which resembled a silver cube encased in a translucent sphere.
The senior pilots in the Red Rippers squadron were becoming increasingly frustrated that these bizarre objects were occupying their airspace, appearing on such a regular occurrence and just narrowly avoiding collisions with their planes. As a consequence, a safety report was submitted.
Due to the continual, close proximity of the objects, a ‘notice to airmen’ (NOTAM) was filed. A NOTAM alerts pilots to potential hazards lurking in an aerial location. Graves has explained, “This was happening so much and our local command didn’t know what to do, so they filed a NOTAM that was published every day to say there was unknown vehicles in the airspace, keep your eyes out”.
The Red Rippers initially detected the objects in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Virginia. As several months elapsed, the squadron moved down to the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. It was here that Graves’ squadron worked alongside the USS Theodore Roosevelt- a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, similar to the USS Nimitz, in anticipation of their deployment to the Middle East. Upon arrival off Jacksonville, the squadron noticed the objects in this airspace too. Grave has remarked, “When we arrived out into the area, the objects were there. They were already there when we arrived or they followed us there”. The bulk of the sightings of the objects spanned from the summer of 2014 to March 2015.
According to the pilots, the objects “tapered off” when the pilots were stationed in the Middle East. In one interview, Graves has suggested that the objects were actually spotted by the pilots in the Middle East, “We did have issues with them when we went out to the Middle East. Not in the transit but once we settled out into the Middle East”. As part of the complicated labyrinth of Middle Eastern relationships, the Russian government was aligned with the Syrian government. The United States government supported the local Kurdish forces who were actively opposed to the Syrian government. Ergo, the United States and Russia were in a sense, strategic, battlefield enemies.
As recently as 2020, one of Graves’ fellow pilots narrowly avoided a collision with one of the objects. This was in the same area that the 2014 and 2015 encounters occurred. The pilot caught a glimpse of the object and provided a description of a cube inside a transparent sphere- an identical representation of the objects seen in 2014 and 2015. During 2021, a former flight student of Graves informed him that “They’re still out here”. In June of 2021, Graves said, “I have heard through active duty sources that the objects seen on the East Coast (that appear like a cube in a sphere) continue today and can also be found on the West Coast”. Graves has also detailed that there are sightings “possibly further inland as well”.
Graves, Accoin and an additional three pilots have confirmed the veracity of the bizarre behaving objects appearing in the airspace off the eastern coast of the United States.
Theories to Explain the East Coast UAP
A number of theories have been proposed to explain these unconventionally behaving objects that the pilots spotted up and down the East Coast of the United States. The scientifically-minded pilots themselves who witnessed the objects also frequently tried to make sense of what they were observing.
Graves has explained that many of the individual traits of the objects are within human-design capabilities however when all of these single features are fused together the objects become baffling. “We have helicopters that can hover. We have aircraft that can fly at 30,000 feet and right at the surface but combine all that in one vehicle of some type with no jet engine, no exhaust plume”.
Some of the pilots initially considered the possibility that the objects were some type of advanced drone. Graves has remarked, “These areas are 10 miles off the coast and go out to 180 miles. These things are 30,000, 40,000 feet, surface level so it wouldn’t be a commercial drone, they just don’t have the range”. The amount of time that the objects managed to stay airborne for also helped in eliminating the pilots’ commercial drone theory.
The squadron became increasingly incensed by the objects occupying their airspace and the spate of near misses. Graves has asked the question, “Are we testing something out there that we shouldn’t be? You would never ever expect someone to test a new drone or something like that (in the pilot’s working area)…It’s way too congested, it’s way too dangerous”. The pilots reasoned that it would be highly unlikely for the US government to send military-grade drones to intrude in their well-controlled airspace.
Graves has mentioned that upon arrival on the USS Roosevelt off the Jacksonville coast, “We were aware there were foreign intelligence gathering operations in our vicinity”. Graves has continued on with the caveat that the foreign intelligence gathering operations, “were relatively routine”. The door is left slightly ajar that these operations were somehow related to the strangely behaving objects.
Graves, who doubles as an aeronautical engineer has narrowed down the objects to having stemmed from two possible origins, “It’s one of two things at this point. It’s earthbound and someone’s other than the US Military’s or it’s X, Y or Z or UFOs or whatever you want to call them. One is obviously a much higher probability than the other and if that’s the case and we do have potentially, what we would call a red threat, you know, one of our traditional enemies, that are using some type of perhaps new technology or hard-to-identify technology, that is out there in our working areas, soaking up our waveforms from our radar and our sensors and our comms, watching our tactics on a daily basis, that’s a major, major intelligence failure to have these things out there”.
It’s plausible that the first part of Graves’ two-part assessment is correct and that the objects are indeed some foreign country’s advanced military contraptions. A United States strategic enemy would gain significant advantages knowing in advance the precise flight patterns and tactics of the Super Hornets. It’s also conceivable that the foreign nation tested the objects with their own MSA fighter jet radars and that the objects weren’t detectable. The strategic enemy may have been ignorant of the upgrade to the United States plane’s AESA radars that possessed the ability to detect the objects.
Another possibility is that the objects were part of some NEMESIS style integrated sensor system. The objects detected moving on the Super Hornet radars may have not been objects at all but rather the product of the NEMESIS system that only appeared on radar. This may explain the military’s apparent reluctance to investigate further and seeming lack of concern about near misses with the fighter planes. On occasions, the pilots may have caught a glimpse of an airborne craft that was part of emitting the integrated sensor system.
Upon hearing of the objects’ alien-esque description featuring a cube inside a translucent sphere, Editor-in-chief of ‘The War Zone’, Tyler Rogoway found a remarkably similar design after a number of days of tedious searching. The design belonged to a US patent granted back in 1949 for an ‘Airborne Corner Reflector’, aka a radar reflecting balloon.
The patent for the ‘Airborne Corner Reflector’. (Image source: USPTO)
Rogoway has cited some evidence for his theory. When the sphere encasing a cube object was first viewed visually, according to Graves, “It was most likely stationary”. This potentially meshes with the balloon aspect of the airborne corner reflector. Rogoway also points out that the objects could stay airborne for many hours at a time, which is another feature of balloons. The objects were cold according to the FLIR which matches balloons’ temperatures. In addition, the navy showed no urgency in dealing with the objects which also fits in with the balloon hypothesis.
The patent of the airborne corner reflector also reports the balloon’s ability to be packed up tightly, a feature Rogoway has suggested may be beneficial for the release of the balloons from a canister from a submerged submarine. Rogoway has speculated that the release of these balloons could significantly help a submarine gather aerial intelligence, especially when linked up with the advancements in modern, military science since the 1949 patent. There is a precedent for such large-scale, high altitude balloon launches. In 2021, the US military launched a number of high altitude balloons off their coastlines.
A key argument against Rogoway’s theory is that the objects were recorded travelling at speeds ranging from 0.6 Mach to 1.2 Mach. If not travelling at these speeds, the objects were stationary. In contrast, balloons drift with the wind and unless tied down they are not stationary in the sky. In addition, the objects were seen evading the planes by rapidly changing altitude when approached. It would have been elementary for the advanced Super Hornet system, with sensors linked to the strike group, to approach a balloon. The objects were also viewed flying in formation. The object that bisected the two Super Hornets that avoided a near collision, wasn’t detected on the advanced AESA radar. It should have been straightforward for radar reflectors, positioned at the same altitude as the planes, to be picked up by the planes’ radars. In addition, why weren’t the squadron, who were become quite irked by the objects, informed from those higher up the military ladder that they were simply radar reflecting balloons?
The objects were recorded on ATFLIR by the pilots in footage that has been declassified and made public. At first glance, the objects in the videos don’t move anything like balloons.
The GOFAST Video
The east Coast, GOFAST video.
The bizarre objects that continually perturbed the East Coast pilots were captured on ATFLIR cameras on a number of occasions. One such recording was captured off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, as the close of 2014 blended in to the beginning of 2015. The object was caught on ATFLIR by one of the fellow pilots in Grave’s squadron and his Weapon Systems Officer (WSO). The video was published by the New York Times in 2017 and the Pentagon later confirmed its authenticity. The video became known as ‘GOFAST’ thanks to the apparent speed of the object above the surface of the ocean.
The publicly available GOFAST footage begins with the WSO attempting to gain an ATFLIR lock on the object. The WSO places the ATFLIR lock ahead of the direction of the object and after a series of failed attempts, the ATFLIR locks onto the object and then follows it in autotrack mode for the remainder of the video. The WSO is audibly excited to have locked onto the object. The pilot and WSO converse during the video and are feverish with delight.
The object appears cold and white during the first section of the video. This is because the infrared camera is in ‘black hot’ mode in which warm entities appear black and cooler entities appear white. The WSO switches modes part-way through the video so that the object appears black in ‘white hot’ mode. The temperature of the object is cooler than the background which is most unusual for a quickly travelling object. Additionally, there is no exhaust plume emanating from the object which would have appeared as a clear heat signature in infrared.
The small, white object in the centre of the screen is the GOFAST object. It appears white at the start of the video because the infrared camera is in ‘black hot’ mode. This means relatively warmer objects appear black and cooler objects appear white. The GOFAST object is cooler than the background.
The Super Hornet which captured the object was travelling at 25,000 feet at a speed of about 0.61 Mach, which is equivalent to approximately 469 miles per hour- relatively sluggish compared to a Super Hornet’s potential speed.
At the right of screen, we can see that the object was initially locked on the ATFLIR at a distance of 4.4 nautical miles from the Super Hornet. By the end of the video, the object was 3.3 nautical miles away. In aviation terms, the object was very close to the Super Hornet. The horizon indicator appears in the centre of the screen, above the object and resembles the head-on view of a bird flying, wings outstretched. The horizon indicator is slanted for most of the video which illustrates that the Super Hornet is turning.
The number inside the red rectangle is the speed of the Super Hornet (0.61 Mach). The number encased in the yellow rectangle is the downwards angle of the GOFAST object from the Super Hornet. The ‘NAR’ in the orange rectangle indicates the narrow field-of-view lens. The number and letter in the green rectangle show the direction the ATFLIR pod is facing (45 degrees to the left). The number in the blue rectangle indicates the distance of the GOFAST object from the Super Hornet (4.3 nautical miles). The number in the purple rectangle shows the altitude of the Super Hornet (25,000 feet).
The number on the left of the screen indicates the downward angle of the object, relative to the Super Hornet. It begins at 22 degrees downwards and over the course of the video, it changes to 35 degrees downwards. The number at the top of the screen indicates where the object is (left vs right) relative to the nose of the Super Hornet. Over the course of the video, it changes from 35 degrees left to 58 degrees left.
GOFAST Video Analysis
Former Air Force Colonel, Andrea Themely, has done some calculations to estimate the speed of the object in the GOFAST video. She has concluded, “You can roughly tell if you do some rough math that that object is going approximately 500 miles per hour. Without any visible propulsion or any airfoils that would provide lift”. Based on the focus of the ATFLIR, Former fighter pilot Chris Lehto has estimated the object was travelling at between 0.6 and 1.0 Mach (460-767 miles per hour). Christopher Cooke, another former fighter pilot has also estimated the object’s speed, “It’s a little less than two thirds the speed of sound” which would put the object’s speed at just under 506 miles per hour.
Skeptic and UFO debunker, Mick West, has also performed some calculations on the Go Fast video. Utilising some basic trigonometry using the distance of the object and angle of the object beneath the Super Hornet, the object begins 1.92 nautical miles beneath the plane and it ends 1.95 nautical miles under the plane. This places the object at an altitude of approximately 13,000 feet. The object is not just above the ocean’s surface as it appears but rather nearabouts half-way between the Super Hornet and the sea. If the distance (range) of the object and angle of the object displayed by the screen are accurate, this is undeniable.
Mick West has calculated that the GOFAST object is approximately 13,000 feet above the surface of the ocean.
West has performed some further calculations and determined that the object is only travelling at a speed of between 20 and 40 knots (23 to 46 miles per hour). He argues that this is consistent with the wind speed at an altitude of 13,000 feet. This speed calculation is a far cry from the estimates of the former fighter pilots who viewed the video. Unlike West, they all calculated the object to be traveling in the realm of 500 miles per hour.
Using the pixels comprising the object, the object’s range, the field-of-view (narrow) and fraction of the field of view covered by the object, West estimates that the object is just 6 to 7 feet in diameter. In addition, West has suggested that the object’s lack of a heat signature is consistent with a helium balloon. West makes some compelling arguments that the object recorded was indeed a balloon.
There are some further arguments against West’s claim that the object is a balloon. Graves has commented that the general speeds of the airborne objects fluctuated from 0.6 to 1.2 Mach. The objects’ speeds were caught on radar multiple times and it’s plausible that the object captured in the GOFAST was also recorded at a hasty speed. In addition, Graves has mentioned that the objects seemed to hover in one place- seemingly defying the wind. Graves has also described that the objects were seen flying in a formation. None of these traits meshes with the behaviour of balloons.
Between 50 and 60 pilots and their state-of-the-art ATFLIR, radar and datalink were monitoring these objects on a daily basis over the course of many months. If the objects were simply weather balloons, drifting with the wind, the squadrons of pilots would have determined this. The pilots’ available data and numerous observations of the objects would have provided thousand-fold as much information about the object as a short video, with limited data. The calculations by West based on the GOFAST video were only derived based on a brief peek at the objects. These calculations may well be correct for the duration of the 34 seconds of GOFAST video however the pilots knew significantly more about all facets of the objects. The pilots observed the objects for many months, with multiple systems and sensors. If the pilots with their wealth of information ruled out the objects as being balloons, then the objects were unlikely to be balloons.
Perhaps the strongest argument against West’s claim that the object in the GOFAST footage was a balloon is the GIMBAL video and the fascinating story that surrounds it.
The GIMBAL Video
The East Coast, GIMBAL video
In January 2015, a Super Hornet team from Grave’s Red Rippers squadron launched off the USS Theodore Roosevelt. This happened to be the same pilot and WSO who captured the GOFAST video and at a time that was only a few weeks apart. Once again, the fighter pilot team were off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. On this occasion, however, the team were a significant 300 miles from the coastline, well into the confines of the Atlantic Ocean.
The pilots encountered the GIMBAL object in the air approximately 300 miles off the Jacksonville coast. The pilots were based on the USS Theodore Roosevelt when not flying.
It was during this flight that the pilot and WSO captured what would later be referred to as the ‘GIMBAL video’. The infrared video begins with the unidentified object squarely in the centre of the screen. For the initial section of the video, the ATFLIR is in ‘white hot’ mode which makes warmer objects appear white. The object is white and seemingly disk-shaped. As the video progresses, the ATFLIR mode is changed to ‘black-hot’ in which warmer entities appear black. In contrast to the object in the GOFAST video, the GIMBAL object was warm.
The Gimbal object is white and the infrared camera is in ‘white hot’ mode. This means that the GIMBAL object is warmer than its background. Partway through the video, the mode switches so warm objects appear black in colour and thus the warmer GIMBAL object appears black.
The Super Hornet was turning on an angle when it recorded the GIMBAL object. This is determined because the horizon indicator (shown in red) is slanted. To get a true reflection of the GIMBAL object’s orientation, the horizon indicator should be level like in this image.
The Super Hornet is at 25,010 feet and flying at a speed of approximately 0.58 Mach. The object is two degrees beneath the Super Hornet, making it slightly lower in elevation to the fighter plane but roughly at an equitable altitude. At the start of the video, the object is at 54 degrees left of the Super Hornet’s nose. When the video ends, the object is at 6 degrees right of the moving Super Hornet’s nose.
The number inside the red rectangle is the speed of the Super Hornet (0.59 Mach). The letters ‘BLK’ in the blue rectangle indicate black is hot (warm objects appear black on the screen). The number in the yellow rectangle is the downwards angle of the GOFAST object from the Super Hornet (-2 degrees which is almost on the same altitude as the Super Hornet). The ‘NAR’ in the orange rectangle indicates the narrow field-of-view lens. The number and letter in the green rectangle show the direction the ATFLIR pod is facing (25 degrees to the left). The number in the purple rectangle shows the altitude of the Super Hornet (25,010 feet).
Part-way through the GIMBAL video, one of the pilots on board the Super Hornet exclaims, “There’s a whole fleet of them, look on the SA (situational awareness page)”. The SA page provides the pilots with a God’s-eye-view of the scene. There were a number of objects in the vicinity of the GIMBAL entity captured on the ATFLIR. The pilot then stated, “They are all going against the wind, the wind is 120 knots to the west”.
A pilot then asks, “That’s not our L+S though is it?” to which the other pilot responds, “That is the L + S dude!” L+S stands for launch and steering. On the Super Hornet, the GIMBAL object was the primary target on their L+S. This meant that all the Super Hornet’s systems, including its sensors and FLIR were training in on the GIMBAL object. Not only this, as the GIMBAL was designated as the L+S, all of the strike group, including the link-16 and IFF (identification friend or foe) were focused in on the object. In addition, everyone on the datalink system could see that the GIMBAL object was designated as L+S. Despite this, none of these strike group’s resources could identify what the GIMBAL object was.
One of the pilots then commented, “Look at that thing!” The other pilot provides the addendum, “It’s rotating!” The gyroscope shaped object appears to rotate approximately 100 degrees in an anti-clockwise direction. The object seemingly lacks any sign of a propulsion system such as an exhaust plume and additionally it has no visible flight control surfaces.
The Super Hornet landed back on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and according to Graves, “When the aircrew landed back on the boat, we had a crowd of fascinated intel officers and aircrew who watched all the data. The leads in the room were perplexed enough to call the Strike Group Admiral down to view the data”. The Admiral analysed the data then responded with a sigh of contemplation, “Hmmm” before briskly leaving the room with a purpose. The Admiral went to report the object to those higher up. He also informed those in the higher echelons of the military that he was frustrated that there were no ramifications for the objects appearing in the fighter pilot’s airspace.
After recording the GIMBAL video, the pilots landed back on the aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
The true nature of the events surrounding the GIMBAL video are equal parts fascinating and perplexing. Graves has commented, “The GIMBAL video was just part of a longer, higher resolution video we were shown on the ship. It included several smaller craft, the kind we were more familiar with. They were essentially flying themselves in a formation. Behind those was the GIMBAL object”.
Graves has elaborated on the scene, “The object you see in the video (the GIMBAL object)…that was something we hadn’t seen before. So we hadn’t seen that before but there’s another page on our display called SA page, situational awareness page that fuses all the data from our sensors together, kind of gives us a God’s-eye-view of what’s happening around us. You can hear on the video ‘Look at the SA page, there’s a whole fleet of them’ that’s what he’s referring to, and on the radar tapes, on the SA page, you could see there was about 5-6 of them, of the smaller objects we are used to seeing”. Graves is explaining that the object captured in the FLIR footage was unique- it was the first time any of the pilots had viewed this type of object. In addition to this unique and larger GIMBAL object, there were five or six smaller objects. These were the objects the pilots were accustomed to seeing. These were the objects discussed throughout the ‘East Coast UAP’ section of this article. These were the objects that had the same traits as the object captured in the GOFAST video.
Graves has provided a vivid explanation of precisely how the objects were flying in a formation, “As viewed from the Situation Awareness page, the GIMBAL object appeared to be ‘behind’ a wedge formation of 4-6 objects that were flying in a straight-line path for a period of time. From the appearance of their radar tracks, they appeared similar to my eye as the ‘cube in a sphere’ objects we’d see regularly. I say this as their Target Aspect indicator seemed a bit jittery- as if the radar had difficulty determining which way the vehicle was pointing even though they were proceeding in a straight line”.
Graves’ drawing of the wedge formation of objects in front of the GIMBAL. (Image source- Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation).
After some period of time, all of the smaller objects changed direction, “Eventually, the wedge formation began a turn. The vehicles turned similar to an aircraft, where they had a radius of turn. This is in contrast to the GIMBAL object which reversed its direction with no turn. The turn of the wedge formation, if I remember correctly, was not a ‘clean’ formation turn. The vehicles seemed to break formation to a certain extent but reposition to their original formation as they rolled out on the opposite heading. The GIMBAL object was stationary (as seen in the video) as the turn was executed”.
This is a critical observation by Graves. The 5 or 6 smaller objects completed a turn in a manner similar to an aircraft before realigning in formation after the turn. The large, GIMBAL object didn’t need to turn. It seemingly stopped in mid-air. Graves has described that the GIMBAL object then waited, “Meanwhile, the ‘GIMBAL’ object that was following behind them suddenly stopped and waited for the wedge formation to pass. Then it tilted up like you can see in the clip”. This is the section of video we are privy to- the GIMBAL object remains aerially static and rotates- It didn’t need to perform a turn to change direction, it simply rotated.
The GIMBAL object begins the video in this orientation.
The GIMBAL object then proceeds to rotate.
The GIMBAL object continues to rotate, ending up in this orientation.
According to Graves, after the turn (and post the video cutting out), the GIMBAL object “Just kept following the other five or six, doing like a racetrack pattern”. These five or six smaller objects are just out of picture of the public GIMBAL video.
Another aspect of the GIMBAL’s motion that surprised Graves was its relatively slow speed, “It was going like 120 knots (138 miles per hour), basically stationary. None of our jets are just going to be sitting there stationary at 120 knots. I forget the altitude, maybe like 20,000 feet, but that’s really slow. Maybe in a full dogfight, if you’re a good pilot, you could get down to maybe 80 knots without stalling the aircraft, but you’d probably borderline stall, and you’re going to be pure vertical, or at least close to 70 degrees nose up”. According to Graves, an object travelling at the speed of the GIMBAL should virtually fall out of the sky due to its leisurely pace.
Graves was astounded at the behaviour of the GIMBAL, “For the record, after seeing hundreds of aircraft and countless other air and ground based objects through the FLIR, I have never seen anything like GIMBAL. I think it’s clear the aircrew in the video feel the same way”.
GIMBAL Video Analysis
Skeptic, Mick West, has suggested that the object in the GIMBAL video is not an object at all. West points out that the ATFLIR is in infrared mode for the duration of the video. As a result, West posits that the object is in fact the infrared glare emanating from the engine of a distant jet. West has attempted to recreate the glare in the video below.
Mick West has attempted to recreate something analogous to the GIMBAL video using glare.
West has elaborated on his theory, “The engines of a plane are very, very hot. They show up in the heat sensitive camera essentially as bright lights…You’ve got the shape of a glare. In astronomy you happen to see what looks like a cross over a star or a celestial object of some sort because of the diffraction effect. The aperture of the camera has an effect on what the glare looks like. What’s happening here is that you are getting essentially a flying saucer shaped glare…It’s so bright because the engine is so hot. It is obscuring the actual outline of the plane…All you’re seeing is this glare of the engine”.
The second part to West’s theory involves explaining the apparent rotation of the object. West proposes that the glare on the camera which appears as the GIMBAL ‘object’ is rotating. West has provided a potential means to explain the GIMBAL rotation illusion. He found the patents for the ATFLIR which outlined a ‘de-rotation’ mechanism. West has explained this, “The rotation is unwanted rotation caused by the gimbal (a device used to keep the camera at right angles) mounting. As explained in the ATFLIR patent, there is a ‘de-rotation’ mechanism that removes this rotation”.
West has expanded on why he believes this de-rotation mechanism occurs, “Essentially it is a limitation of the camera system. They are mounted in such a way that they can only rotate along its forward axis. It can only do an up and down rotation around one horizontal axis. To be able to track something, you actually need three axis of rotation. For it to go left to right when it’s actually tilted down a bit, it actually ends up having to rotate the camera. That rotation is internally corrected for. Because you’re doing an internal correction of the rotation, this means that the scene doesn’t rotate but anything that’s an optical artefact within the camera does rotate so the shape of the glare itself rotates”.
To paraphrase West’s theory- the object depicted in the infrared Gimbal video is the hot glare coming from a distant plane’s engine. The glare itself isn’t rotating however due to the nature of the ATFLIR camera having a de-rotation mechanism, the glare rotates when captured in the GIMBAL video.
West has provided some further evidence to support the rotating glare hypothesis. During the section of the GIMBAL video in which the GIMBAL object rotates, the light and dark sections of the sky behind the GIMBAL also appear to rotate with the GIMBAL object. This is displayed in the short video below.
Finally, West has provided a mechanism to explain why there appears to be a white ‘aura’ surrounding the object in the GIMBAL video. West has explained that this is in fact the result of a sharpening out camera effect. In other words, it is an artefact of the camera creating a distinction between what appears dark on the screen and what appears light on the screen.
The white ‘aura’ surrounding the GIMBAL object.
Graves has provided a rebuttal to West’s proposal that the GIMBAL object is a distant jet engine’s glare. “When my buddy took that video, he was heading back to the ship, and then here goes this thing like 40 miles away from the boat. It’s not in the datalink. All the radars are reporting it, but it’s nothing popping up identifying what type of aircraft it is or whether it’s friend or foe. Then you’ve also got the five or six other objects in the wedge formation. We were like 300 miles out off the coast. It’s hard for me to imagine it was just another jet in the system”.
Graves has explained several aspects to the video in the above quote. Firstly, the GIMBAL object appeared on a number of radars. Additionally, the datalink couldn’t determine the nature of the object. The datalink is akin to an internet for the strike group that connects all the military assets data. Graves has explained that the object was just 40 miles away from the ship’s advanced radars. The GIMBAL object also failed to show up on the ‘Identification friend or foe’ (IFF) system that would have alerted to it being a commercial or military plane. The Super Hornet’s situational awareness page would have provided the pilots with a complete picture of the sensor data, akin to a God’s-eye-view of the scene. Graves has also remarked, “What is often overlooked when considering the source of the GIMBAL video is other sensor systems. The FLIR is essentially the last piece of the ID puzzle. Onboard radar data and offboard information from datalink showed that a non-participating vehicle was present”.
The complex labyrinth of interconnected systems linking up every part of the strike group and the close proximity of the GIMBAL to the strike group make it inconceivable that the object captured in the GIMBAL video was a jet’s glare. The most advanced military equipment on earth, including the ATFLIR would have found the task of identifying a plane positively elementary.
Graves has outright refuted West’s suggestion that the GIMBAL object is a jet engine’s glare, “People talked about it being exhaust which I think, pretty much any pilot that’s any spend time looking through the FLIRs will tell you that’s not exhaust cam. What’s great for people who are professional debunkers is it doesn’t matter what the answer is. It matters if they can make it look similar to something that they can recognise”.
An additional rebuttal to the jet engine glare theory is that infrared glare tends to produce a circular shape with a large number of stray lines emanating from the central glare circle. The GIMBAL object is not circular but rather disk-shaped. Furthermore, it lacks the large number of stray lines stemming from its centre, like typical infrared glare. Instead, it contains one distinct, solid line bisecting its body. The GIMBAL object also has a very well defined edge unlike typical infrared glare. Dave Falch has gained the most similar looking infrared glare to the GIMBAL video by changing his infrared camera’s focus whilst observing a T-45 jet. This video is below. Despite being the most similar looking glare to the GIMBAL, Falch’s glare in this video is still much rounder, has more stray lines and is less defined than the GIMBAL video.
Dave Falch has recorded a T-45 jet engine’s glare whilst changing the camera’s focus. This has produced the most similar looking video to the GIMBAL. Despite this, the object in the GIMBAL video looks markedly different and doesn’t appear to be jet glare.
A further argument against West’s jet engine glare theory is the context of the GIMBAL video. This includes what extends beyond the snippet of publicly available video. Graves has explained, “So when that FLIR footage they call the GIMBAL was filmed, what you don’t see in the video that was released was there were five or six other aircraft flying in an imperfect wedge formation”.
As explained in more detail in ‘The GIMBAL Video’ section above, Graves had described how the GIMBAL object followed a series of 5 or 6 objects flying in a wedge formation. The objects completed a turn, the GIMBAL rotated in mid-air rather than turning and then proceeded to follow the objects. None of this description even remotely gels in with the jet engine glare hypothesis.
Asked if his mind was blown by the GIMBAL’s mid-air rotation, Graves has responded, “It kind of does. Remember too, if I was in a jet and dropped my wing 90 degrees, I could do that but I’m also travelling at a certain air speed. Whilst this thing was motionless, essentially other than a spin…You could certainly do some experimenting with a helicopter but it didn’t look like a helicopter”.
As well as the GIMBAL object’s motion, Former Air Force Colonel, Andrea Themely was confounded by the lack of the object’s exhaust plume, “What’s noticeable is that there’s no visible, infrared exhaust plume coming from this object. That indicates no source of propulsion as we know it”.
During the GIMBAL video, one of the pilots commented, “There’s a whole fleet of them, look on the SA (situational awareness page)…They are all going against the wind, the wind is 120 knots to the west”. This observation alone is a strong argument that the ‘GOFAST’ style objects, that were leading the GIMBAL, weren’t balloons. It is also a strong argument that the GIMBAL object isn’t infrared jet engine glare.
West has argued that further evidence for the rotating glare theory can be seen as the dark and light sections of the sky, behind the GIMBAL, rotate as the GIMBAL object rotates. An argument against West’s point is that the footage is shot in greyscale, featuring subtle shades of grey. The ATFLIR system’s compression algorithm processes each individual frame of the footage to highlight the relevant objects. The system observes the GIMBAL object rotating and applies the contrast to the picture. As a result of this compression artefact, the dark and light sections of sky would be expected to slightly rotate when the GIMBAL object rotates. This is exactly what we see in the footage.
John Ehrhart is an electro-optical specialist who rebuilds ATFLIR pods. During his 7 years of work at Boeing, his job centred on navy ATFLIR pods. Ehrhart has weighed in on the background rotation in the GIMBAL footage, “When you look at that video, the target is rotating more than the scene is. At the very end of the video, you can see a little bit of the whole scene rotate but the target just keeps rotating. There is nothing in the system that is going to rotate the target more than the background”. Ehrhart’s assessment supports the notion that the GIMBAL object itself physically rotated and its rotation was not the product of the camera’s de-rotation mechanism.
Thermal camera technician, Dave Falch, has provided some mechanical arguments against West’s general rotating glare theory here. West has responded to these arguments here. Former fighter pilot, Chris Lehto has also documented some technical arguments against the rotating glare theory here. West has responded to these points by Lehto here. I won’t examine these arguments in this section as they are fairly lengthy and technical and are worthy of their own article.
Initially, West’s claim that the object that appears in the GIMBAL video is the glare of a jet engine seems plausible. This theory neglects the synchronicity of the glut of aerial systems on board the Super Hornet and in the strike group. It would have been elementary for this technology to identify the object as a jet.
In addition, there is more behind the scenes to the GIMBAL video than meets the eye. The GIMBAL was following a wedge-shaped formation of 5 or 6 ‘GOFAST’-style objects. These were the mysteriously behaving objects that the pilots had been viewing on a daily basis that were positively bamboozling to the 60 or so highly-trained individuals who saw them.
A number of West’s theories seem at the very least plausible in some form. The jet engine glare appears, at least to me, to not provide an explanation as to the true nature of the GIMBAL object that were captured by the ATFLIR. This doesn’t mean the object was extra-terrestrial in nature, only that the jet engine glare theory seems highly unlikely. The section of West’s GIMBAL theory that seems most plausible is his hypothesis that the white aura surrounding the GIMBAL is the result of a sharpening out camera effect.
The East Coast UAP Similarities with the Tic Tac Encounter
The East Coast UAP sightings, despite occurring a decade after the tic tac encounter, share an assortment of similarities. In both instances, the sightings transpired in the vicinity of a United States strike group, led by a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The sightings occurred not far from the United States coastline and both events entailed strange behaving objects being captured on FLIR by Super Hornets.
Perhaps the most notable similarity is that both sets of events occurred whilst the strike groups were preparing and training for deployment to the Middle East. Is this a spurious similarity or is there some deeper link between the UAP and the strike group future deployments? An argument can be made that the United States military were in the midst of a testing and training process hence the unexplained objects were experimental entities from the United States own armoury.
Alternatively, a foreign power such as Russia may have been determined to gain insights into the United States military tactics, in preparation for the strike group’s imminent Middle East deployment. This would have provided the strategic enemy with a significant battlefield advantage.
A final key similarity between both events pertains to the newly upgraded radar system types. In the Nimitz tic tac encounters, the CEC system was being used for the first time in a large-scale setting. In the East Coast sightings, the Super Hornet’s advanced APG-79 radars were being rolled out when the unexplained objects were noticed.
There are different perspectives in which to view the newly fitted radar-UAP sightings conundrum. Firstly, the United States military may have wanted to test the limits of its state-of-the-art radars in order to determine both the radar’s accuracies and whether their new technology would evade such radars. Alternatively, it’s also plausible that the UAP were previously lurking around the strike groups and were only noticed thanks to the new and updated radar systems.
There have been additional East Coast sightings in a different context to the GIMBAL and GOFAST. These have involved a pilot capturing the three images below, with at least the top image at least partially resembling a tic tac.
On March the 4th, 2019, a Super Hornet WSO on the East Coast captured this object on their iPhone as well as the two objects below. Some people have suggested that this object resembles a ‘high altitude airship’ (Image source: Mystery Wire)
This object was also photographed around the same time by the same WSO. Some people have suggested that this object is a Batman balloon. (Image source: Mystery Wire)
On the 25th of June 2021, the long-awaited Preliminary Assessment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon report was released by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The report was largely written for US policymakers. The document focused on UAP that had been witnessed firsthand by US military aviators between 2004 and 2021 from systems that the UAP task force considered to be reliable.
The report states that “Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation”.
The report emphasises that “In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics”. The report does stipulate that it’s conceivable that there are potentially yet-to-be-determined, prosaic reasons for these ‘unusual flight characteristics’ including “Sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception”.
In total, the report examined 144 UAP sightings. Just one of the sightings could be explained- it was a deflating balloon. From this set of 144, a total of 80 sightings involved “Observations with multiple sensors”. In 18 incidents, the UAP appeared to demonstrate advanced technology. The report expounded on what these advanced features of the UAP consisted of, “Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, manoeuvre abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings”. The report continues on, “The UAPTF holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration or a degree of signature management”.
The report carries on to speculate that UAP likely lack a single, catch-all explanation and that its possible that many UAP could theoretically be the result of: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomenon, classified US programs, technology possessed by foreign governments or ‘other’.
In general, the report was largely what one would expect from a government written preliminary assessment. It failed to answer or even provide any hint of an insight into the million dollar question- Just what are the UAP that the United States military are encountering?
Statements from Officials
There are a number of people in the United States intelligence community who are privy to extra and classified information regarding UAP. An assortment of these individuals have recently spoken out about UAP. Their comments may provide some insight in helping to unravel this phenomenon.
John Ratcliffe was the former Director of National Intelligence from 2020 to 2021. In a Fox News interview from June 2021, he stated the following, “What’s more important is the number of sightings and recordings that have been picked up by what we call ‘multiple sensors’. That is: visual, radar, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), satellite. When you have multiple sensors under conditions where we see UAPs, it explains away a lot of the things like visual disturbances or things like that….A lot of people say maybe it’s Russia or China but some of the things that have been publicly talked about, we know for a fact from the intelligence community, we have high confidence that things like trans-medium properties and hypersonic speed, meaning vehicles that go five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5. Russia and China clearly didn’t have those in 2004 when some of these things were sighted and recorded”.
In 2021, former President Bill Clinton remarked, “There are things flying around up there that we haven’t fully identified yet”. Also in 2021, former President Barack Obama commented, “There is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they move, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern”.
Andre Carson from the House Intelligence Committee has said, “This is a technology that we don’t completely understand and it seems to be defying our understanding of physics. It appears to be more advanced than our own technology, but that’s never a good thing from a strategic point of view”.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Mark Warner has commented, “I was first briefed on these unidentified aerial phenomena nearly three years ago. Since then, the frequency of these incidents only appears to be increasing”.
John Brennan who is the former Director of the CIA has remarked, “But I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life”.
A number of other quotes about UAP by officials ‘in the know’ can be found here.
To balance these statements out, most of the comments by those with classified security briefings have portrayed a similar sentiment to the UAP report. Their comments seem to unanimously confirm that there are unidentified objects occupying the United States skies. In general, the briefed officials seem to be keen to rule out a foreign adversary as being responsible for sending the UAP. The officials also often quip about UAPs being a safety issue and a national security issue. Finally, many of those holding classified level security clearances have pleaded for more attention and focus on solving the UAP mystery.
Part 8- Theories
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
A number of theories to explain the Nimitz-tic tac events have been interspersed throughout this article. Many of the hypotheses blend in to one another, with no clearly-defined edge. Despite these overlapping elements, this section will attempt to present each theory in a concise manner and examine the arguments for and against each hypothesis’ validity. After laying out these points, I will present my own perspective on each theory as a conclusion, based upon the available evidence.
The first several theories analysed will look at general explanations for the tic tac events. Following this, more specific theories to decipher the individual parts of the tic tac events will be presented.
The Counter-Intelligence Theory
The Nimitz-tic tac encounters feature an array of entangled mysteries with many elements that are seemingly impossible. The publicly known tic tac encounters narrative could easily be a counter-intelligence concoction to hide the United States military’s true capabilities. The US government may or may not be aware of a prosaic explanation for the events however they are potentially continuing to perpetuate the UAP theory as a cover for their own advanced technology.
Arguments for The Counter-Intelligence Theory
1. The United States harbours a vast network of clandestine, military technology that the government is determined to keep secret. Perpetuating a ‘UAP’ narrative featuring objects with advanced capabilities, is the perfect cover-story for the US government.
2. There is a precedent of the United States purposefully projecting a false UFO theory. During the period of the Cold War, the US government intentionally lied about UFOs and subsequently fanned UFO hysteria with the intent of hiding their top secret, military aircraft programs.
3. Former US Air Force official, Richard Doty, claims that in the late 1970s he was directed to feed false information about UFOs to various UFO researchers. In another event, Roswell, the most famous supposed UFO encounter of all time, began with the US Roswell Army Air Field providing a press release that they had discovered a crashed flying disc. In reality, the object was likely a nuclear test surveillance balloon as part of the then classified Project Mogul.
4. The United States military has virtually unlimited resources. If any UAP was infringing on US territory, it should be elementary for the military to determine the objects’ source and capabilities. The US military’s supposed lack of knowledge on UAP is therefore likely to be an image that they want portrayed to the public in order to hide classified projects.
5. The United States has an array of advanced surveillance systems covering significant areas. This includes: BMEWS, the Space Fence, SBIRs, NORAD and the Global Infrasound Detection System. This impressive set of surveillance technology would have the capability to track any object entering US airspace, the ability to determine its source and the ability to identify it. The fact that the US government has supposedly been unable to determine the source of such a high number of UAPs reflects not an inadequacy by the US military but rather a counter-intelligence operation that involves claiming that UAP are extra-terrestrials in nature and frequenting the US skies.
6. Ryan Graves, who has become the face of the East Coast UAP sightings, works for BAE systems, a company that manufactures electronic warfare technology. It’s alleged that Fravor gained Graves this job. It’s plausible that Graves and Fravor have been tasked with spreading a faux-UAP story.
7. Luis Elizondo ran the US government’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (ATTIP) that was delegated with investigating UAP. Since leaving ATTIP, Elizondo has been one of the leading protagonists pushing the extra-terrestrial theory to explain the UAP. Elizondo had a ‘deep counter intelligence background’. Steven Greer has even claimed that Elizondo is a “famous disinformation operative in the Pentagon”.
Luis Elizondo was the director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (Image source: Wikipedia, Max Moszkowicz)
8. Christopher Mellon was the individual who provided the New York Times with the three UAP videos discussed throughout the NYT article- FLIR, GOFAST and GIMBAL. Mellon had a career working high up in various intelligence departments including having an oversight of counterintelligence programs.
Chris Mellon is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.
9. Karson Kammerzell, who was on board the Princeton, has commented on the possibility that the Pentagon are purposefully being misleading by claiming that UAP are ex-terrestrial as opposed to their own objects, “You’ve (the US government) pretty much created the perfect hiding zone for any aerial test platform for anything you’d ever want. It’s perfect, it’s airtight… It is possible that the government is using the TTSA (To the Stars Academy, featuring Elizondo and Mellon) as a springboard to deflect more down to earth questions about unknown activity; it could be with or without the TTSA’s knowledge”.
Arguments Against The Counter-Intelligence Theory
1. A large number of people have come forward, who were on board the Nimitz and Princeton, to discuss the peculiar events of the November 2004 training. This group discussion stems back to 2012 on Facebook on the ‘USS Princeton’ public Facebook group.
2. A high number of Nimitz and Princeton personnel recall seeing the FLIR video during the 2004 training and being mystified by it at this time.
3. Kevin Day wrote a story that was based on the Nimitz-tic tac encounter. It was published in 2009. According to Day and the other witnesses, there were strange and unexplained events happening during November 2004 around the Nimitz strike group.
4. The number of Freedom of Information requests stemming from the Nimitz-tic tac encounters is taking up a large amount of the military’s own time.
5. A large number of scientifically-trained personnel have come forward to document their experiences during the Nimitz-tic tac encounters. These witnesses are positively mystified by what they saw. Such is the personnels’ confidence in their assertions, they are potentially jeopardising their own careers and opening themselves up to ridicule by being attached to the UAP realm.
6. If the tic tac encounters featured technology as part of some covert US program, the government wouldn’t be drawing more attention to the technology.
7. Those claiming that Elizondo and Mellon are counter-intelligence officials constantly spark and promote unproven conspiracy theories. They also fail to provide evidence for their claims.
Conclusions on The Counter-Intelligence Theory
The counter-intelligence theory states that the US government is leveraging the tic tac event (and other encounters such as the East Coast sightings) as potentially unexplained or extra-terrestrial events to masquerade their own advanced technologies. It is plausible that the US military leaked the Pentagon videos to provide them with a cover-story for test programs. Having said this, whether this occurred or not, in a sense is largely irrelevant. The tic tac encounter occurred and the pertinent question is- what explains the events that unfolded. Any government attempt to broadcast the event and make it public knowledge for whatever motive is largely immaterial.
The counter-intelligence theory is only relevant in terms of the concept that the US government is aware of a prosaic explanation that resolves the mystery and they refuse to divulge it so as to keep the advanced UAP idea in the minds of the US citizens and those around the world. Despite sounding conspiratorial, it makes some sense in theory. There is a historic precedent of such counter-intelligence operations stemming from the US government and specifically within the UAP domain. There is also a substantial motive as to why the government wants to add to the allure and possibility of UAP- it can hide US military technology in plain sight.
The United States Technology Theory
This theory supposes that the objects seen in the tic tac encounters were top secret, United States military projects.
Arguments for The United States Technology Theory
1. Hughes, Voorhis, Weigelt, Day and Kammerzell who were aboard the USS Nimitz and Princeton, all describe two unknown personnel (thought to be from the US Air Force) arriving on the Nimitz and Princeton within 12 hours of Fravor’s tic tac encounter. The sheer speed that these mysterious personnel arrived on the ships suggests that the higher echelons of the US military were monitoring a secret US military technology test and they were intent on: hiding the data from those aboard the ships, removing the data from the systems and analysing the data for themselves.
2. Patrick Hughes from the USS Nimitz describes handing over the hard drive data from the Hawkeye plane shortly after it landed. Hughes states that the early warning aircraft was airborne during Fravor’s intercept of the tic tac (this is confirmed by several others) and that the crew on board observed the tic tac. Hughes has stated that he locked the Hawkeye data up in a safe and within 20 minutes he was approached by officials and made to remove the data. This short data removal timeframe is consistent with the US testing technology theory- The officials were readied to retrieve the data from the Nimitz which was out to sea, at a distance from the shore.
3. Patrick Hughes has spoken about his friend by the name of ‘Roger’ who was on the Hawkeye and claims he saw the tic tac. In addition, Hughes asserts that Roger had to sign a non-disclosure agreement shortly after landing. The most likely reason ‘Roger’ would have had to sign this document is to hide secret US technology he had witnessed- the tic tac. Roger has also been interviewed and spoken about viewing the tic tac, “I did see something that transited very quickly by our E-2, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. The ‘object’ joined up with us briefly and all on board had a view for a matter of a few seconds.” Roger also claims that he had to sign an NDA as soon as he landed- a timeframe that would make sense if Roger had indeed viewed a classified piece of US technology.
4. Gary Voorhis has detailed personally handing over the Princeton’s Co-operative Engagement Capability data to the two Air Force officials. He was also instructed to delete any other tapes. This was within 12 hours of Fravor’s tic tac encounter. Co-operative Engagement Capability data has the potential to recreate the entire tic tac- Fravor event. The primary reason Voorhis might be asked to hand over and delete this data is if the tic tac was a classified US technology.
5. Ryan Weigelt from the USS Princeton witnessed the Air Force duo landing on the Princeton, flying out to the Nimitz and returning with a number of items in bags. This is likely the data recordings of Fravor and Underwood’s tic tac encounters. Weigelt also noticed that the two officials confiscated the helicopter’s sensors, rendering it unable to fly.
6. Kevin Day noticed that all of the Princeton’s communication data relating to Fravor’s intercept of the tic tac was missing the morning after the encounter. This was despite the computers that housed the data having a foolproof method to avoid data being deleted and the data having been copied onto multiple disks.
7. Karson Kammerzell has described his two superiors leaving the Princeton to fly to the Nimitz for a meeting to discuss the anomalous radar events. The officials returned with the cover-story that ice crystals were responsible for the tracks. Kammerzell’s Leading Chief Petty Officer informed Kammerzell that the Air Chief laughed when informed of the falling ice excuse before quipping, “Falling ice doesn’t turn 90 degrees and accelerate 600 miles an hour”. A cover-story such as falling ice is exactly what the upper tiers of the US military may use to allay focus off of the testing of their classified technology.
8. The witnesses to the confiscated data all agree that it was unfathomably rare for the Air Force duo requisition events to 1. Actually occur and 2. Occur with such an urgency. It seems like too much of a coincidence for these events to have immediately followed the bizarre tic tac encounters. The most likely explanation is that US technology was tested and that all records of it were retrieved and hidden.
9. The UAP tracks began above San Clemente Island which is a US navy base that launches various military related objects.
10. The UAP tracks remained in the military SOCAL Range Complex, which is also where Fravor and Underwood’s encounters occurred. This is precisely where such a secret US technology would be tested.
11. The US is one of the most secure and highly-monitored countries on earth, especially off the Californian coast. There were a large number of unidentified objects detected in US airspace over the course of many days. If there was anything unknown about these objects, the US military would have thoroughly investigated them. The fact that the objects returned day after day suggests that the US not only knew about them but also were responsible for them.
12. For objects to descend down from above 80,000 feet, just off the coast of San Diego and to go unnoticed by the United States military would seem highly unlikely unless the military were well aware of the said objects as they were part of their arsenal.
13. In 2017, a mystery intruder was detected on radar off the coast of California. F-15 fighter planes were launched to intercept the fast-flying and unknown object. This is the normal procedure. If the US Air Force observes something unidentified in its air space, they tend to immediately scramble. In the case of the tic tacs, this didn’t happen. Ergo, the US military knew what the objects were in the tic tac scenario.
14. In 2008, near Stephenville Texas, a UAP was detected on radar and viewed by 30 civilians. Two fighter planes were instructed to intercept the object. The AATIP investigated the case. The pilots informed the AATIP that they couldn’t discuss the incident because they had signed non-disclosure agreements. This event alone suggests that US technology may have been involved and due to the compartmentalised nature of the US intelligence community, the AATIP do investigate US technology cases which are misidentified as UAP. The Nimitz encounters may be another of these events.
15. Christopher Mellon has explained, “A number of former USAF officers involved in UAP incidents report they were debriefed by OSI and required to sign NDAs”. This also indicates that the AATIP investigate a number of UAP cases that are US technology. The tic tac encounter may simply be another one of these cases.
16. Editor-In-Chief of ‘The War Zone’, Tyler Rogoway has written“From everything I know about the now famed ‘UAP task force,’ and by others’ accounts as well, it is not some powerful inter-agency initiative with a solid mandate from inside the Pentagon and the intelligence community. Far from it. It is a few people in an office with very limited resources that are often hitting walls when trying to obtain critical information from other intelligence stakeholders.” This is further evidence that the ‘UAP task force’ are investigating UAP which are in actuality US technology. If the US government was truly unsure about the nature of UAP, given the potential massive strategic threat posed, they would set up a highly-funded, large, well-officiated task force with access to all information relating to the events, surveillance imagery and the ability to interview those with non-disclosure agreements.
17. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Mark Warner has remarked, “I was first briefed on these unidentified aerial phenomena nearly three years ago. Since then, the frequency of these incidents only appears to be increasing”. The most likely explanation for this increase is the rapid leaps in US military technology.
18. During the 2004 tic tac encounter, the Nimitz strike group were using the Co-operative Engagement Capability system for the very first time. This would have provided the perfect scenario for testing US technology against such a system. The AEGIS system was also less than one year old and the training environment would have been conducive to such a US technology test on the AEGIS.
19. At the time of the tic tac encounter, the Nimitz strike group were partaking in high vitality and real-world training. This would be the perfect environment to test US technology.
20. It would be unfathomably unusual for the US Pentagon to be unaware of what was lurking in its own skies. The US surveillance systems include: BMEWS, Space Fence, SBIRs, NORAD and the Global Infrasound Detection System. If the US military wants to know what an object is within its territory, it has the ability to find out where it departs, where it lands and what entity it is. If there is an object displaying advanced capabilities in US airspace and the military seems nonchalant towards it, it most likely is the United States own creation.
21. Those positioned in the upper tiers of the military hierarchy seemingly displayed a lack of urgency in investigating the UAP- from the Princeton and Nimitz as well as those stationed on land who were receiving datalink information from Day and co. A number of days elapsed between the first sighting and the intercept; an intercept that was ultimately instigated by Day. After Underwood’s encounter, the UAP continued being seen according to Day, “Yes, we continued to track other groups after that (intercept)” yet the military supposedly showed no ambition in determining the nature of the objects, despite their unusual encounters with Fravor’s quarter of pilots and Underwood and his pilot. All of this is consistent with how things may have panned out of the US was testing its own technology.
22. From October the 4th to the 15th 2004, just one month prior to the Nimitz- tic tac encounters, the United States Navy tested a range of new military equipment in exercises known as ‘Trident Warrior’ and ‘Silent Hammer’. These tests were carried out around San Clemente Island- where the UAP continually appeared during the Nimitz events. It’s plausible that as an extension of these tests, some of the new, classified military equipment was trialled just one month later and that it was misinterpreted by the Nimitz strike group as UAPs.
23. Underwood recorded the FLIR footage and is adamant that he was jammed by the tic tac object. Dietrich and Fravor both re-watched Underwood’s tapes of the attempted intercept and they are both highly confident that Underwood was jammed based on the strobe lines, 99.9 range and other indicators on his scope. It’s plausible that the object recorded by Underwood that jammed him was a classified US aircraft testing its electronic countermeasures ability.
24. Kammerzell has speculated that the object he saw from the Princeton was an advanced US aircraft. Kammerzell has remarked, “The idea of testing a new VTOL (vertical take-off and landing aircraft) system on a remote manned platform so you aren’t driving your expensive toy into the dirt isn’t out of the realm of possibility. And if you wanted to test sound and passive stealth capabilities what better way to do that then on your own technology?”
25. Top-secret, US military technology is the most advanced in the world. It is leaps and bounds ahead of what the general populous realises. It would be naive to put limits on what the US ‘black projects’ have achieved technology-wise.
Arguments against The United States Technology Theory
1. For all of the arguments for the US advanced technology theory, they fail to address the specific events that transpired during the tic tac encounters.
2. Day recorded the tic tac dropping down from 28,000 feet to sea level in 0.78 seconds. This is at a speed of 24,500 miles per hour. The world record speed attained by a rocket plane is 4,519 miles per hour held by the North America X-15-this is just 18% of the UAP’s speed. The tic tac didn’t decelerate over a period of many miles but instead simply stopped on a dime above the ocean. This is nothing remotely close to what human technology can achieve.
3. Day reported the UAP descended from above 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet in an instant. He described them flying south at 100 knots- a speed so slow, they should have fallen out of the sky. Each individual trait of the tic tac surpasses human technology by magnitudes and the tic tac seemingly possessed all of these traits simultaneously as one entity.
4. After encountering Fravor, the tic tac accelerated beyond the horizon in less than one second. The SR-71, the fastest plane on earth would take 10-15 seconds to disappear beyond the horizon and the observer would be able to track it visually as it left the scene. US technology is not remotely close to the tic tac’s speed.
5. The tic tac appeared at Fravor’s cap point 60 miles away in as little as 30 seconds. This speed is also magnitudes faster than any aircraft.
6. These technological displays by the tic tac occurred in 2004. Seventeen years later, no technology is even close to emulating the tic tac’s feats. Some commentators have estimated the tic tac’s abilities as thousands of years beyond current technological capabilities.
7. Fravor, Dietrich and their Weapon Systems Officers weren’t debriefed after physically intercepting the tic tac and viewing it up close. They weren’t made to sign non-disclosure agreements as would be customary had they viewed top secret, US technology.
8. Chad Underwood and his pilot weren’t made to sign non-disclosure agreements after recording the tic tac on FLIR. Underwood has described how this rules out the possibility that the tic tac was classified US technology, “If it was some sort of ‘black project,’ black meaning some sort of unacknowledged U.S. program, I would have been debriefed on it because I brought back that video and I could have gone public with it and I could have gotten myself and the military in a big old pickle. If you start to see black projects, and it’s happened to me before where I’ve seen something that I shouldn’t have, and I’ve got debriefed saying ‘Hey this is a secret, unacknowledged program that you witnessed or you got video of’, you talk to a person from some three-letter agency, you sign an NDA and you’ll never speak of this again. That never happened. And if it was some black U.S. project, I would have been told”.
9. Large numbers of those on board the Princeton and Nimitz shared the FLIR video on the military email service. Even the official email asking those to use the cover-story of the tracks being ice crystals had the video attached. If the tic tac was secret US technology, this careless forwarding of the FLIR footage wouldn’t have occurred.
10. The Pentagon wouldn’t have let the FLIR footage depicting the tic tac, leak out if it was a US black project. They also wouldn’t have confirmed the video’s authenticity and declassified it.
11. Kevin Day and the clique of pilots all believe that the navy wouldn’t have performed a test without an excess of command and control officers present.
12. Fravor was ranked amongst the top 20 personnel on the USS Nimitz out of over 5,000 people. If the military were doing any form of test in the vicinity of or involving the ships, Fravor would have 1. known about it beforehand or 2. at the very least found out about it after his encounter.
13. If the tic tac was a secret US project that was testing the response of the Princeton and Nimitz, then why did it continue to appear on radar after Fravor’s encounter and post the Air Force personnel confiscating the data?
Conclusions on The United States Technology Theory
There are far too many factors lining up against the tic tac being an advanced, US technology. This includes the alleged anomalous radar recordings, the pilot’s descriptions of the object’s behaviour and the sheer magnitude of the tic tac’s metrics, relative to what state-of-the-art technology consists of today, some 17 years later. Quite simply, the advanced US technology theory doesn’t explain any aspects of the specific events that comprise the Nimitz-tic tac encounters.
If advanced US technology was tested, the might of the US military would have covered-up the event with a spate of non-disclosure agreements as is standard practice. These NDA didn’t emerge. Instead, media around the world are reporting on the encounters and a huge amount of publicity has been focused on the events.
I have virtually eliminated the advanced US technology theory as an explanation for the events however this elimination doesn’t encompass more primitive US technology such as balloons, missiles etc. These scenarios are analysed in a subsequent section.
The Foreign Adversary Technology Theory
This theory supposes that some strategic enemy of the United States is responsible for the tic tac encounters whilst attempting to gain vital training information from the Nimitz strike group. Based on US international relations and various country’s military budgets, this would most likely be China or Russia.
Arguments for The Foreign Adversary Technology Theory
1. The tic tac encounters occurred during a period of Nimitz strike group training. The USS Nimitz supercarrier is one of the largest warships on planet earth. It is a jewel in the United States military armoury, as is the collective Nimitz strike group. The timing of the tic tac encounters coinciding with the vital training may not be a coincidence- a foreign country may have been trying to learn battlefield secrets.
3. A foreign power may have been determined to gain insights into US military tactics. Knowing this tactical information such as flying patterns and manoeuvres would provide a significant battlefield advantage.
4. The tic tac encounters occurred during the Nimitz strike group training for an imminent deployment to the Middle East. Another spate of UAP sightings occurred on the East Coast during 2014 and 2015 when the USS Theodore Roosevelt was also training in preparation for a Middle East deployment. This specific scenario, featuring the two best-documented UAP sightings occurring during strike group training for Middle East deployment is unlikely to be a coincidence.
5. Ryan Graves who was part of the 2015 Theodore Roosevelt strike group deployment to the Middle East has commented, “We did have issues with them (the UAP) when we went out to the Middle East. Not in the transit but once we settled out into the Middle East”. This fact alone suggests that the UAP were from a foreign military and being used to spy on the United States military.
6. As part of the complicated labyrinth of Middle East relationships, the Russian government was aligned with the Syrian government. The United States government supported the local Kurdish forces who were actively opposed to the Syrian government. Ergo, the United States and Russia were strategic enemies. Russia is one of the two US foreign adversaries capable of creating advanced military technology. In addition, Russia has consistently shown on the world stage that they are content to act brazenly and are unafraid of getting caught. This Russian brazenness concerns the political arena, the military arena and the spy arena.
7. The objects on radar were captured day after day, potentially for two weeks during the Nimitz training regime. The objects travelled south, over the training battlefield. This is precisely where a foreign country would endeavour to gain information.
8. As outlined in part 5 of this article, ‘The Additional Sightings from the Nimitz and Princeton’, there was a nightly sighting of aerial lights manoeuvring around the Nimitz and Princeton. This gels in with a foreign country spying on the strike group using drones.
9. The objects appeared on the Princeton’s radar less than a year after it upgraded to the AEGIS. The Cooperative Engagement Capability system was a new addition to the strike group when the objects were detected. In the 2014-2015 East Coast, UAP encounters, the objects were also only detected after a significant radar system upgrade. It’s plausible that the foreign country had tested and determined that their craft were invisible to radar, oblivious to the US system upgrades.
Arguments Against The Foreign Adversary Technology Theory
1. First and foremost, like the advanced US technology theory, the foreign adversary theory doesn’t explain any of the tic tac’s behaviour. This behaviour includes the tic tac’s alleged drop from 28,000 feet to the surface of the ocean in 0.78 seconds, the rapid descending from 80,000 feet, the disappearance from in front of Fravor to beyond the horizon in less than one second and the subsequent appearance at Fravor’s CAP point. These factors can’t be explained by advanced, foreign technology which even 17 years after the event is leaps and bounds behind the supposed futuristic ability of the tic tac.
2. According to Day, the tic tac descended just off the Californian coast, above San Clemente Island. This is the location of a US military base, within an area of sea that has a high-level of surveillance and is tightly guarded aerially. If a foreign country was going to spy on the Nimitz strike group off the Mexican coast, it would be strategically naive to descend where the UAP did.
3. Spying on the most powerful military power on earth in its own backyard- the SOCAL Range Complex would be too brazen for most countries.
4. The small strategic benefits that would be gained from observing the strike group from a distance would likely be outweighed by the repercussions if a foreign adversary was caught spying.
5. If a strategic enemy had developed such high-level technology that had the ability to display the array of manoeuvres flourished by the tic tac, it wouldn’t be worth the country deploying the technology into another country’s waters. The risk of the technology being captured and reverse engineered would be too great.
6. The US military’s primary objective is to protect their territory from adversaries and to monitor their airspace. The US military’s surveillance equipment is all tailor-made for this very niche purpose. If a foreign power infiltrated US territory, the US would very quickly notice and act accordingly.
7. During 2017, a quick moving, unknown object was recorded on radar off California’s coast. F-15 fighter planes were deployed to intercept the object. This is standard procedure. The military wouldn’t let anomalous objects appear on radar every day for weeks without intercepting like what eventuated in the tic tac events.
8. After Fravor’s close-up encounter with the tic tac, the fleet of other objects continued travelling at 100 knots. If the tic tac that Fravor encountered belonged to a foreign country, all of the crafts after being spotted would have fled the scene, not continue to travel south at the leisurely speed of 100 knots. Additionally, the group of craft again appeared in the days following Fravor’s intercept, continuing their southward journeys. If a foreign craft had been viewed so closely by Fravor, the foreign country’s mission would have been aborted.
9. The US is at the forefront of the world when it comes to military technology. If the tic tac was going to be assigned to a country’s arsenal, it would most likely be the United States.
Conclusions on The Foreign Adversary Technology Theory
The concept of a foreign adversary spying on the Nimitz strike group sounds plausible enough in theory. The foreign adversary technology theory however has the same pitfalls as the US technology theory in addition to further inadequacies. When the evidence is examined, it fails to explain any of the alleged radar readings nor the behaviour of the tic tac. There are countless surveillance systems in place to thwart a foreign power entering the SOCAL Range Complex and spying on a US strike group. In addition, if a country was ignorant enough to try such a manoeuvre, they wouldn’t descend their craft above the military stronghold of San Clemente Island. The US would be able to determine where the craft were being launched from and where they were landing. In addition, the foreign craft wouldn’t fly at the glacial speed of 100 knots for hours at a time out in the open, for weeks on end. Based on these reasons, I am definitively ruling out the foreign adversary technology theory as an explanation for the tic tac encounters.
The Extra-Terrestrial Theory
The extra-terrestrial theory proposes that the objects featured in the Nimitz tic tac encounters were some form of alien-built craft.
Arguments for The Extra-Terrestrial Theory
1. Radar operator, Kevin Day has said “Our ballistic missile defence guys were tracking these things coming down from outer space, I found out later”.
2. Radar operator, Kevin Day has remarked, “These things would be at 80,000 feet and you would look again and all of a sudden they were at 28,000 feet or 20,000 feet”. The objects would appear virtually instantaneously at this lower altitude. When they arrived at a lower altitude, they wouldn’t decelerate over the course of seconds or minutes but instead just appear in the location. This is far beyond the capabilities of any human technology.
3. The same objects that were dropping down into earth’s atmosphere at astonishing speeds also drifted at speeds of 100 knots. Craft travelling at this speed should fall out of the sky.
4. Gary Voorhis helped manage the Princeton’s AEGIS’s Co-operative Engagement Capability system. He has confirmed Day’s account that the objects were dropping from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet, travelling at 100 knots and moving too fast for the radar to keep up with.
5. Karson Kammerzell who was on the Princeton and is sceptical of the extra-terrestrial hypothesis agrees that there were strange tracks on the radar screens. A radar operator informed him at the time, “There’s this one (object) that is not playing by the rules. It’s over here, it’s over here”.
6. The entire AEGIS system was rebooted in the hope that the objects detected on radar were part of a glitch. The system reset only strengthened the objects’ tracks.
7. The AEGIS was installed on the Princeton at the start of 2004 and had been working well and accurately previously. The SPY-1 radar system, CEC and AEGIS were all state-of-the-art systems that are so advanced and precise, they are still in use today.
8. Over the course of a number of days, the objects were acting strangely enough for an intercept to be authorised. It costs US$55,000 for one hour of Super Hornet flight time so there would have needed to have been ample evidence to order an intercept. Captain Smith of the Princeton authorised the intercept after reviewing the evidence.
9. The object that Fravor intercepted also appeared on the Hawkeye’s radar (as well as the Princeton’s).
10. Fravor and Dietrich’s Super Hornets were navigated to the location of the nearest object and there was a physical craft at this location. This can’t be explained by a glitch on the radar.
11. When Fravor and Dietrich’s Super Hornets approached the object’s location, radar operator, Kevin Day has commented, “It went from 28,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean in, it turns out, 0.78 seconds”. This is far beyond the capabilities of any human built craft.
12. There was a strange, large section of white water on the ocean’s surface, in the vicinity of the craft. The white water had dissipated when the craft left. When Slaight and Dietrich landed, they asked a naval intelligence officer if a submarine was situated where they observed the white water. The officer informed them that there hadn’t been submarine at the location.
13. Four professional fighter pilots, including the top two ranking members of the elite squadron saw a strange looking tic tac object at the location they had been navigated to.
14. Fravor has described the initial movements of the object, “This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another. Similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against the wall”. These movements don’t sound like the manoeuvrings of a terrestrial craft.
15. Dietrich has also described the tic tac’s movements, “It behaved in a way that we were surprised, unnerved. It almost didn’t accelerate. It jumped from spot to spot and tumbled around in a way that was unpredictable”. This description also fails to correlate with that of a terrestrial craft.
16. According to the pilots, the object didn’t resemble any terrestrial craft. It lacked a rotor, wings, any flight control surfaces, windows, lights and a smoke trail.
17. Fravor has described that when he began to descend towards the object, “The subject seemed to recognise that we were there and went from this very low altitude to manoeuvring in an erratic, very rapid manner”.
18. The tic tac began to climb at an aggressive angle that surprised Fravor, “You can’t just start a climb. I have to lower the nose, I have to accelerate, I have to start coming up. This thing did it like it was no big deal”. The tic tac ascended to approximately 12,000 feet.
19. Fravor headed directly across the imaginary circle towards the tic tac and viewed it from a few thousand feet away- extraordinarily close in aviation terms.
20. When Fravor conducted this manoeuvre towards the tic tac, it accelerated beyond the horizon in less than one second. The fastest terrestrial plane takes 10 to 15 seconds to achieve such a feat and would be visible as it made its way towards the horizon. The tic tac also did so without emitting a sonic boom.
21. Slaight and Dietrich, who were watching the scene from above, concur that the tic tac accelerated from view. Slaight has commented, “It was there….then it rifled off, out of sight in a split second. It was as if the object was shot out of a rifle. There was no gradual acceleration or spooling up period, it just shot out of sight immediately. I have never seen anything like it before or since. No human could have withstood that kind of acceleration”. Dietrich has remarked,“He (Fravor) turned with it then it just disappeared. It zoomed out of the picture so fast that we all were scrambling on the radio”.
22. Fravor, who witnessed the tic tac close up has provided a description of it, “I can tell you, I think it was not from this world. I’ve seen pretty much everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close. I have never seen anything in my life, in my history of flying that has the performance, the acceleration. Keep in mind this thing had no wings”. Day has also remarked that he doesn’t believe the UAP he monitored on the radar were from earth.
23. Dietrich, who looked down on the tic tac with a bird’s-eye-view, has also provided a compelling description of the object, “It was so unnerving because it was so unpredictable. High g, rapid velocity, rapid acceleration”.
24. The four pilots who witnessed the tic tac observed it from two different vantage points, reducing the possibility of perspective errors.
25. After accelerating away from Fravor, the tic tac appeared at Fravor’s secretive CAP point location. This information was provided to Fravor and his fellow pilots by the Princeton’s radar operator. According to Fravor, the tic tac took approximately 30 seconds to travel to his CAP point which was situated 60 miles away. The tic tac would have had to travel at more than 3 times the fastest recorded speed of a terrestrial plane to appear at the CAP point so briskly.
26. A study has found the probability of the tic tac appearing at Fravor’s CAP point by chance to be 0.0088%.
27. Chad Underwood was informed by the Princeton of the bearing and range of a tic tac. This was when his Super Hornet’s radar got a blip.
28. The object that Underwood approached attempted to jam his aircraft. This is according to Underwood himself as well as Dietrich and Fravor who reviewed his tapes when he landed. There was evidence of a number of jamming indications including strobe lines and other indications on the scope. Jamming would be unheard of in peacetime operations off the coast of the US and indeed is an act of war. This jamming deprived Underwood of learning the tic tac’s distance, speed, altitude and other metrics.
29. Underwood has commented, “What was different about this was as soon as I took that lock, the track started doing all sorts of little things that are not normal. The heading was erratic. It should be able to tell me your airspeed and also your Mach number so it should say like, 0.8 Mach for example, so 80% the speed of sound. It should say that. It was jumping all over the place. It was 0.8, 0.4, 0.2, 0.1, 0.9. My radar just can’t hack it. In all instances it should be able to hack that”.
30. Underwood’s radar was unable to determine the objects distance as evidenced by the 99.9 appearing on the FLIR screen which is analogous to ‘undefined’.
31. Underwood was unable to gain a single target track lock on the object.
32. The object that Underwood recorded in infrared showed no signs of an exhaust plume. This is unusual, as corroborated by a number of retired pilots.
33. The object that Underwood recorded seemed to lack wings which should have been visible. A number of retired fighter pilots have agreed with this point and have also referred to the abnormality of this situation.
34. It’s unfathomably rare for a fighter pilot to observe an object they cannot recognise. This is evidenced by Vince Aiello who spent 3,800 hours in fighter plane cockpits. Aiello has commented, “I have never seen anything in the air that I could not identify”.
35. Fravor and Dietrich, who viewed the object that Underwood recorded in its original clear quality on a large screen, have confirmed the object to be the tic tac they encountered.
36. The object broke Underwood’s ATFLIR visual lock. It is incredibly rare for an ATFLIR visual lock to be broken. This is evidenced by a former member of the Canadian Air Force who spend thousands of hours using the same ASQ-228 ATFLIR model as Underwood’s. This individual has said that across their career, their ATFLIR only dropped lock once. This was when the ATFLIR was situated inside a vehicle that was travelling on a road whilst the ATFLIR was tracking an object. The vehicle hit a bump in the road and the lock was broken.
37. As the object broke Underwood’s ATFLIR visual lock, he repositioned the nose of the Super Hornet to try and reacquire it. He was unable to reacquire the object which should have been an easy task had the object been terrestrial.
38. As the object broke Underwood’s ATFLIR visual lock, he radioed in to the Princeton and Hawkeye who had been tracking it. The object had simultaneously vanished from both of their state-of-the-art radars which are more than capable of tracking terrestrial objects and craft. This synchronicity between Underwood losing visual lock and the Princeton and Hawkeye losing the object on their radars supports the notion that the object was extra-terrestrial.
39. A study has found that the object breaking lock in Underwood’s video accelerated at 75.9 +/- 0.2g. This is a sufficient acceleration to kill a human.
40. The objects all had the same, specific radar signature that were: descending downwards from the upper atmosphere at a fast rate, travelling south at 100 knots, dropping from 28,000 feet to the ocean in 0.78 seconds, intercepted by Fravor, appearing at Fravor’s CAP point and recorded by Underwood.
41. Lara, Cahill, Voorhis, Day and Kammerzell all viewed lights in the sky at night, surrounding the Nimitz and Princeton that they couldn’t explain. These observers include Lara who has remarked, “The speed and manoeuvrability of this object is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my 10 years in the United States Navy. I do not believe that what I saw was made on this planet”.
42. Kevin Day gained the location of one of the objects on radar and pointed the ‘big eyes’ in this direction and at the appropriate altitude. He saw a slowly moving white light, indicating that the object was real. Voorhis also looked up the objects’ locations across several nights and on each occasion observed moving lights via his binoculars at the precise radar bearing.
43. A number of personnel on board the Princeton and Nimitz have confirmed that a pair of men from the Air Force landed on their ships and removed data that was related to the tic tac encounters. This was within 12 hours of the event. Despite this, Fravor, Dietrich and their WSO weren’t made to sign NDA. This is consistent with the tic tac being an extra-terrestrial craft.
44. There is a real taboo around extra-terrestrials. Those who have come forward have had to contend with ridicule and also potential jeopardised future job opportunities by being connected with extra-terrestrials. This is testament to the confidence of the witness’s accounts and the anomalous nature of what they experienced. Many more people on the Princeton and Nimitz may have come forward if it wasn’t for the extra-terrestrial taboo.
45. There is a clearly established link connecting the entire network of aforementioned events including the radar data, the radar signatures, the pilots being navigated to the objects, the pilots viewing the tic tac, the hypersonic movements by the tic tac, the unusual FLIR footage and the military removing the data that is only consistent with the extra-terrestrial theory.
46. A study in France looked at where UAP appear. It found, “The link between nuclear activities and UAP Ds, which has long been suspected and considered, is now for the first time measured and appears surprisingly high (p-value: 0.00013)”. In the case of the Nimitz encounters, the USS Nimitz is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
47. The Drake equation is an equation used to estimate the number of active, communicative, extra-terrestrial civilisations in our galaxy. Depending on the numbers assigned to the variables, the upper parameter estimates that there are 15.6 million advanced, extra-terrestrial civilisations in the Milky Way alone. Even relatively conservative estimates have the number at 47.
48. Extra-terrestrials visiting earth are a plausible event. A recent study using a computer simulation found that an advanced civilisation using slow spaceships can take over an entire galaxy in a short period of time. This study used simulated spacecraft travelling less than 10 lightyears and slower than 6.2 miles a second. These values are in the same realm as current human probes. Using these conservative values, the entire inner part of the galaxy could be colonised within 1 billion years. The Milky Way is 13.5 times as old as this at 13.5 billion years meaning such an event could have occurred manyfold.
49. Humans have sent voyagers, craft and other vehicles such as the Mars Curiosity rover to an array of planets and distant location in the solar system. The tic tac could easily be the extra-terrestrial equivalent; used to explore earth and gain data. There is no necessity that aliens were aboard the tic tac.
50. By using a simple deduction argument, it is easy to make a case that these UAP are extra-terrestrial in nature. 1. They objects were mechanical in structure. 2. They were clearly designed by an intelligent being. 3. Their technical capabilities greatly exceeds the pinnacle of human engineering. 4. Extra-terrestrial visitation to earth is theoretically possible. Therefore, the only logical deduction is that the tic tac are extra-terrestrial in nature.
51. There comes a point where you can’t portray every single person that has provided evidence for the tic tac as mistaken. These were well-trained, scientific, sceptical, military witnesses. Many of them have come away from their experience believing that they observed extra-terrestrial craft. It would be an unbelievable coincidence for every person who encountered the UAP to have made misjudgements, provided false testimony and for the array of radar readings to also be erroneous.
51. The tic tac encounters aren’t an isolated event. The 2021 UAP government report examining UAP sightings from 2004-2021, listed a total of 80 UAP sightings involving “Observations with multiple sensors”. In 18 incidents, the UAP appeared to demonstrate advanced technology.
52. Luis Elizondo was the director of the United States government’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. He is privy to significant amounts of information and he has investigated a range of UAP incidents. Elizondo has implied that UAP are extra-terrestrial in nature.
Arguments Against The Extra-Terrestrial Theory
1. All of the tic tac related events have prosaic, potential explanations that don’t rely on the extra-terrestrial hypothesis. These will be examined in more detail in subsequent sections.
2. Extra-terrestrials can be used as a deus ex machina to resolve any unexplained event. A person can die in mysterious circumstances- the answer is aliens. Ancient archaeological sites exist with some mysterious elements- the answer is aliens. My socks can go missing- the answer is aliens.
3. The burden of proof lies solely on those purporting the paradigm shifting claim that extra-terrestrial craft visiting earth are involved in the tic tac encounter.
4. The ‘base rate’ is the naturally occurring frequency of a phenomenon in a population. Regarding extra-terrestrial craft visiting earth, there are no scientifically agreed upon cases of this ever having occurred. The base rate is zero. It is therefore most unlikely that the tic tac encounter involves extra-terrestrial craft. If it was confirmed that extra-terrestrial craft had visited earth, there would be some plausibility that the tic tac encounter involved extra-terrestrials however without this confirmatory information, it should be assumed that aliens are not linked to the tic tac encounter.
5. Historically speaking, virtually all claimed cases of extra-terrestrial visitation have either been debunked or lack quality evidence. There is very little chance that extra-terrestrials have visited earth.
6. Regarding the tic tac encounters, we only have Day and Voorhis witness statements to go on regarding the radar documented speeds of the objects. Both Day and Voorhis’ statements are laced with numerous inconsistencies, as outlined in ‘Inconsistencies and Uncertainties in the Radar Accounts’. These inconsistencies extend to the individual’s own statements. On a number of occasions, Day has claimed that there were numerous intercepts occurring post Fravor’s intercept and that it was “raining UFOs”. He later said this didn’t happen. Voorhis has claimed that the objects were traveling underwater at 500 knots and in another interview he has quipped 70 knots. More recently he has stated that the sonar technicians are under NDAs and that he has “no clue of the speed” of the underwater UAP. Day and Voorhis may not be quality witnesses.
7. The encounter of the four pilots and the tic tac has numerous inconsistencies between accounts. These are documented in the section of this article titled, ‘Inconsistencies and Uncertainties With Fravor’s Interception of the Tic Tac’. Virtually every aspect of the encounter has quite significant deviations between accounts. This includes Fravor believing he observed the tic tac for 5 minutes and Dietrich recalling viewing it for just 8-10 seconds.
8. Within the section of this article titled ‘The Accuracy of the Pilots’ Accounts’,a number of visual, perception, memory and psychological biases and illusions were discussed. Several studies were cited suggesting that witnesses to aviation crashes don’t produce reliable information. This can be extrapolated onto the potentially fleeting tic tac encounter.
9. Within the section of this article titled ‘The Accuracy of the Pilots’ Accounts’, the story of British Airways pilot, Mike D’Alton was recounted. D’Alton was airborne with his crew when he saw a strange craft that he described as “Not from this world”. He described its tremendous speed, its sharp turns, its bizarre shape and observing it for two minutes before it “zoomed out of sight”. The object was a rocket re-entering earth’s atmosphere.
10. Well-trained military personnel do make significant mistakes. In 2013, Chinese and Indian tensions reached an all-time high. Indian military troops had counted 329 instances of Chinese drones invading Indian airspace near the Himalayas. The objects were the planets.
11. The Fermi Paradox is the name for the supposed contradiction between the lack of evidence for extra-terrestrials and high probability estimates for their existence, such as the Drake equation. There are a number of proposed explanations to resolve the paradox. These include: The rarity or non-existence of extra-terrestrials, the rarity or non-existence of intelligent life, extinction events destroying extra-terrestrial civilisations, intelligent life destroying itself and numerous other possible explanations.
12. It has been speculated that extra-terrestrials haven’t visited earth due to the high-cost of space travel. The cost of sending astronauts to the moon as part of the Apollo programs cost the equivalent today of US$150 billion. Physicist Freeman Dyson estimated the cost of building a large starship that could move thanks to the force from nuclear warheads. He speculated that this starship could reach speeds approaching 5% of the speed of light. When accounting for inflation, in today’s money, this project would cost US$2.75 trillion. Other ambitious, similar craft, powered through other means would cost similarly high amounts. Project Daedalus was theoretically designed to move via thrust from electron lasers. It would theoretically travel at up to 12% the speed of light. It would take 36 years to reach Proxima Centauri, the nearest star outside our solar system. In today’s money, such a project would cost US$6 trillion. In contrast, the entire US budget for 2020 was US$4.8 trillion.
13. Those who believe extra-terrestrials have visited earth are largely intent on blaming a government cover-up for hiding the evidence. In reality, the government and military only account for a very small percentage of planet earth. If the military had evidence of extra-terrestrials, some of the 8 billion humans scattered across earth would also likely have encountered the evidence only manyfold times more. None of this evidence has emerged.
14. The United States is just one of 195 countries in the world and it covers just 6.6% of the world’s land mass. The other 194 countries in the world, covering 93.7% of the world’s land mass, typically have their own military and surveillance resources. These countries all have their own agenda and any of these countries could release evidence of extra-terrestrials had they encountered this evidence. To date, no government has confirmed the existence of extra-terrestrials.
The extra-terrestrial theory has the appeal of offering one solution for the array of differing anomalies that comprise the tic tac encounters. The concept of extra-terrestrials visiting earth is also plausible from a scientific perspective. Despite these factors, history tells us that unexplained or seemingly impossible events inevitably have prosaic explanations.
For scientists to believe that extra-terrestrials have visited earth, there is a threshold of data that would be required. The current state of public, tic tac encounter information doesn’t come close to satisfying this threshold. The US government may have more information such as the confiscated CEC tapes, the radar data and surveillance system information which would provide more of a compelling case for extra-terrestrial involvement.
At this stage I don’t believe that extra-terrestrials are responsible for the tic tac encounter. This isn’t to say that it is impossible extra-terrestrial craft were involved. In that sense, I am agnostic- if more, compelling data comes forward, I would be willing to believe such a conclusion.
If there is even a theoretical explanation that makes partial sense to explain away the tic tac events then the extra-terrestrial theory should be considered extremely unlikely. These prosaic theories will now be explored to see whether they are plausible when placed alongside the extra-terrestrial theory.
The Radar Glitch Theory
From this point henceforth, I will be analysing more specific theories to explain the particular events that unfolded during the tic tac encounters.
The radar glitch theory supposes that the fast travelling objects captured by the radar were the result of some form of glitch in the radar system.
Arguments For The Radar Glitch Theory
1. No known objects can travel in the same manner as the UAP tracked by Day and co. The most likely resolution to explain the objects’ behaviour is that the objects weren’t real but were instead the result of some form of radar glitch artefact.
2. The radar operators themselves initially thought that the objects were a glitch thanks to the strange tracks they were producing. Day has commented, “Leading up to that day (Fravor’s intercept), I either thought it (the tracks) were something entirely civilian related…or I thought it was some sort of system malfunction”.
3. The USS Princeton was the only ship in the Nimitz strike group that was present with the AEGIS system on board. The USS Higgins was docked in San Diego and the USS Chafee was returning from Pearl Harbour. The Princeton was the vessel that kept detecting the objects. It’s plausible that the Princeton kept detecting the objects thanks to an AEGIS glitch.
4. Kammerzell who was aboard the Princeton, seems to be receptive to the radar glitch hypothesis, “People are acting like the AEGIS is infallible. There’s a reason procedures exist to correct ghost tracks; the AEGIS makes mistakes”.
5. The Cooperative Engagement System was being used for the first time by the Nimitz strike group during the training period that the tic tacs were encountered. It’s plausible that there was a glitch in this new system.
6. According to Voorhis, after the Princeton docked in Puerto Vallarta, several days after Fravor’s tic tac encounter, the Cooperative Engagement Capability system was reinstalled. It’s plausible that when the CEC system was reinstalled in Puerto Vallarta, the glitch in the system was fixed and thus the objects stopped appearing.
7. When the Princeton was docked in Puerto Vallarta, Voorhis has commented that “Everything on the ship got wiped”. This extended to almost everything unrelated to navigating and running the Princeton. It’s plausible that a system was reinstalled that had initially been causing the ghost tracks.
8. Although it’s difficult to determine a precise timeline on when the tracks stopped appearing, they seemed to stop appearing on radar several days after Fravor’s intercept of the tic tac. This roughly coincides with the Princeton’s systems being wiped whilst docked.
Arguments Against The Radar Glitch Theory
1. After resetting the AEGIS, the misbehaving objects on the screen were still visible. In addition, the tracks became even more vivid.
2. Although some of the radar operators initially believed the tracks to be ghost tracks, their opinion quickly changed when resetting the AEGIS system didn’t remove the tracks. These personnel on board the Princeton were experts in the intricacies of the AEGIS system and their opinion that the objects weren’t the result of an AEGIS glitch carries much weight.
3. The AEGIS system was new to the Princeton at the start of 2014. This was close to a year before the Nimitz strike group training. It would be unusual for ghost tracks to suddenly appear after almost one year of functionality and then to disappear on their own accord.
4. The Hawkeye plane was provided with the co-ordinates of the tic tac prior to Fravor’s intercept. The Hawkeye input the co-ordinates into its radar and detected a weak hit on the area. This suggests that there wasn’t a glitch with the Princeton’s radar system.
5. Fravor and Dietrich were vectored out to the location of one of the bizarre objects that the Princeton team had monitored for a number of days. The strangely behaving tic tac was observed in this location. This is further evidence that the advanced radar system was accurate.
6. One of the objects, with the same radar signature that the tic tac possessed, showed up on the Princeton’s radar just prior to it appearing on Underwood’s radar. The object that Underwood recorded is likely to be the same object that the Princeton’s radar detected.
7. Day and Voorhis both determined the altitude and co-ordinates of nearby strangely behaving objects on the Princeton’s radar. Day physically tilted the Princeton’s big eyes (inbuilt binoculars) to this area and observed a slow moving light. Voorhis used a similar procedure, “It would be at the exact bearing that we would be checking on the radar. I’d be going back and forth just to make sure I’m still looking at the right one“. On several nights during the week, Voorhis observed the light through his own binoculars using this process.
8. Glitches on the radar system may explain the quick moving aspect of the objects however the objects also moved south at 100 knots over the course of several hours and typically at night. This sounds less like a radar glitch. Both of these objects supposedly had the same, unique, radar signatures.
9. If the system reinstall on the docked Princeton stopped the objects appearing, it would have been very obvious to those on board. The fact that no-one has mentioned this correlation suggests that the objects stopped appearing prior to this point.
10. Radar operator, Day, noticed that the object the Princeton was tracking had dropped close to sea level when Fravor and Dietrich approached. This is precisely where the pilots describe viewing the tic tac.
11. The other vessels in the Nimitz strike group also had their own radar. These vessels were in constant communication with one another. It would have been obvious very quickly if the objects were only appearing on the Princeton’s radar. This suggests that the objects were likely detected from multiple platforms. Voorhis has remarked, “Westarted getting confirmation from the other ships, they were seeing it too”.
Conclusions on The Radar Glitch Theory
The radar glitch theory has the appeal of explaining the most mystifying aspect of the bizarrely behaving objects- their rapid speeds; which the theory attributes to ghost tracks. There is solid evidence to suggest that there were indeed fast moving tracks on the radar screen. Day, Voorhis and Kammerzell all attest to such a fact. There is however a discrepancy regarding exactly how many tracks there were, how they were moving and whether they only moved rapidly at the time of the intercepts.
There is a significant amount of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the objects were at the locations where the Princeton’s radar suggested they were. This includes the confirmatory Hawkeye radar, the tic tac being present just above the ocean’s surface in the location that Fravor and Dietrich were vectored to and the FLIR object that Underwood was being navigated towards. In addition, Voorhis and Day viewed moving lights through binoculars that correlated with the radar positions of the UAP.
In order to subscribe to the radar glitch theory, a large number of coincidences must have unfolded. The radar needed to have glitches, strange objects needed to be at very specific location at specific times and all of the experts working on the radar needed to be ignorant enough to be unaware of the glitches. This is a highly unlikely scenario however the alternatives are potentially more unlikely.
The Electronic Warfare Theory
The electronic warfare theory proposes that the United States military deployed a network of electronic sensors which fooled the Princeton’s radar into believing that objects were travelling through the sky.
Arguments For The Electronic Warfare Theory
1. The objects appeared above San Clemente Island. This is a US Naval base that has a history of testing electronic warfare. It’s plausible that drones or other vessels carrying sensors were deployed from this location. They may have navigated southwards, towards the Princeton, resulting in the tracks appearing on the Princeton’s radar.
2. The Co-operative Engagement Capability system was used for the first time in real world training during the November 2004 Nimitz strike group exercises. This would be the perfect time for the US military to test the Co-operative Engagement Capability system’s abilities and their own electronic warfare abilities against such a system.
3. There is a historical precedent of technology being used to trick radar systems, stemming back well before 2004. In 1960, the CIA launched a project known as ‘PALLADIUM’ which involved a military cargo plane carrying electronics. This fooled the Soviet’s Cuban based radar system into thinking a fleet of planes were flying through the sky. It’s plausible that some drones or ocean vessels carrying electronics could have similarly fooled the Princeton’s radar.
4. Since the tic tac encounters, the US military has developed a system known as ‘Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors’ aka NEMESIS. Using boats, vehicles, submarines and aircraft, a network of electronic sensors are deployed. They have the ability to trick the enemy’s radars and sensors thereby providing the illusion of groups of navy vessels on the sea or crucially, large numbers of aircraft in the sky. It’s plausible that a beta-test of NEMESIS was carried out in 2004 on the Nimitz strike group’s new CEC system.
5. The group of objects the radar operators detected travelling southwards at 100 knots may have been the central feature of a NEMESIS like system. The stray tracks quickly moving up and down could have been a glitch in the NEMESIS-style system.
6. A NEMESIS style test explains why the two Air Force officers landed on the Princeton to remove data- they were interested in determining how the Princeton’s radar had interpreted NEMESIS. This also explains why the Air Force officers didn’t confiscate the FLIR tapes, why Fravor and his fellow pilots weren’t debriefed and why the pilots and radar operators weren’t forced to sign NDAs.
7. A NEMESIS style test provides a possible explanation for why the same radar signature travelled from near Fravor and his fellow pilots to Fravor’s CAP Point at a rapid speed. A. It was just the radar signature that travelled from point to point and B. those operating the NEMESIS system may have been aware of Fravor’s precise CAP Point and decided to trick the Princeton’s radar into believing that the object had moved there.
Arguments Against The Electronic Warfare Theory
1. Gary Voorhis has doubted the military’s ability to fool the advanced SPY-1 radar system. When asked whether electronic warfare such as NEMESIS could trick the Princeton’s radar, Voorhis remarked, “The systems they refer to were barely a tech at the time and not even in the test phase”.
2. Voorhis who is an expert in the radar and CEC fields has also commented on the superiority of the Princeton’s SPY-1 system when pitted against NEMESIS, “They would have been able to spoof everything but spy1-b. Spy would have not been spoofed”.
3. If there was a testing scenario of NEMESIS style equipment on the Nimitz strike group, some of the people on the ships would have been aware. This knowledge by people on board would be required for a number of reasons including ensuring that no-one attempted to intercept the phantom objects. Fravor was high up in the Nimitz ranks and Captain Smith was the highest rank on the Princeton and neither was aware of a test occurring.
4. If a NEMESIS style test was unfolding, there would likely be a number of new faces in the Combat Information Centre and live around the radar. This would be to monitor the test in real time and inform those carrying out the test what was unfolding on radar.
5. If a test was playing out, the objects should have been travelling at plane speeds. Instead, the objects were travelling at 100 knots, day after day and intermittently moving at phenomenal speeds.
6. If a NEMESIS style test was being conducted, it would be over the course of one or two days, not several weeks which is how long the tracks supposedly lasted for.
7. If a NEMESIS style test was being performed, it is unlikely that the tracks would have travelled from San Clemente Island all the way down to Guadalupe Island, well past the Nimitz strike group. The tracks would have also likely ran back north, not just south.
8. The tracks appearing on the Princeton’s radar and the tic tac related events became a distraction for not only the radar operators but much of the Princeton and Nimitz personnel who became preoccupied from their training duties for many days. This was a costly training exercise and it’s unlikely such a long-term and distracting test would have been carried out.
9. Despite the CEC data being removed from the Princeton within 12 hours of Fravor’s tic tac encounter, the tracks continued being observed according to Day. If a test was being performed, it is unlikely that it would pan out beyond the timeframe of the data being retrieved.
Conclusions on The Electronic Warfare Theory
The most compelling argument for a NEMESIS style test on the Nimitz strike group is that the Co-operative Engagement System was being used for the first time operationally. This would provide the perfect testing opportunity both for any electronic warfare type system and for the CEC itself.
Everything else about the strangely behaving tracks suggests that such a test was not carried out. The tracks appeared day after day, for 3-4 hours at a time and stretching down hundreds of nautical miles to Guadalupe Island. There were no officials on board to monitor the supposed test and those in the Nimitz Strike group seemed to be unaware of there being a test of any nature. A total of three Super Hornets were diverted from training exercises in addition to Kurth. There would have been procedures to thwart this costly and time-wasting process from occurring in a test environment. In addition, the 2004 timeframe seems too early for a NEMESIS style system and there are doubts that it could fool a SPY-1 radar system at all. Throw into the mix the fact that the tic tac, viewed by Fravor and co, happened to be where one of the tracks was positioned and the FLIR object recorded by Underwood at another track and you have a most implausible scenario.
Like the radar glitch theory, the electronic warfare theory seems most unlikely however once again, the alternative- that the impossibly fast tracks were real, seems even more improbable.
The Missile Theory
The missile theory states that the tic tac looking object observed by the four pilots was in fact a missile. The quartet of pilots may have witnessed its launch or some period following its launch.
Arguments For The Missile Theory
1. Slaight who was the WSO of Dietrich’s Super Hornet originally suspected that the tic tac was a missile. He had only just taken his eyes off the white water which he suspected was a submarine and he created a possible narrative in his head that the submarine had launched the missile.
2. Dietrich also initially considered that the object was a missile. She suspected a United States Navy submarine had just launched a missile as part of an unannounced missile test before the submarine retreated underwater.
3. When describing the initial motion of the tic tac, Dietrich has commented, “I saw the Tic Tac cross directly over the water disturbance”. Dietrich’s words here sound like she is describing the very motions of a missile.
4. From the set of publicly known US weaponry and vehicles, the tic tac’s description perhaps best fits that of a Tomahawk missile which is white and shaped like an extended tic tac. This was a commonly used US missile in 2004. The Tomahawk is 20 feet long whilst some estimates of the tic tac’s size were as little as 25 feet. The Tomahawk flies at between 98 and 164 feet whilst estimates of the tic tac’s initial altitude vary from 50 feet by Fravor to 500-1000 feet by Fravor’s WSO. These are in the general vicinity of the Tomahawk’s flying altitude. Fravor’s WSO estimates that the tic tac travelled at 500 knots whilst the Tomahawks maximum speed is an almost identical, 480 knots.
5. The USS Louisville submarine conducted a live fire exercise during the period that the tic tac was sighted and “in the vicinity” of where the tic tac was seen by Fravor and co.
6. A number of the pilots who saw the white water have commented on the scene looking like the remnants of a submerging submarine. The USS Louisville was in the vicinity of the area at that very time. The most likely explanation is that the white water was caused by the USS Louisville.
7. After arriving back on the USS Nimitz after the tic tac encounter, Dietrich considered the following, “Were we vectored into some sort of live training range? What we saw in the water was a submarine and the tic tac was some sort of surface-to-air missile?”
Arguments Against The Missile Theory
1. The reported behaviour of the tic tac doesn’t closely resemble the behaviour of a missile. Missiles will typically ascend to a certain altitude before travelling horizontally at this altitude. The tic tac’s behaviour was described as erratic, responding to Fravor’s Super Hornet’s movements and mirroring his plane. Fravor has described the tic tac’s initial behaviour as “This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another. Similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against the wall”. This is the antithesis of a Tomahawk missile (and missiles in general) which reach an altitude and travel in a straight trajectory.
2. According to the pilots who witnessed the tic tac’s movements, the tic tac ascended up to Fravor’s altitude, almost reaching a lofty 12,000 feet. The Tomahawk missile stays at a steady, slightly-above-surface-level, elevation. The tic tac reached a height virtually 12,000 feet too high for a Tomahawk.
3. Despite Dietrich initially pondering whether the tic tac was a missile, she never seriously considered this possibility. She has said, “There is no way any aircraft or missile that I know of could conduct manoeuvres like what we saw that day”.
4. The four pilots who observed the tic tac were familiar with missiles and military weaponry. Two of the pilots were ranked first and second in their squadron. The pilots who witnessed the tic tac weren’t lay people- they knew what missiles looked like and how they behaved.
5. The Tomahawk missile, which most closely resembles the tic tac, leaves a highly visible smoke trail for the first 18 seconds post launch. This is impossible to miss and manyfold larger than the missile itself. The pilots reported no such smoke. It is impossible for the USS Louisville to have launched a Tomahawk from the white water area without the pilots noticing the residual smoke.
6. The tic tac has been described as notably fatter and bigger than the tomahawk.
7. Missile tests are carefully planned and monitored. Those on the USS Nimitz and USS Princeton would have been well aware if such a test was taking place. Two planes wouldn’t have been vectored into a test.
8. If Dietrich and Fravor had been led into a missile test, the military which takes near misses very seriously, would have conducted a thorough investigation. The pilots would have been informed and a lengthy review into how the mistake occurred would have unfolded. None of this happened hence there was almost certainly no missile test.
9. When Fravor was at 12,000 feet and he approached the tic tac, it accelerated beyond the horizon in less than one second. The maximum speed of the Tomahawk is less than half that of a Super Hornet. The fastest missile on earth, the BrahMos, only travels at Mach 3. There is no mechanism by which a Tomahawk could vanish into thin air at 12,000 feet.
10. After landing back on the USS Nimitz, Slaight and Dietrich asked an Intelligence Officer on duty whether there was a submarine in the area near where they saw the tic tac. The Intelligence Officer checked and returned with a definitive answer- “No”.
11. The Executive Summary of the tic tac encounter definitively ruled out the USS Louisville as launching any object that vaguely resembled a tic tac in both appearance and maneuverability.
Conclusions on The Missile Theory
The missile theory has many appealing aspects to it. The tic tac was generally shaped like the Tomahawk missile, at least two of the pilots who viewed the tic tac considered the possibility that it was a missile and these pilots returned to the USS Nimitz still open to the possibility of the tic tac being a missile. Additionally, the USS Louisville was in the vicinity and doing live tests. Add in the white water- submarine potential link and there is plentiful circumstantial evidence that the tic tac was a missile.
Everything else seemingly rules out the missile theory. The tic tac’s apparent behaviour, the tic tac’s altitude, its instantaneous disappearing act and the lack of investigation. This coupled with the Intelligence Officer and Executive Summary definitely ruling out the submarine and missile hypothesis.
I haven’t relegated the missile theory to the scrapheap entirely. There is the possibility of a cover-up. Perhaps those on the USS Louisville test fired the missile without the appropriate notifications and they subsequently concealed the test. Although possible, this cover-up scenario is a bit too far-fetched for my liking. In totality the missile theory appears unlikely but in the set of unlikely theories it is one of the most plausible.
The Balloon Theory
The balloon theory states that the objects observed on radar travelling southwards at 100 knots were balloons. Additionally, another branch of the balloon theory proposes that the tic tac encountered by Fravor was a balloon, potentially launched by a submarine.
Arguments For The Balloon Theory
1. When radar operator Kevin Day viewed the objects travelling southwards at 100 knots, he commented, “In my mind I was thinking ‘I don’t know what the hell these are’. The only thing I could think it could possibly be was balloons of some type that just happened to be tracked by the radar”. The fact that the objects had the radar signature of balloons suggests that they were indeed balloons.
2. Day has also remarked, “Something going that slow, that high, is going to fall out of the sky…We failed to identify these things. They failed to meet any of the parameters for anything that was known…There was no jamming, no electronic signs at all”. Virtually everything travelling at the glacial rate of 100 knots will fall out of the sky, except for balloons. The balloon theory provides a simple and concise explanation for the lack of identification of the objects and the absence of electronic signals coming from the objects.
3. According to Day, the objects appeared on radar around San Clemente Island and travelled in a southerly direction towards Guadalupe Island. There is a jetstream in this area providing a mechanism for the balloons to reach 100 knots whilst traversing between San Clemente Island and Guadalupe Island.
4. San Clemente Island is a naval military base. This is precisely where the objects appeared on radar. The Princeton’s radar may not have detected the balloons being launched as the radar struggles detecting small objects at distances. The radar may have only noticed the balloons once they were elevated.
5. From the 5th of October 2004 to the 9th of October 2004, a total of 21 weather balloons were launched from San Clemente Island or from the area between San Clemente Island and Santa Catalina Island. This was just one month prior to the objects appearing on the Princeton’s radar that materialised in the same area. Balloons do get launched from this area.
6. Altitude controlled balloons have the ability to settle at specific high altitudes such as 28,000 feet before travelling with the wind. This is consistent with Day observing the objects travelling south at 28,000 feet.
7. The wind directions and speeds at the altitude of the objects (28,000 feet) for the days around the 14th of November 2004 is known. This data is for Miramar, the closest weather station to the objects:
13th November midnight: NNW, 131 knots
13th November noon: NW, 47 knots
14th November midnight: NNW, 58 knots
14th November noon: N, 104 knots
15th November midnight: N, 108 knots
15th November noon: E, 95 knots
16th November midnight: N, 59 knots
The winds were almost always coming from the north and in the vicinity of 100 knots for most of these times. If balloons were launched from San Clemente Island during the above dates (travelling at 28,000 feet), they would likely travel south, towards Guadalupe Island at around 100 knots. This is precisely the behaviour that the objects demonstrated.
8. There are a number of reasons that the balloons could have been launched. These include to monitor the weather conditions (weather balloons), to gain military data (surveillance), electronic warfare (to provide false information to a radar) and finally, to simply test the radar capabilities of the Nimitz strike group.
9. There was a test flight off the coast of California of NASA’s X-43A, an experimental, hypersonic rocket on the 16th of November 2004. This was just two days after Fravor’s tic tac encounter. The rocket was launched at 43,000 feet. It’s highly likely that as part of this launch, weather balloons were dispatched in the lead up days to determine the best time and day to launch. The NASA team were intent on breaking a world speed record and determining the right high-altitude wind conditions would have been vital. High altitude weather balloons would have proven useful. The objects tracked by Day seemed to stop appearing after this X-43A launch. This could be due to there being no need to deploy the balloons post the X-43A launch.
10. NASA’s X-43A was also tested in 2001 in the same area, off the coast of California. A paper by Carter et al. documents “special balloons” being launched in the lead up to this 2001 test of the X-43A, “During the day of June 2, 2001 upper air weather balloons were released in support of air data calibrations and trajectory analysis of the launch vehicle and the research vehicle (X-43A). Four special balloons were released at Pt. Mugu and San Nicholas Island while two special balloons each were released at Vandenberg AFB and Edward AFB”. The four locations specified in the paper are in the vicinity of San Clemente Island or slightly further north. If the balloons were also dispatched from these locations in 2004 (as would be expected), it’s likely that they appeared on the Princeton’s radar around San Clemente Island due to the radar’s range in detecting small objects.
11. There is some evidence that the tic tac encountered by Fravor was a balloon. It was white and roundish in shape- similar to standard weather balloons.
12. The tic tac observed by Fravor could have been at an altitude of 10,000 feet, part way between his plane at 20,000 feet and the ocean. Fravor was accustomed to observing fighter planes in the air that are close to 50 feet in size. If the tic tac was actually a balloon and half this size, due to the nature of the parallax illusion, it would have appeared to Fravor to be at sea level whilst in reality it was at an altitude of 10,000 feet. The abstract shape of the balloon and lack of markings would have conspired to trick Fravor’s senses.
13. Fravor describes the tic tac as ascending when he descended and staying on the other side of an imaginary circle to himself. This is consistent with what Fravor would have observed had he fallen subject to the parallax illusion whereby the balloon was actually at a stable altitude of 10,000 feet. The perceived movement of the balloon was an illusion caused by Fravor’s Super Hornet moving.
14. Fravor and the other pilots believed that the tic tac accelerated beyond the horizon in less than one second. This is 10-fold faster than any terrestrial plane. A more logical explanation is that Fravor’s Super Hornet came too close to the balloon causing it to burst. This disappearing act would have provided the pilots with the illusion that the tic tac had accelerated out of sight.
16. There is evidence that the UAP observed on the East Coast of the US were balloons (as discussed in the ‘The East Coast UAP’ section of this article). It’s plausible that the tic tac encounter was also a balloon that fooled the pilots.
Arguments Against The Balloon Theory
1. According to radar operator, Kevin Day, the objects travelling southwards at 100 knots, dropped down from 80,000 feet to 28,000 feet in a split second, dropped down from 28,000 feet to the ocean in 0.78 seconds and performed a range of other manoeuvring feats. This isn’t the behaviour of balloons.
2. Gary Voorhis who worked in the Princeton’s Combat Information Centre has commented, “Sometimes they were just going a couple hundred knots, sometimes they seemed stationary, sometimes they moved relatively fast. The way they went around us was like they were just monitoring us”. This doesn’t mesh with the behaviour of balloons following the wind.
3. The radar operators on the Princeton were intelligent, highly-trained people in a specialised area. They would have been aware if the objects they were monitoring were simply floating along with the wind.
4. The parallax illusion couldn’t have applied to the tic tac scenario as the illusion relies on positioning. There wasn’t just Fravor’s plane observing the tic tac. Dietrich and Slaight had a bird’s-eye-view of the scene. These two pilots would have witnessed the relative movement of Fravor’s plane compared to the tic tac. It would have been abundantly clear to them if Fravor was circling down towards a stationary balloon.
5. The parallax illusion would have been distorted by the white water beneath the tic tac. If the object was a balloon at 10,000 feet and the pilots were subject to parallax, Fravor and Dietrich circling at 20,000 feet would have meant that the object would have only appeared above the white water momentarily. In reality, the pilots describe the object consistently hovering over the white water. This would only be possible if the tic tac was close to the white water. Any notion of parallax would be destroyed by the tic tac consistently hanging over the white water in the vastness of the ocean, as the pilots circled around.
6. The pilots specifically described the tic tac accelerating- not just disappearing into thin air. Slaight has commented, “It was there….then it rifled off, out of sight in a split second. It was as if the object was shot out of a rifle. There was no gradual acceleration or spooling up period, it just shot out of sight immediately. I have never seen anything like it before or since. No human could have withstood that kind of acceleration”. Fravor has remarked, “It starts to accelerate. It has an incredible rate of acceleration. And it takes off and it goes south. And it takes off like nothing I’ve ever seen”.
7. Fravor witnessed the tic tac accelerate when he was half a mile away from it. This is distant enough for the Super Hornet to not have burst the balloon. In addition, the tic tac was in front of Fravor. If he had flown by it and it had burst there would be a potential mechanism of action to explain the burst. In reality Fravor was approaching the tic tac when it disappeared.
8. Slaight and Fravor were the two top ranked pilots in the entire squadron. They were highly experienced. There were an additional two other pilots on the scene. It would have been abundantly clear if the four pilots were observing a stationary balloon.
9. Weather balloons don’t look like tic tacs, they look like balloons. They have a very clear, distinctive shape. Weather balloons are shaped differently to the pilots’ descriptions of the UAP which they collectively characterised as ‘tic tac’ shaped. Weather balloons, for the most part, are spherical and a subset of weather balloons can have a tear-drop form. The ‘tic tac’ description doesn’t mesh with the known shape of weather balloons. Additionally, a tic tac shaped weather balloon would be less aerodynamic.
10. Fravor who recalls viewing the tic tac for 5 minutes, was very familiar with weather balloons by virtue of his training. Fravor has explained this part of his training, “You’d be on the downwind, away from the target and they’d have the weather balloons that would be in the restricted”. Fravor knew what weather balloons looked like and how they acted.
11. The Princeton’s radar detected an object that was travelling south at 100 knots and specifically at 20,000 feet above the ocean’s surface. The pilots flew to this object, interacted with it and the object disappeared from the Princeton’s radar, just like the tic tac did according to the pilot’s accounts. If the balloon was constantly at 10,000 feet, it should have appeared on the Princeton’s advanced radar at this height, it should have stayed there when the Super Hornets arrived and it should have remained there after Fravor’s attempted intercept. None of these events occurred. If the parallax theory was correct, we would have expected the Princeton’s radar to have detected the balloon at this height before, during and if the balloon hadn’t burst, after the encounter.
12. If the parallax illusion was correct, the pilots would have all reported the tic tac as staying on the opposite side of an imaginary circle to themselves, essentially it would have only mirrored their own movements. Dietrich has explained, “It behaved in a way that we were surprised, unnerved. It almost didn’t accelerate. It jumped from spot to spot and tumbled around in a way that was unpredictable”. She has also commented, “It was so unnerving because it was so unpredictable. High g, rapid velocity, rapid acceleration.” Fravor remarked, “This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another. Similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against the wall”. Fravor has also said, “I can tell you, I think it was not from this world. I’ve seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close. I have never seen anything in my life, in my history of flying that has the performance, the acceleration”. Slaight has concluded that it was undoubtedly intelligently controlled. Slaight has also explained that he doesn’t know of any technology on planet earth that had the ability to both accelerate and manoeuvre in the manner the tic tac did. It seems unlikely that these professional fighter pilots, with different viewing perspectives, would use these words to describe a stationary balloon.
13. It the tic tac was a balloon at 10,000 feet, where was it deployed from? Submarine balloon launches are exceedingly rare. A United States Navy member who spent most of their career on submarines never witnessed a single balloon launch from a submarine in their career.
14. The Intelligence Officer on the USS Nimitz informed both Dietrich and Slaight that the USS Louisville submarine wasn’t in the location that they had witnessed the white water. This raises another question- why was there white water under the supposed balloon?
15. Balloons ascend and descend very slowly. All descriptions of the tic tac paint it as fast moving and erratic.
16. The winds weren’t always blowing north to south. At various times during the week the winds were blowing in a wide range of directions. Additionally, if you examine the path of a balloon in the wind, it typically resembles a string that has been dropped on the ground and curled around on itself- not a direct, straight line.
17. The advanced radars that detected the objects would have noticed them slowly rising from ground level to 28,000 feet had they been balloons. This wasn’t observed. The objects descended down from 80,000 feet according to the reports of the radar witnesses.
Conclusions on The Balloon Theory
Within the nebulous swarm of events that have engulfed the tic tac mystery, the one aspect I am most confident of is that high-altitude balloons were tracked by the Princeton’s radar. The objects appeared on radar around San Clemente Island, drifted southwards at a high altitude and 100 knot speeds. It seems like too much of a coincidence that balloons do get deployed from around San Clemente, NASA’s X-43A was tested around the time and in the vicinity of the balloon launch area which would have required high-altitude balloons to monitor conditions, a previous test of the X-43A involved balloons being launched from the vicinity of San Clemente Island or just further north, the winds blew towards the south during the 2004 period and were thereabouts 100 knots in speed.
This balloon theory explains but a small part of the entire tic tac series of events. It doesn’t provide a mechanism for the fast tracks on the Princeton’s radar, the alleged rapid drops of the objects and a host of other factors.
The idea that the object witnessed by Fravor’s quartet of pilots was a balloon seems more far-fetched. The appealing parts of this theory include Fravor’s description of events somewhat meshing with the parallax illusion and the possible acceleration of the tic tac being accounted for by the balloon bursting by virtue of it being too close to Fravor’s Super Hornet.
The proposal that the tic tac was a balloon seems highly unlikely to me. However, within the set of even less likely scenarios, it may stand out on top.
The Plane Theory
The plane theory posits that the object captured by Underwood on his Super Hornet’s ATFLIR was a run-of-the-mill plane.
Arguments For The Plane Theory
Many of the arguments in this section involve refutations that the object recorded by Underwood was displaying non-plane traits.
1. An unnamed aviation technician whose resume includes working for the United States Air Force, as well as commonly using targeting pods, has viewed the FLIR footage. He has explained, “Looks like a plane. Looks like every other plane I’ve seen…A plane, it’s a plane that’s backlit that looks like it’s going away from us, at like 35 degrees left, and it’s backlit”. In addition, he has estimated its distance away, “Judging from what I’ve seen, like planes in holding patterns and coming into (the airport), I don’t know, probably 45 to 60 miles”.
2. The object in the FLIR footage is essentially an elongated blur. To immediately jump to the conclusion that it is an extra-terrestrial craft is illogical. There are close to 10,000 planes in the sky at any one time. This object is likely one of them.
3. The supposed lack of exhaust plume of the object can be explained by the plane’s distance away from Underwood’s Super Hornet. As we can barely make out any of the features of the plane, it’s not surprising that we can’t see a clear exhaust plume throughout the footage.
4. The plane’s angle of flight may also explain why no exhaust plume is visible. If the plane was travelling towards or away from Underwood or at an angle slightly askew, we wouldn’t necessarily expect to see an exhaust plume.
5. The very start of the FLIR footage is shot in infrared mode. There are clearly lines emanating from the object (at the 15 second mark of the footage), lines that largely resemble an exhaust plume signature. In later frames, these lines are absent, suggesting that the plane has now turned and the exhaust plume is pointing away from the camera.
6. It is not surprising that it is challenging to make out a tail or wings on the plane in the FLIR video. The footage is of a grainy, poor quality and the plane is a significant distance away from the camera.
7. During certain frames of the FLIR footage in TV mode, there appear to be pixels extending downwards. This could be the plane’s closest wing. Additionally, there is another clustering of pixels on the upper-right section of the object. This may be the plane’s tail or far wing. If the object was the alleged tic tac, these protrusions wouldn’t be visible.
8. The Executive Summary of the tic tac encounters explains that there were no jamming cues.
9. The object doesn’t accelerate out of view at the end of the FLIR footage. Underwood switched lenses from a narrow-field-of-view to a medium-field-of-view and back to narrow again. The lens change involved a physical lens changing on the ATFLIR pod itself. When the first lens change is performed, for a fraction of a second, the ‘tic tac’ appears to vanish from the screen- in reality this is due to the refraction of the lens change. When the lens change is complete, the tic tac is reacquired by the ATFLIR lock. The lens then changes from medium back to narrow. During this transition period, the tic tac reappears on one of the vertical lock lines (thanks to the refraction of the lens changing process) then travels leftwards out of shot, before the vertical lock lines can reacquire it.
10. After the tic tac appears on the vertical, ATFLIR lock lines, the system fails to reacquire it. The object is simply travelling to the left of screen as it has done throughout the video. The lack of the ATFLIR panning to track the object provides the illusion that the object is accelerating.
11. Mick West has shown that the object continues travelling at a constant speed when it appears to accelerate off the screen. Throughout the video it takes approximately 1.5 seconds for the object to move the span of the screen. If the ATFLIR pod suddenly physically stopped and therefore no longer tracked the object, it would take approximately 0.75 seconds for the object to travel from the centre of the screen to off the screen. In the FLIR video, when the ATFLIR does lose visual track of the object, it takes approximately 0.75 seconds for the object to disappear off the screen- precisely the constant period of time that the object was travelling at throughout the video.
12. Underwood was partaking in a ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ training exercise when he recorded the FLIR footage. His datalink and network which would typically inform him of the details of the other planes in the sky may have been inactivated during the exercise in order to make it resemble a true battlefield scenario.
13. Before leaving the Nimitz and capturing the FLIR footage, Underwood was predisposed to seeing a tic tac. Fravor and the Princeton had already tasked him with this. It is therefore not surprising that Underwood believed the object he recorded in the FLIR footage was the tic tac.
Arguments Against The Plane Theory
1. Commercial planes typically avoid the SOCAL area. The tic tac recorded by Underwood was travelling in a whiskey area which is a restricted flight zone.
2. To my knowledge, no-one has been able to propose a possible commercial flightpath that corresponds even roughly to the tic tac’s position at the appropriate time. Day has commented, “I got my display. I can display all the commercial airline routes. There is no commercial airline route right there”.
3. Chad Underwood was informed by the Princeton of the bearing and range of the tic tac. This was when his Super Hornet’s radar got a blip. The Princeton was aware of the radar signatures of the tic tac objects and the Princeton would have been navigating him to an object with this unique signature.
4. The object that Underwood approached attempted to jam his aircraft. This is according to Underwood himself as well as Dietrich and Fravor who reviewed his tapes when he landed. There were strobe lines and other clear jamming indications on Underwood’s scope. The Executive Summary that claimed no jamming cues didn’t consult Underwood for the report. It is virtually a certainty that Underwood was jammed. Jamming would be unheard of in peacetime operations off the coast of the US and indeed is an act of war. This jamming deprived Underwood of learning the tic tac’s distance, speed, altitude and other metrics. The fact that Underwood was jammed by the unidentified object is strong evidence that it wasn’t a plane.
5. When Underwood attempted to gain a radar lock on the tic tac, strange things started to happen to the Super Hornet’s systems that wouldn’t have occurred if the object he was trying to lock onto was a plane. Underwood has detailed, “What was different about this was as soon as I took that lock, the track started doing all sorts of little things that are not normal. The heading was erratic. It should be able to tell me your airspeed and also your Mach number so it should say like, 0.8 Mach for example, so 80% the speed of sound. It should say that. It was jumping all over the place. It was 0.8, 0.4, 0.2, 0.1, 0.9. My radar just can’t hack it. In all instances it should be able to hack that”.
6. Underwood’s radar was unable to determine the tic tac’s distance as evidenced by the 99.9 appearing on the FLIR screen which is analogous to ‘undefined’.
7. Underwood was unable to gain a single track lock on the object. Gaining this lock on a regular plane should have been elementary.
8. The object that Underwood recorded in infrared showed no signs of an exhaust plume. This is unusual as corroborated by a number of retired pilots.
9. The object that Underwood recorded seemed to lack wings which should have been visible in infrared or at the least, TV mode. A number of retired fighter pilots have agreed with this point and have referred to the abnormality of this situation.
10. The Executive Report states that the tic tac’s “Initial tracks were at approximately 30-40 nm to the south of the aircraft”. This general distance is confirmed by Underwood. Underwood travelled towards the tic tac and when the tic tac disappeared, Underwood believes he was just 10-15 nautical miles away from it. At this distance, Underwood believes he should have been able to determine the specific type of plane he was viewing if it had been one. At this close proximity, Underwood should have been able to see wings and an exhaust plume. Additionally, he should have also been able to gain a radar lock on the object.
11. It’s exceptionally rare for a fighter pilot to observe an object in the sky that they cannot recognise. This is evidenced by Vincent Aiello who spent 3,800 hours in fighter plane cockpits. Aiello has said, “I have never seen anything in the air that I could not identify”.
12. Switching lens field-of-views on an ATFLIR is a common event in fighter planes. The ATFLIR is designed to keep track of an object when such a switch occurs. The object Underwood recorded breaking lock with the lens switch is unusual.
13. The object broke Underwood’s ATFLIR visual lock. It is incredibly rare for an ATFLIR visual lock to be broken. This is evidenced by a former member of the Canadian Air Force who spend thousands of hours using the same ASQ-228 ATFLIR model as Underwood’s. This individual has explained that across their career, their ATFLIR only dropped lock once. This was when the ATFLIR was situated inside a vehicle that was travelling on a road whilst the ATFLIR was tracking an object. The vehicle hit a bump in the road and the lock was broken.
14. A study has found that the object breaking lock in Underwood’s video accelerated at 75.9 +/- 0.2g. This is a sufficient acceleration to kill a human.
15. The Princeton radar operators were aware of the tic tacs’ radar symbology, altitudes, speeds and lack of electronic signature. The Princeton’s SPY-1 radar was highly advanced. It should have been elementary for it to identify the tic tac as a plane, if it was one. The SPY-1 radar range is 256 miles, well within the confines of where the FLIR tic tac was positioned.
16. When the tic tac accelerated out of view, not only could Underwood not reacquire it but the Princeton and Hawkeye’s advanced radars also failed to detect it again. If the tic tac was a plane, Underwood who had been travelling towards the object and the Princeton and Hawkeye with their advanced radar, should have both been able to pick it up.
17. Planes emit electronic signals known as ‘Identification friend or foe’ (IFF). Underwood’s Super Hornet would have easily been able to pick up such a signal if the tic tac was in fact a plane (as would the other radars tracking the tic tac).
18. Dietrich and Fravor, who both watched the original, clear FLIR footage on high-resolution, large screens, have identified the object as the tic tac they had encountered hours before. Dietrich has commented, “From my perspective, he absolutely captured what we saw earlier in the day”.
19. A number of personnel on board the USS Princeton and USS Nimitz, who viewed the original FLIR footage, have also come forth. This footage was significantly clearer than the imagery we see today and many of them viewed it on a large screen. None of these people have claimed that the tic tac resembled a plane.
20. Underwood’s Super Hornet was linked up to all the other vehicles, including planes, in the Nimitz strike group via datalink. If Underwood did attempt to lock onto another fighter plane, there would have been a number of obvious and immediate consequences.
21. When Underwood locked onto the tic tac, every fighter plane in the air and everything in the strike group became aware that Underwood was locking onto a target. This information would have appeared on their situational awareness screens in front of them.
22. Underwood’s situational awareness screen would have constantly been showing him where the planes, ship and other vehicles in the strike group were located- independent of radar. This also works in reverse. Not only would have Underwood known where all the other planes were situated, the other planes would have known Underwood’s location and crucially they would have all been informed that Underwood was attempting to lock onto another plane.
23. If Underwood did lock onto another fighter plane, an alarm would have sounded in the other plane’s cockpit. Additionally, everyone in the strike group would have been informed that Underwood had attempted to lock onto another fighter plane.
24. When asked “There was no red air in the area from the previous exercise?” Underwood has replied, “That’s correct. Yeah, there was nothing that would be identifiable in the sector of airspace that we were flying”. In addition, Underwood’s plane was one of the first launched in the new session of training exercises meaning there would have been clean air ahead of him.
25. In the unlikely circumstance that the datalink was not functioning due to the nature of the ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ exercise, the Princeton would have had data on all airborne planes. The Princeton wouldn’t have navigated Underwood to a ‘bad’ plane which would have had quite distinct and recognisable symbology on the radar scope. Furthermore, the USS Princeton lost sight of the tic tac on radar. If the tic tac was a ‘bad’ plane, the USS Princeton would have been able to track it with its advanced radar.
Conclusions on The Plane Theory
If the tic tac that Underwood encountered was a plane, there is one primary mechanism by which Underwood’s lock on it went unnoticed- the other aircraft and Underwood’s Super Hornet, may have been taking part in training drills. It’s possible that the ‘good’ planes were sharing their positions on datalink with each other. It’s possible that the ‘bad’ planes were sharing their position on datalink with each other. There may have been no cross-over. Despite this theoretical possibility, the Princeton and AWACS would have likely had the collective data of all planes taking part in the exercise. In addition, the ‘bad’ planes would have had a distinctive and familiar radar signature unique from the tic tac’s signature.
One aspect I am relatively confident of is that Underwood was jammed. Underwood has articulated the very specific jamming indications he experienced including strobe lines. There is also the 99.9 distance display that is visible in the public FLIR footage. Whilst this alone isn’t conclusive evidence of being jammed, it certainly is a sign. Fravor and Dietrich reviewed Fravor’s tapes post-flight and they are equally as adamant that Underwood was jammed. To me, this amounts to strong evidence. The question is then raised- what airborne object would jam Underwood’s Super Hornet? For this question, I have no answer.
One of the prosaic theories I subscribe to with a higher degree of confidence is that the ATFLIR lock was dropped thanks to the lens change. In my opinion, there is solid evidence for this. The lens change distorts the position of the object on the screen and the object reappears on the precipice of the vertical lock lines. This isn’t to say that other factors weren’t also at play to also contribute to the lock break or that the object is definitively a plane, only that the lens change likely contributed to the lock break.
I also subscribe to West’s analysis that the object travelled at a steady speed before and after breaking lock- it most likely wasn’t accelerating. I have combed over West’s maths and I concur with his conclusion here. Despite my agreeance with West, I cannot explain how Underwood, the Princeton and Hawkeye all supposedly lost sight of the object in this instant.
If the datalink was functioning as normal during the exercise, the object could still be a plane however a number of major coincidences and errors would have had to likely eventuate stemming from the ATFLIR system to the radar operators, to the other pilots right through to Underwood himself. Like so many facets of the Nimitz-tic tac encounters, the most plausible, prosaic explanations seem highly unlikely yet when compared to the alternatives, they appear near the top of a laundry list of unlikely theories.
The Drone Theory
The drone theory proposes that at least some aspect of the tic tac encounters involved drones. Drones could be responsible for the objects on radar tracking south at 100 knots, Fravor may have attempted to intercept a drone, the object captured on FLIR by Underwood could have been a drone and finally, the moving lights circling the Nimitz and Princeton at night may be attributable to drones.
Arguments For The Drone Theory
1. The military regularly launches drones from San Clemente Island. This is in the vicinity of where Day noticed the objects appearing on radar.
2. Drones have the ability to travel at 100 knots whilst also manoeuvring erratically. This is similar to how Day and Voorhis described the standard behaviour of the objects on radar.
3. Drones can carry electronic warfare equipment including sensors to create the illusion of a fleet of objects on radar. This is potentially one explanation for the objects travelling 100 knots south (the drone itself) and the rapidly moving objects (the ghost fleet).
3. Fravor has described the tic tac’s initial movements, “This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another. Similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against the wall”. This is consistent with how a drone can manoeuvre.
4. The drone may have been over the white water as a result of being launched by a submarine.
5.Just one month prior to the Nimitz-tic tac encounters, the US Navy conducted military equipment tests in the vicinity of San Clemente Island. These tests included test launching drones from submarines as part of project ‘Silent Hammer’.
6. The tic tac’s ascension during Fravor’s descent is consistent with how a drone may behave.
7. Military technology is typically significantly much more advanced than public knowledge. A US military drone in 2004 could have had good flight time as well as the potential of reaching high speeds and displaying spritely manoeuvrability.
8. Drone technology wasn’t well known by the populous in 2004. A drone is a good candidate for the tic tac especially when coupled with the witnesses’ potential ignorance of drone capabilities thanks to the 2004 timeframe.
9. In 2019, a swarm of drones descended on California’s Channel Islands, just north of where the tic tac encounters occurred. Over the course of a number of evenings, these drones circled around United States navy ships. The drones performed aggressive manoeuvres for long periods of time. They travelled distances that exceeded 100 nautical miles. Who sent the drones, where they took off from and where they landed remains a mystery.
Arguments Against The Drone Theory
1. Virtually none of the tic tac related events can be close to being explained by current drone technology let along drone capabilities back in 2004. Drones can’t drop 28,000 feet in less than one second. Drones can’t move so quickly that the radar can’t keep track. Drones can’t accelerate beyond the horizon in less than one second. There is no possibility that drones could achieve these feats in 2004.
2. The tic tac shape is not aerodynamic for a drone. Modern-day drones, whilst having varied appearances, don’t come with no flight control surfaces and certainly don’t look like anything resembling a tic tac.
3. Drones typically weren’t the size of the tic tac (50 feet long) in 2004. Even today, the world’s biggest drone, the Ravn X is only 80 feet long whilst more so resembling a plane.
4. If Fravor and the other three pilots encountered a drone, they would have likely been debriefed and made to sign NDAs. This didn’t happen.
5. The quick moving lights that were viewed from the deck of the Princeton and Nimitz moved about the sky at phenomenal speeds. The exception is the triangular light formation that Kammerzell witnessed but even he seems unconvinced that what he saw was a drone as there was no sound emitted by the object despite its close proximity.
Conclusions on The Drone Theory
Although the military is years ahead when it comes to creating advanced craft, even modern-day drone technology fails to explain the tic tac encounters. Every aspect of Fravor’s tic tac intercept including the tic tac’s shape, design, lack of wings, manoeuvres and disappearance are all inconsistent with the object being a drone. It is vaguely plausible that the lights surrounding the Nimitz and Princeton were caused by drones however the advanced radars would have likely detected them and a similar reaction to the 2019 drone swarm would have probably ensued.
Linking the Theories Together
Attempts to explain the tic tac encounters, often include a natural assumption that all of the events were the same phenomenon. If we exclude the extra-terrestrial hypothesis, then this is almost certainly not the case. I will attempt to outline the most likely prosaic explanation for the tic tac encounters with the current state of information.
As the calendars flipped over to November 2004, the Nimitz strike group began training exercises in the waters off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, in readiness for their deployment to the Middle East. Meanwhile, further north, NASA was preparing to break the world speed record for a jet aircraft. Dozens of specialised weather balloons were launched by NASA in the vicinity of San Clemente Island. These balloons were dispersed with the purpose of monitoring the wind speeds at higher altitudes. NASA were determined to gauge the ideal launch conditions for the X-43A. Flocks of these altitude-controlled balloons wafted southwards at 28,000 feet. They drifted far above the Nimitz strike group and were propelled with the high, northerly jet stream at speeds nearabouts 100 knots.
The Princeton’s Combat Information Centre initially thought little of these airborne objects. The radar operators were preoccupied by impossibly quick tracks intermittently flashing across their radar screens. After several days of the leisurely objects appearing in the same locale and drifting southwards, the operator’s curiosity was piqued. The fast tracks occasionally coincided with the drifting objects and the operators began to develop a theory that the two distinct, unexplained entities were one and the same. The Princeton’s AEGIS system was eventually reset but this wasn’t enough to eliminate the gremlins lurking within the system.
The radar operators became more and more fascinated with the glacial objects until the morning of November 14th 2004 when the objects encroached on the training space assigned for the Nimitz fighter planes. Radar operator Kevin Day called down Captain Smith, the highest ranking official on board the Princeton to detail his safety concerns. Day foresaw the potential collision of the objects being tracked and the Nimitz fighter planes. Smith agreed to authorise an intercept on safety grounds. It was decided that the closest object would be investigated.
It was a bright, quintessentially Californian day as Fravor, Dietrich and their WSOs were vectored out away from the coastline into the midst of the Pacific, to investigate the curious objects. The pair of Super Hornets reached merge plot and they failed to notice anything anomalous. The quartet of pilots eventually spied a smooth, white matte object that was 20 feet in diameter and airborne. It lacked wings, propellers and seemingly any form of propulsion. The object was a specialised weather balloon, one of many that had been launched by NASA. Over the preceding hour, this specific balloon had descended from its high altitude, leaving the assemblage of other balloons. Consequentially it was further south thanks to the slightly gustier winds blowing at low-altitudes. The rest of this balloon’s flock were stationary at the whim of the calm higher altitude winds of the hour.
The eggshell-coloured, smooth, specialised weather balloon looked almost alien. It dropped down to 20,000 feet then over time down to 10,000 feet. Fravor observed the balloon whilst it was slowly descending. From Fravor’s high vantage point he expected the balloon to be comparable in size to a Super Hornet, at roughly 40 feet across. By virtue of an illusion, an object of these dimensions would have appeared from Fravor’s perspective to be situated just above ocean surface level. In reality, the balloon was 20 feet in diameter and at 10,000 feet.
The up and coming Junior Officer, Dietrich, spotted the unique balloon however she was slightly more focused on the inside of the cockpit and attempting to detect the object on radar as opposed to taking in the bizarre looking entity. Fravor made the snap judgement to descend towards the target. Thanks to parallax, from his perspective, it appeared to rise and travel around the opposite side of the circle. Fravor had almost reached the balloon’s altitude when he cut across the circle to intercept it, akin to someone cutting a birthday cake. The rippling wind from Fravor’s Super Hornet’s previous manoeuvre was only now beginning to reach the balloon. In an instant, the balloon burst, providing the illusion that it had accelerated out of sight. Dietrich glanced down from her God’s-eye-viewpoint and the object had vanished. The logical inference was that it had accelerated away from the scene.
The four pilots were visibly shaken by the seemingly otherworldly experience. The radio controller on board the Princeton, who had a penchant for humour, radioed in to Fravor. “Sir, you’re not going to believe this but that thing is back at your CAP point”. This only crescendoed the pilots’ mystification of the object.
As the four pilots touched down on the Nimitz runway, they informed Chad Underwood of their adventure. The high ranking Fravor had a flare for adding the odd embellishment to a situation and after hearing the story from start to end, Dietrich and Slaight began to question their initial assertions that the object was terrestrial. Underwood listened captivated. Underwood, a dogged, type-A fighter pilot, was intent on recording Fravor’s tic tac on camera.
Once Underwood was airborne, his radar registered the slightest of blips imaginable. After hearing Fravor’s riveting narrative, Underwood naturally assumed that the blip on his radar was the elusive tic tac. In reality, the object was a distant enemy plane that was partaking in Underwood’s training exercise. The datalink system was disabled and therefore Underwood naturally assumed that he was chasing the tic tac. Underwood flickered through lenses whilst recording the fellow fighter plane before a refracting lens change distorted the other fighter plane’s position on the FLIR screen. Underwood’s ATFLIR broke visual lock. This created the illusion of the distant plane accelerating out of shot. Underwood’s experience only made him more convinced of the bewildering tic tac chronicle.
Underwood’s FLIR video circulated right throughout the Nimitz and Princeton. A folklore emerged about the strange craft and alienesque encounters. Those on board the decks of the ships were on the lookout for strangely behaving objects in the sky. On occasions, the naval personnel would spy a shooting star. Meanwhile, the upper echelons of the military were curious as to the functionality of the new Cooperative Engagement Capability system. A pair of Air Force officers landed on the Princeton and removed tapes so those back on terra firma could observe the system’s abilities. The Princeton docked in Puerto Vallarta and the ship’s systems were wiped clean, thwarting the ghost track’s appearance.
As time progressed, some of the memories of the events became distorted and embellished. The tic tac encounter narrative was born and only blossomed into the tale we hear today.
There are numerous strong arguments against every facet of the prosaic theory I have presented above. These are covered in the individual ‘Arguments Against…’ sections in the ‘Theories’ section of this article.
Conclusion
“It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.” ~ Diane Ackerman
On the surface, the Nimitz events are easy to dismiss as just another arbitrary, UAP sighting. Every aspect of the Nimitz-tic tac encounters is littered with inconsistencies, uncertainties and an absence of cold, hard data. Despite this, the skeleton of the case is well-defined and believable. We have a number of witnesses with a nun-like veracity, who are trained in aerial phenomenon and who possess deeply sceptical and scientific minds. When the case is examined in detail, context is given to every skerrick of evidence. As a consequence, every possible prosaic explanation can virtually be ruled out. The foundations for an intriguing mystery are laid out.
There were notable and unusual events surrounding the Nimitz strike group. This is evidenced by the urgency in the Air Force personnel pair who landed on the Nimitz and Princeton in the wake of Underwood and Fravor’s tic tac encounters. Copious amounts of data were confiscated. This was unprecedented according to those on board. Despite these data removals, those who witnessed the tic tac and its undertakings were permitted to speak freely about what they had encountered. To solve the crux of the mystery we must unravel why certain data was removed and why the witnesses did not have NDAs shoved in their faces.
Like a well-balanced stool, the Nimitz-tic tac case rests firmly on four legs. Firstly, the radar data shows objects travelling at well beyond the speeds of human technology and displaying flourishes and quirks that are positively mind-boggling. Secondly, Fravor and his scientifically trained quartet of pilots were navigated to one of the curious objects observed by the radar data. In this very location, the four pilots, from two vantage points witnessed a tic tac object that displayed feats of flight that were otherworldly. The pilots were like spectators, privy to an up-close display of the tic tac’s prowess before it accelerated out of sight and bewilderingly appeared at Fravor’s secret CAP point some 60 miles away.
Thirdly, Underwood was tasked with capturing the tic tac object on camera and was in the process of being navigated towards it when his ATFLIR locked onto it. The array of anomalous readings that Underwood garnered from the tic tac, the fact that he was jammed by the entity and its sudden departure from the scene only escalated the object’s mystique. Fourthly, numerous personnel back on the USS Princeton and USS Nimitz observed lights moving in unexplainable ways around the ships on the days and nights in question.
The most plausible explanations to resolve the Nimitz-tic tac encounters rely upon a string of coincidences, misperceptions, equipment errors, a significant ignorance by all of those involved and a tenuous linking of events, each with their own low probabilities of having ensued. The alternative explanation is the extra-terrestrial hypothesis which can be used as a deus ex machina for any unexplained phenomenon.
There is a natural allure to the extra-terrestrial theory. It is invigorating, it is exciting, it is awe-inspiring. For those very reasons, it captivates many people. It also relies upon the facilities of human witnesses who despite being well-trained experts are subject to biases, misperceptions, illusions, the fragility of memory and a whole raft of other frailties that can lead to the misreporting of an event.
In contrast, the boring, prosaic explanations that involve rudimentary elucidations and a questioning of such biases fail to garner such a passionate group of followers. At present, the extra-terrestrial theory doesn’t harbour the objective data needed to sway the scientists. Despite being a staunch skeptic, I am open minded to the evidence- If the data emerges, I will champion the extra-terrestrial theory.
The Nimitz, tic tac encounters are the most perplexing mystery I have ever delved into. After deep analysis, each individual component of the encounters seems impossible. When these individual sections are linked together, the resultant product is even more improbable than the sum of the individual parts. The one aspect we can be sure of is that unexplained events besieged the Nimitz strike group in November of 2004. When it comes down to the ultimate questions, sceptics and UAP believers deeply crave the same thing- the elusive truth.
The US government likely has the CEC data of the events that it confiscated from the ships in tandem with radar tracks and a glut of imagery from its deep, yet clandestine network of surveillance systems. Despite sounding conspiratorial, the truth is that the government knows more. Without this wealth of information, it’s difficult to explain the Nimitz events with even the slightest iota of confidence.
When I was a young child, I watched on in wonderment one night as a colossal, glowing tic tac overshadowed my quaint Australian city. It spanned 100 feet in length, was unquestionably a real object and it paused in mid-air before sweeping across the landscape for in excess of an hour.
I recall pedestrians tilting their necks up to gain a glimpse of the tic tac. They had a sense of child-like wonder etched on their faces. Motorists pulled over their cars and clambered out. They pointed up to the heavens above at this mammoth, luminescent tic tac. My entire city came to a standstill in scenes reminiscent of the historic War of the Worlds radio drama hysteria. The tic tac was eerie, it was unexplainable and it was alien.
The following morning I spied the giant tic tac again, illuminated by the glow of sunlight. It was here that its true identity was revealed. It was a blimp. It had migrated over from one of the more populous eastern cities to my provincial backwater. My formative experience taught me that sometimes a solution to a puzzle is an idea that no-one has even considered. This may be true of the Nimitz tic tac. Some explanation that hasn’t been conceived of by anyone may ultimately explain away the tic tac and all its trimmings. “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.
This student began the schooling year as a regular, sentient human being, aware of the full spectrum of colours on the colour wheel. Some traumatic event such as watching their favourite reality show contestant being evicted turned them dark. The disgruntled goth dresses in black and listens to emo bands from the 2000s. Across all online platforms, their username is ‘Dark Angle’ which unfortunately for them is a spelling mistake leading to others online thinking they are interested in maths and not the dark overlord.
2. Cat Child and Horse Child
Cat child (despite being a teenager) prowls around the schoolyard wearing cat ears and acting as a cat. Horse child is under the illusion that they are a horse and they subsequently gallop from classroom to classroom. These two unique individuals befriend one another and live in blissful harmony amidst their fantastical farmland fantasy. Until one day… cat child and horse child become sworn enemies intent on destroying one another. The duo spend the rest of their schooling lives engaging in symbiotic vitriolic hatred.
3. The Nerd
The nerd’s thick framed glasses rest on their oily, pimple-stained face. Their favourite pastime involves informing the internet of continuity errors in their comic book collection. The nerd is captain of the school’s Star Trek chess club which the school continually threatens to shut down due to its lack of members. They are fluent in five languages: English, C + +, Python, Quenya and Klingon. The nerd lists their most embarrassing moment as the day they visited the local department store. They walked in with a suspicious protrusion coming from their pants and asked the shopkeeper where the role-playing games were located. The nerd was escorted out of the store before they could remove the Rubik’s cube from their pocket and explain that their role-playing interest lay innocently with Dungeons and Dragons.
4. The Perfectionist
The perfectionist has each subject’s optional reading material printed out, colour-coded into all 10,000 shades of Dulux paint shades and arranged by Dewy Decimal Classification. On one occasion you spot the perfectionist crying in the corridor accompanied by a friend. You enquire as to what has happened. Their friend says the perfectionist scored 99/100 on a test. You say “congratulations” to which the friend snaps at you and the perfectionist emits a dog-like howl. The perfectionist’s life can’t continue as they were docked one point. This day haunts them for the rest of their life.
5. The Student on the Precipice of Snapping
This unhinged individual is misanthropic and anti-social yet enjoys awkwardly staring at people. He (they are always guys) has long, unkempt hair and is rake-thin. This student hasn’t been the same since his girlfriend broke up with him in grade 3 after he purposefully trampled on an ant’s nest. He keeps a notebook containing the names of everyone who has wronged him. It lists most of the school including the cafeteria workers who made the list by virtue of not having raw broccoli available for purchase one day. The entire school is unsure whether to be nice to the student on the precipice of snapping. They reason that if he snaps then there is more chance that they are spared.
6. The Cult Leader
The cult leader speaks in something resembling ye olde English. They spend their days trying to recruit fellow students into their cult as minions which they will invariably lead. The cult leader’s status is diminished when the principal suspends them for starting a cult. As punishment, the cult leader’s parents insist they have to be in bed by 9PM and their mobile phone is taken from them for one month. The uprising must wait until they have their mobile phone returned. The cult leader argues that if one defines a cult as ‘brainwashing people to think a certain way’ then surely the school is a cult.
7. The Student with Demanding Parents
This student is grounded if they are home from school just one minute late. On their return from school, they are locked in their room by their parents and forced to study for eight hours straight in a situation more akin to being held hostage. Basic food and drinks rations are occasionally deposited into their room in what the parents claim is a privilege. If this student’s end-of-year report is tarnished by any grade that is not an ‘A’, they are banished from their family and sent to a child labour camp. This student finds the child labour camp much more pleasant than living with their demanding parents.
8. The Wannabe Lawyer
The wannabe lawyer has an astute interest in all facets of law, stemming from watching repeats of Judge Judy and by having a third cousin who claims to be a lawyer. Alongside offering unsolicited legal advice on Facebook, school is where the wannabe lawyer uses their jurisprudence prowess. Due to poor behaviour, the teacher punishes the wannabe lawyer’s class by keeping them inside for 10 minutes of lunchtime. This incenses the wannabe lawyer who promptly prints out the Geneva Convention and highlights various subclauses that emphasise the cruel illegality of the teacher’s actions. The wannabe lawyer argues that by losing 10 minutes of lunchtime, the classes’ civil rights have been violated. A class of breathing, sentient beings. The teacher quickly retorts that the class aren’t sentient beings.
9. The Student with the Unspellable Name
This student has a double umlaut over the second ‘x’ and third ‘z’ in their name, making it impossible to pronounce unless you hail from some remote Star Trek planet whose inhabitants produces sounds by clicking their tongue. The teachers who fail to include the double umlaut in their reports are threatened with legal action by the parents (who should themselves be sued for providing their child with such a burdensome name). The school reaches an out-of-court settlement with the parents when they explain that their report software is not equipped to handle umlauts.
10. The Hypochondriac
The hypochondriac asks you to check their glands. With a wry smile, you inform them that they are raised. The hypochondriac turns to trusty Doctor Google. They search ‘raised glands’ and sigh, “Well, that’s it- I’m dead”. The hypochondriac has diagnosed themselves with 100 terminal illnesses this week. They are consigned to the fact that they will die by the end of the month- for them the only pertinent question is which disease will kill them first. The hypochondriac trundles to the sick bay and addresses the nurse by their first name. “I’m very sick, I can’t move and it hurts everywhere”. The hypochondriac spends more time with the school nurse than the remainder of the school combined. The nurse phones up the hypochondriac’s parents- a number that’s on speed dial. Another student enters the sick bay vomiting and encroaches on the territory of the hypochondriac. The hypochondriac makes a remarkable recovery and leaps to their feet, fleeing from the potentially infectious vomiting student with the vigour and speed of an athlete. Since COVID struck, no-one has heard from the hypochondriac.
11. The Wagger
The wagger has concocted an array of schemes to avoid gaining the obligatory education that accompanies school attendance. For starters, they fill in a sheet of paper at the start of the school year in which they are instructed to write down the phone number of their parents. It is in this space that the wagger creatively fills in their own mobile number. When the school phones the wagger’s ‘parents’ to enquire into their absence from school, the wagger will answer their phone and provide an excuse. Another of the tricks in the wagger’s arsenal involves feigning a fever. They place a hot water bottle on their forehead which provides the thermometer with a reading of 50 degrees Celsius (117 Fahrenheit). The wagger is a medical marvel that defies the scientific literature. Any regular mortal would succumb to the inevitable death that accompanies such a temperature yet the wagger avoids such a fate. All of the wagger’s scheming to avoid school is for the outcome of attending the local mall. It is here that the wagger sits around bored, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the end of the school day when they can socialise with their fellow students- something they could enjoy more of if they indeed attended school.
12. The Essay Manipulator
The essay manipulator can only muster 300 words on an essay topic that requires 500 words. As a result, they use double spacing and size 28 font in the hope of making their essay appear longer. Additionally, they add an extra 200 words of white text that is invisible to the teacher, to their essay. This is as an additional measure to trick the teacher’s word counter. To increase the apparent length of their essay and to appear wordier, the essay manipulator use the thesaurus function to change random words. The resultant essay contains sentences such as “My favourite folk singer is feline Stevens”.
13. The Car Enthusiast
Whilst normal humans have an image of themselves on their Facebook profile, the car enthusiast displays a photograph of a car. What is doubly peculiar is that they don’t own this car- it is simply one they have seen online and spend every waking hour fantasising over. The car enthusiast has a unique condition in which they “rite lik dis n dohnt uze normall spelin oar gramma”. Whether this deviation from the normal rules of the English language is a consequence of petrol fumes is contentious. The car enthusiast lists their Facebook relationship as “In a relationship with a Ferrari XYZ1234”. This leads other students to question whether the car enthusiast is in fact being intimate with cars. The car enthusiast criticises every teacher in the school for their substandard car parked within the school car park. When the car enthusiast is old enough to take their learner’s permit, they arrive at the testing centre three hours early. This is the only test they pass in their life. They ultimately drive a cheap 1990s Holden Commodore that contains fuel worth more than the car itself. The car enthusiast modifies their car exhaust to create a loud, obnoxious sound in the hope that this will make people like them.
14. The Child Prodigy
This young, over-achiever has skipped three years and still outperforms their peers. They reach the waist-levels of their fellow classmates and look like they will never hit puberty. The child prodigy dominates virtually every class from maths to music. The child prodigy’s classmates collectively become frustrated that this baby-faced genius embarrasses them on an intellectual level. As a consequence, the classmates wreak their revenge in PE class, during any sport that permits a modicum of contact. The child prodigy’s glasses require a full-time optometry repair person and the child prodigy develops a lifelong extreme phobia of anything remotely related to sport.
15. The Tall Student
The tall student must navigate a school that simply isn’t designed for someone of their drawn-out proportions. Upon entering a classroom, the tall student must choose between partaking in the limbo or being knocked unconscious by the door’s upper frame. Often they choose the latter option, providing them with a bump on their head which only adds to their height. The tall student must then sit on a chair designed for someone half their height making them resemble the comical trope of a clown riding a child’s tricycle. The tall student is as conspicuous as they come as they traverse the corridors, grossly thin and standing two feet above the sea of other students. People naturally make assumptions about the tall student and assume they play basketball which is an example of blatant stereotyping. Although this student just so happens to play basketball. Countless times a day, regular sized people approach the tall student and inform them that they are indeed tall. It is not immediately clear why these smaller students are telling the tall student this. Perhaps they believe that the tall student is unaware of their exaggerated height and will provide them with money in exchange for this information. Additionally, the tall student is asked umpteen times a day “How tall are you?” They begin to answer this question in creative ways such as “Tall enough” or “5 foot 19 inches”.
16. The Self-Proclaimed Ladies’ Man
The Self-Proclaimed Ladies’ Man wears a shirt with the top three buttons undone and collar up. Additionally, the shirt has been drenched in the nauseating scent of an entire bottle of aftershave. This student believes their body is a temple and therefore they coat it in dozens of dangling chains and shiny rings. The self-proclaimed ladies’ man believes he is God’s gift to women. He uses every waking moment to hit on a different girl and he has extended his enthusiasm (creepiness) into the Instagram realm. He will type out a sleazy comment describing how unique a girl is. Copying and pasting this comment enables him to hit on thousands of these ‘unique’ girls at once. The self-proclaimed ladies’ man drops out of school to work on a building site. He drives a car with a personalized license plate to work and wolf whistles at every female that he deems worthy (they need to be breathing to be worthy). From an evolutionary perspective, the personalized license plate and wolf whistling are Darwinian traits that will stop females mating with the self-proclaimed ladies’ man and therefore thwart his genes from spreading.
17. The Student Who Suffered a Woodworking Mishap
This student failed to listen when the woodworking teacher instructed the class not to place their fingers in front of the circular saw. As a result, this student is missing the end of their little finger. The woodworking mishap student is too embarrassed to tell people this story in which they don’t follow instructions, appear simple-minded and come across as a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Instead, they inform anyone who will listen that the end of their pinky was bitten off as they bravely fought off a great white shark. The woodworking section of the school had proudly displayed a sign adorned with the words ‘NO ACCIDENTS FOR 1024 DAYS’. Post-accident, the sign changed to ‘NO ACCIDENTS FOR 0 DAYS’. The school now no longer offers woodwork as part of its curriculum.
18. The Environmentalist
The environmentalist is in a constant tug-of-war with the school to adopt more recycling bins despite the students filling the current supply of recycling bins with trash. The environmentalist has developed thick dreadlocks and a pungent odour thanks to their disdain for showering. They have initiated the school’s environment club that meets on the third full moon of every quarter. The environmentalist carries around a recycled notebook with a pleather cover as well as a sustainably sourced pen. They use these instruments to record the names of environmental villains. If the environmentalist spots a student using a tissue, they will say “You will be responsible for the death of a living creature”. The annoyed tissue user crassly responds “Yeah, you!”
19. The Old Student
The ‘old student’ has a thick beard, a receding hairline, the odd white follicle as well as facial wrinkles seeping through their skin. Their backstory is that they are repeating the last year of their schooling at this new school. One of the ‘old student’s’ classmates uncovers a LinkedIn profile of a 30-year-old man with a wife and three kids who looks suspiciously like this ‘student’.
20. The Chemistry Enthusiast
The chemistry enthusiast’s penchant for chemistry has blossomed from casual interest into all-devouring, life obsession. Over time, they begin to collect chemicals from the school’s chemistry lab to bring home. The chemistry enthusiast’s fellow students naturally assume that they are engaging in some form of Breaking Bad style, drug production scheme. This suspicious gathering of dangerous chemicals raises flags for the federal authorities who send out specialised agents from the anti-terrorism task force to interrogate the chemistry enthusiast. The chemistry enthusiast reveals that they have been stashing these chemicals in order to build their now completed nuclear reactor. The school is simultaneously shocked and impressed.
21. The Self-Described ‘Influencer‘
The self-described ‘influencer’ has chalked up a few hundred subscribers on their YouTube channel. On social media, they list their occupation as ‘International model’ after their parents took some photos of them whilst they were overseas. The influencer only allows photos to be taken of the left side of their face. Despite their face being perfectly symmetrical, they believe that if their “ugly” right side is photographed, the core foundations of planet earth will be shattered. The influencer drops out of school to focus on becoming a YouTuber. After their subscriber numbers fail to increase, the influencer spends their days eating junk food whilst watching other ‘influencers’ online. They attempt to gain subscribers by leaving pithy comments on other ‘influencer’s’ YouTube videos such as “When I am bored, I bury myself in my backyard and pretend I’m a carrot”. They also comment “first” when they are the two millionth person to watch a video.
22. The Bomb Hoaxer
This student failed to study for a test. They weigh up the wrath of their parents as a result of failing the test versus the risk of going to prison for making a bomb hoax phone call. The decision is easy. The student phones the school on their mobile claiming that a bomb is hidden within their very classroom. The school is dramatically evacuated and the police arrive. As the bomb hoaxer phoned the threat from their own mobile phone, they are promptly arrested. The bomb hoaxer isn’t entirely dissatisfied with this outcome. They would rather spend time at the police station than face their parents.
23. The Conspiracy Theorist
This student was a semi-rational human being before they watched a YouTube video featuring two flat-earthers. Despite the flat-earthers actually proving the world to be round, this student has gone down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial YouTube Videos thus officially becoming a conspiracy theorist. The conspiracy theorist hangs up posters around the school, revealing to the school community the information that the scientists and mainstream media are working in cahoots to hide. The posters inform the ignorant public that the COVID vaccine has a particularly worrying side effect- it will make people like Microsoft products. The poster references some poorly chosen domain name as a source. A domain that any rational person would doubt the content of, such as www.somerandomstuff1.wordpress.com. The conspiracy theorist has cracked the COVID conspiracy and begins to branch off into other areas. They determine that the school emblem is actually a map created by the Freemasons that leads to a shapeshifting alien civilization living underground who come up during the day. They are known as ‘teachers’.
24. The Fitness Freak
The fitness freak has an Adonis sculptured body in which their muscles have their own muscles. This student enjoys downing raw egg yolks for lunch and always has a large protein shake sitting on their desk which they refill at hourly intervals. Eating 6,000 calories a day is a challenging enough endeavour without the added obstacle of school. The worth of a student can easily be determined by the fitness freak- it correlates with how many kilograms they can bench press. The fitness freak stares fixated at a window with a smirk on their face. At first it appears that the fitness freak has a newfound interest in the chemistry equations that lie beyond the window. It soon becomes apparent that they thoroughly enjoy looking at their body in any surface vaguely resembling a mirror. The narcissist, ahem….fitness freak physically picks up students and uses them as a dumbbell. The teachers have to regularly remind the fitness freak that they are prohibited from bicep curling their fellow students.
25. The Dodgy Salesperson
This student begins their exploits by selling the pizza slices they made in Home Economics class to their fellow students. The pizza acts as a gateway item. The student soon buys a stack of iPhones on eBay that have themselves been dubiously procured. Within hours, the dodgy salesperson sells their entire supply of iPhones to their classmates, making more money than their teacher’s make in a month. The dodgy salesperson can’t add 2 + 2 in maths class but transforms into a mathematical prodigy when it comes to making money. They earn the nickname ‘slippery……’ followed by their name. Life seems good for the dodgy salesperson until one of the iPhone buyer’s parents complains to the school. The principal punishes the dodgy salesperson but simultaneously would like a cheap iPhone for themselves.
26. The Harry Potter Fanatic
The Harry Potter fanatic is under the deluded belief that they are attending Hogwarts. They have assigned a Hogwarts character to every teacher and student in the school. The Harry Potter fanatic spars with their unique clique of fellow Harry Potter enthusiasts, over who in the group should be Harry. The Harry Potter fanatic has taken the online quiz that reveals your Hogwarts house umpteen times until they were designated Gryffindor house. Attending a school with muggles does have its challenges for the Harry Potter fanatic. Firstly, other students crudely refer to them as a ‘Pothead’. Secondly, a handful of their fellow students chant Lord Voldemort’s name aloud, causing much distress for the Harry Potter fanatic who mentally designates the offending commenters to Slytherin house. Finally, the Harry Potter fanatic enjoys borrowing the Harry Potter book series from the school library. Another student has already trawled through the books and changed each ‘wand’ to ‘wang’ causing great pain for the Harry Potter fanatic. Some sentences now read, “Your father, on the other hand, favoured a mahogany wang. Eleven inches”.
27. The IT Whizz
This student’s level of knowledge about all things computers surpasses that of the school employed, IT worker. If a teacher requires a computing problem remedied, they bypass the IT worker and seek this student. When the IT whizz graduates, the school deviates from the standard employment processes and hires the IT whizz. They seamlessly become the school’s youngest employee. They also happen to be busier than all of the teachers. The IT whizz develops a monk-like patience when explaining computer fixes to the teachers who ask questions along the lines of “Where is the any key?”
28. The Accident-Prone Student
This student sits tucked away in a corner of the schoolyard minding their own business. A stray ball is kicked into the air, hovering above the yard filled with one thousand students. Like a heat-seeking missile, the ball defies the laws of physics and heads straight towards the accident-prone student, striking them on the head. Fortunately, the hit isn’t overly painful as they already have a numb lump on their head from last week’s school assembly. They had carefully traversed the few steps leading up to the stage, whilst one thousand students’ eyes were focused in on them. Inevitably, the accident-prone student stumbled on the last step and face-planted onto the stage, in front of the principal’s feet, banging their head on the school lectern. The accident-prone student’s lack of co-ordination extends to non-stair surfaces. They have the impressive ability to trip on a completely flat, concrete floor.
29. The Fake ID Procurer
This student incessantly brags to their friends about their ability to obtain fake IDs. After gathering all of the necessary names and photos, the fake ID procurer promises to deliver each of their friends a high-quality fake ID within a week. After six months have passed and the student’s friends have started to turn 18, the fake ID procurer distributes poorly made knockoff IDs, produced on Microsoft Word and written in Comic Sans font, retaining the red, wavy, spelling mistake line beneath the words. The IDs are essentially cut out pieces of paper. Not only this but the fake ID procurer, has also mismatched the names and photos.
30. The Student Who Always Has a Runny Nose
Every school has one student who always seems to have a cold. Every time you see them, they are sniffing, clutching a tissue, have visible mucus discharge and have a nose redder than Rudolf. This student becomes ostracized during the COVID pandemic as everyone naturally assumes they have COVID and stays clear of them.
31. The Animal Hoarder
By day, the animal hoarder attends school. It is here that they are constantly on the lookout for stray insects or birds that make their way into classrooms. The animal hoarder will banish the class from their room and engage in some Wile E. Coyote like scheme to catch the trapped animal, often at the expense of the tidiness of the room. The animal hoarder will take the trapped animal home with them, to their rented house teeming with other injured wildlife. Food is left out, water is given and mouth-to-mouth is provided from the animal hoarder to the said animal. The animal hoarder frequently arrives at school covered head-to-toe in scratches. They fear some animal rescue organisation discovering their shanty menagerie at home so they must create some fanciful story to explain the origin of their scratches, “er… my parents are causing them”. The animal hoarder’s parents are removed and the animal hoarder replaces them with an abundance of stray cats. The neighbourhood children who walk by the house create folktales about the animal hoarder, portraying them as some mythological, villainous character.
32. The Mystery Farter
The class sit silently, staring blankly at the teacher who waffles on at the front of the classroom. An audible sound suddenly emanates from the rear of the room followed by a nauseating smell. The mystery farter has struck again. In what has become a school-wide mystery, approaching the intrigue of a Sherlock Holmes puzzle, there is a chronic, unknown farter on the loose. A few students in the general vicinity of the fart are accused of being the instigator but they naturally deny all accusations. After months of pungent farts by the same incognito student, the mystery farter eventually slips up. They fart in the corner of the classroom and their position is triangulated by three independent witnesses who can determine the direction of the fart. Much like the stench, the evidence for the culprit’s identity becomes overwhelming. They are outed. Like a murder mystery novel, the perpetrator was the person everyone least suspected- a shy, introverted type.
33. The Teacher’s Pet
The lesson has started and the teacher has forgotten about today’s test as well as the assignment that was due. The teacher’s pet raises their hand causing the entire class to freeze. The teacher’s pet proudly exclaims “We have a test today and our assignment is…” Mid-sentence, the student sitting next to the teacher’s pet pretends to hug the teacher’s pet by extending an arm around them. They continue this motion and cover the teacher’s pet’s mouth to gag them. It’s too late. The teacher has been reminded of the test and assignment.
34. The Covert Computer Gamer
The covert computer gamer simply views school as an impairment to becoming a full-time, professional gamer. They secretly play Call of Duty on their laptop during maths class. The teacher’s eyes scan across the class. They observe a sea of disinterested faces experiencing the monotony of solving trigonometric equations. The gamer’s face is different. They are wide-eyed, focused and generally too riveted for someone supposedly partaking in mathematical calculations. Just as the gamer has missions on Call of Duty, the teacher conjures up their own mission- to catch the gamer in the act. With the stealth of a soldier in Call of Duty encroaching on their enemy, the teacher quietly tiptoes around the classroom and sneaks up behind the gamer. “Got you!” exclaims the teacher. The gamer quickly retorts by claiming that a pop-up ad opened up on their screen and interrupted their trigonometry, which incidentally, they were experiencing oh so much joy in solving.
35. The Japanese Exchange Student
The Japanese exchange student doesn’t speak a word of English yet shares a common bond with their new classmates that transcends words- a crippling addiction to technology. The exchange student brought the unreleased iPhone 15 with them from Japan which is simultaneously the world’s largest phone and world’s smallest tablet. It also doubles as a PlayStation 6. The Japanese exchange student has a glut of ultra-modern gadgets that won’t be available to western consumers for 5 years.
36. The Music Student
The music student originally played a woodwind instrument but they grew tired of the incessant double entendre from the other students hence they made the switch to playing the double bass which has instead proven to be large and overly cumbersome. The double bass accompanies them on the school bus each day causing a blockage part way up the aisle, forcing students to clamber over the enlarged instrument. After school, the music student is invited to the mall by their friends. The music student’s friends have to contend with the music student lugging around a 50kg case and instrument. It knocks over shop displays, tramples fellow mall-goers and raises the suspicions of shopkeepers who suspect that some sort of Trojan Horse-style scheme is unfolding to steal goods. The music student isn’t invited to the mall again.
37. The Hipster
The hipster arrives at school on their fixed gear bike. They narrowly avoided being mowed down by a semi-trailer on their way to school as a result of purchasing a bike without a crucial component known as ‘brakes’. The hipster wears glasses with no lenses and goes to extraordinary lengths to dress like a homeless person, paying a small fortune for their raggedy outfit. During class, the hipster uses outdated forms of technology such as a Walkman and a typewriter in order to appear ironic. They enjoy unearthing new underground indie bands whilst browsing MySpace. At lunchtime, the hipster eats their artesian avocado toast with a fresh sprinkling of quinoa. The hipster prides themselves on being individualised and has developed very specific tastes, just like the millions of the other hipsters on planet earth.
38. The Absentee
This student shows up so irregularly, the teacher has stopped calling their name on the roll. The absentee appears at school on one random day a year. The other students introduce themselves to the absentee, with the mistaken belief that they are a new student in the school. The absentee surprises everyone by recalling every student’s name. The other students are envious of the absentee’s lack of school attendance until they realise that the absentee can’t string a proper sentence together.
39. The Tagger
The tagger’s downwards spiral into vandalism began in their formative years. They borrowed ‘Where’s Wally?’ (Where’s Waldo?) from the school library and using a thick, permanent, black marker, circled each Wally (Waldo) in the book before returning it. The tagger gradually transitioned into scrawling their tag all over their diary before graffitiing it on every available surface across the entire school. As the tagger’s tag simply consisted of their full name, they were quickly apprehended by the school’s detective (also doubling as the science teacher). The tagger argued that their graffiti was in fact art. The school detective responded that the tagger was anti-art. They cited the fact that the tagger themselves graffitied an ‘F’ on a sign preceding the words ‘ART ROOM’. The tagger’s locker was cut open revealing a cache of stolen goods. This included a bag containing a letter ‘S’ taken from each keyboard in the school. Hereby the long-running mystery was solved regarding why the entire student body had failed to use this crucial letter in their essays this year. The tagger ended up in juvenile prison but they would eventually gain fame thanks to appearing on a reality TV show filmed in juvie that glamourised the teenage, criminal life.
40. The Brooding Poet
The brooding poet regularly jots down their innermost nihilistic thoughts in haiku form. They read exclusively Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche. The brooding poet has a hatred for every subject on the school curriculum bar English. They particularly enjoy the creative writing branch of English and find great purpose in explaining with their writing that nothing has purpose. When the brooding poet’s class is dictated an English novel to read over the course of a term, the brooding poet completes the book in one night, much to the annoyance of their classmates. Their subsequent essay on the novel explains how the protagonist lived a futile existence and was doomed to failure by the text’s opening lines by virtue of being human.
41. The Student Who Hates Reading
This student is the antithesis of the brooding poet. They detest English with a passion. Despite having an entire term to read the prescribed English subject novel, they fail to progress beyond page 1. In order to write the requisite essay and appear at least semi-versed on a text they know nothing about other than what the blurb and first page informs them, they watch the movie adaptation of the book. The downfall in this student’s scheme lies in referring to actor Colin Firth part-way through their essay. The anti-reading student is blissfully unaware of the divergences between the movie and the novel, much to the mirth of the English teacher. When this student encounters a Shakespearean play, for which there is no Hollywood adaptation, they observe their teacher’s enthusiasm for the Bard and recycle a sentence that all English teachers love. “Shakespeare is as relevant now as he was then”. This sentence alone earns them a passing grade.
42. The Actor
This student’s acting oeuvre entails just one performance- sitting in the background of an ad played on a community TV station. Despite only the upper, rear of their head being visible, from the actor’s perspective, they are more deserving of an Oscar for best actor than Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in Joker. The actor dislikes Hollywood actors for being too cliché. Instead, they tell their fellow students that they idolise niche, arthouse thespians (a comment which their fellow students misconstrue as an insight into their sexual orientation). Whilst partaking in regular conversations with their fellow classmates, the actor makes sure everyone knows that they are a serious actor by overly articulating normal sentences whilst simultaneously using over-the-top hand gestures. These idiosyncrasies lead to a surplus of airborne saliva when they speak and a wide berth around them when they motion their hands. In the lead up to playing a mentally ill Blanche in the school production of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, the actor thinks of themselves as a method actor. This causes great suffering to anyone in close proximity to them.
43. The Secret Studier
This secret studier has developed just one interest in life- studying. They lack any other hobbies and any skerrick of a social life. This student spends every waking hour fixated on their unhealthy, single mindset. Every lunchtime, they sprint across the schoolyard to the library. Their parents, teachers and peers put obstacles in their way to thwart their obsession with learning, yet invariably, the secret studier resists. The secret studier’s parents leave their child home alone during a long weekend with a fridge bursting with alcohol. When the parents return, the alcohol remains untouched, no-one has entered the house and the secret studier is content that they’ve had an entire long weekend of undisturbed studying. The secret studier’s parents buy them computer games and comic books in the hope of luring them to the dark-side. The secret studier hides their calculus textbook within their comic book and continues studying in secret so those around them believe they are reading comics. Additionally, they study on the computer and switch tabs to a computer game when their parents walk by.
44. The Surfer
The wavy, bleached-haired surfer has a unique attendance record at school. In a remarkable case of psychic prowess, the geography teacher is able to predict when the surfer will come down with an ailment and thus be absent. The geography teacher has devised a formula. When there are strong winds and large waves, the luckless surfer seems to suffer from an illness and miss school. It happens to be a coincidence that the local swell is pumping on these days. When the wind is still and the surfer appears at school, they enjoy informing their fellow classmates of the time they almost got bitten by a shark….well, they saw a shark…actually, it may have been seaweed. The surfer is placed into the remedial English class as their slow voice, unique accent, swathe of colloquialisms and slow processing speed are misconstrued. The teachers believe that these traits of the surfer are the result of a minor neurological disorder.
45. The Identical Twins
The identical twins spend their time trying to convince anyone who will listen, how different they are. Detrimental to the identical twin’s argument is the fact that they speak these words in unison. The identical twins have worked out an academic perk that accompanies being an identical twin. Twin A can study for the maths exam and sit the exam for both themselves and twin B. Twin B can study for the English exam and sit it for both twins. The identical twin who is half-an-hour older coattails on their seniority for their entire life. Numerous students approach the twins daily and make the same comment that they deem to be unique, “If I punch you, will your twin feel it?”
46. The Student with Seven Grandmothers
This luckless student has suffered an unfortunate spate of family deaths during the school year. Their first grandmother died in February (incidentally the day their English assignment was due). Their second grandmother died in March (by chance on the due date of their geography assignment). During April the hapless student lost their third Grandmother (again coinciding with their English assignment’s due date). After a succession of more grandmother deaths, the student’s skeptical and heartless teachers gather. They calculate that the poor student has claimed a total of seven grandmother deaths this year alone. Rather than showing an ounce of empathy, the callous teachers punish the student who has already suffered such a grief-stricken school year.
47. The Prankster
The prankster’s proverbial trick bag is full to the brim with whoopee cushions, plastic wrap for placing on toilet seats and the mobile number of every teacher in the school. The piece de resistance in the prankster’s oeuvre is their carefully crafted senior prank (muck up day). The prankster devotes more time to this prank than time allotted to studying for their end-of-year exams. This final prank, which involves fire as a central theme, results in the destruction of copious amounts of school property. The police arrive on the scene alongside a local news crew doing a segment as part of their ongoing focus on out-of-control teens. The prankster is banned from attending the school’s graduation ceremony. The school, who never want to see the prankster again, are torn over whether to force them to repeat the year as punishment for their over-the-top prank. The prankster ultimately repeats their final year at another local school that fails to do background checks on new students.
48. The Teacher’s Child
This student has but one simple objective in life- to keep the secret from their fellow students that their parent doubles as the mortal enemy- a teacher at the school. The teacher’s child believes that their life will be irreparably ruined if the other students learn of this information. The teacher parent is forced to take the covenant pinky swearing oath that the student believes has legal bearing. “I hereby swear not to tell anyone that we are related”. There are a string of events that lead to the teacher’s child being outed. 1. The teacher’s child arrives at school one hour before any other student as a product of their daily carpooling with the teacher parent. 2. The teacher’s child conspicuously averts eye contact every time the teacher parent walks by in the schoolyard. 3. The teacher parent and student have near identical looking faces. 4. The teacher parent and student share the same, unique surname.
49. The Fluent Spanish Speaker
Despite speaking flawless Spanish, the fluent Spanish speaker is forced to sit through a tedious beginners-level Spanish class that largely involves watching their classmates attempting to learn how to count to 10. Over the end-of-year holidays, the classmates forget how to count to 10 in Spanish and as the next school year begins, the language teacher again devotes the year on educating them to comprehend these basic numbers. Incidentally, the Spanish teacher knows very little Spanish and mainly teaches Home Economics and PE. They lied on their teaching application form in order to gain employment. No-one at the school knows of the Spanish teacher’s ineptitude at speaking Spanish other than the fluent Spanish speaking student. The Spanish teacher informs the fluent Spanish student that they speak a different regional dialect of Spanish that thwarts any conversing.
50. The Emotionally Mature Student
This student has the mind of a 90-year-old and they find it wildly infuriating dealing with the gamut of immaturities that accompany teenagers. Their favourite pastimes involve rolling their eyes and sighing with derision at the juvenile antics of their peers. The emotionally mature student can relate much more to the teachers than to the students. This student tries their best to spend their lunchtime with the teachers. This involves either: A. Following a teacher around on yard duty, B. Sitting next to the teacher in the classroom and talking about how immature the other students are or C. Hovering outside the staffroom and latching onto teachers when they exit. If the emotionally mature student observes any behaviour by their peers that they deem to be infantile, they will reprimand the offending student. The emotionally mature student has to be regularly reminded that they aren’t a teacher and therefore don’t have the power to hand out detentions.
51. The Essay Outsourcer
The essay outsourcer pays a fee for some person in a third world country, who speaks English as a second language to write their essay. The essay writer learnt English by watching reruns of Jersey Shore, unaware that most English speakers would find the Jersey Shore lexicon rather exotic. As a result, the essay on pre-industrial England has a befuddling writing style with repeated references made to gym, tanning and laundry and a mythical creature named Snooki. The essay outsourcer has considerable amounts of money to spend on a narrow, passing D grade.
52. The Artist
The artist is the proud owner of a set of 200 Derwent pencils that cost a small fortune, summing a total manyfold more than the artist is likely to earn from their artworks in their lifetime. The artist spends every waking moment doodling. Their tongue protrudes sharply from the corner of their mouth as they focus. Any scrap of paper in their vicinity has been tattooed with a collage of drawings swarming together, namely featuring anime characters. The artist hand up their doodles to the teacher. The teacher exclaims, “These are amazing! You have a real natural talent. You definitely deserve an ‘A’…except these drawings were done on your maths test and you didn’t actually answer any of the maths questions so I have to fail you”. The artist is the only person that can accurately pronounce Van Gogh’s name. They also claim to know the true identity of Banksy but they keep this a secret.
53. The Test Cheater
This student is consistently striving to be one step ahead of the teachers when it comes to cheating at tests. They have tried scribbling the answers on their skin, covered by rolled up sleeves. Notes are written on their smart watch and on the inside of their water bottle’s label. This student has developed a coded method to communicate answers amongst their fellow test takers involving an elaborate system of coughing ala ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ style. The test cheater takes toilet breaks every 30 minutes in order to look up the test answers in the text book stashed away in the toilet’s cistern. Additionally, they have contacts in the year levels above who have sat the tests previously. The test cheater knows that a specific teacher provides the same questions every year and thus the test cheater memorises these answers. Post-test, the teacher speaks to the test cheater, “Congratulations, you got perfect marks!….These are the words I would be saying if you had sat last year’s test, however you simply filled in last year’s answers to this year’s new questions”.
54. The Student of Few Words
The student of few words spends the entire school year mute. One day a year, they utter a one-liner that has the entire class rolling around the floor in stitches. They are lauded as a hero for that single day. Their hilarity is short-lived as they again return to muteness for the next 12 months.
55. The Work Avoider
The work avoider spends all school day putting in copious amounts of effort to avoid partaking in anything vaguely resembling work. They conjure up the most creative excuses as to why their assignment wasn’t handed in. After the teacher has reached the end of their tether and the student has claimed that their house was struck by a rare solar flare for the seventh time this month, the work avoider is given a punishment. They are instructed to handwrite 100 lines consisting of the same phrase- ‘I will do my work’. Invariably, they tape 10 pencils together to get the job done faster.
56. The Good Samaritan
The Good Samaritan wakes up before dawn in order to volunteer at the local soup kitchen each morning prior to school starting. Once at school, they harass…ahem, ‘ask’, teachers to donate to the charity de jour. Despite regularly passing out in class, the Good Samaritan insists on partaking in the 40 hour famine on a weekly basis. In what can loosely be described as ‘extortion’, the Good Samaritan has convinced their parents to donate their entire wage to a charity that supplies food to those living below the poverty line. In a remarkable twist, the Good Samaritan’s parents now have little food to eat, live below the poverty line and are eligible for the charity’s handouts.
57. The Rich, Shady Student
The rich and shady student’s parents don’t work yet they live in the most bourgeois house in the suburb. Their property is circumferenced by security cameras and patrolled by a team of Rottweilers. Anytime the rich, shady student is asked about the source of their family’s wealth, they cast a stern glare and quickly change the topic to being unsure about which of their family’s 10 dubiously procured sports cars is their favourite. During a parent-teacher interview, the teacher enquires as to what line of work the parents are involved in. In unison, the parents reply “We run a business”. The teacher continues their line of questioning, asking what they sell. Simultaneously the parents reply with differing answers. The mother claims “confectionery”. The father claims “clothing”. This leads the teacher into thinking that the family sell edible underwear.
58. The Student Who Sleeps During Class.
This student views school as an obstacle to gaining 9 hours of daytime sleep. Five minutes into the lesson, the teacher’s monotone voice droning on about the different types of soils acts as a sleep-inducing panacea that should be marketed to insomniacs. The student dozes off. Whilst the expert student sleeper selects a seat that shields them from the teacher’s line-of-sight, the amateurish sleeper will wear a pair of glasses with crassly printed out eyes stuck on to the lenses to provide the illusion of wakefulness. This disguise will only fool the most inattentive or nearsighted teacher. The student sleeper plays a perpetual game of risk by falling asleep in a room crammed full of bored teenagers. This results in the student sleeper departing the classroom blissfully unaware of their new texta moustache.
59. The Dramatic Lovers
The dramatic lovers live out the plot to the Bold and the Beautiful on a reoccurring, weekly basis. The couple begin the week by acting out graphic displays of affection in the school corridors. When their tongues aren’t down each other’s throats, they are swearing their life-long devotion to one another. By mid-week, both lovers have cheated on each other with the other’s best friend, forming some sort of contorted, love-rhombus. By Friday, every student in the school has sided with one of the lovers in the prelude to an imminent WW3. As the weekend arrives, one lover stalks the other by hiding amongst the bushes in their front yard. By Monday, the couple have reunited and are again hooking up in the schoolyard for all to see. This cycle continues ad nauseam.
60. The Mystic
The mystic arrives at school draped in an array of colourful crystals. Each crystal supposedly provides a different power. Unfortunately for the mystic, none of the crystals provide the ability to think scientifically. The mystic rolls their eyes during science class and engages in an argument with the science teacher over the incorrect definitions of ‘energy force’ and ‘quantum’. The mystic regularly informs the science teacher that astrology is the only true science. After much debate, the science teacher calls the mystic the offensive ‘C’ word- Charlatan. The mystic attributes their continual heated arguments with the science teacher to their incompatible star signs. The mystic is an open-minded Scorpio whilst the science teacher is a fiery, Leo. The mystic’s morning horoscope warns of bad events awaiting them that day. As a result of this ominous foreboding, the mystic stays home. The principal phones the mystic’s parents and the mystic is suspended for skipping school. The horoscope was correct- bad things did happen!
Certain people in this world view their job with a unique over-seriousness. Cue the garbage collector who labels their occupation a “Waste disposal engineer” or the lifeguard who bans from the pool: non-Olympic swimmers, balls and laughter. I was recently lucky enough to encounter one of these over-serious job people and the event demanded documentation.
A small crowd of people gathered in front of my house pointing up into the branches of a Eucalyptus. Had the local birdwatchers club migrated along with one of their beloved avian to our street or was some other phenomenon causing this serious infatuation with what otherwise appeared to be a regular-looking tree? Further investigation (reluctantly walking outside) determined that a koala had made its way to our humble street in suburbia, some six kilometres away from their normal abode.
Neighbour, Merody, Melody, Melanie or Merilee (I’m still not certain of her name and I’m sure she was called each of these four variants by various neighbours) had summoned the immediate aid of an Australian wildlife rescue group. A freshly painted station-wagon brandishing the 24/7 animal helpline rounded the corner with purpose before pulling to an abrupt halt in front of my house. The print on said station-wagon mimicked an ambulance and I suspected that the designer of the rescue vehicle concept would love approval for some evocative and street-clearing sirens.
From the state-of-the-art wildlife rescue vehicle emerged this true tale’s protagonist- the Dwight Schrute of the koala rescue sector. Like many characters in this story, I don’t know this person’s name so for memory (and legal) reasons, I will call her Sandra. Sandra was decked in a high-vis jacket and Doc Marten boots. She had matted pink hair teetering on dreadlocks and a face flushed with eagerness. She proudly explained that within the wildlife group, her sole job was rescuing koalas. At this stage, my perceptions of this koala rescue volunteer were positive. She asked for help so I phoned up my Dad- the neighbourhood wildlife handler whose résumé (rap sheet) includes:
1. A 3-hour failed attempt at catching a disorientated duck. It is the internet’s loss that this event wasn’t recorded and uploaded to YouTube alongside the music from the Benny Hill theme.
2. Successfully catching a notoriously quick turtle that was wandering down the street.
3. Informing a 3-year-old who believed they were playing with a small animal that they were actually playing with a rock. The rock then proceeded to walk off.
My Dad prides himself on his local wildlife knowledge and had ironically just completed a voyeuristic koala voyage to Morialta Conservation Park when I phoned him. My Dad answered my phone call whilst driving home (if you are a police official reading this or have a higher judicial status like Sandra then he legally pulled over his car before answering the call).
My Dad pulled up on the scene, appropriately parking his ramshackle, third-hand, Mr. Bean-style car in front of Sandra’s flash, newly-painted rescue station-wagon. Some combinations of people are like opposing magnets, leading to brilliant interactions that demand being documented. My Dad and Sandra were this combination.
My Dad remarked, “This is the first time a koala has been on our street”.
Sandra responded, “No, that’s not true”.
My Dad again attempted to show-off his koala-knowledge by imparting further wisdom, “The koala is on the manna tree which is one of the best for koalas”.
Sandra abruptly said “No, that’s not true”.
Unperturbed, my Dad then tried again, “There is a koala rescue place on ANZAC Highway”.
Sandra bluntly responded “No”.
The ‘conversation’ between Sandra and my Dad was akin to Glenn Robbin’s alter ego, Russell Coight speaking to someone that won’t give him an inch.
My Dad commented “The Gums Reserve would be a good place for this koala”.
Sandra expectedly said “No”.
Like a spider on the precipice of being flushed down the toilet, my Dad tried again, “A ladder might help to reach the koala”.
Sandra interjected, “No”.
This undercurrent of my Dad offering suggestions to Sandra continued for the entire koala rescue experience. On occasions I was unable to hear my Dad’s words to Sandra but could only faintly make out Sandra’s default reply, “No”. At one stage my Dad asked where the bushfire riddled Cudlee Creek koalas were being relocated to. Sandra responded that this was top secret classified information à la Area 51-level confidential.
My Dad informed Sandra that two Eucalyptus trees at the Gums Reserve were recently poisoned by young offenders. Doctors telling their patients they have days to live have reacted more evenly than Sandra. She shouted “Are you serious?” I stepped back in fear that she may take out her anger on the people nearest her. She didn’t and I live to tell this tale.
Neighbour, Merilee then chimed in with a suggestion to Sandra, “I work at the primary school around the corner. Perhaps the koala could be moved to the oval there”. You may have expected Sandra to shoot down Merilee’s koala advice. Instead, Sandra’s eyes lit up as she replied, “That school is hard to get into. We were hoping to get my daughter into that school”. Merilee became Sandra’s new best friend.
Sandra was unaware that despite Merilee claiming that she worked at the local school, she wasn’t a teacher. Nor was she involved in the process of recruiting students via casual, serendipitous encounters at attempted koala rescues. Merilee’s work at the local school only entailed helping out with their finances a couple times a year. Saying she worked at the school was akin to the toilet cleaners at NASA telling people they worked for the famous space agency. As Sandra was under the false impression that Merilee had some influence at the school, Merilee was subsequently treated impeccably by Sandra; almost worshiped like she was some South Asian mystic.
Prior to this point I viewed Sandra as a koala expert. From this time onwards, my opinion on Sandra’s koala catching prowess gradually unravelled. Sandra’s fixation to catch the koala only exaggerated her unorthodox behaviour.
After surveying the situation for 30 minutes (largely involving saying “No” to my Dad’s questions) Sandra phoned for backup and a second koala rescue person arrived who seemed very well accustomed to taking orders from Sandra. With her trusty henchperson as backup, Sandra stepped things up a notch. Anyone even tangentially connected to my street was ordered to return to their houses and crucially not to peek out their windows. The first part of the request I complied with, the second part I circumvented by hiding behind a curtain in my room. Sandra’s new best friend, Merilee, was the only local resident permitted to stay at ground zero.
Sandra then ordered a street-wide ban on photos of the koala (despite taking one herself later on at a critical juncture, mid-rescue). This second order seemed superfluous as the street had already been evacuated by Sandra and no-one was around to hear her orders. Sandra had essentially sent the street into quarantine. The circumstances could now loosely be described as a hostage situation. I peeked out from my curtain with the fear that Sandra would spot me and reprimand me for being too close to the koala despite being inside. The Big Bash cricket game I had been watching lacked the drama, passion and personalities of this koala rescue.
I don’t know what the normal procedure is for catching and relocating koalas. All I know is what followed can’t have been the normal procedure. Three long poles with knapsack like ends were used by the two koala rescue volunteers and the specially selected “Chosen one”, neighbour Merilee. The poles were used to reach into the Eucalyptus and try and catch the koala akin to some arcade game. After 30 minutes it was humans 0, koala 1. Sandra needed help. The very people she had earlier banished from the area she now relied upon.
Sandra began granting verbal house-leave passes to residents on the sole proviso that they provide assistance in this koala fiasco, I mean rescue. Enter my Dad, part two. My Dad made the most of his reinvolvement in the rescue to offer more ideas to Sandra about how to catch the koala. Sandra quite clearly did not appreciate said ideas. My Dad’s attention then shifted to Merilee who was doggedly using the pole to try and coax the koala down. He tried helping Merilee with the pole and Sandra snapped at him explaining that it was Merilee’s pole. My Dad retreated. I made the most of this Dad-Merilee-Sandra trialogue and bravely breached my housebound order. I moved from my house to my front veranda to gain a better angle to enjoy the show (with a useful koala-lacking bush separating Sandra’s sightline from me).
After much deviation from the presumably normal koala catching protocols, Sandra asked my Dad for our family’s help. I was beginning to become aware of Sandra’s raison d’etre: the unbridled yielding of power. I didn’t want to be overtly involved. My name is associated with plentiful failures but this koala rescue wasn’t going to be another one of them. I ducked down from my veranda hiding spot and crawled into the house on all fours; fearful that Sandra may detect my not-so-subtle getaway. I was worried that from her vantage point she would be suspicious that my front door opened and closed by itself. She didn’t notice. Her focus was on figuring out this stubborn bugger (not my Dad, the koala).
Sandra orchestrated a new approach. She requested that my Dad phone up our neighbours to help, neighbours who had previously been banished to their houses. He obliged. Sandra also requested that my Dad bring out a blanket so upon his return to the house, I reluctantly handed him a blanket. I was curious about its usage in a treetop koala rescue. Ultimately our neighbours produced a larger blanket which superseded our puny blanket that was deemed “Not koala rescue worthy”. Our blanket’s inferiority ended up being a blessing as the neighbour’s superior blanket ended up fecally stained.
The scene was now: 3x four-metre-long poles, yielded by Sandra, koala rescue person number two and Merilee, five people, including my Dad, holding an originally white yet now discoloured blanket akin to a fire rescue blanket and a completely cleared street that normally only occurs when the Adelaide Crows are playing. Any witness to this tableau, had they dared venture nearby, would be forgiven for thinking:
A unique human to tree mating process was transpiring in the hope of birthing a human-tree hybrid onto the blanket.
Whilst Cirque du Soleil were practicing, that had become entangled in a suburban Eucalyptus.
A Middle Ages historical re-enactment was playing out featuring disgruntled villagers chasing a misunderstood, shapeshifting witch up a tree.
An anti-tree act was being performed by a tree hating cult.
The option of a koala rescue gone awry would not be considered.
Whenever a person happened to be driving past, an irate Sandra would call out aggressive obscenities, whilst skilfully directing the car with her spare hand (her other hand being pole occupied). This road rage by a pole holding Sandra was unique and bemusing to the motorists. Approximately ten vehicles rightfully slowed down so as to not run over the eight people with poles and a blanket covering the road. Sandra interpreted the vehicles slowing down as hoards of the public trying to catch a glimpse into the inner workings of Australia’s favourite koala catcher- Sandra. Cue the abuse.
Any person that happened to be walking remotely in the vicinity was screamed at by Sandra and directed to turn around 180 degrees. My highlight was the older lady who was walking 100 metres away from the action- on a different road! At her closest point, despite not coming down our road, she was shouted at by Sandra, “Don’t sight-see, keep walking”. Another highlight was Sandra’s comment that she hopes the media don’t get hold of this story. I know that not much newsworthy occurs in Adelaide however a koala rescue is hardly a page one story (I forgot about the reputable media publication ‘The Advertiser’ in which case it is a page one story). Another neighbour approached the scene and asked this clearly struggling group of people if they could use a step-ladder. Sandra wasn’t impressed, although she did recruit this person to be victim number six holding the blanket in case the koala dropped (à la drop-bear). Ultimately, the blanker holders’ task seemed to primarily involve catching poo.
From my hidden curtain vantage point, I saw a look of despondence on one of the blanket holder’s faces. They cupped a hand and held it over their eyes. Their lips didn’t move yet their body language said to me “What life decisions have I made that have led me to this point? The point of standing as a superfluous number, holding a blanket to catch koala faeces”. I interpreted their shielded face as a prelude to an existential crisis. Alternatively, their behaviour including their cupped hand hovering over their upper face may have purely been to block the sun from their eyes.
Another neighbour then approached the group. An elderly man with a thick Italian accent who days earlier informed me of the surprising news that he had “Bought a yacht” (My Dad had later told me that he was saying “Port Elliot”). This Italian neighbour told Sandra that he had a chainsaw and said he would chop the branch down housing the koala. Sandra’s reaction was priceless. I got the impression that she would have liked to use said chainsaw on the Italian neighbour.
A sentient side of Sandra shone through at one stage during the supposed koala rescue mission. Sandra named the koala after our 7-year-old-neighbour who was one of the blanket holders. Considering the high-status Sandra reserved for this specific koala, this was quite the honour. Sandra would later verbally retract naming the koala after the 7-year-old, bluntly stating “The koala is no longer named after you”. Sometimes, rather than giving a child something and taking it away, it is better not to give it to begin with. Alas, this tale is full of life lessons. At another point, the neighbour’s cat wandered by the base of the koala’s tree, flaunting its freedom to the koala. Sandra must not have observed this event as said cat was not redirected by Sandra.
At this stage the entire street were either involved in the koala rescue, abused by Sandra, instructed to remain housebound or some combination thereof. The koala had been chased around the tree by three poles akin to a Three Stooge’s routine. The rescue process had outlasted the Adelaide Striker’s batting collapse fourfold. The only group of people in this city with inferior hand-eye co-ordination to the Adelaide Strikers cricket team were the three people yielding the koala catching poles.
In what I can only attribute to being out of pity, at the 95-minute mark of the ‘rescue’, the koala began to climb partway down the tree. I refuse to subscribe to the theory that this koala’s descent can be attributed to Sandra whispering sweet nothings to the koala (she regularly did this throughout the so-called rescue). At this point, in what can’t be standard protocol, the three poles softly bludgeoned the koala down to the midway-up part of the trunk. In order to remain under the koala, the six people holding the safety ‘catch’ blanket had to run around the tree as the koala switched from side to side. As a result, the blanket got tangled in the trunk of the Eucalyptus due to the sheer number of sentient individuals controlling it, each with their own freethinking mind. In Sandra’s eyes, this was the foreseeable culmination of two hours of work. From carefully handpicking who was worthy of holding the blanket and clearing out the street to re-directing the motorists who were returning to their homes after a day at work. This was the Grand Final moment of this whole saga- the koala’s final descent.
The koala retreated down the Eucalyptus’s trunk to be at eye-level. At this point my Dad took charge of the blanket, ripping it from the hands of the other five patient blanker holders, much to Sandra’s chagrin. My Dad then launched himself at the koala, grasping its furry body in the blanket and in the process stealing Sandra’s limelight. Sandra reprimanded my Dad and tackled the koala off him. After the koala had been contained, my Dad began clapping with his potentially chlamydia laced bare hands, hoping to evoke a spontaneous group applause. No-one joined him. One minute later, my Dad again attempted to reignite the victorious applause. Once again, no one joined him. An hour and a half after the koala had been rescued (bludgeoned), the devoted Sandra still remained outside my house in her wildlife rescue vehicle. When I checked the next morning, the vehicle was gone- I was slightly surprised not to see her giving mouth to mouth to the koala, filling in trans-species adoption papers or trying to convince Merilee to enroll it at the local school.
In the shadow of the epic rescue, my mind turned to how to commemorate such an event. One bold idea stands out. The local council should commission a giant bronze statue of the koala rescue at its peak and erect it in place of the now battered, branchless and almost dead Eucalyptus. I suggest the statue captures the moment of the rescue in which my Dad has the koala pinned down in the blanket against the tree trunk, whilst the other five blanket holders are portrayed with shock on their faces at the blanket being tugged from their hands. Meanwhile, the two non-Sandra four-metre pole holders are bludgeoning the koala with their poles, narrowly missing my Dad. Sandra should be immortalised in gold and should be depicted hitting the four-metre-long pole on my Dad’s head whilst tackling him for the koala.
Personally I would have left the koala in the tree but great entertainment value.
This article is not accusing Kate and Gerry McCann of being responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance or for lying. The McCanns were considered suspects by the Portuguese police at one stage and for completeness, this article examines all theoretical scenarios and attempts to be as neutral and objective as possible.
The Madeleine McCann story weaves together a seemingly ideal, British family unit, photogenic parents and a child who has apparently been abducted. The paradise resort backdrop, frenzied media and public uncertainty over the abduction claims all combine to produce the heart-wrenching yet intriguing true tale of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has been labelled as the most famous missing person case in modern history. The Portuguese police considered Madeleine’s parents as formal suspects at one stage and indeed the public opinion on this theory remains passionately divisive. A YouGov poll conducted in September of 2007, some four months after Madeleine vanished found only 20% of Britons held the belief that Madeleine’s parents were completely innocent. This article intends to neutrally analyse each iota of evidence surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance.
The Prelude
Madeleine McCann was born in 2003 as an IVF baby of Kate and Gerald (Gerry) McCann. She had blonde hair, blue-green eyes and a unique dark strip located on her right iris. Madeleine would grow to hate the nickname ‘Maddie’ and thus she will be referred to as Madeleine in this article. The McCann family later increased by two in 2005 when twins Sean and Amelie were born. The family lived in Leicester, England with Gerry a practising cardiologist and Kate a trained anaesthetist who was working part-time as a G.P. whilst raising the three children. Both parents were devout Roman Catholics and remain so.
Gerry and Kate McCann
In 2007, friend of the McCann family David Payne, organised a 7-night holiday to Praia da Luz, Portugal for his clique. Attending the holiday along with the McCann family would be: David Payne and Fiona Payne, who were both physicians, along with their two children and Fiona’s mother- Dianne Webster. Also attending were Jane Tanner who worked as a marketing manager, Jane’s partner, Russell O’Brien who was a physician and their two children. Rounding out the group were physician Matthew Oldfield, his wife, lawyer Rachael Oldfield and their daughter. The total group encompassed 9 adults and 8 children. The collective group of adults, minus Kate and Gerry would be dubbed the “Tapas seven” by the media, named after the Tapas restaurant which the group often frequented in Portugal. The group arrived in Praia da Luz, Portugal on the 28th of April 2007, just two weeks short of Madeleine’s 4th birthday. Sean and Amelie were 2 years and 3 months old at the time of the holiday.
The ‘Tapas seven’ consisting of Jane Tanner (left), Fiona Payne (top row, left), Matthew Oldfield (top row, middle), Rachael Oldfield (top row, right), Russell O’Brien (bottom row, left), Diane Webster (bottom row, middle) and David Payne (bottom row, right). (Source: Image PA)
Praia da Luz is a resort town in southern Portugal.
Praia da Luz which translates from Portuguese as ‘Beach of the Light’ is a civil parish located within the municipality of Lagos which in itself sits within the Algarve region of Portugal. Praia da Luz skirts the boundary of the Atlantic Ocean, not far from the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Its population is around 3,500 however visitors balloon this number in the summer months. There is a typical resort feel to Praia da Luz, with white coloured buildings with terracotta tiles peppering the sweeping hills producing views over the sea. The sandy beaches provide a magnet for tourists with a high density of British holidaymakers descending on the area. The McCann holiday occurred at the close of April, meaning it avoided the peak tourist period. The holiday would be held at the Ocean Club resort.
Praia da Luz beach, (Source: Portugalresident.com)
The Ocean Club resort (Source: Express.co.uk)
The holiday panned out largely as expected until May 3rd. The hours leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance are worthy of documenting. At 5:00pm, the crèche nannies brought Madeleine and the twins to the Tapas area to eat their dinner. At around 5:40pm, Kate, Gerry and their children arrived back at their apartment. Gerry then took part in a social, men’s tennis tournament at 6:00pm. At 6:30pm, Tapas 7 member David Payne checked on Kate to determine if she needed help getting her children ready for a group play date. Kate decided to opt out of this event due to Madeleine feeling tired. Whilst visiting the McCanns’ apartment, Payne became the last Tapas 7 member to see Madeleine alive and well. Gerry returned from the tennis matches at 7:00pm and the McCann children were put to bed in the apartment.
The McCanns’ apartment is denoted by the red rectangle. The Tapas restaurant is in the centre of the image, beneath the pool. (Source: Portugalresident.com)
The red cross indicates the front door of the McCanns’ apartment. The green cross represents the location of a side gate, leading to the back door of the McCanns’ apartment. The yellow cross shows the entrance to the Tapas restaurant complex.
At 8:35pm, Kate and Gerry arrived at the nearby Tapas restaurant, leaving their children alone, asleep in the apartment. Gerry checked on his children at 9:05pm. This was the last time someone would see Madeleine. Whilst exiting the apartment, Gerry spoke to fellow holidaymaker Jeremy Wilkins. At 9:25pm, Tapas 7 member Matthew Oldfield and Kate stood up from the restaurant table simultaneously to check on the children. Oldfield offered to check on the McCann children as well as his own children. He saw the McCann twins but didn’t enter the children’s bedroom to determine if Madeleine was in her bed. At 10:00pm, Kate checked on the McCann children and noticed that the bedroom window was open, the shutters were raised and Madeleine was missing. Kate returned to the Tapas restaurant in extreme distress.
‘X’ marks the Tapas restaurant table that the Tapas 9 ate at. The Tapas restaurant dining area is on the left side of the image and the Tapas bar is on the right of the image. The McCanns’ apartment is behind the photographer.
The widely used process of separating witnesses and questioning them independently didn’t take place. Rather, the Tapas group compiled one timeline collaboratively. It should be noted that the Tapas group didn’t wear watches or bring mobile phones to dinner at the Tapas restaurant. There are various iterations of the above timeline in circulation, partially due to subsequent police or media interviews of Tapas group members and others in the vicinity of the restaurant at the time.
A collaborative effort to recall a precise timeline would naturally be challenging as the Tapas group were 9 regular people sitting around on holiday, eating, drinking and chatting. They would have likely experienced one of the most traumatic nights of their life and details are bound to be misremembered. In a future section, I will be discussing inconsistencies in the timeline in more detail as well as whether these inconsistencies are a natural product that would apply to anyone in the Tapas 9’s position or indeed a by-product of lying.
The Aftermath
In the hours following the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) arriving on the scene, Inspector Goncalo Amaral became the co-ordinator of efforts to find Madeleine. There is a general consensus that efforts to find Madeleine in the first days of the investigation were lacklustre and that numerous forensic and missing child procedures were delayed, skipped or inadequate. Roadblocks were only put in place at 10:00am on May 4th and Interpol took five days to issue a worldwide missing person alert. There was a significant delay before border police and marine police were issued a description of Madeleine. The PJ didn’t request motorway surveillance footage in the vicinity. Many people staying at the Ocean Club resort weren’t interviewed. There was a lapse in interviewing nearby residents. The crime scene in apartment 5a wasn’t secured for some time resulting in approximately 20 people entering the apartment before it was taped off. Dusting of the outside of the bedroom window for fingerprints involved an officer not wearing protective clothing or gloves. In essence, the disappearance of Madeleine may have reached some definitive outcome if more rigorous policing and missing child procedures were followed.
The person dusting Madeleine’s bedroom window for fingerprints isn’t wearing a glove on her dusting hand. (Source: telegraph.co.uk)
The person dusting for fingerprints is wearing just a single glove on her non-dusting hand. (Source: telegraph.co.uk)
The immediate reaction after Madeleine’s disappearance involved a large-scale search effort for her by locals and police alike with the optimistic theory abound that she had simply wandered off. At 2:00am on May 4th, two patrol dogs were brought to the scene and at 8:00am four search and rescue dogs arrived. GNR officers and residents searched wells, caves, ruins, open road works and waterways in the early hours of May the 4th. In the first 24 hours of the search, a total of 130 police and emergency service workers searched for Madeleine. In the 24 hours after that, the number of searchers in an official role ballooned out to 300. In the weeks that followed, a total of 700 people were interviewed, 112 employees of the Ocean Club were questioned and 443 doors were knocked on.
Immediately after Madeleine vanished, Kate kicked and punched walls angrily, causing her to be covered in bruises. She also repeated the phrase “we’ve let her down”. Over time, Kate became angry at the helplessness of the situation she faced. After a Portuguese documentary was released alleging that Madeleine had died in apartment 5a with Kate and Gerry staging the abduction, Kate’s crisis counsellor told of Kate’s devastation. Gerry had to quit his job for some time to care for Kate. Kate’s sister-in-law mentioned that Kate couldn’t face daily life.
On the 7th of September 2007, some 4 months after Madeleine disappeared, Kate McCann was declared an arguida (a formal suspect) by the PJ and Gerry was similarly named an arguido. The McCanns returned to the UK on the 9th of September 2007. On the 2nd of October 2007, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral was removed from the lead investigative role in Madeleine’s disappearance. This followed him informing a newspaper that the British police only followed leads that were helpful to the McCann family. The McCanns’ arguido status was removed by the PJ in July of 2008 when the Portuguese Attorney General shelved the case, citing a lack of evidence. This erasure of arguido status hasn’t formally excluded Kate and Gerry as suspects.
Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral led the police in their search for Madeleine McCann. (Source: The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Netflix)
Part 2- The Sniffer Dogs and DNA
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” – Soren Kierkegaard
From this point henceforth, I will be referring to two distinct theories each provide a differing mechanism for Madeleine’s disappearance. The first is the Policia Judiciaria theory; an idea held at one time by the Portuguese police that Madeleine wasn’t abducted but rather died in apartment 5a and Kate and Gerry were involved in staging an abduction. This theory will be referred to as the PJ theory. The second theory being referred to is the idea that Madeleine was abducted from apartment 5a by a stranger. This theory will be referred to as the abduction theory.
The Sniffer Dogs’ Background
In July 2007, British dog handler, Martin Grime arrived in Praia da Luz with sniffer dogs Eddie and Keela. Eddie is an advanced victim recovery dog aka a cadaver dog. He has the ability to detect human cadaver odours. If Eddie senses such an odour he will bark. An important point almost seldom mentioned by those discussing the case is that Eddie was initially trained to scent bodily fluids including blood. In his report, Martin Grime writes, “’Eddie’ The Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog (E.V.R.D.) will search for and locate human remains and body fluids including blood in any environment or terrain. The initial training of the dog was conducted using human blood and still born decomposing piglets.”
Sniffer dog Eddie.
Other than the scent of human cadaver and/or the scent of human bodily fluids, Eddie will bark for no other reason. Dog handler Grime wrote in his report “In six years of operational deployment in over 200 criminal case searches the dog (Eddie) has never alerted to meat based and specifically pork foodstuffs designed for human consumption. Similarly, the dog has never alerted to ‘road kill’, that is any other dead animal.” The F.B.I. have rated the combination of Grime the dog handler and Eddie the cadaver dog as “two of the best in the law enforcement specialty of canine forensics, able to find evidence everyone else missed.”
Grime has said that there are human graves in which a human body had been placed for only a short period of time and then removed. 40 years after the removal of the body, a cadaver dog has correctly alerted to the location. A Swiss study in 2007 exposed one of 6 squares of carpet to a recently deceased human cadaver for less than 10 minutes. Across hundreds of trials, the 3 dogs tested had an accuracy of 98% (with one dog responsible for most of the failures). Andy Rebmann is a cadaver dog expert who has worked with hundreds of dog handlers across 45 years. He has stated that a well-trained cadaver dog team is “Probably between 90% and 95% reliable”.
The second dog brought to Praia da Luz was Keela. Keela is a crime scene investigation dog (a C.S.I dog). She has the ability to smell human blood. If Keela senses human blood she will place her nose close to the blood spot then freeze in that position like a statue. Keela will only alert to human blood, not human saliva, semen, sweat or other bodily fluids. In training, Keela had accurately identified small amounts of blood on items 36 years old. The FBI invited Martin Grime and Keela to the USA and placed a tiny spot of blood in the centre of a single piece of cloth. This piece of cloth was then washed 3 times and placed in a line amongst 11 other identical pieces of cloth. Keela accurately identified not only the correct piece of cloth but also the precise location on the cloth that the blood spot had been placed.
Sniffer dog Keela.
The procedure of dog handler Martin Grime is to typically let Eddie, the cadaver dog who can also scent blood, search a designated area. If Eddie alerts, it indicates the presence of human cadaver scent or human bodily fluids (blood). Keela the blood dog will then be deployed to the same area. If Keela doesn’t alert to a specific point that Eddie has alerted to, then that specific point likely has cadaver odour. If Keela does alert to the specific point, then the specific point likely has human blood traces.
The Cadaver Dog in Apartment 5a
On the 31st of July 2007, almost 3 months after Madeleine had disappeared, dog handler Martin Grime entered the McCanns’ apartment with Eddie, the cadaver dog. The McCanns hadn’t resided in this apartment since the night Madeleine vanished. Grime describes Eddie’s initial reaction upon entering the McCann apartment, “What I first noticed is that as soon as I came in that the dog was very excited and as a handler I can pick up his body language etc. and it would appear to me that as soon as he has come into the house he’s picked up a scent that he recognises”.
Martin Grime and Eddie are about to enter the McCanns’ apartment.
Eddie initially barks in the corner of Kate and Gerry’s bedroom inside a cupboard featuring large shelves. Eddie barks after sniffing in the air; around the second shelf from the bottom of the cupboard. In Grime’s report, he stipulates that a cadaver wasn’t necessarily in the cupboard, “What we have to be able to understand in a situation such as this is in a hot climate with the apartment being closed down, the scent will build up in a particular area. If there isn’t a scent source in here, i.e. a physical article where the scent is emitting from, any scent residue will collect in a particular place due to the air movement of the flat, the apartment and what I would say in this case is that there is enough scent in that area there for him to give me a bark indication but the source may not be in that cupboard, the source may well be in this room somewhere else but the air is actually pushing into that corner.”
Eddie sniffs in the cupboard located in the McCann parents’ bedroom.
Eddie barks, indicating that he is alerting to the cupboard.
Eddie continued to search the McCanns’ apartment. Grime in his report writes that Eddie was interested in the area behind the sofa in the lounge room. This was despite not having access to this location. When Eddie gains access behind the sofa in the lounge room he barks, indicating a cadaver or human blood odour. Grime describes this specific area as “approximately in the centre of the wall where the window is, just along the tile area between the tiles and the wall”.
Eddie shows interest behind the lounge room couch in the McCanns’ apartment.
Eddie barks indicating an alert behind the couch.
Eddie also gave a soft alert to the garden belonging to 5a. This garden is located outside the window of Kate and Gerry’s room, although downwards about 2 metres.
The red cross shows the area in which Eddie gave a soft alert within the McCanns’ apartment’s garden
Another angle indicating the region in which Eddie provided a soft alert.
The brief video documenting Eddie and Keela searching 5a can be viewed here:
The full video of the sniffer dogs searching all areas can be viewed here:
The Blood Dog in 5a
Eddie alerted to three locations in apartment 5a- the McCann parents’ cupboard, behind the sofa and the garden. Keela the blood scenting dog was therefore deployed to determine if Eddie had alerted to these locations due to human cadaver odour or human blood odour. Keela is the C.S.I. dog with the ability to identify solely human blood. Keela identified “an area of tiles in the living room, next to the window and behind the sofa.” This was in the same area as Eddie. Keela also identified “the lower part of the left white coloured curtain of the window behind the sofa.” In the report Grime produced, he stipulates, “She (Keela) will find blood that’s historically very old and she will find anybody’s blood, any human blood, which is important to make sure that everybody knows.”
Keela the blood scenting dog freezes in this position behind the McCanns’ lounge room couch. This ‘freezing’ process indicates an alert to the scent of blood- specifically where Keela’s nose touches the tiles.
The emergency services and the Ocean Club have both confirmed that no death has even been documented as occurring in apartment 5a. Following the search of the McCann’s apartment 5a, Eddie searched through the apartments of the other members of the Tapas group. This dog scent search was conducted in the same fashion as the 5a dog scent search by Eddie. The Oldfields’ apartment 5b was searched, Jane Tanner and Russell O’Brien’s apartment 5d was searched and the Paynes and Diane Webster’s apartment – 5h. Eddie also searched apartment 4g- the location the McCanns were relocated to post Madeleine disappearance. Eddie failed to alert to a single location in any of these 4 apartments. The only indications given by the dogs belonged to 5a.
Following the disappearance of Madeleine, the McCanns moved from their apartment 5a into the Payne’s apartment for a short period of time. After this brief stay, they moved into another apartment in the Ocean Club resort complex-4g. On July 2nd, they moved to a villa in a separate part of Praia da Luz at 27 Rua das Flores. The PJ obtained warrants to search this villa.
The villa was searched on the 2nd of August and Eddie the cadaver dog alerted to Madeleine’s stuffed toy- Cuddle Cut. Eddie had originally tossed Cuddle Cat around as it was lying in the lounge room however this didn’t count as an alert. When asked about this behaviour of Eddie’s Grime has said “Eddie was given a cuddly toy as a reward in training so reverted to puppy mode. His initial reaction in playing with the toy was not unusual at all.” Eddie later alerted to a cupboard in the villas lounge where officials had relocated Cuddle Cat and when the cupboard was opened, he alerted to the toy. Madeleine had slept with Cuddle Cat up to the time she vanished and post Madeleine disappearance, Kate would carry Cuddle Cat around with her as a reminder of Madeleine. Keela the blood scenting dog failed to alert to Cuddle Cat. In Grime’s report he writes, “The CSI (Keela) dog did not alert to the toy when screened separately. It is my view that it is possible that the EVRD (Eddie) is alerting to cadaver scent contamination.”
Eddie searches the villa that the McCanns were relocated to. In this image, Eddie is alerting to the cupboard.
When the cupboard Eddie alerted to is opened, Madeleine’s toy ‘Cuddle Cat’ is revealed.
The police left the McCanns’ new villa with a box of the McCanns’ clothes and various items belonging to the McCanns. These clothes and items were laid out in a neutral location. Eddie the cadaver dog alerted to Kate’s black and white chequered pants, Kate’s white blouse and Sean’s red t-shirt featuring the image of cartoon planes and the words “UP, UP AND AWAY”. There were reports in the British media that Eddie gave some form of alert to Kate’s borrowed bible however the bible isn’t mentioned in the official report by Martin Grime. Keela the blood dog failed to alert to any of these items. This suggests that cadaver scent may have been present on the items that Eddie alerted to.
Eddie alerts to Sean’s red t-shirt, Kate’s white blouse and Kate’s black and white chequered pants.
The Sniffer Dogs and the McCanns’ Rental Car
Whilst staying in Praia da Luz, the McCanns didn’t originally use a car. 24 days after Madeleine disappeared- on May 27th, they hired a silver Renault Scenic car. This point is important to emphasise- the McCanns only had access to the Renault Scenic hire car 24 days after Madeleine disappeared. On the 6th of August, the police removed this Renault Scenic hire car that the McCanns were continuing to use and brought it to a neutral location- an underground car park situated opposite the PJ’s headquarters in Portimao. Nine other cars were also parked in the same underground car park alongside the McCanns, some of these cars belonged to suspects in Madeleine’s disappearance. All cars were parked between 20 and 30 feet apart from the next car. Dog handler Martin Grime didn’t know who owned any of the 10 cars.
The McCanns’ Renault Scenic hire car that was hired 24 days after Madeleine went missing. (Source: Daily Mail)
Eddie, the human cadaver sensing dog who also identifies human blood was used first. In Martin Grime’s report, he wrote “When passing a vehicle I now know to be hired and in the possession of the McCann family, the dog’s behaviour (Eddie’s) changed substantially. This then produced an alert indication at the lower part of the driver’s door where the dog was biting and barking. I recognise this behaviour as the dog indicating scent emitting from the inside of the vehicle through the seal around the door.” In other words, the cadaver dog whilst still outside of the McCanns’ rental car alerted. This alert occurred by the lower part of the driver’s door. The alert suggested that the scent was being emitted from inside the vehicle. In Martin Grime’s report, he wrote, “It is my view that it is possible that the EVRD (Eddie) is alerting to ‘cadaver scent’ contaminant or human blood scent.” Eddie didn’t alert to any of the other 9 cars in the car park. The McCanns’ Renault Scenic hire car was then moved to another level in the car park.
Eddie sniffs the gap under the driver’s side door of the McCanns’ rental car.
Eddie immediately alerts following sniffing the narrow gap under the driver’s side door of the McCanns’ rental car.
On the following morning of August the 7th, human blood sensing dog Keela was allowed inside the McCanns’ Renault hire car. According to Martin Grime’s report, “the dog (Keela) ‘marked’ an area of the lower right-hand side of the interior part of the baggage compartment of the car”. This area is the boot or trunk of the McCann’s hire car.
Blood scenting dog Keela sniffs the interior, lower-right wall of the boot of the McCanns’ rental car.
Keela freezes in this position, indicating human blood scent on the lower-right wall of the boot.
Keela also “’marked’ the ‘tidy’ compartment [map/glove pocket] on the side of the driver’s door, which was found to contain the car key, the plastic electronic card type, with a key-ring of the Budget rental company”. This second alert of Keela’s was in the small pocket in the door next to where the driver sits that usually houses maps. The key to the McCanns’ hire car was situated in this location at the time.
The McCann’s rental car key was then hidden within a fire bucket containing sand. This fire bucket was placed in a separate part of the underground car park. Keela the blood dog alerted to the key beneath sand within the fire bucket. The fire bucket containing the McCann’s Renault key was moved to a different level of the car park and Eddie the cadaver dog also alerted to the key. As both dogs alerted, this suggests that human blood scent was present on the key. Previous people who had hired the specific silver Renault Scenic the McCanns were using were questioned. No-one reported having a dead person in the car or bleeding whilst in the car.
To reiterate the important information above- The McCann’s hired a Renault Scenic 24 days after Madeleine disappeared. The police placed the Renault Scenic in an underground car park along with 9 other cars. The cadaver sensing dog who also senses human blood alerted to the driver’s door of the McCanns’ hire car. The cadaver dog didn’t alert to any of the other 9 cars. The human blood detecting dog was allowed inside the McCanns’ car for further investigation and alerted to the map pocket area on the inside of the driver’s door which contained the car’s key and keyring. Both the cadaver and human blood dog later alerted to the key when it was placed in a bucket of sand. The human blood dog also alerted to the right side of the boot (trunk) of the McCanns’ hire car.
What do the Sniffer Dogs’ Results Suggest?
There is plentiful information to be gained from the sniffer dogs’ results. This section will determine in which locations it is likely that human cadaver was scented and in which locations human blood was scented. In the McCann’s original apartment in which Madeleine vanished, Eddie the cadaver and blood scenting dog alerted to the cupboard region in the McCann parents’ bedroom. Keela the blood dog did not alert here. In Grime’s report he writes of this location, “The first alert (in the cupboard) was given with the dog’s head (Eddie’s head) in the air without a positive area being identified. This is the alert given by him when there is no tangible evidence to be located [i.e. a physical corpse], only the remaining scent.” Keela, the blood dog failed to alert to this area. The fact that only Eddie located to the McCann parents’ cupboard region, not Keela suggests that the scent of human cadaver was present. Supporting this notion is that when alerting to this area, Eddie had his head in the air, not on some specific location e.g. a surface. The human cadaver scent may have come from another part of the McCann parents’ bedroom or indeed from the cupboard. Supporting this notion is dog handler Martin Grime’s observation that Eddie seemed excited when he entered the apartment and this suggested “as soon as he has come into the house he’s picked up a scent that he recognises”. As the cupboard region in the McCann parents’ bedroom was the only location in 5a that singularly Eddie alerted to. It seems that the cadaver odour may have emanated from the McCann parents’ bedroom into the rest of the house.
Eddie alerted to the cupboard whilst his head was in the air, suggesting cadaver scent may have been circulating in the cupboard, according to Grime.
Also, within the apartment that Madeleine vanished from, there were the alerts behind the sofa in the lounge room. Originally Eddie the cadaver and blood scenting dog was deployed and he alerted. Following this, Keela the blood dog alerted in the same location-behind the sofa. Contrasting the cupboard region alert, this sofa alert seemed to be in a very specific locale. In Grime’s report he writes, “The second alert (sofa) was one where a definitive area was evident. The C.S.I. dog (Keela) was therefore deployed who gave specific alert indications to specific areas on the tiled floor area behind the sofa and on the curtain in the area that was in contact with the floor behind the sofa. This would indicate to the likely presence of human blood.” There was unlikely a cadaver odour in this location behind the couch- solely the scent of blood. This scent of blood seemed to be in areas on or under the tiled floor behind the sofa.
The cadaver dog Eddie alerted in the garden and in Grime’s report, he seems to suggest that a cadaver, not blood smell may be responsible for this alert area, “we can observe that a cadaver odour was detected in the garden adjacent to apartment 5A”.
The locations in apartment 5a that the sniffer dogs alerted to. It should be noted that the cadaver dog alerts to both human cadaver scent and human blood scent.
Whilst searching in the new villa the McCanns were staying in, Eddie the cadaver and blood scenting dog tossed Madeleine’s toy, Cuddle Cat into the air. He later alerted to it. Following this, Keela the blood scenting dog failed to alert to Cuddle Cat. This combination of Eddie alerting and Keela failing to alert suggests that Cuddle Cat smelt of cadaver scent. Within his report, Grime writes, “It is my view that it is possible that the E.V.R.D. (Eddie) is alerting to cadaver scent contamination”. Kate McCann was consistently photographed holding Cuddle Cat in public post Madeleine disappearance. In her diary, Kate wrote that she had washed cuddle cat on the 12th of July 2007 because it had become “filthy” and “smelly”. Cuddle Cat was alerted to by Eddie on the 2nd of August, some 3 weeks after Kate’s documented washing of the toy. In an interview with Oprah, Kate reported that cuddle cat was consistently being washed.
Kate regularly held Cuddle Cat post Madeleine’s disappearance.
In a neutral location, Eddie the cadaver and blood sensing dog alerted to Kate’s black and white chequered trousers, Kate’s white blouse and a t-shirt belonging to Madeleine’s brother, Sean. Keela the blood sensing dog failed to alert to any of these items. This information suggests that human cadaver scent may have been found on these three clothing items.
Eddie alerted to Kate’s black and white chequered pants and Kate’s white blouse.
Eddie also alerted to Sean’s red t-shirt.
Eddie the cadaver and blood sensing dog alerted to the outside of the McCanns’ rental car that was hired by the McCanns 24 days after Madeleine vanished. As a result of this alert, Grime wrote, “It is my view that it is possible that the EVRD is alerting to ‘cadaver scent’ contaminant or human blood scent.” Following this alert by Eddie, Keela who is solely a blood sensing dog alerted to the key to the McCanns’ rental car as well as the right side of the boot (trunk) of their rental car. This information indicates that there was human blood present on the McCanns’ rental car key and human blood present on the right side of the boot of their car. It is also technically possibly that cadaver scent was present in the car however this is uncertain and a false leap in judgement based on the evidence.
Overall, this means there was potentially: human cadaver scent in the McCann parents’ bedroom and in the garden of their apartment. Also, human blood scent behind the sofa within 5a’s lounge. Human cadaver scent on Madeleine’s toy, Cuddle Cat and human cadaver scent on two of Kate’s clothing items as well as Sean’s t-shirt. Finally, human blood scent on the keys of the car the McCanns’ rented 24 days after Madeleine vanished and human blood scent in the boot of this same car.
How Long Does a Cadaver Scent Last?
On the 31st of July 2007, Eddie alerted to the scent of cadaver in the McCanns’ apartment at the Ocean Club- 5a. This was almost 3 months after Madeleine disappeared. The pertinent question that follows is- was it actually possible for Eddie to alert to cadaver scent in the McCanns’ apartment close to 3 months after Madeleine disappeared. The PJ theory of a staged abduction also encompassed Madeleine dying in apartment 5a. Her body was not in the apartment when police officers arrived late on May 3rd yet there was cadaver scent 3 months later. Does this lapse in time rule out the possibility that what Eddie alerted to was cadaver scent?
An informal study has examined how long residual cadaver, blood and hair scent will last in various situations. The items/scents were placed in various locations in a building and dogs checked the building at certain intervals up to a maximum of 13 months. The results of the study were, “Each dog participating in this project was able to find most or all of the locations where the decomposing scent articles had been. We saw dogs, which varied, from full alert and pinpointing to general interest in the room or area.” It should be noted that this informal study wasn’t a complete analogue for the PJ theory of the McCann situation- a recently deceased body being housed somewhere temporarily is quite different from items like “hair mixed with cadaver scent” being placed permanently in a location.
A 2007 Swiss study involved a piece of carpet being placed beneath a clothed, recently deceased cadaver for just 10 minutes. After 65 days, 98% of the sniffer dog trials correctly identified this piece of carpet amongst 6 pieces of carpet.
Dog handler and former Scotland Yard specialist, John Barrett has claimed that Eddie was brought in too late to the McCanns’ apartment. Barrett has said “The crucial scent lasts no longer than a month.” Another dog handler and English police inspector Mick Swindells has also weighed in on this question of how long the cadaver scent lasts, “How long it actually lasts, I’m not sure and I would very much doubt this scent of death would last weeks, month. I think it only lasts hours and a few days under certain circumstances.” Swindells provides some clarification on how long a cadaver scent may last in specific conditions, “If you’ve got an area exposed to high sunlight, hot temperatures, then the scent of death would dissipate quicker than the scent of death say on fabric or on a tiled floor or something like that in a dark room.”
It seems that cadaver scent would vanish quicker with heat, sunlight and open spaces. The scent may linger longer with cooler temperatures, on fabric, on cooler surfaces, away from sunlight, in darkness and in a contained space. Eddie seemed to alert to cadaver scent inside a cupboard in the McCanns’ parents’ room. This fulfils many of the criteria for cadaver scent lingering. The location was inside, away from sunlight, inside an enclosed cupboard that was presumably normally closed with little air circulation. Eddie also alerted to items of the McCanns’ clothing and Cuddle Cat. The clothing items would have been worn outside in the sun on occasions however stored inside, away from sunlight for the bulk of time. Similarly, Cuddle Cat was often carried by Kate outside but spend the majority of time inside. These items consist of fabric and Swindells specifies fabric as a material that may harbour the scent of death for longer periods of time.
The cadaver scent alert provided by Eddie in the McCanns’ apartment of 5a’s garden in curious. The garden is south facing which in the northern hemisphere is conducive to sunlight. The large apartment complex would thus not have provided shade to the garden area. The white walls and building of the apartment would provide a high albedo to increase this sunlight which coupled with the southern Portugal location of plentiful sunlight would produce an extremely high sunlit area. There are virtually no objects providing shade here. If a body was placed underneath the foliage, there is a possibility this odour would be shielded from the sun. The period of time from May to the end of July is the timeframe from Madeleine disappearing to the garden being alerted to by Eddie. These months in Portugal are warm, overlapping with summer and plentiful sunlight and hot weather would be a consequence. The outdoor nature of the location would also mean the odour would dissipate quickly. If Madeleine did die on the evening of May 3rd then there would be little time for the body to be placed in this location for the scent to even build up. All of these factors combined make it unlikely that there was the scent of cadaver still lingering in this area some 3 months later. Alternatively, the cadaver odour may have rubbed on the shaded side of some foliage. Another scenario albeit unlikely involves Madeleine being buried in this garden or towels/bags/other equipment related to her death being buried in the garden and perhaps still buried there producing the recognisable scent almost 3 months later. Presumably there was little disturbance in the garden/dirt area and police eliminated this possibility.
Eddie’s 5a garden alert was in a sunny location, outside. These conditions raise doubts over whether a cadaver scent could still be detected 3 months after a cadaver was removed from the location.
How Long Does It Take for a Corpse to Produce a Detectable Odour?
The PJ theory involves Madeleine dying accidentally in apartment 5a on the evening of May 3rd. There is a lapse in time after death until cadavers are able to produce a recognisable odour for sniffer dogs. Was there enough time for, according to the PJ theory, Madeleine to produce an odour if she died in the apartment on May 3rd? According to the timeline of May 3rd, the McCann family including Madeleine and the twins returned to apartment 5a at 5:40pm. Gerry stays at the apartment briefly before playing in a men’s social tennis tournament at 6:00pm. Gerry’s attendance here is confirmed by the tennis players and coaches statements. Presumably, Madeleine didn’t die in this short period of 20 minutes otherwise Gerry wouldn’t have left to play tennis. The earliest time Madeleine could have conceivably died is probably just after 6pm. Tapas 7 member David Payne leaves Gerry’s tennis match at 6:30pm to go to see Kate in her apartment and reports seeing Madeleine alive and well. He leaves between 6:30pm-7:00pm depending on differing original accounts. The McCann parents arrived at the Tapas restaurant at 8:30pm. Gerry returns to the apartment at 9:05pm. According to the constraints of the timeline, the PJ theory of a staged abduction means that Gerry somehow disposed of Madeleine’s body at this time or prior. This provides a maximum of 3 hours and 5 minutes for Madeleine to have died and produce a cadaver odour according to the PJ theory.
If Madeleine hypothetically died after David Payne visited (6:35pm at earliest) and was disposed of before Kate and Gerry attended the Tapas restaurant for dinner at 8:30pm, this provides a 1 hour 55-minute period of time for Madeleine to theoretically pass away and produce a cadaver scent. Time would also be required to dispose of her body, say a 15 minute walk each way. This reduces the amount of time she would be in the apartment deceased to a maximum of 1 hour 25 minutes. Using these maximum variations of 3 hours and 5 minutes and 1 hour 25 minutes, could a cadaver odour be produced in sufficient time?
A 2007 Swiss study that was briefly mentioned in the above section is relevant to answering this question. Within this study, a human cadaver was used that had been deceased for less than 3 hours. Small squares of carpet were placed beneath the clothed cadaver- in other words there was no direct contact between the corpse and the carpet. The carpet was placed in this clothing contact position for either 2 minutes or 10 minutes. The carpet pieces were then stored in an airtight container. After a period of 35 days, carpet pieces that had just 2 minutes of contact with the clothing of the recently deceased cadaver were placed in a line of 6 carpet squares. Across the 3 cadaver dogs, there was an average accuracy detection of 86%. After 65 days of a carpet piece touching the clothing of a recently deceased cadaver for 10 minutes, the dogs recorded a 98% accuracy. One of the three dog was responsible for most of the failures across the trials. This study suggests that under certain circumstances, a cadaver that had been deceased for just under 3 hours can produce a detectable odour after a greater than 2-month lapse with a 98% accuracy rate by the sniffer dogs.
Another study involved pads being placed for 20 minutes on the abdomen of human cadavers. The time between the person dying and the pad being placed on their cadaver varied between 70 minutes and 3 days. Five dogs were used and the shortest correct response time by a dog in accurately alerting to cadaver scent on the pads was 1 hour and 25 minutes. The period of time all dogs gave consistently correct responses was in the 2.5- 3 hour period.
What do these results tell us regarding the Madeleine McCann case? Firstly, there are too many variables to make definitive conclusions between the studies and the possibility that Madeleine was stored in apartment 5a for a period of time post death. The cadaver itself being placed in an area e.g. a cupboard and thus causing a localised scent is distinct from the transfer ideas that the studies are examining. Having said this, there seems to be more chance that a cadaver dog could accurately identify an area such a cupboard due to both the odour of the entire cadaver circulating in an enclosed area plus the transfer across not just a small area of carpet transfer but along the entire body of the cadaver onto the surface of a shelf. The fact that the second study mentioned referred to one dog gaining correct responses after 1 hour and 25 minutes of time elapsing indicates that it is likely this is a reasonable minimum time Madeleine must have been in the apartment deceased if the PJ’s theory is correct- i.e. this period of time is required for a detectable cadaver odour to form. Based on the timeline in the Madeleine case we established above, the maximum times the McCanns had to dispose of the body was either 3 hours and 5 minutes or 1 hour 25 minutes. These two times were dependent on whether the body was disposed of after the McCanns went to dinner and whether Madeleine passed away after Tapas 7 member David Payne was present in the McCanns’ apartment.
As Gerry reports sighting Madeleine at 9:05pm and Kate noticed her missing at 10:00pm, this maximum 55-minute time frame is too short for an intruder to kill Madeleine in 5a and for the cadaver to produce a recognisable scent.
The Blood Scent in the Boot of the Hire Car
A crucial aspect in the PJ’s case against the McCann parents rested on Keela’s alert to blood scent in the back of the McCanns’ hire car. A Renault Scenic hired 24 days after Madeleine disappeared. The inference is that Kate and Gerry moved Madeleine’s body- they took it from an original hiding spot in Praia da Luz and transported it within the boot of the hire car many weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance. Finally, they hid it somewhere they deemed harder to find.
The boot of the McCanns’ Renault Scenic hire car.
A key question within this PJ theory revolves around why the scent of blood was detected on the right side of the hire car’s boot and on the car’s key. According to the PJ theory, Madeleine was dead for at least 24 days before her body was placed in the hire car boot. After a person passes away, livor mortis sets in and the blood of the deceased becomes set within 6 hours. Put simply, Madeleine couldn’t bleed 24 days or more after dying.
Head of the PJ’s investigation, Goncalo Amaral had a solution to explain why Madeleine’s blood or bodily fluids may have been present in the boot of the Renault hire car as well as on the car’s key. He suggested that Madeleine’s body had originally been stored in a freezer before being moved. In an interview on the 24th of July 2008, Amaral said, “Everything indicated that the body, after having been at a certain location, was moved into another location by car, twenty something days later. With the residues that were found inside the car, the little girl had to have been transported inside it.”
Amaral continues on to explain more of his theory, “Due to the type of fluid, we policemen, experts, say that the cadaver was frozen or preserved in the cold and when placed into the car boot, with the heat at that time (of the year), part of the ice melted. On a curb, for example, something fell from the trunk’s right side, above the wheel. It may be said that this is speculation, but it’s the only way to explain what happened there.”
Amaral specifically believed that another apartment in the Ocean Club resort contained a freezer that was housing Madeleine’s body. Amaral has said, “There was information that the couple (Kate and Gerry) had been seen walking towards a certain apartment block, we were trying to understand which apartment it was. Who had access to that apartment? But everything stopped.” Amaral believes his team was close to determining where Madeleine’s body had been stored in a freezer in the Ocean Club complex before he was pulled from the case.
Amaral worked on another case in 2004- the disappearance of Joana Cipriano. This was prior to the Madeleine McCann disappearance. In Cipriano’s case, Amaral and his team alleged that Cipriano’s body had similarly been stored in a refrigerator.
There are numerous flaws within Amaral’s theory that Madeleine was stored in a freezer within the Ocean Club. Firstly, if Madeleine had died in apartment 5a, it is a rather big leap for the McCann parents to decide to store her body in their friend’s Ocean Club freezer. It also seemingly serves no purpose. It would be unlikely that the body would fit into the freezer and just as unlikely that members of the Tapas 9 would agree to such a request- something that would seriously implicate them in Madeleine’s death. The Tapas 9 also didn’t remain in the Ocean Club apartments indefinitely. They remained for just several weeks after Madeleine disappeared. A cadaver in a freezer would also cause a pungent odour when the next guests were to use it. For these reasons, it is almost impossible that Madeleine was stored in a freezer.
Amaral’s peculiar theory does raise the question of how human blood scent ended up in the McCanns’ Renault hire car. Eddie and Keela both alerted to blood on the Renault’s key and Keela was the only dog that entered the Renault and alerted to blood on the boot’s wall. Madeleine would have stopped bleeding 6 hours after death and the Renault was hired 24 days after she disappeared. There is a possible scenario that dry blood from Madeleine’s body was in contact with the boot’s inner wall thus transferring the scent. There is also the possibility that the dry blood on Madeleine’s body emitted a smell in the Renault that was later detected by Keela. I am unable to find any studies documenting whether these scenarios are even plausible when it comes to the limits of blood detection dogs. Another theory is that someone poured water on Madeleine’s blood to try and wash it off her body when she was being moved. Overall, the blood scent detected in the hire car and on the hire car keys may provide more questions over the PJ’s theory than answers.
Arguments Against the Sniffer Dogs’ Results
There have been many possible reasons put forth by those who support the McCann parent’s innocence to doubt the accuracy of the sniffer dogs’ results. Equally there have been numerous innocent reasons provided to explain why such smells were picked up by the sniffer dogs. Gerry’s brother-in-law, Alexander Cameron stayed with the McCanns for a period of 12 weeks post Madeleine disappearance. He was added to the rental car agreement as a driver of the McCanns’ Renault scenic. Cameron reports that in July he brought food home from the supermarket including fresh shrimp, fish and beef. He placed these items in the boot of the McCanns’ rental car and blood leaked out. There was subsequently a strange odour in the Renault. The carpet in the boot of the car was eventually cleaned. This odour will be discussed in more detail in a subsequent section. An argument against this explanation for blood scent in the hire car is that the sniffer dogs are trained to detect human blood only.
There were some bleeding incidents in apartment 5a prior to the McCanns’ stay. A couple rented 5a a month prior to the McCanns. Their 3 and half year-old daughter cut her chin at the Kid’s Club badly enough to require stitches and may have subsequently bled in the apartment. Another couple, Paul and Sally Gordon stayed in the McCanns’ apartment just prior to the McCanns’. Paul cut himself shaving and then walked around the apartment with tissues for 45 minutes trying to stop the bleeding. These two stories are almost certainly not the cause of the blood alerts behind the sofa in the lounge of 5a. They do provide a reminder that hundreds of people would stay in apartment 5a each year and any of these people could theoretically be responsible for the blood and cadaver odours in the apartment. There were also 4 sets of people who stayed in apartment 5a after Madeleine’s disappearance and prior to the sniffer dogs being deployed; any of these people could have been responsible for the dogs alerting.
A source close to the McCanns’ solicitors claimed the cadaver scent that was detected on Kate’s clothes could be explained by Kate’s role as a GP and thus her contact with corpses. An argument against this point involves the cadaver studies mentioned above. Namely the deceased needing to have passed away for at least 1 hour and 25 minutes before a recognisable cadaver scent is produced. It also seems unlikely that a GP would be dealing with patients this long after their death. Furthermore, Kate may have needed to press down on the patients for a prolonged period of time to pick up a cadaver scent- not just touch them briefly like a doctor typically would.
Former dog handler and English police inspector Mick Swindells has worked with Martin Grime and his sniffer dogs. Swindells has commented on the McCann case stating that he did “express his concern” at the manner in which Eddie, the cadaver dog alerted to several of the McCanns’ personal belongings.
If the conventionally accepted timeline documenting the movements of the McCanns and Tapas group is correct, then there is little time for Madeleine to have died, remained in apartment 5a for greater than 1 hour and 25 minutes and then removed by a McCann parent. If the Tapas group documented a genuine timeline of the group’s movement on the evening of May 3rd there leaves little time to insert a Madeleine death with cadaver odour being produced. David Payne claims he saw Madeleine alive and well at 6:35pm. The timeline also includes the McCanns arriving at the Tapas bar at 8:30pm. Gerry only left the table for 10 minutes according to Tapas 9 witness statements and this period included a conversation with an independent non-Tapas individual: Jeremy Wilkins. According to the timeline, there was no time for Gerry to hide a body. This means the time period for Madeleine dying, leaving a cadaver odour and being hidden narrows from 6:35pm to 8:30pm- just 1 hour and 55 minutes.
In the cadaver studies, the average time a cadaver needed to be deceased to emit a recognisable smell detectable by all 5 cadaver dogs was 2.5-3 hours. When the time to dispose of her body is factored in and the unlikely nature of her dying as soon as David Payne left the apartment, the time frame becomes much reduced from 1 hour 55 minutes. By this metric, the smell in the apartment could not have been caused by Madeleine’s cadaver. Expert dog handlers have also queried the almost 3-month lapse between the supposed emission of cadaver odour in the apartment and the ability for a cadaver dog to sense such an odour. When combined together, these factors may provide an argument against the sniffer dog results.
It is theoretically conceivable that the scents the dogs alerted to were planted by the PJ. A member of the PJ may have believed that Kate and Gerry were responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance and wanted to incriminate the parents by planting the evidence. This process is referred to as ‘noble cause corruption’.
The primary argument projected by the McCanns against the cadaver scent results is their low accuracy rate. The McCanns have said “We have looked at evidence of cadaver dogs and they are incredibly unreliable”. Cadaver dogs do make mistakes, they are not infallible. They sometimes provide false alerts and alternatively sometimes miss cadaver odours.
Within her book, ‘Madeleine’, Kate provides some arguments against the sniffer dog results. She describes watching a video of them searching the apartment, “Each dog ran around the apartment, jumping over beds, into the wardrobe, generally having a good sniff. At one point, the handler directed the dogs to a spot behind the couch in the sitting room, close to the curtains. He called the dogs over to him to investigate this site. The dogs ultimately ‘alerted’. I felt myself relax a little. This was not what I’d call an exact science. In footage of the apartment next door to ours, one of the dogs began to root in the corner of a room near a piece of furniture. PC Grime summoned the dog and they left the flat.”
Kate continues to provide her thoughts, this time describing her musings whilst watching the sniffer dogs search the car line-up, “Now we were in an underground garage where eight or so cars were parked, including our rented Renault Scenic. It was hard to miss: the windows were plastered with pictures of Madeleine. In medicine we would call this an ‘unblinded’ study, one that is susceptible to bias. One of the dogs ran straight past our car, nose in the air, heading towards the next vehicle. The handler stopped next to the Renault and called the dog. It obeyed; returning to him, but then ran off again. Staying by the car, PC Grime instructed the dog to come back several times and directed it to certain parts of the vehicle before it eventually supplied an alert by barking….When researching the validity of sniffer-dog evidence later, Gerry would discover that false alerts can be attributable to the conscious or unconscious signals of the handler. We would later learn that in his written report, PC Grime had emphasised that such alerts cannot be relied upon without corroborating evidence.”
Martin Grime wrote some stipulations in his report of the findings he made in Praia da Luz- “No confirmed evidence or information could be taken from the alerts by the dogs…any such indications without any physical evidence to them cannot have any evidential value being unconfirmed indications….no inference can be drawn as to whether a human cadaver has previously been in any location without any other supporting evidence.” Another factor that should be mentioned is that cadaver and blood dog evidence is not solely admissible in court. In other words, someone using just the results of a cadaver dog picking up a scent won’t win their case. A body, a confession, DNA or some more solid corroborating evidence is required. Based on this information, it seems almost impossible that the McCanns would be found guilty of any crime in court, if they were hypothetically being tried on the PJ’s theory.
DNA
Samples of hair, various other fibres and traces of stains were collected from numerous locations around apartment 5a in which the sniffer dogs had given alerts. Similarly, DNA was also collected from the McCanns’ rental car. These samples were all sent to the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham, otherwise known as the FFS. Most of the DNA samples either proved inconclusive or belonged to people who had no relevant connection to the case. There were some samples that were highlighted in the report by forensic scientist John Lowe.
Sample ‘3a’ was collected from on the floor behind the blue sofa in the McCanns’ apartment at the Ocean Club resort; approximately 1 metre away from where both sniffer dogs had alerted. This sample was described as “Stain on the floor collected using a dry swab”. This sample produced an incomplete DNA result. The swab “showed low level indications of DNA from more than one person. However, all of the confirmed DNA components within this result match the corresponding components in the DNA profile of Madeline McCann.” The report states, “it is not possible to attribute this DNA profile to a particular body fluid”.
The tiles were removed in the region where the sniffer dogs alerted to. Note the curtain in the top-right of the images.
Sample 3 was taken from the tiled floor region behind the lounge room couch.
Samples 3a and 3b were taken from the area circled above. Note the distance to the removed tiles section where the sniffer dogs alerted.
Sample ‘3b’ was collected from the same stain as the above mentioned ‘3a’. The difference being that a wet swab was used to obtain the sample as opposed to ‘3a’ using a dry swab. The report concluded regarding sample ‘3b’ that “An attempt to obtain a DNA profile from any cellular material on the wet swab (3B) from the same area was unsuccessful in that no profile was obtained.”
The third and final relevant sample that is singled out by Lowe in his report is sample 10(2). This sample was obtained from the inner side of the boot of the Renault Scenic hire car that the McCanns had hired 24 days after the disappearance of Madeleine. The location of sample 10(2) was approximately where Keela had alerted to. The interpretation of this sample is more complicated than the other samples. The technique used by the FFS Laboratory is to analyse regions of DNA known as short repeat tandems (STRs)-these are unique to every individual besides identical twins. The FFS use 10 specific parts of an STR region. Each of these contain two alleles- one that has been passed down from the mother and one that has been passed down from the father. As the scientists know the frequency of these occurring in the population, they can work out the likelihood of any two samples taken matching in these 20 alleles. Scientists represent this information by drawing a peak for individual alleles. People unrelated by blood often have identical alleles. Kate and Gerry happened to have one of these identical alleles meaning that as Madeleine is their child, her DNA profile has 19 individual peaks- not 20.
Sample 10(2) was taken from the area of the McCanns’ hire care indicated by the red oval.
Another angle illustrating where sample 10(2) was retrieved from.
The method used by the FFS in analysing the sample 10(2) from the back of the McCanns’ rental car (and indeed other samples) is called Low Copy Number Testing (LCN). This methodology is considered by many scientists to be controversial due to the scope for contamination. The LCN technique repeatedly copies the small amount of DNA available in the sample to make analysis easier- hence its use on sample 10(2) which was minuscule in size. One problem with this repeated copying involves samples that contain DNA from multiple people. The LCN method amplifies these degraded DNA or alleles and thus makes it difficult to interpret the results.
Regarding sample 10(2) found in the boot of the McCanns’ Renault scenic hire car, Lowe found, “Of these 19 components 15 are present within the result from this item; there are 37 components in total. There are 37 components because there are at least 3 contributors; but there could be up to five contributors. In my opinion therefore this result is too complex for meaningful interpretation/inclusion.” In other words, Madeleine’s DNA contains 19 components. There were 37 components found in sample 10(2). There were 3 of more people whose DNA was mixed into the sample. Madeleine having 15 components in the sample doesn’t tell us whether it was her DNA in the sample or not.
Lowe’s report continues regarding sample 10(2), “What we need to consider, as scientists, is whether the match is genuine and legitimate; because Madeleine has deposited DNA as a result of being in the car or whether Madeleine merely appears to match the result by chance. The individual components in Madeleine’s profile are not unique to her, it is the specific combination of 19 components that makes her profile unique above all others. Elements of Madeleine’s profile are also present within the profiles of many of the scientists here in Birmingham, myself included. It’s important to stress that 50% of Madeleine’s profile will be shared with each parent. It is not possible in a mixture of more than two people, to determine or evaluate which specific DNA components pair with each other. Namely, we cannot separate the components out into 3 individual DNA profiles.” In other words, just because Madeleine’s DNA shares 15 of the same components with the sample, it doesn’t mean the sample contains her DNA. Many members of the population have components that would be found in sample 10(2) and perhaps more importantly, as Madeleine inherited her DNA from her parents, the sample may very well contain their DNA. In summary, we don’t know if Madeleine’s DNA is in sample 10(2)- there is not enough evidence to say that her DNA is in the sample.
The PJ received an English to Portuguese translation of Lowe’s report. Mistranslation of the report, misinterpretation by the PJ or both factors combined led to numerous false headlines around the world claiming that the DNA sample found in the boot of the McCanns’ rental car was “100% Madeleine’s”. The PJ made Kate and Gerry arguidos aka formal suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. This status bestowed on the McCanns was largely due to the DNA report that had been misinterpreted.
True Allele
In Lowe’s report of sample 10(2)- the DNA found in the McCanns’ rental car, he writes “Therefore, we cannot answer the question: is the match genuine or is it a chance match. The same applies to any result that is quoted as being too complex for meaningful inclusion/interpretation”. The FFS struggled in interpreting the DNA that was sent to them. This wasn’t through their own fault- they didn’t have the testing methodologies available to them to determine which DNA sample belonged to which person. Fast forward to the present day. Mark Saunokonoko produced a podcast titled ‘Maddie’ in 2019. Within this podcast he reached out to Dr. Mark Perlin who is the chief scientist and executive officer of Cybergenetics. This US based company uses modern computer analysis to interpret DNA data- namely True Allele.
Dr. Mark Perlin, the chief scientist and executive officer of Cybergenetics. (Source: cybgen.com)
Sample 10(2) particularly was deemed too complex for meaningful interpretation however True Allele specialises in interpreting complex DNA as well as separating DNA samples that belong to more than one person. Quite simply- True Allele will be able to separate the DNA found in the boot of the McCanns’ hire car and conclusively attribute it to Madeleine McCann or not. Despite Dr. Mark Perlin reaching out to Scotland Yard and offering his True Allele services pro bono, he hasn’t heard back from them despite 12 months passing. It should be noted that True Allele doesn’t require the actual DNA sample, simply the digital data.
If Madeleine’s DNA was to be found in sample 10(2) it would provide compelling evidence supporting the PJ theory of a staged abduction. This PJ theory also encompassed the McCanns hiding Madeleines’ body on May 3rd and then picking it up and placing it in the boot of their Renault scenic hire car many weeks after the disappearance to then relocate. The possibility that Madeleine’s DNA appeared in the boot of the Renault through innocent means is theoretically possibly but highly unlikely. Secondary DNA transfer does occur yet it is a rare occurrence, especially with such a lapse in time. If Scotland Yard did send the requested DNA data to Dr. Mark Perlin it would likely only provide evidence for or against the McCann parents’ involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance- it wouldn’t lead to any tangible outcomes if the abduction theory is correct.
The Sniffer Dogs and DNA Takeaways
The sniffer dog results are arguably the most damning evidence against the McCann parents within the entire case. The highly credentialed cadaver dog Eddie scenting cadaver in the McCann parents’ bedroom raises many questions. Both Eddie and Keela alerting to blood behind the sofa in the lounge adds to the suspicions cast on Kate and Gerry. The corroboration of two sniffer dogs independently alerting to the blood scent strongly supports the notion of human blood being present behind the sofa. Potentially adding weight to the theory that the blood belonged to Madeline is DNA sample 3a, collected from the floor behind the sofa. Although the specific location of the dog alert behind the sofa was approximately 1 metre away from where sample 3a was obtained. The DNA sample was classified as human bodily fluid however the type of fluid was indeterminate. The laboratory concluded that this incomplete sample may have belonged to more than one person and the components that were present in the sample matched Madeleine’s DNA. It can be argued that Madeleine resided in the apartment so her DNA was bound to be detected in the vicinity.
Keela specifically alerted to blood in the row of tiles adjacent to the wall. Her alert was several tiles to the left of the right curtain.
Sample 3a was collected from an area approximately 1 metre away from where the sniffer dogs alerted to blood scent.
Eddie the cadaver dog detecting a possible cadaver in the garden of the McCanns’ apartment raises numerous questions. Is it conceivable that Madeleine’s body was stored here temporarily perhaps to avoid a scent building up in the apartment? On the flipside, the conditions in the garden location including high levels of sunlight and circulating air suggest that any cadaver scent would have dissipated, especially after 3 months.
Despite several dog handlers suggesting that a detectable scent would not last 3 months, a study suggests that under specific circumstances, after 2 months within 98% of trials cadaver dogs can detect a transfer scent. On the one hand the studies discussed highlight the almost supernatural abilities of cadaver dogs. Alternatively, no dogs seem immune from mistakes in the studies. The one factor emerging from the studies that calls into question the PJ theory of a staged abduction is the time needed for a cadaver to produce a scent. The studies indicate that a person may need to be deceased for 1 hour and 25 minutes at the very least before a scent is emitted that may be detectable by a cadaver dog. This increases to 2.5-3 hours for it to be widely detected by cadaver dogs. Using these numbers and the conventionally agreed upon timeline, the PJ theory of a staged abduction becomes flimsy. One may need Tapas group members to be part of the conspiracy.
The McCann clothing items detected with cadaver scent cast further aspersions on the McCann parents. This along with the Cuddle Cat alert by Eddie raises more questions for the McCanns to answer. Each piece of sniffer dog evidence incriminating the McCanns may be worth more than the sum of its parts. Alternatively, it can be argued that a misjudging sniffer dog has repeatedly misfired.
The McCanns’ rental car being alerted to by both sniffer dogs is another case of two dogs providing evidence making it challenging to dismiss innocuously. Detectable human blood scent on the rental car key along with in the boot of the car is another puzzle piece that demands either an explanation to dismiss or an incorporation into the PJ theory of a staged abduction. Indeed, the rental car being hired 24 days after Madeleine disappeared make the task of conjuring a theory as much an effort in creative thinking as it is in logic.
The specific location that human blood scenting dog Keela alerted to- the lower right interior of the car’s boot matched almost perfectly matched the location that DNA sample 10(2) originated from. This 10(2) DNA sample found in the boot of the rental car may be Madeleine’s or it may not be. The refusal of authorities to provide an answer to this question in the form of sending data to True Allele is frustrating for those seeking evidential answers and truth- regardless of form.
The specific location in the boot of the McCanns’ rental car that blood scenting dog Keela alerted to.
Sample 10(2) originated from the same specific location that Keela alerted to.
The PJ theory of a staged abduction seems to have been largely sculptured around the sniffer dog results, such is their relevance and potential importance. These results were influential in shifting the public opinion in the Madeleine McCann case from a legitimate abduction to a staged abduction. The sniffer dog results are doubly as damning due to the dogs not alerting to other apartments or other cars searched.
Part 3- Did an Intruder Access the Apartment?
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”– Anais Nin
When Kate entered the apartment and noticed Madeleine was missing, there was a very specific scene. The children’s bedroom window had been slid open as far as possible, the shutters outside this window were completely raised and there were a number of other clues around the bedroom. Each of these pieces of evidence will be examined in meticulous detail in the hopes of determining whether the scene that Kate found was consistent with an abduction or the PJ’s theory of the staging of an abduction.
Madeleine’s bed post her disappearance.
The red oval highlights Madeleine’s bed. This photo was taken in the early hours of May 4th, just hours after Madeleine disappeared.
The twin’s cots are in the foreground and the window that was found open by Kate is in the background.
The Window
When Kate checked on her children in apartment 5a at 10:00pm on May 3rd, Madeleine was missing. Kate noticed an open window in the children’s bedroom. This open window would be a central tenet used by the PJ alleging the PJ theory of a staged abduction and also an equally determined piece of evidence cited by the abduction theory proponents. The sudden open window in itself is evidence that Madeleine didn’t wander off on her own accord. Kate’s statements to police all confirm the open status of the window. Her 4th of May statement reads, “The window was also open”. Gerry’s 4th of May statement is identical and his 10th of May statement which clarify the window was “open to one side”. The window in the children’s bedroom is a sliding window and thus when it is open to its maximum degree, half the window sill is still covered by a window pane.
The window in the McCanns’ children’s bedroom that was found open. Note the direction that it slides open. When fully extended open, the left half of the window is covered in two layers of glass.
Could an Intruder Use the Window?
When the window in the 5a children’s bedroom is at its maximum openness, as Kate described finding it, it provides a 46cm wide gap to enter or exit through. The window is 91cm off the ground. The pertinent question is: with these dimensions, could an intruder enter or exit this window and if so, could they exit whilst holding Madeleine? I conducted an experiment at my home. Using a sliding window 91cm off the ground, I positioned it to allow a 46cm wide gap and attempted to pass through it. I am a 6-foot-tall, normal sized, fairly young male.
A police photo from the early morning of May 4th showing the height of the window as 91cm.
I noticed that 46cm is narrower than I had envisaged. Despite this, I passed through the window fairly cumbersomely. I required both of my hands to pass through the window. My hands were specifically required to press down against the base of the window sill whilst passing through the window. I could not pass through the window face-on but rather had to turn to my side. I repeated the experiment, this time whilst carrying a pillow as an analogue, very light, young child. Passing through the window with these constraints was impossible for me. To navigate through the window with the pillow required me placing it on the ground on the other side of the window before attempting to traverse the window obstacle.
A man outside the McCann children’s bedroom window. Note the small dimensions of the window.
The actual 5a apartment room contained a chair and a bed as further challenges to navigate. The bed could have been used to step on in order to enter or exit the apartment however only the very end of the bed falls beneath the edge of a fully open window. I believe this misalignment would have made entering or exiting the window even more difficult as one would need to step at least a foot from the perimeter of the mattress in order to not fall from the mattresses edge. There was also no disturbance to this part of the bed according to police photos-either in the form of dirt from a shoe or crimpled blankets which one would expect if someone had stepped on the bed. With the added constraints of the shutters and curtains present in the 5a bedroom (that will be discussed in future sections) I can safely rule out a single abductor leaving through the children’s bedroom window with Madeleine. The one caveat is if the abductor placed Madeleine on the ground outside before leaving however this would require somewhat superhuman dexterity.
The chair and bed provide further obstacles for an intruder entering or exiting the window. Also, the only part of the bed that appears undisturbed is the region near the window.
The results of the above experiment leave several valid possibilities within the abduction theory. The first scenario involves a secondary person standing outside the window and an abductor handing Madeleine to the secondary person. This theory is certainly achievable considering solely the window constraints. Perhaps the window was intended to be used as a point of exit or entry and indeed was prepared but wasn’t ultimately used. Another scenario involves a sole abductor entering through the window but leaving through a different means. There is an added obstacle to entering through this specific window- the window lock.
The Window Lock
Was the window lock forced, broken or picked? To open the window in the 5a children’s bedroom, a finger must press the black ‘switch’ located on the bedroom interior side of the window. A ‘major expert from the Scientific Police’ Alexandre Simas went to apartment 5a to examine the lock on the children’s bedroom window. This process can be viewed in the video below at the 44:26 mark.
Simas says “These windows have a very good characteristic to check if they were forced or not. Being made of lacquered aluminium, any screwdriver, any instrument that is used to make the lock jump, immediately leaves a mark. What we can see here (referring to the window that was found open in apartment 5a), there is no break-in, the mark that is there belongs to the lock itself as it rotates, sometimes one does this with the lock in place, and it hits there.” This comment from Simas who is an expert in locks suggests that the specific lock was not tampered with by an abductor attempting to enter the 5a children’s bedroom.
The lock used on the window in the children’s bedroom.
This is not a nail in the coffin for the window entry theory. There were a spate of ground floor apartment break-ins to the Ocean Club apartments in the months leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance. These break-ins often had windows as their entry point. In late 2006, a man tried entering apartment 5a through the very window in question but fled after being seen trying to raise the shutters. Despite Simas’s claim that no break had ever occurred through the 5a children’s bedroom window, he could be erroneous in his judgement.
It is possible that an abductor entered 5a through some other means at an earlier stage, such as the unlocked back sliding door and pressed the black ‘switch’ button on the window to place the window in an unlocked state. Subsequently, the abductor may have returned to the window during the night of May 3rd and slid it open. An alternative theory involves the window being unlocked on its own accord prior to the alleged May 3rd abduction. The McCann family are adamant that they didn’t touch the specific window lock in question during their holiday. If they arrived at the villa and it was unlocked, this provides a plausible theory for the abduction with the entry through the window.
There are some counter arguments to this: 1. Resorts, hotels, villas etc. seem to have standard protocols when a new group of people stay in a room. These protocols are commonplace such as ensuring windows are locked. It would likely be an aberration if this protocol wasn’t followed in this situation. 2. Another counter-example involves the nature of the alleged Madeleine abduction. The peripheral details of the specific abduction of Madeleine involve the abductor having intimate knowledge of the coming and goings of the Tapas group and the knowledge of the children being left alone whilst the parents dined at the Tapas restaurant. This planning would likely require hours, if not days of reconnaissance. For the abductor to pin their hopes of an abduction on the small likelihood that the window was unlocked seems unlikely relative to wasting hours or days scoping the apartment out.
In the above two sections ‘Could an Intruder Use the Window?’ and ‘The Window Lock’, there have been some impossible, plausible and possible but highly unlikely scenarios determined. The central plausible scenario within the abduction theory that remains is: More than one abductor took part in the abduction of Madeleine McCann. This would have involved one person entering through some avenue other than the bedroom window and handing Madeleine to a secondary person before exiting the bedroom window.
The Fingerprints on the Window
Post Madeleine’s disappearance, five fingerprints were found on the inside of the children’s bedroom sliding window. These belonged to Kate McCann. The five fingerprints incorporated three of the middle finger of the left hand and two of the index finger of the left hand. There is no record of the authorities examining the outside of the window for fingerprints.
In Inspector Goncalo Amaral’s book, he writes, “On the window, there were no signs of a break-in or of gloves. It had been cleaned the day before, May 2nd, by an Ocean Club employee, and the only fingerprints found were Kate’s”. There is little clarity regarding whether the window was indeed cleaned on May 2nd. The cleaner of the apartment, Maria Julia Serafim da Silva, gave a statement to police and doesn’t mention cleaning the windows. It would also seem peculiar and perhaps overly conscientious for a cleaner during the middle of a family’s stay to clean the windows. Amaral’s claim that there was no sign of gloves also seems odd; if an abductor had used gloves there wouldn’t necessarily have been a sign of this glove usage.
A further claim Amaral makes in his book is that Kate’s window fingerprints are “in a position of opening the window”. This particular window had a handle that made it easy to open. Despite this, if one wished to fully open the window, the amount of stretching required to fully open it by means of a handle may be excessive and using the glass, or opposite edge to fully open it is plausible. No identifiable prints were found on the handle. In the ‘Verdade’ documentary, it is alleged that one of Kate’s fingerprints was located on the sliding part of the window’s side edge.
A view from the outside of apartment 5a. The children’s bedroom window is fully open.
Could Kate’s fingerprints have arrived on the window, through some other means as opposed to the PJ theory of a staged abduction? In her book ‘Madeleine’, Kate mentions that she leant against the window to look out once Madeleine had disappeared. She omitted this fact in all police statements. In all likelihood, I don’t 100% subscribe to the veracity of recalling the “leaning against the window to look out” claim, namely due to the frenzied and emotional nature of that night and the oddity of not recalling this event in the four years leading up the ‘Madeleine’ book despite countless interviews involving specifying each minute movement in the children’s bedroom that night. This isn’t to say Kate didn’t lean against the window at some stage during the week or indeed post Madeleine’s disappearance, only that I doubt the recall circumstances. The McCanns said they closed the curtains and shutters in the children’s bedroom on the first day they arrived and they left them in this state. The curtains would have been covering the window completely so this narrows down the timeframe for Kate’s fingerprints to have arrived on the window. The McCanns don’t mention touching the window but this could have been done non-consciously whilst closing the curtains and shutters, or the window could have been leant on whilst moving about in the children’s bedroom at some stage post disappearance.
Another pertinent question is- who closed the window post Madeleine’s disappearance? Once the authorities arrived, the window was in a closed state. Upon learning of Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate ran back to the Tapas restaurant and Gerry returned to the apartment and noted the window still open. He subsequently told a GNR officer that he was responsible for closing the window. Contrarily, Kate has said that upon learning of Madeleine’s disappearance “I went to the window and opened the curtains to see if she had climbed out but there was no sign of her…I don’t know if I closed the window at that moment.”
Overall, Kate’s fingerprints on the inner window aren’t incriminatory in themselves. Despite not recalling touching the window throughout the holiday prior to Madeleine’s disappearance, there was still a chance the window was touched due to the circumstances of moving about the room or due to Kate possibly non-consciously closing the window post disappearance. The PJ theory of a staged abduction alleges that Kate opened the window around 10:00pm on May 3rd hence the fingerprints. This specific fingerprint scenario is plausible perhaps with the repetitive nature of 3 middle fingerprints and 2 index fingerprints simulating the process of opening the window. Despite this, possible, innocent explanations also exist to explain the fingerprints.
The Shutters
Upon entering apartment 5a and learning of Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate noticed that the outdoor shutters of the children’s bedroom window were raised “all the way up”. When Gerry arrived in 5a, he too observed the shutters in a fully raised positioning. The shutters outside the children’s bedroom window are a major point of contention in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. Police found 3 fingerprints on the outside of the shutters however these were unusable to identify who had touched the shutters.
A woman dusts for fingerprints on the shutter of 5a.
Understanding the idiosyncrasies of these particular shutters is imperative in determining how they operate. The shutters are located on the outside of the window and are essentially composed of metal slats on a roller blind. The shutters are controlled by a strap that is operated on the inside of the window. This strap enables the shutters to be raised as well as locked in the raised position (or midway positions). This is how the shutters are intended to be used- a person located inside uses the inside strap to raise the shutters and lock them in place.
These shutters aren’t the specific shutters found in apartment 5a instead they are from another apartment in the Ocean Club resort (6a). (Source: Mike Teskowski)
Note that the mechanism to raise and lower the shutters is typically hidden by a curtain. (Source: Mike Teskowski)
This strap is used to raise and lower the shutters. (Source: Mike Teskowski)
There is another method to raise the shutters- this time temporarily if the user is standing outside. This technique is not the intended method to use the shutters. When standing outside, by simply pushing the shutters up, they will raise however they will fall down again as soon as the pressure that has raised them is removed. In other words, the shutters will not remain up if they are raised from the outside. The precise shutters in question, outside apartment 5a, are being raised from the outside in the below video. Note that the shutters fall down as soon as the upwards pressure is removed:
The shutters of 5a can be temporarily raised from the outside however they will fall down when the upward pressure is removed.
Observations of the Shutters
It is necessary to document exactly how the shutters were found by Kate and Gerry. Upon noticing Madeleine had disappeared, Kate observed that the shutters were raised completely up. She has mentioned this in numerous interviews including on Australian TV show ‘Sunday Night’ in which she has said “The shutter was all the way up”. When Gerry was summoned to 5a by Kate upon learning of Madeleine’s disappearance, he too noted the raised shutters. He included this information in a statement he gave police on the 10th of May, “Then he (Gerry) closed the shutters, made his way to the outside and tried to open them, which he managed to do, much to his surprise given that he thought that was only possible from the inside.” From this statement, we learn of Gerry’s surprise that the shutters could be raised at all from the outside of the apartment. It was a reasonable assumption by Gerry to think the shutters could only be raised from the inside as the strap was connected to and operated from the inside. Despite Gerry’s comment, the shutters couldn’t be kept in a raised position from the outside.
Things become murkier concerning the state that the shutters were found in by the McCanns when we consider the statements of friends and relatives the McCanns phoned soon after Madeleine disappeared. Kate’s father, Brian Healy, told The Guardian, “Gerry told me when they went back, the shutters to the room were broken, they were jemmied up”. Gerry’s sister, Trish Cameron, after speaking to the McCanns, informed The Mirror “The window in the bedroom and shutters were jemmied open. They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her”. A friend of the McCanns, Jill Renwick had also been told a similar story by the McCanns about the shutters being jemmied. She told GM TV “The Shutters had been broken open”.
These accounts of friends and family of the McCanns parroting to the media what they had been told by the McCanns all specifically refer to the shutters being “broken” or “jemmied”. It should be noted that the McCanns informed this to their friends and families on May 4th, soon after Madeleine vanished and perhaps the stress they were under considering their situation caused them to either misinterpret or exaggerate the shutter positioning. When the McCanns gave their numerous police statements, they didn’t once refer to the shutters as being “broken” or “jemmied”. They only informed police in statements that the shutters were raised.
Amy Tierney was a Kid’s Club worker on duty in the night crèche whilst Madeleine disappeared from 5a. Tierney was one of the first people on the scene in 5a post Madeleine disappearance, in the first chaotic minutes that it was known Madeleine was missing. In a police statement on the 6th of May, she told police, “She saw that the shutter was raised and that the window was partially open”. Overall, there is a reasonable amount of evidence that the shutter was raised, including the report of independent Amy Tierney. The question lingers; were the shutters raised from the inside, by the strap or were they jemmied?
Were the Shutters Jemmied?
Police examined the shutters and determined that they weren’t jemmied or broken. The original McCann to friend/family transfer of information that the shutters were jemmied was simply false. The McCanns had informed others of information that was factually false. Was this due to the McCanns being confused in the stress of the moment? Was ‘jemmied’ simply a poorly chosen word by the McCanns? Alternately, does this conclusive false piece of information support the PJ theory of a staged abduction? In subsequent times, the McCanns’ conceded that the shutters were never jemmied or broken.
A further claim was made by Amaral and the PJ- that the shutters couldn’t even be raised from the outside without being forced and there was no sign of this forced entry. Amaral claims for an intruder to enter the 5a children’s bedroom, they would need to break the shutters. As demonstrated in the video above, this doesn’t seem to be the case as the shutters are easily raised from the outside, albeit momentarily.
Further Shutter Information
Although not likely relevant, the McCanns had another dalliance with apartment shutters during their holiday- on this occasion the shutters outside their own bedroom window. In Kate’s book, ‘Madeleine’, she writes “Gerry had also managed to break the window shutter mechanism in our bedroom shortly after we’d arrived, in spite of the sign asking guests to be gentle with it. What can I say? It’s the Gerry touch”. As a consequence of this, workmen came to fix the McCann parents’ bedroom shutters on Tuesday the 1st of May, just two days before Madeleine disappeared. What does this all tell us? Probably nothing of importance although one can argue that Gerry’s ignorance regarding the shutter mechanics may have been relevant in naively using the word “jemmied” when talking to friends and relatives. Alternatively, after spending so long focused on the shutters in their own bedroom, Kate and Gerry may have had a deeper understanding of their mechanics.
A spate of police photos were taken of the McCann apartment during the early hours of the 4th of May. One such photo shows the shutter outside the children’s bedroom. It is slightly raised, with a gap between the base of the window sill and shutter. This was perhaps just the level the shutter had been lowered to from the inside vantage point using the strap. If the strap was in this default position during the McCann’s holiday, the gap between the shutter and window sill may have existed for the duration of the McCann holiday. It’s possible that a budding abductor spied on Madeleine through this gap and possible natural gap between the two curtains or indeed determined that this was the children’s bedroom and no adult was present.
A police photo taken in the early hours of May 4th 2007 showing the shutters not completely lowered.
Could an Intruder Navigate the Shutters?
The ultimate question from this ‘shutters section’ is- could an intruder navigate the shutters and enter or exit the children’s bedroom? The shutters were noisy as evidenced by the above video. Opening them would be a risky manoeuvre for an abductor. They would draw attention to the area and magnify the already suspicious entering or exiting of the window. Disregarding the previous ‘window section’ conclusions, an abductor could enter the apartment by sliding the shutters up however they wouldn’t remain up like the eyewitness testimony indicates. To remain in their upright state, they must have been controlled by the strap located inside the apartment. It’s therefore theoretically possible that an intruder entered 5a from outside by originally physically raising the shutters by hand and thus the shutters falling back down. This process of the shutters bashing down on an intruder’s head would make the already challenging task of entering the small window harder but I think it would be theoretically possible (assuming the window was unlocked).
Alternatively, it’s plausible that if the window had been somehow opened by an intruder standing outside, they pushed the shutters partially up, reached through the bedroom window and raised and locked the shutters in their upright position, all whilst standing outside. This may be the most logical manner for an intruder to enter through the window and raise the shutters.
An abductor may have found the window and shutters in this state. (Source: Pat Brown)
Another theory to explain the shutters being found in their upright position, involves them being used as an exit point or planned exit point. This suggests that if the abduction theory is correct, the shutters were raised and the window was used as an exit point (at least) or for one abductor to hand Madeleine through the window to a secondary abductor. For this to be the case, the shutters would have to be conventionally raised- by their strap. The question then follows- why didn’t the McCanns tell police the shutters were raised by the inside strap or weren’t they aware of this fact? Another question is also pertinent- how would an intruder know how to operate the shutters so efficiently in the spur of the moment? If the abductor had worked at, stayed in or broken into the Ocean Club resort previously, they may possess such knowledge and feel confident enough to plan an abduction that may have had as its central feature a shutter that required raising fully.
For the PJ, their theory of a staged abduction would seemingly allege that the McCanns concocted the “jemmied” and “broken” shutter stories to create the illusion of an abduction however in the McCanns ignorance, the McCanns were:
Unaware that the shutters couldn’t be raised permanently from the outside.
Unaware the shutters couldn’t be sustained in a raised position without the interior strap.
Unaware the shutters wouldn’t show signs of being jemmied when subsequently studied by police.
The Curtains
The children’s bedroom in 5a also contained curtains. These were indoor curtains located on the inside of the window. There were also a set of net-like curtains between the actual curtains and the window. The McCanns have said that they closed the curtains on this first day of the holiday and left them in this state.
The curtains outside the children’s bedroom of apartment 5a. Note the net-like curtains between the thick curtains and the window.
Kate’s Statements on the Curtains
When Kate recalls checking on the twins and Madeleine at 10:00pm on the night of May the 3rd, she mentions the children’s door being 60 degrees open. She begins to close the door however it slams shut. She attributed this event to a draught so looked at the back, sliding door she had just entered to determine if that was the origin of the draught however this door was closed. When Kate then opened the children’s bedroom door, she noticed the curtains in the physical process of opening. There are 3 distinct recounts of the circumstances of how these curtains opened according to various statements by Kate.
1.In a 2008 interview she says “As I went back in, the curtains of the bedroom which were drawn, that were closed, ‘whoosh’ like a gust of wind kind of blew them open.” Whilst simultaneously speaking these words, Kate simulates the curtains opening by placing her forearms together and then abruptly pulling them apart. The message one gains from this interview is that the curtains were drawn closed yet the draught due to the window and shutters both being open, caused both the left and right curtains to fly open akin to a cartoon. She echoes these sentiments in another interview, “The curtains that were closed just flew open and that’s when I noticed the window was open as far as it could go and the shutters outside were raised all the way up.”
Kate gesturing that the curtains were initially closed.
Kate demonstrating the manner in which the curtains abruptly flew open.
2. In another interview, she says the curtains were blowing in the wind “I went back to the children’s room and then saw the curtains moving towards me”. She follows this up by mentioning “I went to the window and opened the curtains to see if she had climbed out but there was no sign of her”.
3. Kate and Gerry never provided the police with this account of the curtains suddenly opening. In a police statement Kate “noticed that the door to the children’s bedroom was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters were raised and the curtains open”. This account by Kate suggests the curtains were already in an open state prior to her approaching the door.
The question arises from these statements- were the curtains only opened after Kate opened the bedroom door? Were the curtains only opened by Kate physically? Did both curtains suddenly fly wildly apart or were the curtains flailing gently in the wind? There is little clarity to determine what actually occurred. In fairness to Kate, she had just discovered that her daughter was missing so noticing the finer details of the curtains motion seems insignificant. The most repeated and detailed story by Kate regarding the curtains is that were both closed when she entered the room and they both blew apart when she closed the door.
Curtain Oddities
If one analyses the repeated and detailed story by Kate that the curtains were closed and flew apart, there are some potential problems with this account. The sliding window slid open from right to left. The left pane of glass was static. As the window was discovered open, only the right half of the entire window had air coming from outside. It is therefore unlikely that both the left and right curtains would blow apart, indeed only the right curtain would likely move at all and the left curtain should remain stationary.
This was the full extent the window would open. One curtain wouldn’t move due to the wind thanks to the pane of glass.
Another potential flaw with Kate’s account of the curtains flying open is the left curtain’s base being sandwiched between the bed and the wall. This is demonstrated in the police photos taken on the morning of May the 4th. The curtains weren’t designed to be wedged against the bed. In ‘Madeleine’ by Kate McCann she writes of moving the furniture when arriving in Praia da Luz for the first day of the holiday, “In the other room (the children’s bedroom), we pushed the beds further apart, positioning each against a wall, to make room for the cots, which we placed in between them.” As the left curtain was jammed between the bed and the wall (confirmed by Kate’s quote) it certainly couldn’t blow open and would likely barely flail. Alternatively, perhaps the bedroom had been searched and furniture moved to find Madeleine. This doesn’t seem like the likely explanation for the stuck curtain as Kate herself described moving the bed against the wall when she arrived in Praia da Luz.
The red oval indicates where the curtain is trapped between the bed and the wall. The blanket on the bed is of a similar pattern to the curtains.
Finally, an added critique of Kate’s description of the curtains flying apart involves this situation seemingly defying the laws of physics and belonging more in the annals of a cartoon. As the force of the wind is coming from behind the curtains, they would likely move in the opposite direction- towards the opposite wall. For them to move perpendicular to the source of the wind would require the wind to approach from a different direction and for the curtain attachments hanging from the horizontal pole to be extremely light, offering little resistance. Quite simply, curtains don’t typically move the way Kate described. The wind at nearby Faro was measured at 14.4km/h at 10:00pm. Although draughts can create their own force, the circumstances don’t seem realistic for the curtains to suddenly fly apart.
When the curtains were photographed by the Portuguese police in the early hours of May 4th, they are pictured open. In one account Kate explains this positioning of the curtains, “I went to the window and opened the curtains to see if she had climbed out but there was no sign of her”. The curtains pictured are therefore not indicative of their openness solely due to an intruder.
A police photo of the curtains taken in the early hours of May 4th.
I don’t doubt Kate’s truthfulness regarding any of the vaguely remembered descriptions she has provided. It is possible that such a minor event as the curtains opening were insignificant to her and unnoticed considering she had just realised that Madeleine was missing from her bed.
The Curtains and an Intruder
From most of the above accounts, it seems that the curtains were closed when Kate entered apartment 5a. It would seem peculiar for this to be the case considering that the window and shutters were fully open. If an abductor had tried to navigate through the window, the curtains would have acted as an added impediment. As the curtains were left closed by the McCanns all week, it is reasonable to assume they were closed on the night of May 3rd when an intruder arrived on the scene. If an intruder had entered through the window from the outside, a closed curtain would have made it more challenging for them to see where they were putting their feet on the inside of a crowded children’s bedroom that contained an adjacent bed and chair (an item already obstructing an intruder entering through the window). This entry through the window was challenging enough when it was just a window without all these added impediments. An alternative explanation to justify the closed curtain but open window and shutters is that an intruder closed the curtain after themselves, perhaps to obscure the street view from their activities.
There is very little room for an intruder to stand between the chair and the bed. The width of the chair provides some scale as to the narrow space between the chair and the bed.
If an intruder exited through the window with Madeleine (I cannot foresee how this would be achievable in itself as explained in the previous sections), then trying to exit with a curtain blocking the window would be completely impossible. After exiting the window, for the intruder to close the curtain after themselves despite their vulnerable positioning in holding a stolen child at the crime scene is nonsensical. Add to this the challenge posed as to how to hold a child and close a curtain from outside the window. I think it is safe to rule out this possibility. I can only envisage two realistic scenario in which the curtains are closed post abduction. 1. Two people are involved with one standing outside the window. The abductor inside, has the curtain open and hands the outside accomplice Madeleine. The inside abductor then quickly closes the curtain to shield the outside view into the apartment. Perhaps instinctively, perhaps to shield their own face from the outside, perhaps to make the apartment appear normal for anyone that may walk past. 2. An intruder standing outside opened the window and raised the shutters from outside by reaching into the children’s bedroom and using the strap. They opened the curtain, entered the room and then closed the curtain to shield their activities from the outside. If the curtain was open when Kate arrived in the children’s bedroom then these laborious justifications would be unnecessary.
The PJ theory of a staged abduction remains a possibility when considering the curtain evidence. Kate’s changing stories are somewhat suspicious yet the changing details may be attributable to the fallibility of memory or her confused mindset when noticing Madeleine was missing. Kate’s changing accounts are vaguely suspicious when coupled with the curtains supposedly flying wildly apart; a feat that seems nigh on impossible considering the circumstances.
The Lights
The abduction of Madeleine presumably occurred after Gerry’s 9:05pm check of his children and prior to Kate’s 10:00pm check. During these hours it was dark outside and indeed dark inside the children’s bedroom. Within his May 10th statement, Gerry says “He is certain that, before leaving home, the children’s bedroom was totally dark”. In a 2008 interview, Kate echoed these sentiments about the darkness of the children’s bedroom as she speaks of entering the room at 10:00pm, “I was looking at Madeleine’s bed which is here, and it was dark and I was looking and I was thinking is that, is that Madeleine or is that the bedding and I couldn’t quite make her out, and it sounds really stupid now, but at the time I was just thinking I didn’t want to put the light on because I didn’t want to wake them.” According to the McCanns, vision inside the children’s bedroom was obscured by the darkness.
The one minor exception to this complete darkness narrative involves Matthew Oldfield’s check, occurring in between the Gerry and Kate checks. His statement reads “there was enough light in the bedroom for him (Oldfield) to see the twins in their cots.” A tiny remnant of lounge room light must have filtered into the children’s bedroom. In his 10th of May statement, Gerry describes that the McCanns “Usually…entered the apartment, in which one of the lounge lights was lit”. Despite Matthew Oldfield sighting the twins from outside the room, an increased distance from the bedroom door inside the children’s bedroom would correlate with darker conditions. This means the window at the furthest side of the room would likely appear quite dark. Also, Madeleine’s position in the corner of the room would have also been dark.
There would have been a further consequence of the lounge room light being on. This would involve any intruder standing outside and looking at apartment 5a seeing a well-lit the apartment. This light would have acted as a deterrent to entering the apartment; namely the light increasing the risk that an adult was home. A budding abductor would have needed to monitor the comings and goings of the apartment to determine that no adult was present.
June Hughes stayed in 5a prior to the McCanns. In her statement she says “The apartment was also vulnerable for the fact that the entryway light (side of the street) was hanging and did not function. This made the entryway very dark. It was off from the street with a small parking zone between the street and the apartment.” This statement indicates that someone leaving the apartment with an abducted child might be able to leave under the cloak of darkness. It also suggests that the children’s bedroom wouldn’t have gained much illumination from outside, even with the shutters raised and curtains opened.
This immersion of darkness would have made an intruder’s navigation of the children’s cluttered bedroom problematic. The smallish bedroom contained the standard 2x single beds, chair and drawers. The McCanns had also placed two separate cots (for the twins) into the centre of the room. This severely restricted the walkable space. If an abductor had entered apartment 5a from a door then they would have had to switch the children’s bedroom light on. This would be required in order to then traverse the children’s bedroom, open the window and also open the shutters (both of which were open according to the McCann’s statement). The mechanics of working the shutter strap (which was curtain obscured) that raised the outdoor shutter would also require a light source. We need to assume that some light source was used by an abductor. A torch would prove cumbersome due to the abductors hand needing to be used to lift Madeleine and open the shutters and windows. The most logical process to explain the evidence within the 5a children’s bedroom is to conclude that the light was on at some stage despite this potentially drawing attention to the fact that an intruder was in 5a.
The question is then raised: why was the light turned off when Kate entered 5a post abduction? The light-switch was located on the inside of the children’s bedroom, next to the entry door of the bedroom. To turn the light off before exiting through the window makes little sense as the light source would be required to illuminate the messy path from the light-switch. A light source would also likely be required to exit the window cleanly. An alternative is that the light was turned off before exiting through the children’s bedroom door. This also seems clumsy: worrying about turning a light-switch off when you have just abducted a child and are holding them.
In the realm of the abduction theory, just one scenario stands out explaining how the light-switch was turned on and off whilst Madeleine was abducted- there were two abductors. Either two who entered 5a or one who entered the 5a children’s bedroom, turned the light on, opened the window, shutters and curtain, handed Madeleine to the second abductor waiting outside then swiftly turned the light-switch off before exiting the apartment through a door.
The Bedroom Door
The children’s bedroom door was found open to varying degrees on the night of May 3rd. Gerry checked on the children and saw Madeleine at 9:05pm and according to his 10th of May statement “noted that the children’s bedroom door was not ajar as he had left it but half-way open, which he thought strange”. When compiling the group timeline, Gerry writes that after checking on the children, he “shuts the door to approximately 5 degrees”. Matthew Oldfield checked on the McCann children in 5a at 9:30pm and only saw the twins, not bothering to look inside the room for Madeleine. In a police statement on the 4th of May, he describes the door being open wide enough to see the twins sleeping in their cots. In a police statement on the 10th of May, Matthew Oldfield “recalls that the bedroom door was half open, making an angle of 50 degrees.” Kate checked on the children at 10:00pm and discovered that Madeleine was missing. In her 4th of May statement, she “noticed that the door to her children’s bedroom was completely open” she refers to this as 60 degrees open.
The bedroom doorway to the children’s bedroom as viewed from the approach to the door. (Source: News of the World)
To recap the above information: The door was left 10cm ajar when the McCann’s left for the Tapas restaurant. At 9:05pm the door is about 45 degrees open and Gerry closes it to 5 degrees open. At 9:30pm, Matthew Oldfield notes the door as being 50 degrees open and leaves it and at 10:00pm, Kate notices the door at 60 degrees open. If Gerry’s observation was correct, then an intruder may have already been in apartment 5a when he entered at 9:05pm. Gerry notes the room as still being dark, with the implication being that the shutters are still down (indeed it’s unclear if lifting the shutters would noticeably increase the light levels in the room). As Gerry closes the door and Matt Oldfield later finds it open, it’s plausible that an intruder who was already in the apartment opened the children’s bedroom door again once Gerry had left. The ability to recall the amount of degrees that a door is open post a traumatic situation is questionable. Despite this, the witness statements do provide a possible abduction timeframe.
‘B’ highlights the McCann children’s bedroom door. It is only slightly ajar in this photo.
There are some caveats regarding Gerry and Matthew Oldfield’s door statements. In his first statement to police on May 4th, Gerry doesn’t include his description of the door being wider than it should have been, nor his procedure of closing it. Gerry’s statement does strangely include detailed and incorrect information about Matthew Oldfield’s check “the shutters were closed and the door to the bedroom was ajar as usual (when Matt Oldfield checked the children’s bedroom).” Despite Gerry’s description of what Matthew Oldfield saw, Matt Oldfield’s first statement to police occurring on the 4th of May does mention the door being open wide enough to see both the twins in their separate cots.
If one assumes Gerry’s final statements regarding the door being open and darkness in the room (implying the shutters are down) are accurate, then the intruder must have entered the apartment through a door. If the statement of Matthew Oldfield is accurate describing the door being half open, then the intruder must have left through the bedroom door at some stage- perhaps to just look around the apartment or confirm Gerry had left. Questions are then raised regarding how, why and when the shutters are raised and window gets opened. Another scenario to explain the forever changing door status and the shutters and window being opened involves the two-abductor theory in which one remains in the apartment and one outside. The indoor intruder opens the bedroom door, hears Gerry coming and hides. Gerry then closes the door to 5 degrees. The intruder passes Madeleine out of the window to the second abductor and opens the bedroom door to leave.
The PJ with their theory of a staged abduction may find it suspicious that Gerry omitted mentioning the door in his first statement. They may also question Gerry’s inaccurate information within his same statement that Matthew Oldfield found the door only slightly ajar. The PJ may have found his revised statement that the door was half open and Gerry himself had closed it to 5 degrees as dubious and perhaps planting the seed of an abduction to police.
The McCanns and Matthew Oldfield Entering and Exiting
It is imperative to determine which doors were unlocked and easily accessible in apartment 5a on the night of May 3rd in order to consider how an intruder may have entered the apartment. The McCanns provided police with statements pertaining to which doors they used to check on their children on May 3rd.
The layout of apartment 5a. Note the front door at the bottom of the image. Also note the patio door near the top of the image. (Source: News of the World)
In his first statement to police on May 4th, Gerry claims “at about 9.05pm the witness (Gerry) came to the Club, entered the room using his respective key, the door being locked”. In this statement, Gerry recalls entering 5a through the front door which was locked. Gerry unlocked it with his key. At a later period in the same statement, Gerry refers to Matthew Oldfield entering the apartment, “by means of a glass sliding door that was always unlocked and was located laterally to the building.” It is important to note that this glass sliding door at the back of the apartment couldn’t be locked from the outside. Later on, in the same statement, Gerry says “At about 10.00pm it was his wife Kate who went to check on the children. She entered the apartment by the door using the key”. To clarify, Gerry’s first statement to police claims that on different occasions he and Kate entered the apartment on the night of May 3rd using the front door which was locked. Matt Oldfield entered using the back, sliding door which was unlocked.
In Gerry’s next statement to police on the 10th of May, he also refers to his check on the children, “He followed the normal route up to the rear door, which being open he only had to move it, that being the way in which he entered the lounge”. Gerry has changed his story from the front door being locked and Gerry and Kate both checking on the children using a key to enter the front door to both entering through the back, sliding, unlocked door.
In Kate’s original statement on May 4th she says, “At around 10pm, the interviewee (Kate) went to check on the children. She went into the apartment by the side door, which was closed but not locked.” The consensus view of Kate and Gerry at the end of this confusion seems to be that they both entered 5a on the night in question via the back, sliding door.
Gerry’s original recollection of entering 5a to check on the children via the front supposedly locked door raises questions. It was a 1-minute walk from the Tapas bar to the back, sliding door of the apartment. It was a superfluous 2-minute uphill walk through the T junction and carpark to enter 5a via the front door. Indeed, in Gerry’s police statement he recalls needing to urinate at this stage meaning the longer route is doubly pointless. Taking this longer route served no purpose- especially considering the McCanns seemed unsure if this front door was even unlocked, contrasting the definitively open, closer, back, sliding door. The McCanns only had one front door key for apartment 5a. If Gerry thought Kate was going to enter the apartment via the front door, he would have had to provide her with this sole key.
The green line indicates the 1-minute walking route from the Tapas restaurant to the back, unlocked door of the McCanns’ apartment. The red line indicates the 2-minute walking route from the Tapas restaurant to the front door of the McCanns’ apartment. Gerry initially claimed he had taken this longer route when checking on the children.
Reading through the McCanns’ police statement, they often left the apartment during the week with the same routine: Kate and the children would leave through the back, sliding door and Gerry would lock this back, sliding door which could only be locked from the inside. Gerry would then leave the apartment via the front door and he would lock this door. The exception to this rule seems to be the McCanns not locking the back, sliding door when leaving the children inside- enabling a Tapas member to check on them. The McCanns’ statements are rather confusing regarding the front door. They seem to sometimes lock this door and it is possible they didn’t recall if they locked the front door on the night of May 3rd with Gerry on the 10th of May stating, “Referring to the front door, while he is certain that it was closed it is unlikely that it was locked as they had left by the rear door.” The bottom line is the front door may have been unlocked on the night of May 3rd: no-one seems to know.
An Abductor Entering and Exiting
Apartment 5a was a prime location for an abduction. Within the apartment block number 5, it was arguably the most exposed unit meaning any budding abductors could with some degree of subtlety, monitor the McCanns’ comings and goings. The apartment is located on the ground floor at a road T junction meaning any planning abductor could walk by or drive by without raising suspicions. Other apartments that are elevated require shared stair access that would make the comings and goings harder to monitor with so many people using the exits. These raised apartments would also mean an abductor may get cornered whilst leaving with a child, contrasting 5a’s multiple doors leading out onto multiple roads. Other ground apartments would require an intruder to monitor an apartment from directly in front of the apartment. Apartment 5a provides an abductor with the privilege of being able to monitor the residing family’s comings and goings from multiple perspectives.
An image showing the vulnerable positioning of the McCanns’ apartment. The red cross indicates the front door of 5a. The green cross highlights the gate leading to the rear entry of 5a. The yellow cross indicates the exit from the Tapas restaurant area.
On the flipside, 5a provided cover that would suit an abductor whilst in the act of abducting. There is a raised wall about 2 metres in front of the children’s bedroom window that provides a degree of privacy for an abductor to hide behind. Anyone standing in front of the children’s window wouldn’t be completely shielded but some cover would be provided. From the vantage point of another apartment inside the complex, it would be close to impossible for someone to witness a child being taken from the window.
The raised wall between the carpark and the McCanns’ apartment. (Source: Express)
Another angle demonstrating the raised wall between the carpark and the McCann children’s bedroom window. (Source: Mike Teskowski)
On May 3rd 2007, there were a number of bushy trees that skirted the wall outside apartment 5a. These trees were removed in subsequent times however they were present when Madeleine disappeared. The trees provided some barrier between the road and the apartment’s front door and children’s bedroom window. This may have provided an extra shield for any abductor.
This photo was taken on May 4th 2007. It shows the bushy trees obscuring the view into the front of apartment 5a. (Source: Frog’s Cristaluz)
The previous sections have looked at the likelihood that an abductor entered or exited through the bedroom window, deeming this event close to an impossible task. The possibility lingers that one abductor handed Madeleine to a secondary abductor through the window before exiting the apartment through a door. There are two doors that exit the apartment, the front standard door and the back, patio, sliding door.
The Front Door
According to the McCanns’ statements, they seem uncertain whether the front door was unlocked or not. ‘Major expert from the Scientific Police’ Alexandre Simas, examined the front door of 5a post Madeleine disappearance. He has said, “This type of apartment door, normally there are only three possibilities: to extract the lock’s cannon, which didn’t happen, or it would have been reported; a false key, a copy or one that was used without permission; or using a malleable material.” Simas has conducted an experiment with the door’s screw to determine that the third option didn’t occur. This leaves the possibility that a copy key was used to enter the front door, indeed if the door was actually locked. An abductor planning out their task would unlikely spend significant amounts of time watching the McCanns and planning their abduction methodology only to hope that a door is unlocked. There is a chance that on a previous occasion an abductor determined that doors were left unlocked to the apartment. This determination may have occurred whilst watching the McCanns and others check on the McCann children via the back door. Another scenario involves an intruder knocking on the front door to ensure that no adults were within the apartment- a common method of burglars. If no-one answered, the intruder may have tried opening the front door and may have found it unlocked.
The front door to apartment 5a as viewed from the outside.
A standard front door lock in the Ocean Club. This image is not of 5a’s door lock but another in the resort. (Source: Jeanne D Arc)
The front door to apartment 5a is indicated by the ‘A’. ‘B’ highlights the children’s bedroom door.
The Back, Patio, Sliding Door
To enter the apartment from the back, sliding door required a fairly laborious process of opening and closing doors and gates. All entrants to 5a on the night of May 3rd using this route described the following items as drawn and closed on all occasions, meaning that any abductor closed or drew these items after themselves if they used this route. To enter- firstly, a small gate needed to be opened, emanating from the side road. Some steps needed to then be ascended, leading to a childproof gate that required opening. Finally, the unlocked, sliding door required opening. The last, little mentioned step is to open and close the curtain that covered the patio doors. This curtain was kept close by the McCanns.
The gate leading from the street to the McCann apartment’s rear stairs.
A secondary gate lay at the top of the stairs leading to the rear of the McCanns’ apartment.
The top gate has since been removed. This area is the patio region in front of the rear sliding doors of the McCanns’ apartment. The Tapas restaurant can be seen in the distance, just beyond the pool.
The rear, sliding doors of 5a. (Source: News of the World)
The rear, sliding doors of 5a as viewed from inside the apartment. The curtains that appear open in the image were closed during the nightly checks undertaken on the McCann children. Kate found the curtains drawn closed when she approached the apartment on the night of May 3rd. Does this suggest any abductor entered or exited by a different route?
If an intruder entered via this route, I can foresee why they would close all doors and gates after themselves and why they would draw the curtains after themselves. Keeping these items the way they were found wouldn’t raise suspicion if someone came to check on the McCann children and subsequently feared someone inside the apartment due to an open gate or open curtain. Exiting the apartment is a different issue.
If a sole abductor was carrying Madeleine, it would seemingly waste time to open a curtain whilst holding a child then close the curtain after themselves for no purpose. Follow this with them politely opening and closing the sliding door and two gates. This would surely slow down a quick getaway and provide a cumbersome task whilst holding a child. A getaway route via the back patio, stairs and side road would also prove risky if a McCann parent came to check on their children this way. Indeed, Jeremy Wilkins spoke to Gerry outside this side road gate for several minutes whilst other members of the Tapas 9 continued to walk up and down this path throughout the night of May 3rd to check on their own children.
Gerry takes the route down the stairs from apartment 5a. (Source: Reuters)
Gerry exits the gate at the base of the stairs of apartment 5a. This gate leads onto the road. (Source: Reuters)
Two intruders exiting the apartment through the sliding, back, patio door would make more sense however this wouldn’t explain the window and shutters being open.
A more intelligent exiting strategy than a sole apartment intruder exiting via the back, sliding, patio door would likely be the front door- a single door that requires opening and closing and a wall obscured area partially hiding any exiting abductor from the road. Even if a Tapas member walked down this road to their apartment, they wouldn’t necessarily see someone standing in front of 5a.
Did an Intruder Access the Apartment?- Takeaways
Kate was the first person to enter and survey the children’s bedroom on the 3rd of May, post abduction. The scene she describes was: window open, shutters raised, curtains closed, light off and door open. The above sections have attempted to explain these features in terms of the abduction theory. An intruder entering, exiting or both through the window has been proven unlikely when the details of the scene are examined. The one slight possibility involves a single intruder somehow opening the locked window and from outside, raising the shutters up by reaching into the apartment and pulling on the strap. There are other scenarios that don’t rely on somehow unlocking the window.
I can foresee an intruder entering 5a through the unlocked, back, sliding door after monitoring the comings and goings from the apartment. Perhaps witnessing Tapas 9 members enter and exit through this route triggered an abductor to consider this door was unlocked. Following this, an abductor’s actions may involve: opening the children’s bedroom door, switching the light on, raising the shutters using the strap and locking them in place fully opened, opening the window and opening the right curtain. Taking Madeleine, handing her to someone outside the window then quickly pulling the right curtain closed to shield the outside world view into the room, turning the light off and leaving the apartment via the front door.
Other possibilities appear more farfetched. The shutter and window may have been opened but not used. Another possibility is that they were both opened as part of a contingency exit strategy by an intruder in case they heard the McCanns return- they could get out quickly. An argument against these non-use of the window arguments is that the time opening the window and shutter would take longer than the abduction itself which would increase the risk of getting caught. If one supports the abduction hypothesis, the most likely explanation for the scene found in 5a is a two-person abduction in which one person waits outside and Madeleine is passed through the window.
This two-person abduction theory would require planning before the abduction took place- especially in working out the logistics of opening the shutter and window. It indicates a familiarity with the inner workings of the Ocean Club and items inside the apartments. Is this two-person process of raising the shutters and passing Madeleine through the window a logical and efficient method to take her? It can be argued that one or two people quickly grabbing Madeleine and leaving through the front door or back, sliding door would be easier, would result in less time in the apartment and ultimately result in less chance of being caught. Another possible scenario involves one person entering through the back, sliding door and raising the shutters and opening the window to allow a secondary person to enter through the window.
Based on the scene found by Kate in the children’s bedroom, a very specific set of events would have had to occur for an abductor to produce such a tableau. There are only a few logical explanation for the scene entailing an abduction with the evidence available. This isn’t to say the abduction didn’t occur only that a clearly broken window lock would make conjuring an abduction process easier. Alternatively, if an intruder didn’t touch the window or shutters and simply entered and exited the apartment through a door, then it would be easier to imagine the abduction scenario.
The PJ theory of a staged abduction may involve alleging that Kate or Gerry set the scene up. The PJ may allege that during Kate’s 10:00pm check, she opened the window, raised the shutter, and then closed the curtain. The PJ may further allege that the only useable fingerprints found were Kates on the window- perhaps a by-product of her sliding the window open. Furthermore, Kate and Gerry may have attempted to spread the word of the shutters being jemmied to their friends and family to further enhance the staged abduction. I don’t claim these events occur, only that the PJ may have been thinking along these lines.
Part 4- Extra Evidence
“The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.” – G.K. Chesterson
When Madeleine vanished from the McCann children’s bedroom on the night of May 3rd, there were two other children sleeping only 1 metre away from her. These were her younger siblings- Sean and Amelie, both 2 years and 3 months old. The twins slept through the commotion of the night. This commotion included: the window opening, cold air coming in, the shutters being raised, the light being turned on, Madeleine being taken, Kate searching for Madeleine, Kate calling out, the Tapas group members entering the bedroom and searching for Madeleine, the subsequent dozens of people who entered the children’s bedroom searching for Madeleine and the emotional cries exuded by Kate. The twins were eventually moved to another apartment but they kept sleeping. In total, the twins continued to sleep for 6 hours after Madeleine had disappeared.
The cots in the McCann children’s bedroom were next to Madeleine’s bed (indicated by the red oval).
Within Kate’s book, ‘Madeleine’ she speculates, “Had Madeleine been given some kind of sedative to keep her quiet? Had the twins too?” This sentiment is echoed by Inspector Ricardo Paiva who recalls Kate making this observation on the night of May 3rd. Paiva said of Kate, “she remembered that on the day of Madeleine’s disappearance, in spite of all the commotion and noise made by the authorities and other persons who were looking for Madeleine in apartment 5A of the Ocean Club, the twins never woke up, having been transported to another apartment, they remained asleep, due to which she now presumes that they were under the effect of some sedative drug that a presumed abductor had administered to the three children in order to be able to abduct Madeleine”.
Tapas member Fiona Payne took part in a recorded interviewed by authorities on the 10th of April 2008 and recalled Kate checking the twins breathing on the night of May 3rd 2007, post Madeleine’s disappearance, “she kept going into the twins, she kept putting her hands on the twins to check they were breathing, she was very much concerned in checking that they were okay. But they were okay, I mean, they were fine, they didn’t, they were asleep, but at the time it did seem weird.”
Madeleine was sleepy during the afternoon of May 3rd, leading up to her disappearance. This is the reason that Kate decided to not partake in the play date that was organised for the evening. Kate’s theory that her children were given some sedative are not coming from a layperson. Kate was trained as an anaesthetist so is well aware of all facets of sedation.
About 3 months after Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate made several requests for blood, hair and nail samples of the twins to be taken to test their systems for any sedative drugs they may have been administered. In October 2007, strands of Sean and Amelie’s hair were taken and tested for sedatives by a toxicologist however none were found. Despite a negative result on the hair analysis for sedation, Goncalo Amaral claims the test was performed too late and any sedative traces would have left the twin’s systems.
The Abduction Theory and Sedation
Sedatives administered orally typically take time to work. It seems unlikely that an intruder entered apartment 5a on the night of May 3rd and administered Madeleine and the twins an oral sedative. If an abductor wasn’t taking the twins, providing them with a sedative seems superfluous unless they intended to keep them quiet. The time spent administering a sedative and waiting for its effects and thus risking a chance of getting caught would seemingly outweigh an abductor’s benefits of sedating the children. There are other substances such as chloroform that can cause unconsciousness however this class of substances produces a strong, lingering odour and no-one that entered the children’s bedroom post Madeleine disappearance reported such a smell.
It’s conceivable that the McCann children were administered a sedative prior to the night of May 3rd and this may account for Madeleine’s unusual tiredness in the evening. The McCann children had eaten dinner in the Tapas area at 5:00pm as part of the Kid’s Club crèche. Prior to this, they were at the crèche. It’s possible that someone working at the crèche or alternatively a cook placed a sedative substance in the children’s food in preparation for a later abduction.
The PJ Theory and Sedation
The clearly drowsy twins post Madeleine disappearance helped shape the PJ theory of a staged abduction. The PJ theory consists of Kate administering a sedative to her children to help them stay asleep whilst she and Gerry were absent and at the Tapas Restaurant. Kate was a trained anaesthetist and would have been more familiar than the general public with sedation methods. One PJ theory alleges that Madeleine died directly from a parent administered sedative overdose. Another PJ theory alleges that Madeleine was drowsy from a parent administered sedative overdose and thus fell behind the lounge room sofa and died. The PJ theories diverge into one regarding a motive for Kate and Gerry hiding Madeleine’s body- the parents feared an autopsy would expose the fact that they provided Madeleine with a sedative leading to her death and they would therefore be culpable leading to potential jail time.
If the PJ theory pertaining to the McCann parents’ providing Madeleine with sedatives and her subsequently falling is correct, it may provide a timeframe for her death. Oral sedatives containing diphenhydramine take about 20 minutes to work. In his 4th of May 2007 police statement, Gerry details the children’s bedtime on May 3rd, “(they) were placed in their respective beds…at about 7:30pm.” This 7:30pm-8:00pm interval is consistent with the McCann parents’ other statements referring to their children’s bedtime. This suggests that if Madeleine was provided with such a tablet, she may have been given it about 7:10pm.
Kate has said the McCanns had Calpol and Nurofen in apartment 5a in adult and children doses to treat any fever and pain however none of these products had been given to the children during the holiday. Kate’s father, Brian Healy, was interviewed and asked if Kate might have provided a sleep aid to Madeleine on May 3rd. He responded, “Not at all”. The reporter then asked “Even out of kindness, she certainly wouldn’t have given her…” Healy responded, “Not even out of kindness,I think they may have used Calpol like most mothers, nothing”. This interview has often been quoted out of context and the false conclusion has commonly been drawn that Kate’s father said Madeleine was given Calpol to sleep- Healy clearly didn’t say this.
Calpol is a medication sold in some countries such as the UK to treat fever and pain- it is paracetamol and as such has no sedative properties. There is however a variant of Calpol called Calpol Night. Calpol Night contains diphenhydramine- a sedating antihistamine. The marketing of Calpol Night advertises its effects as a sleep aid designed for children aged 2 and older. The date of authorisation approval for Calpol Night was the 12th of January 2007- some 3 and a half months prior to the McCanns’ holiday to Portugal. Despite this date, there seems to be information online showing that Calpol Night only became available in September 2007- 4 months after Madeleine disappeared. This exclusion of Calpol Night doesn’t remove the possibility that the McCann children were given some other sedative acting product.
In October, the strands of hair were taken from Sean and Amelie and no traces of sedative drugs were found. Goncalo Amaral claims these tests were carried out too late and the toxins would have been gone by this stage. Toxicology experts say that traces of drugs in hair can be found months and sometimes years later. Kate seemed keen to get the twins tested for sedatives and this is perhaps an argument against the McCann parents sedating their children. If the McCann parents had sedated Madeleine and she subsequently died and Kate and Gerry feared criminal repercussions thus disposed of the body, then why would Kate push for testing to expose her sedative use? Also, why would Kate keep bringing up her theory that an intruder sedated her children, as she did? Alternatively, perhaps she feared the hair testing would occur and she needed to create a justification for a positive test alerting to sedatives. Another possible scenario is that Kate worried Madeleine’s body would be found by authorities and an autopsy would find sedative traces in Madeleine. By claiming all her children were sedated by an intruder, she may have been preparing for this scenario.
The Rental Car Odour
Within ‘Part 2- The Sniffer Dogs and DNA’ it was outlined how the sniffer dogs identified the McCanns’ rental car as containing the scent of blood. This was specifically in the boot of the car and on the driver’s key. There was the possibility that a cadaver odour was present in the car however this was speculative. A sample on the boot’s right wall was indeterminate whether Madeleine’s DNA was present. I should emphasise that the McCanns began renting their Renault Scenic hire car 24 days after Madeleine’s disappearance. The above evidence is central in the PJ theory that Madeleine died in apartment 5a and her body hidden by the McCann parents in Praia da Luz. The theory also states that many weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance, the McCann parents picked up Madeleine’s body from the hiding place and placed it in the boot of their rental car to hide it somewhere more permanently. The PJ used further evidence to support this transportation of Madeleine’s body in the boot of the rental car theory- namely a peculiar odour.
Kate and Gerry driving in their Renault Scenic rental car. (Source: The Sun)
Various relatives of the McCanns made their way to Portugal to support Kate and Gerry, post Madeleine’s disappearance. Two of these family members were added to the Renault rental car driver’s agreement. These were Gerry’s brother-in-law Alexander Cameron and Kate’s cousin’s husband Michael Wright.
Michael Wright far left and Alexander Cameron far right.
An odour was emanating from the boot of the rental car in July 2007. A neighbour of the villa that the McCanns were staying in observed the McCanns’ rental car boot being left open day and night for a period of several days. This neighbour who was also a lawyer has said “I drive down this street every day to turn my car around at that end and every time that I passed the house and I looked at the car, the car always had an open boot door, day or night. I often passed at night and always verified it. It was a fact, I reported it and that was it.” Both added rental car drivers acknowledged that a smell was coming from the boot of the rental car.
The McCanns’ Renault Scenic hire car had a raised boot for several days and nights.
In a police statement on the 15th of April 2008, Gerry’s brother-in-law Alexander Cameron said, “On one occasion, I believe it was on July of 2007, I took Patricia to the supermarket. We carried bags in the boot (trunk) of the Renault Scenic; bought various items including fresh fish, shrimp and beef. When we unloaded the shopping bags, we noticed that blood has run out of the bottom of the plastic bag. After this shopping trip and still in the month of July 2007, I began to notice a strange odour in the car. I did not give it much importance and assumed it was likely due to the leakage from the rubbish bags or from the blood which had escaped from the shopping bags. As a result, we removed the carpet from the boot (trunk) in order to clean it. I tossed (beat) the boot carpet to remove any particles and cleaned it with a wet cloth and left it to air out.”
The other added driver of the rental car and Kate’s cousin’s brother, Michael Wright attributed the smell to a differing etiology in a 16th of April 2008 police interview, “I noted some disagreeable smells on a number of occasions which I judged to have come from the twins’ nappies. Discarded nappies were collected in rubbish bags and held until thrown into the (rubbish) bins, (thereby) provoking smell. I have no knowledge of anything spilling from any article nor of any cleaning of the car after such a hypothetical spill.” It should be noted that the Portuguese waste disposal system requires residents to take their rubbish to a rubbish dump- there are no garbage trucks.
Various items were transported in the boot of the McCanns’ hire car. (Source: Sky)
Within the police statements by Cameron and Wright, they describe the odour as “strange” and “disagreeable”. The boot being left open supports this notion as does Cameron removing the boot’s carpet, washing it and airing it. It is perhaps curious that Cameron and Wright attributed the odour to differing causes. If blood from meat spillage had caused the odour definitively and the odour was obnoxious enough to leave the boot open for several days and nights, then why was Wright supposing a different cause for the odour- the nappies. If the nappies were clearly causing the odour, why did they continue to be brought to the rubbish dump as Wright’s statement suggests with his clause that the smells occurred “on a number of occasions?”
The Rental Car Journeys
Several weeks after the disappearance of Madeleine, Kate and Gerry began to make car trips to the west of Praia da Luz. Based on cell phone activity, the location of these journeys has been broadly tracked. Three such journeys appear below: on June 9th, July 26th and July 27th.
The Renault scenic rental car was given to the McCanns on the 27th of May 2007 and it was returned on the 23rd of September 2007. When picked up, the rental car odometer showed 3,114km and when it was returned just under 4 months later, it showed 14,443km. This is a significant distance covered- 11,329km. The McCanns left the car back in Praia da Luz when travelling across Europe by plane and it was used by Alexander Cameron and Michael Wright during this period.
As part of their theory, the PJ suspected that the McCanns moved Madeleine’s body from a hiding place in Praia da Luz to somewhere more remote, using the rental car. How easy would have it been for the McCanns to move a body? Goncalo Amaral claims the McCanns weren’t being watched 24 hours a day and he adds that journalists didn’t spend the night in Praia da Luz. Based on imagery from the media circus surrounding the McCanns, there were numerous media desperate for photos and information, so much so that the scene was wildly chaotic. The McCanns were regularly followed by the media whenever they drove anywhere in their rental car.
Crowds of media regularly followed Kate and Gerry. (Source: ‘Madeleine’ book)
When Could a Body Have Been Moved?
If the PJ theory is correct, a body was transported by the McCanns in the boot of the rental car at some stage between the hiring of the car- on the 27th of May 2007 and the sniffer dogs alerting to the car on the 6th of August 2007. This period is a little over 2 months. Is there any way to narrow down this period? The witness who noticed the boot of the Renault car open day and night for several days doesn’t date this event. Gerry’s brother-in-law, Alexander Cameron supplied an approximate date as to when he noticed the odd smell emitting from the boot of the Renault scenic hire car, “After this shopping trip and still in the month of July 2007, I began to notice a strange odour in the car.” This statement seems to indicate the smell originated in the latter half of July 2007. Many trips were taken by the McCanns to the west of Praia da Luz. These are analysed in more detail here.
Another potentially relevant timeframe involves the McCann clothes that Eddie alerted to as containing cadaver scent. Kate’s black and white chequered pants and white blouse were both alerted to as well as Sean’s red t-shirt with aeroplanes on the front. The photo below was taken on the 4th of June and Sean is wearing the red t-shirt with aeroplanes on the front whilst Kate is wearing the white blouse. She isn’t wearing the black and white chequered pants though. If a photo emerged with these 3 items being worn, it would potentially be noteworthy.
On the 4th of June 2007, Sean wore the red t-shirt that would later be alerted to by Eddie and Kate wore the white blouse that would also be later alerted to by Eddie. (Source: Reuters)
On the 8th of June, Sean also wore the red t-shirt featuring cartoon planes and the words “UP, UP AND AWAY”. It isn’t clear what clothes the McCann family wore on the night of May 3rd,
On the 8th of June, Sean wore the red t-shirt that would later be alerted to by Eddie. (Source: Reuters)
A police photograph showing the red t-shirt of Sean’s that Eddie alerted to in early August.
In defence of the McCanns, it seems not just understandable but necessary to travel outside of Praia da Luz during the months that followed Madeleine’s disappearance. They would have desperately wanted to avoid the media, would have felt trapped inside their villa with the throngs of media outside and probably would have loved to just drive away for a much-needed break. The PJ theory that a body was moved by the McCanns has potential pitfalls in it that make such a manoeuvre possibly disjointed from the evidence. These will be discussed in the ‘theories’ section.
The Sofa
A central piece of evidence used by the PJ in this case is the sofa in the lounge room that was beneath a window. There was another sofa at right angles to this sofa. The PJ speculate that Madeleine may have been playing on the sofa beneath the window or trying to look outside the window and subsequently fell behind the sofa resulting in her death. Both sniffer dogs alerted to human blood scent as being in this region.
Eddie and Keela both alerted to the area behind/under the sofa.
June Hughes stayed in the McCanns’ apartment 5a a week prior to the McCanns. In a statement to police she refers to the living room sofa- “As far as I recall, the living room sofa (to the right of the entry across the patio door) was slightly removed from the wall, around 60 cm.” This gap between the sofa and the wall is fairly significant in size- about the length from an adult’s wrist to their shoulder. This gap was presumably necessary to provide room to open and close the curtains between the sofa and the window. It can now easily be envisaged that a child playing on the sofa could fall behind it onto the hard, tiled floor. The fall would only be around 1 metre but an awkward landing could potentially prove fatal.
Human blood scenting dog, Keela, alerted to a specific area that was in the row of tiles adjacent to the wall. This is approximately 1 metre from where sample 3a was collected from that contained similarities to Madeleine’s DNA. The sample was described in the DNA report as “Stain on the floor collected using a dry swab”. Also written in the report was “it is not possible to attribute this DNA profile to a particular body fluid”. If a child was to fall from the sofa, into the gap between the sofa and the wall, this region of tiles in the row immediately adjacent to the wall is where a child may land. The approximate 1 metre gap between Keela’s alert and sample 3a could be attributed to a mop distorting the location of the blood, multiple blood locations or alternatively, the sample not correlating to the alert location as Keela wasn’t alerting to Madeleine’s DNA.
Keela alerted to this location behind the lounge room sofa.
The red oval indicates where the tiles had been removed from the floor in order to gather samples underneath the tiles. Note the location matching the image above this image.
Sample 3a was taken from a region approximately 1 metre away from where Keela alerted. This sample shared similarities with Madeleine’s DNA profile however ultimately proved inconclusive.
Within the police photos taken of apartment 5a during the morning of May 4th 2007, just hours after Madeleine vanished, there is a photo of the lounge in question. From the image, it appears as if the sofa has been pushed back against the curtain, causing the left side of the curtain to be ruffled upwards by the sofa. This is inconsistent with June Hughes account that the sofa was 60cm away from the wall. The PJ may have speculated that Madeleine died here and the couch was pulled away by a parent and Madeleine was removed from this location. Following this, the sofa may have been pushed back- not into its original position but instead pressing against the curtain and wall- preventing the curtain from opening.
The curtain appears ruffled in between the sofa and the window. Previous people to occupy apartment 5a claimed there was a 60cm gap between this sofa and the wall.
An alternative theory to explain the curtain’s positioning involves the search for Madeleine post her disappearance. Presumably the entire apartment was searched completely and this would have included sliding sofas out, searching behind them and then pushing them back.
A final point pertaining to the sofa involves Gerry’s statement to police on the 10th of May 2007. At 7:00pm on May 3rd, after playing tennis, “he made his way to the apartment, finding Kate and the children playing on the sofa.” The PJ have speculated that Madeleine died whilst or soon after Gerry was playing tennis. When Gerry did enter the apartment, he may have found Madeleine lying deceased after having fallen off the sofa- the area the sniffer dogs alerted to. When outlining his statements to police, he may have tried to concoct a story about the events that transpired but had the true imagery in his head, thus half-lying and mentioning the sofa but not Madeleine’s death. Indeed, if Madeleine did fall from the sofa after Gerry returned from tennis, as variants of the PJs theory allege, the “children playing on the sofa” statement he made to police may be truthful. Perhaps he couldn’t come up with a unique enough lie on the spot. A caveat to this section: Gerry doesn’t specify which sofa the children were playing on upon his return from his tennis game.
Once Keela and Eddie alerted to the area behind the sofa, the sofa was moved. The red rectangle illustrates where the sofa had been when the McCanns stayed in the apartment.
The Moving Beds
In the photos of apartment 5a taken on the morning of the 4th of May, just hours after Madeleine’s disappearance, we are provided a snapshot in time of the tableau. There are two single beds in the parent’s room with one bed having been pushed across the room to create a makeshift double bed. This has left a significant space between the now one mega bed and the cupboard that Eddie the cadaver dog alerted to a cadaver scent. The children’s bedroom has two single beds flanking the two cots that occupy the centre of the room. These bedroom arrangements weren’t necessarily always as they are described above.
The McCann parents’ bedroom contained two single beds pushed together. The cupboard containing the cadaver scent alerted to by Eddie is just beyond the right of the image.
On the 7th of May 2007, the person who had cleaned apartment 5a during the McCann’s stay, Maria Julia Serafim da Silva, made a statement. She entered the McCanns’ apartment on the day prior to Madeleine going missing- May 2nd. Da Silva’s description of the scene was “she remembers having noticed that the couple was sleeping in the room located opposite the entrance, where she confirmed the presence of a child’s bed (crib)…. In the room next to the entrance to the apartment there was a bed placed next to the wall (where she supposed the missing child slept), and also the second child’s bed (crib). All these beds were untidy at the time, meaning that they had been used.” In other words, in the parent’s bedroom there was one cot and in the children’s bedroom was a second cot. This was different to the scene found the next day in which both cots were in the children’s bedroom. Despite da Silva’s full statement going into details about which beds were slept in and the arrangement of the beds, she doesn’t mention the two single beds being pushed together. Alternatively, perhaps there is nothing suspicious to see in the sleeping arrangements.
On May 2nd, the cleaner said one cot was situated in the McCann parents’ room. When authorities arrived on May 3rd, both cots were located in the children’s bedroom.
The Cupboard and Adjacent Space
The two single beds in the McCann parents’ bedroom were moved together to make a double bed. This isn’t quite true- technically one bed has been moved and one has remained static. This could have an innocent explanation such as creating room for a cot or the parents wanting to simulate a double bed. This moving bed has created space in the McCann parents’ room that extends about 2 metres from the beds to the cupboard. There is a sinister possibility for this space. This space is the region that Eddie the cadaver dog alerted to a cadaver odour. When Eddie the cadaver scenting dog alerted to this region, he placed his head in the air around the second shelf from the ground in the cupboard. Dog handler Martin Grime wrote in his report that this type of alert indicated the scent may have moved to this area- it wasn’t a specific location type alert. A specific indication alert would involve Eddie placing his nose to a surface. The nature of Eddie’s alert to cadaver scent in this region may refer to cadaver scent being in the cupboard or next to the cupboard and then conglomerating in the cupboard.
Note the space on the right of the image that has been formed by the McCanns pushing the two single beds together.
It is plausible that a deceased Madeleine was placed on the ground next to the cupboard- in the area where there is empty space. There are several possible reasons for this location being chosen. If Madeleine had died in the lounge room, her body may have required moving to a location that was less visible than the lounge room. There were numerous windows around the perimeter of the lounge room. Curtains covered many of these windows however vertical gaps between any two drawn curtains provided the opportunity for someone to view inside the room (indeed the abduction theory also encompasses this point). The two doors providing entry to the house also adjoin the lounge room meaning this area has little privacy. Hypothetically, by moving Madeleine’s body to the parents’ bedroom, there would be less chance of someone seeing Madeleine’s body.
There is a significant amount of newly created space thanks to one of the single beds being pushed away from the cupboards.
One possible scenario involves Madeleine dying in the lounge room, the parents’ beds being moved to one side, and Madeleine being placed on the ground in this newly created space. Alternatively, Madeleine may have been placed in the cupboard, as a more private locale. By moving the beds and creating space, there was perhaps more room to move her or subsequently clean the cupboard. If someone was wishing to hide a child’s body within the confines of the apartment, the bedroom cupboard is a covert hiding spot. Indeed, there is really nowhere else in the apartment to hide a body although the garden is also a potential hiding spot. Another theoretical scenario involves a cot already being present in the space of the parents’ bedroom and this cot being moved to the already crowded children’s bedroom thus providing room for Madeleine’s body in this space.
The Shelves
Whilst it hasn’t been established that the cadaver odour that was detected by Eddie was specifically coming from the shelves, he did seem to indicate the region around the second shelf up from the bottom. When dog handler Martin Grime referred to this alert he wrote, “any scent residue will collect in a particular place due to the air movement of the flat”. In photos taken of the McCanns’ apartment 5a post Madeleine’s disappearance, there are two shelves of the cupboard in question that are occupied- The 2nd from bottom level which Eddie alerted to contains a haphazardly placed pile of clothes. It’s plausible that the cadaver odour may have been present in the cupboard in the parent’s bedroom and transferred to Kate’s clothes and Sean’s top. This theory provides a possible explanation for why these clothes were alerted to by Eddie as having cadaver scent. Alternatively, Kate may have been wearing the clothes on the night of May 3rd when handling a deceased Madeleine. She may have then removed these clothes and placed them in the cupboard thus transferring the cadaver scent into the cupboard.
Eddie alerted after this sniff in the McCanns’ parents’ bedroom cupboard.
This police photo from the 4th of May shows a pile of clothes in the second shelf from the bottom in the area that Eddie would later alert to.
A closer look at the clothes situated in the area that Eddie would later alert to.
The 3rd level from the bottom contains what appears to be a bag. It is difficult to discern exactly if the item is a bag or not. If Madeleine was hypothetically placed in a bag whilst transported, the cadaver scent may have transferred to the bag. When the bag was later placed back in the cupboard, the scent may have dispersed across the cupboard accounting for Eddie’s alert. There is little clarity regarding whether it is indeed a bag pictured on the 3rd shelf from the bottom or not. Sky News ran an article about this supposed ‘tennis bag’ that has apparently gone missing. This can be viewed in the below video. There aren’t any other sources confirming the presence of this bag and there is no reference to it within the publicly available police files.
Despite the grainy photo quality, some people believe that a tennis bag was located in the 3rd from bottom shelf in the cupboard.
Watch the Sky News report referring to the possible blue, tennis bag:
All of these furniture arrangement speculations and deductions may indeed be seeking meaning in randomness. Holidaymakers often move furniture around and place bags and clothes in cupboards. There is nothing incriminating in these actions alone and no evidence in this section that refutes the abduction theory.
The Deleted Phone Calls
Kate’s mobile phone memory contained details of 39 phone calls between 6:28pm on the 25th of April 2007 until 4:35pm on the 27th of April 2007. This is essentially 39 phone calls across a two-day period prior to the holiday. The Praia da Luz holiday started on the 28th of April 2007. From Kate’s arrival in Portugal, until the 4th of May 2007 at 12:45am (around 3 hours after Kate noticed Madeleine was missing) there were only two phone calls recorded on Kate’s mobile phone memory call log. These two calls were from a wrong number from Swansea on the 2nd of May at 11:21am and a call from Gerry at 11:17pm on May 3rd, just over an hour after Madeleine was noticed missing.
Despite Kate’s call log memory only indicating 2 phone calls throughout the holiday until 12:45am on May 4th, Vodafone data showed that Kate actually had around 42 calls made and received throughout this period. The question lingers- why did Kate delete around 40 phone calls from her call log for the duration of the holiday, only keeping the wrong number from Swansea and keeping just one of the calls Gerry made to Kate in the hours following Madeleine’s disappearance?
Kate’s Vodafone phone data records from the start of the holiday to the end of May 2nd
Kate’s Vodafone phone data records from the start of May 3rd to May 4th.
Gerry’s call log showed his first call at 12:30am on the 4th of May 2007- there were no prior calls listed at all on Gerry’s phone. Subsequent calls after this 4th of May 2007 call appear in Gerry’s call log. Vodafone data showed that Gerry had deleted the records of 24 calls and text messages from his phone. This deletion included a call he made to Kate at 11:17pm on the night Madeleine disappeared- a call that wasn’t deleted on Kate’s phone. Indeed 4 calls took place between Gerry and Kate on the night that Madeleine disappeared and Gerry deleted all four of these calls whilst Kate deleted just 3. This discrepancy led the PJ to become suspicious of Kate and Gerry’s phone deletions. It should be noted that some of Gerry’s calls were to his voicemail service and some of his received texts were from his voicemail service that texted him if he was out of range for a phone call or his phone was turned off.
Gerry’s mobile phone call data as logged by Vodafone from the 2nd to 4th of May as recorded by the Praia da Luz antenna.
Kate must have deleted her phone call records, either accidentally or purposefully as 39 calls before the holiday were still registered on her call log. This shows that her call log didn’t just display a set number of calls and delete previous calls. Gerry explained his phone’s deletions by claiming that his phone only recorded details of its last ten calls made although it had actually kept details of his last 17 calls. Another phone oddity is that on the date of the 30th of April, neither Kate nor Gerry’s phone activated the Praia da Luz phone transmitter. This is despite both people remaining around the Ocean Club for most of the day.
There are some counter argument against the suspicious deleted phone records by the McCanns. Prior to 10:00pm on May the 3rd, the time and date that Kate noticed Madeleine missing, the previous call to or from Kate’s phone was at 1:34pm. Gerry’s last call prior to Madeleine’s disappearance was at 12:24pm. In other words, there was no unusual call activity remotely close to the timeframe that Madeleine disappeared.
Someone close to the McCanns has said “Any suggestion of Gerry receiving 10 texts the day before Madeleine disappeared are utter rubbish.” Indeed, this seems at least partially true. According to Vodafone data, Gerry received 12 text messages on May 2nd but they were from a Vodafone message box number that alerts him when his mobile can’t accept a call due to being out of range or turned off
A person close to the McCanns also said of Gerry, “He hardly used his phone during the holiday and most of the friends with them didn’t even have mobiles…The only time his phone rang was when work called and he explained he was on holiday. There are no mystery texts. Gerry has nothing to hide. It’s yet more nonsense coming from Portugal.”
Another defence of the McCanns revolves around the era of 2007. In this period, it was more common to delete texts to save space on the now antiquated phones. Kate and Gerry could have legitimately been receiving a large number of calls and texts post Madeleine’s disappearance and made the aforementioned deletions to ensure more space. Admittedly, even in the 2007 era, deleting call log records was unusual. A detailed analysis of the calls made and received by the McCanns throughout the holiday overlapped with the events that were occurring can be read here.
May 1st -Quiz Night
One day stands out in the McCann’s holiday week amongst the days prior to Madeleine’s May 3rd disappearance- This day was May the 1st. Najoua Chekaya was an aerobics instructor at the Ocean Club who would carry out a quiz night twice a week in the Tapas restaurant on Sunday and Tuesday nights. On Tuesday May 1st, the Tapas 9 attended this quiz night which according to Chekaya started at 9:00pm. The quiz night ended at 9:30pm at which point Gerry invited Chekaya back to the Tapas 9’s table for a drink. Chekaya stayed with the group chatting until 9:50pm.
Inside the Tapas restaurant at night. ‘1’ indicates where the Tapas 9 group sat. (Source: The Truth of the Lie)
Checkaya is a young British woman who has been described as attractive. In her 9th of May 2007 police statement, Chekaya recalls, “When questioned, she said that during the time that she was there Madeleine’s father did not leave the table, neither did any of the other guests, however, during this time one of the chairs was always empty, that of someone who had had dinner and left, not managing to indicate any identifying element about this person.” Chekaya has also stipulated that “she does not know whether Madeleine’s mother was also there.” Police later showed Checaya photos of the Tapas group and she thought Kate may have been missing. She also couldn’t recall seeing David Payne but wasn’t certain.
Najoua Chekaya ran the quiz night in the Tapas restaurant and was invited back to the Tapas 9’s table by Gerry.
In Russell O’Brien’s police interview, he states that he wasn’t there, instead he stayed at his apartment looking after a sick child. He also mentions that Rachael Oldfield wasn’t there either because she was ill. Jane Tanner recalls that she took Russell O’Brien’s dinner to his room. In her book, Kate doesn’t refer to the quiz night. This may be understandable even if she did attend as it only lasted 30 minutes.
It isn’t clear whether Kate attended the meal and then left, missing the quiz night or was present for both the meal and the quiz night. One theory is that Gerry invited Checkaya back to the Tapas 9 table as Kate wasn’t at this quiz night or because he was arguing with Kate.
May 1st also happens to be the only night of the holiday that Kate, Gerry or indeed any Tapas 9 member made a phone call after dinner (barring May 3rd after Madeleine’s disappearance). According to Kate’s Vodafone data, her phone was used 6 times between 10:16pm and 10:27pm for either texts or calls- it’s not clear which. It’s also not clear if she was making the texts/calls or receiving them. What is clear is that the antenna traffic shows these texts/calls didn’t involve other members of the Tapas 9. This is a strangely late time for such a high number of texts/calls in such a short period of time. The time in the UK is the same as Praia da Luz.
On May 2nd, the day following the quiz night, there was an oddity involving signing Madeleine out of the crèche. ‘K McCann’ signed Madeleine in at 2:45pm however KM Healy signed Madeleine out at 5:30pm. On 20 distinct occasions, Kate signed her children in or out and on 19 of these 20 occasions she signed as ‘McCann’ with just the 2nd of May, 5:30pm sign out using her maiden name- KM Healy. Did this throwback signature indicate some animosity towards Gerry following the previous night’s argument? Alternatively, maybe Kate simply lapsed back into her old, pre-married signature without thinking.
The creche sign in/out sheet from May 2nd. ‘k mccann’ signs Madeleine in and ‘km healy’ signs Madeleine out.
May 1st– Madeleine Excessively Crying?
To compliment the quiz night and abnormal phone call patterns on May 1st there is another oddity. On May 1st, the person who lived in the apartment directly above the McCanns’ 5a apartment, heard crying from below. This witness who has now passed away is Pamela Fenn. Fenn provided a statement to police on the 20th of August 2007 regarding this crying- “she was at home alone, at approximately 10.30pm she heard a child cry, and that due the tone of the crying seemed to be a young child and not a baby of two years of age or younger. Apart from the crying that continued for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, and which got louder and more expressive, the child shouted ‘Daddy, Daddy’, the witness had no doubt that the noise came from the floor below. At about 11.45pm, an hour and fifteen minutes after the crying began, she heard the parents arrive, she did not see them, but she heard the patio doors open, she was quite worried as the crying had gone on for more than an hour and had gradually got worse…. As soon as the parents entered the child stopped crying.”
Pamela Fenn can be seen on her veranda, above the McCanns’ apartment. (Source: The Guardian)
The sheer length of the crying- lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes along with the vivid description of it crescendoing before stopping when the patio door slid open make it likely that this wasn’t imagined by Fenn. There is a question over whether another apartment was the source of the crying as Kate and Gerry deny this event occurred. The crying not originating from 5a is possible although anyone who has lived in an apartment in close proximity to others has a finely tuned ear to which sounds are produced by which neighbours and their doors, windows, showers etc. Fenn’s description of specifically the patio doors opening and the crying ceasing concurs with the McCanns’ account of their regular night usage of the patio doors. Living above 5a, it seems likely that Fenn would be aware of these specific doors creating a sound that can be heard from her apartment and she can always corroborate this visually by going onto her back veranda and seeing the 5a residents leaving. In short, I believe Fenn’s account that the crying was stemming from 5a.
Pamela Fenn’s apartment can be seen directly above the McCanns’ apartment. (Source: Mail Online)
The McCanns’ account of May 1st involves namely a rejection of Fenn’s recollection of one of their children crying with Kate stating, it is “not true”. Within Kate’s police statement on September 6th 2007, she details the night of May 1st 2007, “She thinks they went to the flat four times: Gerry twice and she twice. Approx. 9:00pm, 9:30pm, 10:00pm, and 10:30pm.” Kate recalls that they “Finished dinner around 11 PM, and together with Gerry, left for the apartment.” Kate’s recollection seems inconsistent with her Vodafone data showing her phone being used six times between 10:16pm and 10:27pm. The Tapas 9 never brought their phones to the Tapas restaurant throughout the holiday week. According to McCann spokesperson Clarence Mitchell, “You had 9 people in a bar without watches on, without mobile phones.” This indicates that Kate was actually at her apartment between 10:16pm and 10:27pm. Did Kate wake Madeleine or go for a walk leaving Madeleine crying?
The McCanns provide an alternative explanation to Fenn’s crying account. According to Kate’s police statement, “She says that on that night, after midnight, Madeleine went to their room and said that her sister Amelie was crying…for a short time.” This description seems distinctly different from Fenn’s. Both in the timing of the crying event, the decibels it produced and the sheer length of the crying.
If Fenn’s account is correct, then the McCanns are lying about Madeleine’s crying and potentially lying about their half-hour interval checks: checks in which they would have heard Madeleine’s significant cries. The other members of the Tapas 9 may have also overheard Madeleine when they did their checks, so Fenn’s account raises the possibility that other Tapas members didn’t hear Madeleine’s cries either because they didn’t check on their children or the cries were inaudible from their apartments. Fenn reported that the McCanns arrived home at 11:45pm whilst Kate recalls returning on May 1st at 11:00pm which is another slight discrepancy between accounts. Although if Madeleine had been crying so intently for this period of time, Kate and Gerry would presumably have noticed when they returned home. If Fenn’s recollection is accurate, then it’s possible the McCanns provided Madeleine with some form of sedative to make her sleep on the nights of the 2nd and 3rd of May. Alternatively, if Fenn’s hearing acuity was so great, she potentially would have heard a hysterical reaction from the McCanns if they had accidentally killed Madeleine during May 3rd however she reports no such sounds.
Pamela Fenn’s apartment as it appeared at night. It was located above the McCanns’ apartment. (Source: Parent Dish)
If Fenn’s account is incorrect, the crying could be attributed to another nearby apartment containing a crying child, not the McCanns’. Fenn’s police statement describing the crying was made around 3 and a half months after Madeleine vanished and there is room for misremembering the date. Although Fenn recollects the specific night as according to her, “That night she contacted a friend called Edna Glyn, who also lives in Praia da Luz, after 11:00pm, telling her about the situation, who was not surprised at the child’s crying.”
If the date that Fenn recalls the crying is incorrect then a possible candidate date is the next night- May 2nd during which Kate and Gerry returned home at 11:50pm. This time frame is more consistent with Fenn’s statement that the McCann’s returned home to their child’s cries at 11:45pm by opening the sliding patio door which Fenn also heard. Following this, the crying stopped. More supporting evidence for this May 2nd night date being the date that Fenn heard the crying is supplied by Madeleine herself. She asked Kate on the morning of May 3rd“Why didn’t you come when Sean and I cried last night?”
An Argument Between Kate and Gerry
In her police statement on the 6th of September, some 4 months after Madeleine went missing, Kate details a minor argument she had with Gerry on the night of May 2nd, “because she was annoyed with Gerry. He ignored her after dinner when they went to the Tapas bar, which only happened that day. She decided to retaliate by sleeping in the other room, in the bed next to the window.” In a TV interview, Kate delves into more details of this minor spat. Gerry left the Tapas restaurant at 11:50pm that night and parted from the group with the words, “I’m off the bed, bye”. Kate was “a bit upset” that Gerry had left her at the Tapas restaurant. When Kate returned to the apartment 5 minutes later, Gerry was snoring and Kate decided to sleep in the children’s room.
This argument provides an explanation for the messy second bed within the children’s bedroom which Kate had slept in on the night of May 2nd. In Goncalo Amaral’s book, he speculates that the argument may have been more serious than Kate describes. He writes, “The mother would have left the father to sleep alone? That could mean there was trouble between them?” It is plausible that Kate slept in the children’s bedroom for more than just the night of May 2nd and that she volunteered this information about a minor argument to explain the messy bed that was seen in police photos post Madeleine disappearance. The bed closest to the door in the McCann parents’ room appears unslept in or very well made which supports this theory that Kate didn’t sleep in the parents’ bedroom.
The messy bed, photographed in the early hours of May 4th, was due to Kate McCann sleeping in it during the night of May 2nd. This bed was located in the children’s bedroom.
The two beds pushed together in the McCann parents’ bedroom. The bed nearest the camera appears unslept in. This photo was taken in the early hours of May 4th, just after Madeleine’s disappearance.
Kate is adamant that the minor argument between her and Gerry occurred on the night of May 2nd. There is some evidence that the argument actually occurred on the night of May 1st. On May 1st, there is the uncertainty over whether Kate was present at the quiz night. On this same night, Gerry invited the attractive aerobics instructor back to the Tapas table. Following this event, there were the 6 phone calls or text messages that Kate made or received between 10:16pm and 10:27pm. This was the only time a phone was used by any Tapas member after dinner for the duration of the holiday and until Madeleine’s disappearance so this phone usage by Kate was out of character. The following morning (May 2nd), Kate phoned or texted her friend, Amanda at 7:36am twice. This phone usage by Kate was 1 hour earlier than any other phone usage on any other morning of the holiday by any Tapas member. Like the previous night’s phone usage, it is out of character. Amanda returned Kate’s phone calls/texts at 7:50am. Like most of Kate’s phone calls and texts, they were deleted from her phone.
David Payne’s Visit to Kate McCann
The last time a person other than Kate or Gerry claimed to see Madeleine was Tapas 9 member David Payne for some period between 6:30pm and 7:00pm. It’s important to analyse the details surrounding this event due to this visit being such a pivotal part of the May 3rd timeline. The purpose for this visit has slight deviations but is focused on Gerry asking David Payne to visit Kate to check if she needed help getting the kids ready for a play date that the McCann children would ultimately abstain from due to tiredness. Gerry’s first mention of David Payne’s May 3rd visit to Kate was in his second police statement on the 10th of May 2007. “…having returned at 6:30pm, the time at which he saw David Payne next to the tennis court. David went to visit Kate and the children and returned close to 7:00pm, trying to convince the deponent to continue to play tennis, to which he did not accede as he had already been playing for about an hour and had to go back to his wife. Nevertheless, Russell, David and Matthew stayed to play.”
David Payne.
Gerry provided another statement to police on the 7th of September regarding David’s visit to Kate, “he says that he was playing tennis at 6:30pm when David appeared near the tennis court and asked him if he was going to continue playing. Gerry said he didn’t know because Kate might be needing help to look after the three children, because they intended to bring them to the recreation area after their showers. He thinks that David offered to check if Kate needed help, which he did, and returned minutes later. Regarding his previous statement where he states that David returned half an hour later around 7:00pm, he says that he returned to the tennis court after half an hour, as this time frame refers to the second time he returned to the tennis court after getting ready for the game.” Gerry had refined his statement from David having a 30-minute visit with Kate to David being absent from the tennis court for 30 minutes due to returning twice to the tennis court.
The tennis courts are in the foreground. The tall, white apartment block in the background and to the right was where David Payne and the McCanns were staying. (Source: Faith Lilly)
Kate made a statement on the 6th of September 2007 pertaining to this same visit by David Payne. “After showering, at around 6:30pm/6:40pm and while she was getting dry, she heard somebody knocking at the veranda door. She wrapped herself in a towel and went to see who it was. This door was closed but not locked as Gerry had left by this door. She confirmed it was David Payne, because he called out and had opened the door slightly. David’s visit was to help her to take the children to the recreation area. When David returned from the beach, he was with Gerry at the tennis courts and it was Gerry who asked him to help Kate with taking the children to the recreation area, which had been arranged but did not take place. David was at the apartment for around 30 seconds, he didn’t actually enter the flat, he remained at the veranda door. According to her he then left for the tennis courts where Gerry was. The time was around 6:30-6:40pm.” Notable features of Kate’s account include David knocking on the back door of 5a, Kate attending the door in a towel, David not entering 5a, the visit lasting just 30 seconds and David then returning to Gerry at the tennis court.
The red marker indicates the McCann and Payne apartment block. The tennis courts were in close proximity to the apartment block.
David Payne’s first police statement on the 4th of May 2007- the day after Madeleine disappeared omitted any mention of the visit to Kate’s apartment. His police interview on the 11th of April 2008 lasted over 4 hours and is too lengthy to quote in its entirety here. He mentions “definitely” entering apartment 5a, seeing all three of Kate’s children in their pyjamas but not recalling what Kate was wearing. He spent 3-5 minutes in the apartment before getting his tennis gear and returning to the courts. Gerry then continued to play tennis for a bit longer before returning back to Kate.
There are marked differences between Gerry, Kate and David’s recollection of events. The visit lasted either 30 seconds, 3-5 minutes or from Gerry’s perspective, David was gone for 30 minutes. Gerry remembers David leaving the court twice but David recalls leaving the court once. Gerry states that he returned to Kate when David came back to the tennis court at 7:00pm whilst David remembers Gerry continuing to play. Kate recalls attending to the door wearing a towel and David not entering the apartment whilst David states that he definitely entered and can’t remember what Kate was wearing.
The view into the McCanns’ apartment from the sliding, patio doors. (Source: News of the World)
David Payne’s partner, Fiona Payne adds further confusion to David’s movements of the evening. In her police interview on the 10th of April 2008 she says, “I wouldn’t have seen him (David) again until I got to the tennis courts to see him play tennis, so that would have been about half six and then he was playing tennis for that whole half an hour and, as I say, we left him playing tennis.” This 6:30pm to 7:00pm period is when David was supposedly at least partially with Kate or according to Gerry, away from the tennis courts entirely. In Fiona’s full interview she seems confused regarding David’s timeline on the evening of May 3rd.
The explanation for the differences in the accounts of Gerry, Kate, David and Fiona may be due to the events being so trivial that they weren’t recalled correctly. When a number of people experience any event there are variations in the retelling of the event by each person. The discrepancies in this account may be attributable to this phenomenon. Madeleine’s disappearance was the key event of the day perhaps shrouding all other events in the minds of the witnesses into oblivion. The number of people each Gerry, Kate and David interacted with in different scenarios on the holiday would make a perfect recall of events impossible.
There are some further, more cynical explanations for the discrepancies over David’s visit to Kate. One such scenario is if David visited Kate and saw that Madeleine was injured or had died. Following this, David may have returned to the tennis court to get Gerry. This may explain why Gerry describes leaving the tennis court as soon as David arrives. In David’s 11th of April 2008 police interview he describes seeing the children, “you know they looked immaculate, you know they were just like angels, they all looked so happy and well looked after and content….they just looked such healthy children….it just struck me how well they all looked.” David’s over eagerness to specifically portray the children as healthy can be viewed as suspicious and perhaps a compensation for what scene he truly saw. Alternatively, within the police interview he may have interpreted the questions as implying that Madeleine was dead during this visit and wanted to dispel this notion.
Another possible explanation for the varying accounts of David’s visit is that the visit never occurred. The visit may have been created to provide some form of alibi for Madeleine being alive at this time. Following on from this, did Kate prohibit her children from attending the play date on May 3rd because Madeleine was dead- not because her children were tired? It is at the least a curious oddity that the last sighting of Madeleine outside of Kate and Gerry was this inconsistently recalled sighting by David Payne. Like so many pieces of evidence within the Madeleine McCann case, there are suspicious circumstances, many of which can potentially be excused due to the fallibility of human memory.
It is almost certain that Gerry did play tennis on the evening of May 3rd, returning around 7:00pm to apartment 5a. To contrive such a tennis game would be risky, especially in the openness of the tennis courts with people outside the Tapas 9 playing on the courts, including some who vaguely knew Gerry such as Dr. Julian Totman. There are numerous police statements from fellow tennis players and tennis coaches that place Gerry at the tennis courts between 6:00pm and 7:00pm as part of a men’s social tennis tournament.
The Tapas Restaurant
The Ocean Club resort offered a night crèche however the Tapas group unanimously decided that this would disrupt their children’s nightly sleeping habits. For the period of their holiday, the Tapas 9 decided to leave their children in their apartments and check on them periodically while they were at the Tapas Restaurant. According to the head of the Ocean Club crèche, Amy Tierney, “if the guests wish so they can request services from the ‘Staff’ who would look after the children from 7.30pm to 11.30pm, however Madeleine’s parents never did this although the service is free.” As the crow flies, the distance from the back door of apartment 5a to the Tapas restaurant is about 50 metres. The McCanns described the distance between the Tapas restaurant and the apartment as like dining in your own backward. Despite the 50-metre gap between these locations, a pool separated the points. The walk from the Tapas restaurant to the backdoor of 5a was only about 1-minute. The top of apartment 5a could be seen from the Tapas restaurant but not the back, patio doors of the apartment.
The white circle indicates the top of the McCanns’ apartment as being visible from the Tapas restaurant.
The McCanns and the rest of the Tapas 9 have come under heavy criticism for leaving their children whilst dining at the Tapas restaurant. The McCanns specifically have been widely targeted online for leaving their children alone whilst at the Tapas restaurant and many individuals have blamed the McCanns for Madeleine’s abduction with the rationale that they deserved what happened. This victim blaming mentality is problematic. Obviously in hindsight, the McCanns regret their decision to leave their children unattended however if the abduction theory is correct then the blame squarely lies with the abductor themselves.
The Tapas 9 group had a week-long booking for dinner at the Tapas restaurant for 8:30pm. Post abduction, whilst scouring the police files for the case, Kate noticed some information about the Tapas restaurant booking schedule. This book was left publicly in the Tapas restaurant for all diners to see. According the Kate, written in this book was the information “we wanted to eat close to our flats as we were leaving our young children alone there, checking on them intermittently.” This could have provided a budding abductor with key information and a timeframe for an abduction to take place.
The checking rituals of the Tapas 9 on their children has been described as 15-minute checks and 30-minute interval checks by Tapas 9 members. There didn’t seem to be a logical system in place, instead random checks at random times were undertaken with some parents checking on other children on certain occasions. It’s possible that the Tapas 9 group exaggerated the number of reported checks they performed on their children in order to appear more conscientious.
‘1’ indicates where the Tapas 9 sat within the Tapas restaurant.
Various members of the Tapas restaurant staff have differing recollections regarding the number of checks performed by the Tapas 9 group during the nights. According to the timeline compiled by the Tapas 9, it seems as soon as one parent returned, another would leave. These checks seemed quite frequent. As the May 3rd checks were near the end of the holiday, one would assume the parents’ may have become complacent in their familiar environment and thus checked with less regularity. According to the timeline compiled by the Tapas 9 and Tapas 9 police statements, on May 3rd there were adults leaving the table on umpteen occasions to check on the children. Despite these claimed regular checks of the children, the Tapas restaurant workers only noticed one or two people leave the table throughout the night of May 3rd prior to Kate’s discovery that Madeleine was missing. This could be attributable to the workers not focusing on the Tapas 9 table however the Tapas 9 group comprised the majority of diners in the entire restaurant.
‘2’ indicates the McCanns’ apartment as viewed from the Tapas restaurant.
May 3rd Pre Tapas Restaurant
Some other noteworthy events occurred on May 3rd in the lead up to Madeleine’s disappearance and immediately following Madeleine’s disappearance. One such event was described by Kate in her police interview on the 6th of September 2007, “She noticed a stain, supposedly of tea, on Madeleine’s pyjama top, which she washed a little later that same morning. She hung it to dry on a small stand, and it was dry by the afternoon. Madeleine sometimes drank tea; the stain did not appear during breakfast, maybe it happened another day, as Madeleine did not have tea the previous night and the stain was dry.” The pyjamas in question were the ones worn by Madeleine when she disappeared. It may be relevant that Kate noticed this stain very shortly after seeing Madeleine on the morning of May 3rd. If the stain had been produced at some time prior to Madeleine going to bed on May 2nd, it would seem likely that Kate would have noticed it. The question is raised: was this stain caused by an intruder?
As mentioned previously in this article albeit briefly, Madeleine cried on the night of May 2nd, leading into the morning of May 3rd. This was a separate crying event from the extensive crying heard by Fenn on the night of May 1st and the McCanns don’t dismiss the crying event on the night of May 2nd. Upon waking on May 3rd, Madeleine questioned Kate, “Why didn’t you come when Sean and I cried last night?” This event raises the possibility that an intruder entered the children’s bedroom during the night of May 2nd. This is the night that Kate and Gerry returned to the apartment at 11:50pm. In tandem with the stain, the question must be posed- is this evidence of an intruder on the night of May 2nd?
In the late afternoon of May 3rd, all of the Tapas 9 members excluding Kate and Gerry attended the beachside Paraiso restaurant located around a 10-minute walk away from the apartments. Unlike many other locations visited by the Tapas group around Praia da Luz, the Paraiso had CCTV providing a much-needed timeframe. Three of the Tapas 7 group, David Payne, Russell O’Brien and Matthew Oldfield departed the Paraiso around 5:55pm to meet Gerry at the tennis courts. The women in the Tapas 7 group left Paraiso around 6:15pm and headed to the tennis courts to watch the men playing. It is a curiosity that the McCann family largely spent May 3rd away from rest of the Tapas 9 group. The lack of attendance to the Paraiso restaurant and pulling out of the group play date for the children are late afternoon oddities leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance.
The Tapas 9 group minus Kate and Gerry attended Paraiso restaurant during the late afternoon of May 3rd. All of the Tapas 7 members were caught on CCTV as shown above.
The table within in the Paraiso restaurant that the Tapas 7 sat during the late afternoon of May 3rd. (Source: Faith Lilly)
May 3rd Tapas Restaurant
There were some further noteworthy events at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd. This is during the period that Madeleine disappeared. There was only room for 15 diners at the Tapas restaurant at one time. This small number of guests enabled the Tapas restaurant staff to be somewhat cognisant of movements amongst the 9 members of the McCann holiday group- the Tapas 9.
The Ocean Club pool, Tapas restaurant and Tapas bar are in the compound behind these doors. The McCanns’ apartment is 20 metres down the road to the right of the image. (Source: Bud Wichers)
Svetlana Vitorino was a kitchen assistant at the Tapas on the night in question. On May 4th she told police, “one individual, purportedly the father of the missing (Gerry), left the dinner table where a group of friends (in number 8 or 9), for about 30 minutes. After having returned, a woman whom she believed to be his wife, also left the table, there having passed a few moments, all the guests left the table in question, except one elderly lady, who told her [Svetlana’s] colleagues that that child had disappeared.” If Vitorino’s recollection is correct, the implications of Gerry leaving the table for 30 minutes would be immense.
There is a chance that Vitorino was mistaken in her identification of Gerry leaving the table for 30 minutes, returning just prior to 10:00pm. Her observations match closely with fellow Tapas 9 member, Russell O’Brien’s movements. In his 4th of May police statement, O’Brien says, “At around 9.35pm/9.40pm, taking advantage of the lull, before being served with the first [main] course, the informant (O’Brien) left the restaurant with Matthew to check the children. When he got there, his daughter was crying. He stayed in her bedroom with her…At around 9.55pm, he went back to the restaurant where his food had been waiting for 5 or 10 minutes. All the other adults had finished.” This statement of O’Brien’s closely resembles Vitorino’s observation. It seems plausible that Vitorino had mistaken Gerry for Russell O’Brien.
In her police statement on the 8th of May Vitorino says, “She remembers that on the day the child disappeared there was some confusion, with some people who left the table after ordering, one of the meals even being sent back, as someone had asked them to delay the meal for a little while.” This also sounds like it matches O’Brien’s account.
Tapas waiter Joaquim Batista told police on the 4th of May, “The first to leave was about 40/45 years old (tall, skinny, white complexion, with a full head of hair of colour gray) and the period of his absence was about 15 minutes, being that they had to re-heat his food, which had cooled”. Batista also recalls another man leaving the table, “The second to leave (about 40/45 years of age, having the physical characteristics of the first, but having less bulky hair) did so for about 30 minutes, and that shortly after he returned, all left the table, except for an elderly person,” Batista’s physical description of the first (15 minute absence) man, grey haired with “bulky hair” describes Russell O’Brien physically. The first man whose food was reheated may have been Russell O’Brien as O’Brien admits to getting his food reheated on the night of May 3rd. If Batista’s observations and recollections are accurate, then a second Tapas 9 man left for 30 minutes- his description somewhat matches Gerry.
Russell O’Brien
Tapas Waiter, Joaquim Batista described one man leaving the table for 15 minutes as “tall, skinny, white complexion, with a full head of hair of colour gray.” This seems to match Russell O’Brien’s description (back of image). The man who left the table for 30 minutes, according to Joaquim Batista had “less bulky hair”. This seems to match Gerry’s description (left of image) more so than O’Briens. (Source: Bruno Press)
Batista’s account along with Vitorino’s raises the possibility that Gerry hid Madeleine’s body in this time period. There are arguments against this. Batista could be imprecise with his descriptions of the men who left the table. He could have also muddled up the order the men left. Gerry left the table to check on his children and on his return saw Jeremey Wilkins at about 9:08pm. This known movement by Gerry seems to match Batista’s description of the man with the innocuous 15-minute absence more accurately than the 30-minute, later absence.
In Jane Tanner’s police interview on the 8th of April 2008, she refers to Gerry’s longer than regular absence from the Tapas restaurant, “So he, yeah, he (Gerry), he went off to his check and he was longer than a bit, because I can remember Kate sort of saying ‘Oh bet he’s put the footy on’, because I think there was a football match that night and she sort of said ‘Oh I think he’s probably’, erm, you know, ‘got side tracked and put the telly on and catch up on the score’, so he was gone a bit longer than normal…” Jane Tanner then left the table and saw Gerry speaking to fellow holidaymaker and non-Tapas member Jeremy Wilkins on the road outside the McCanns’ apartment. Tanner also referred to this absence of Gerry’s in a TV reconstruction of a part of the night, “Because Kate had been moaning that you (Gerry) had been gone a long time watching the football”.
When asked how long Gerry had been absent for prior to Jane doing her check of the children and seeing Gerry speaking to Jeremy, Jane says, “Well I think it must have been, well it must have been at least five minutes, if not more, because, I say, because he was gone, before I actually left there had been the conversations about him being waylaid. So, I mean, if, I think it must have been sort of five or ten minutes, five or ten minutes after he’d gone. I can’t say for sure.” There are two key manners in which to interpret this information. Possibly, Jane Tanner is around the mark in her 5-10 minute appraisal of Gerry’s absence and there is nothing suspicious here. Possibly Jane Tanner even mentioning Gerry’s slightly longer than usual absence indicates that she isn’t aware of some grand conspiracy by Gerry and Kate to cover up Madeleine’s death with help from the other Tapas 9.
The alternative theory is that Gerry was either setting the scene in apartment 5a to convey the image of an abduction and/or hiding Madeleine’s body somewhere in Praia da Luz. Kate may have been planting the seed in the fellow Tapas 9 members’ heads that Gerry’s long absence was due to watching the football. The other Tapas members seem to have omitted Gerry’s long absence from their accounts- perhaps because it wasn’t that long or they are trying to cover for the McCanns. Alternatively, when 9 adults are around a table talking and drinking, it would be challenging for any one person to keep track of just a single absent person. Gerry doesn’t include watching the football in his statements regarding his actions involving this part of the night. He describes checking on the children, urinating and finally speaking to Jeremy Wilkins. How does this timeline pan out?
Within Jeremy Wilkins police statement on the 7th of May 2007, he describes his conversation with Gerry as lasting “for about three (3) to five (5) minutes.” Assuming the conversation lasted 4 minutes and Jane Tanner witnessed it at its midpoint (she didn’t mention seeing them start a conversation or finish a conversation as she approached them) we’ll attribute Tanner as seeing them after 2 minutes of talking. This places Jane Tanner back at the Tapas table around when Gerry left the apartment and began his conversation with Wilkins. As Tanner heard Kate “moaning” at the Tapas table about how long Gerry had been gone, it seems that Kate would have to be moaning about his normal checking time. This seems suspicious.
Within Gerry’s own account in his police statement on the 10th of May 2007, he describes his time in the apartment as lasting “two or three minutes.” For Tanner to notice Kate’s moaning, Kate would have had to moan about Gerry’s absence after 4 minutes maximum- 1 minute for Gerry to walk to the apartment and his upper limit of 3 minutes inside the apartment. After this time he would have spoken to Wilkins and Tanner would have left the table and walked past them speaking. Another notable point is that there were two people sitting in between Jane and Kate at the Tapas table. As so many people were talking around a table, Kate must have made a loud, table-wide announcement for Tanner to hear it. The word Tanner used in “moaning” also has connotations of being repetitive; did Kate complain several times of Gerry’s long absence?
The Tapas 9 restaurant seating chart as compiled by Kate.
At 9:25pm, Kate and Matthew Oldfield stand up simultaneously to check on their children. Oldfield offers to check on Kate’s children for her. There is a very short interval between Gerry returning from his check on the children, about 9:15pm and Kate standing up at 9:25pm to check on the children. Kate didn’t need to use the bathroom as Matthew Oldfield ends up carrying out the check on the McCann children however the interval of 10 minutes between Gerry returning from his check and Kate standing up to check is curious. This short time interval could be a product of an erroneous timeline.
Matthew Oldfield checked on the McCann children at 9:25pm however he didn’t look inside the children’s bedroom at the right angle to determine whether Madeleine was in her bed.
Matthew Oldfield has been accused of being involved in Madeleine’s disappearance. This is namely due to volunteering to check on the McCann children at 9:25pm. Oldfield was only absent for a handful of minutes from the table, not nearly enough time to hide Madeleine. His transparent gesture of checking on the McCann children would also be a strange tactic if he was planning to abduct her. Kate and Gerry are satisfied that Oldfield played no part in Madeleine’s disappearance.
May 3rd– Post Madeleine Disappearance
When Kate entered the children’s bedroom of 5a and established that Madeleine was abducted, she returned to the Tapas restaurant leaving her other children, Sean and Amelie in the apartment in the vicinity of a potential abductor. Kate’s imminent words would portray her confidence that Madeleine had been abducted. For many people in this situation, an inbuilt, maternal instinct may kick in and the children (in this case the twins) in the midst of possible danger in the form of abduction would be guarded closely by a parent. Kate returned to the Tapas rather than shouting from the back porch of 5a and without holding the twins. In defence of Kate, her thoughts were likely intently focused on Madeleine at this stage and she may have assumed the abductor had fled the scene completely hence her choice to leave the twins.
In the aftermath of leaving the apartment following Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate shouted out a range of comments containing the underlying same message that Madeleine had been abducted. According to the various witnesses she shouted, “They’ve taken her”, “We’ve let her down”, “Madeleine’s gone” and “The F***** bastard/s has/have taken her”. The reference to multiple abductors made by Kate can be viewed as an unusual phrasing. The comment “We’ve let her down” can also be viewed referring to the McCanns’ accidentally killing Madeleine. Despite these possible interpretations, the comments by Kate don’t seem to be highly incriminating.
The Behaviour of the Tapas 9 Before Madeleine Disappeared
The PJ theory encompasses Madeleine dying in apartment 5a and Kate and Gerry hiding her body. Many iterations of this theory involve Kate and Gerry being aware of Madeleine’s death prior to attending the Tapas restaurant at 8:35pm. Consequentially, Kate and Gerry would have been aware of the death of their daughter whilst intermingling with the Tapas 9 group on the night of May 3rd at the Tapas restaurant. It is important to analyse statements of those around Kate and Gerry during these hours to determine any behavioural or emotional deviations from normal by Kate or Gerry. Variations of the PJ theory also detail non-McCann members of the Tapas 9 group as also being cognisant of Madeleine’s death during the meal at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd. The behaviour of the Tapas 9 group as a whole will therefore also be examined during these crucial hours.
If Madeleine had died on the 3rd of May in apartment 5a and Kate and Gerry had been aware of her death, then their emotional state would have likely been some combination of: hysterical behaviour, depression, anger, shock and other similarly recognisable strong emotions. It is difficult to make the case that both Gerry and Kate had learnt of the death of their daughter, panicked and tried to hide the body then attended the Tapas restaurant as perfectly composed human beings. Most likely it would have been impossible to shelter their feelings from other Tapas 9 members, staff at the restaurant and fellow holidaymakers. Raw, primeval grief can’t be switched on and off.
In his 9th of April 2008 police interview, Matthew Oldfield describes Kate and Gerry’s behaviour as, “Completely normal throughout the meal and, you know, at all times really until after the event.” In David Payne’s police interview on the 11th of April he refers to Kate and Gerry’s change in behaviour after Kate discovered Madeleine missing at 10:00pm, “They behaved so much as I would expect someone in the situation they were in and the way that their moods had changed from you know complete calm and serenity and enjoyment, just turned completely to you know distraught and you know that wasn’t acting, that wasn’t anyone, that was just pure grief of the situation that they found themselves in.” Russell O’Brien also describes a similar behaviour, “The evening was the same as evenings before- Kate and Gerry were behaving entirely normally.”
Diane Webster paints a similar picture of Kate and Gerry’s behaviour during the Tapas restaurant meal of May 3rd, “Just normal, you know, having a good holiday.” Fiona Payne describes their behaviour as, “Relaxed, happy, you know, very relaxed, behaving completely normally.” Jane Tanner says, “Just completely normal, they were laughing and joking.” Within their police statements and interviews, all Tapas members recall Kate and Gerry as acting completely normally.
There is of course the possibility that all the Tapas members are lying either because:
They know the McCann parents weren’t acting normally at dinner and don’t want to incriminate them as they suspect they had some involvement in Madeleine’s death.
All or some subset of the Tapas 9 were aware of Madeleine’s death whilst at the Tapas restaurant that night and the whole group has decided to cover up Madeleine’s death.
To account for the above two possibilities, it is imperative to cover non-Tapas 9 group members’ statements of the McCanns’ behaviour on the night of May 3rd. Also, all Tapas 9 group members’ behaviour should also be examined to discern whether they may have been aware of Madeleine’s death whilst at the Tapas restaurant on May 3rd.
Jeremy Wilkins was a fellow holidaymaker at the Ocean Club resort during the period that the McCanns stayed there. Wilkins and Gerry’s paths intersected on occasions during the week, namely during tennis lessons. Wilkins comes across as a person you make small talk with whilst on holiday. Not a close, long-term acquaintance who fabricates police statements. Gerry checked on the children at 9:05pm on May 3rd and exited his apartment property through the side gate and saw Jeremy Wilkins.
Jeremy Wilkins
In his police statement on the 7th of May 2007, Wilkins describes his interaction with Gerry, “I left about 8.15pm – 8.30pm. I was pushing the pram around the complex and went to the toilet near the bar. I couldn’t see inside the restaurant. As I got the baby to sleep, I was on my way back to the apartment. I came out of the top road. I met him near some stairs and a ground floor flat. There was a gate leading up to some stairs. I was pretty certain that he had left the apartment. We spoke for a few minutes. He said ‘you’re on walking duty’. I said I was staying in and the pros and cons and what to do with the children. He said that if he was staying two (2) weeks, he may stay in one night. I don’t remember anyone else walk past with a child. The conversation lasted for about three (3) to five (5) minutes. He was acting completely normal from what I know of him so far.” The main points to take away from Wilkins’ statement are: Gerry was acting normal and that Gerry had likely just left the apartment- presumably to return to the Tapas restaurant. Wilkins’ description of Gerry doesn’t tessellate with someone who has just learnt of their daughter’s death.
In his 8th of April 2008 police interview, Wilkins provides a time range that he encountered Gerry on the night of May 3rd, “I calculate that I met Gerry on the road between 8:45pm and 9:15pm.” This is a rather large window with little clarity. If Gerry had met Wilkins closer to 8:45pm then Gerry may well have been leaving the apartment for the first time, having not been to the Tapas restaurant at all yet.
There were several workers at the Tapas restaurant who described the behaviour of the Tapas 9 group on the night of May 3rd. 9 out of the 15 available seats in the restaurant were filled with Tapas 9 members so any unusual behaviour would have likely been noted by staff. Tapas waiter, Ricardo Oliveira told police, “on that night when he took the dinner orders, the entire group was seated. He remembers that there were nine adults-four men and five women. He did not notice any strange behaviour on their part.” Kitchen assistant, Svetlana Vitorino provides a similar assessment noting, “she did not see anyone strange or any unusual behaviour.”
If the Tapas group were aware of Madeleine’s death whilst at the Tapas restaurant, one would expect them to quickly lose their appetite. If Kate and Gerry had learnt of Madeleine’s death that day, they would likely feel quite sick- an involuntary response and not be able to eat their meals. Waiter Ricardo Oliveira describes that plate status of the Tapas 9 when Kate returned to the group to inform them of Madeleine’s disappearance, “It was also at this time that he saw that Russell’s food was only half eaten and that the others had all finished their dinner.” There is an innocuous reason for Russell O’Brien not finishing his meal.
In his 4th of May police statement, O’Brien says, “At around 9.35pm/9.40pm, taking advantage of the lull, before being served with the first [main] course, the informant (O’Brien) left the restaurant with Matthew to check the children. When he got there, his daughter was crying. He stayed in her bedroom with her…At around 9.55, he went back to the restaurant where his food had been waiting for 5 or 10 minutes. All the other adults had finished.”
Charlotte Pennington, a child care worker at the Ocean Club crèche, arrived at apartment 5a five minutes after the alarmed was raised that Madeleine was missing. She has described Kate’s emotional state post Madeleine’s disappearance as completely authentic, stating that Kate couldn’t act that amount of grief. Russell O’Brien echoes these sentiments and contrasts Kate’s quick emotional change pre Madeleine’s disappearance and post Madeleine’s disappearance, “Kate McCann sat at the table, laughing and joking and enjoying the evening like everyone… afterwards, just hearing these sorts of unearthly pangs of despair coming, I mean shouted out and err and absolutely kind of just hysterical with, with, with pain and anguish… There was no way I could imagine anyone could hide the fear they must have had if something had already happened and, and then display this degree of anguish without being the most accomplished of and cynical of actors.” There were numerous witnesses who concur with O’Brien’s observations.
O’Brien also describes Gerry’s reaction, “and the same for Gerry, not, not just in these moments but over the, over the coming, over the coming days, I’ve never ever witnessed such unimaginable grief.” Fiona Payne provided police with another insight into Gerry’s reaction, “on Gerry’s side, he was just stunned like she’s got to be here, she’s got to be here, this can’t have happened, very, very much sort of almost denial, erm but then when he saw the room and sunk in what Kate had seen, he was convinced she’d been taken and at that point he was, you know was sobbing.”
Arguably the strongest evidence in support of the abduction theory involves an argument against the PJ theory. How could the McCann parents learn of Madeleine’s death, then act so normal and relaxed for 90 minutes? This includes chatting to fellow holidaymakers, not standing out to Tapas restaurant staff or their own Tapas 7 friends and eat their entire meal. The raw emotions that grief breeds indicate that acting is not an option. If Madeleine had died in apartment 5a pre-Tapas restaurant meal, to then face the world in public, at the Tapas restaurant, unsure if you would breakdown emotionally at any moment would be not only be highly risky but also defy what it means to be human.
The Last People to See Madeleine
There is a cohort of people online who believe a variant of the PJ theory. These people don’t subscribe to the idea that Madeleine was killed in apartment 5a on the 3rd of May but rather that she died in 5a on some earlier date during the McCanns’ holiday. This theory may account for the normal behaviour exhibited by the McCanns at the Tapas restaurant on May 3rd as explained in the above section. Ascertaining the last people to see Madeleine alive is essential, not only in evaluating the ‘Pre- May 3rd death theory’ but also in narrowing down a potential timeframe of death on May 3rd within the PJ theory. This section will examine who saw Madeleine and when, working backwards from her disappearance on May 3rd.
Kate notices that Madeleine is missing from her bedroom at 10:00pm on May 3rd. Prior to this, Tapas 9 member, Matthew Oldfield looked inside the McCann children’s bedroom at 9:30pm but didn’t look around the corner to see whether Madeleine was there. Working backwards, Gerry saw Madeleine at 9:05pm in her bed. This is the last confirmed sighting of Madeleine by anyone.
The Last Tapas 7 Member to See Madeleine
When did each member of the Tapas 7 last recall seeing Madeleine? At 6:35pm, Tapas 7 member David Payne saw Madeleine in apartment 5a. This sighting was covered in detail in an above section and involves Gerry sending Payne to apartment 5a to check if Kate needed help getting the children ready for a play date that didn’t eventuate. Gerry, Kate and Payne’s statements of this event contain some inconsistencies. Nonetheless, he is the last Tapas 7 member to claim to have seen Madeleine.
Within her 11th of April 2008 police interview, Tapas 7 member Dianne Webster didn’t see Madeleine on May 3rd, “I don’t think I did see her that day”.
Within her 10th of April 2008 interview, Fiona Payne says, “It was, it would be when we walked back with, Scarlet and Kate from picking them at the Kid’s Club in the lunch time (of May 3rd), that was the last time I saw them.”
In her 8th of April 2008 interview, Jane Tanner says, “Kate and Gerry brought the kids, all the kids down to the play area to, they would have their lunch before they took them back to the Kids Club, and I think that was about two, quarter past two’ish (on May 3rd), and I can remember Madeleine shouting things to us on the tennis court.”
Matthew Oldfield’s 9th of April 2008 interview reveals that he last saw Madeleine on the 2nd of May, “it would seem now, it probably wasn’t until the day previously because we’d seen them in the evening after their usual tea.”
In Rachael Oldfield’s 9th of April 2008 interview, she says, “It was when she was having a tennis lesson, in the morning yeah, about probably between ten thirty and eleven on the morning of the third of May’.”
Russell O’Brien’s 10th of April 2008 statement doesn’t reveal if he saw Madeleine at 5:00pm on May 3rd, “I can’t honestly say that Madeleine was there when I picked Ella up at five.” He does mention his last confirmed sighting of Madeleine, “I certainly think I saw her at lunch time on the Thursday (May 3rd).”
From these Tapas 7 statement, excluding David Payne’s slightly dubious sighting of Madeleine at 6:35pm, the last Tapas 9 member to sight Madeleine was Jane Tanner who recalls seeing her at about 2:00pm-2:15pm. This sighting is supported by Tanner’s details that “I can remember Madeleine shouting things to us on the tennis court.”
The Last Non-Tapas 9 Member to See Madeleine
If the Tapas 9 group are involved in some conspiracy to cover Madeleine’s death up, then it’s worth broadening the search of people who saw Madeleine outside the McCanns’ holiday clique. Charlotte Pennington worked in the Ocean Club crèche as a child care worker. Madeleine was not in her crèche group however according to Charlotte’s police statement on the 7th of May 2007, “the witness states that in the course of her work, she came across Madeleine McCann many times, explaining that, even though she [Madeleine] did not belong to her [Pennington’s] group, this was normal, as the physical space where the children groups are located is contiguous.”
Creche worker Charlotte Pennington (Source: Nanny-agency.com)
Pennington continues, “on two different days, Sunday, 29th of April 2007, and on Thursday, 3rd of May 2007, she had direct contact with Madeleine McCann, telling her stories and speaking with her.” In Pennington’s statement she explains that children in her crèche sleep during assigned ‘siesta hours’. During this period, she interacts with the children in the other crèche, such as Madeleine. These siesta hours are from 9:00am-10:30am and from 2:30pm-3:00pm.
On a Dispatches documentary airing on the 18th of October 2007, Pennington clarifies when she specifically last saw Madeleine, “On May the third, it was just Madeleine I was reading a story to. I later saw them around lunchtime. That’s the last time I saw them together as a family.” This indicates that Pennington last saw Madeleine on May 3rd at lunchtime.
Catriona Baker was the childcare worker who looked after Madeleine’s specific group at the Ocean Club crèche. This group contained 7 children in total. In her police interview on the 18th of April 2008, she describes Madeleine’s activities on May 3rd, “I remember Gerry having accompanied Madeleine to the club between 9:15am and 9:20am in the morning. I do not remember who came to pick her up for lunch but after she returned in the afternoon for a dive/swim. These activities were realized with the other children. On this day I remember that we sailed and I saw friends of the McCanns on the beach, David and Jane. Around 2:45pm Madeleine returned to the Minis Club on top of the reception but I do not remember who accompanied her. This afternoon we went swimming. Kate went to get Madeleine from the Tapas Bar area and according to what I remember she was wearing sporting clothes and I assumed that she was practicing some form of athletics. It was around 13h25/18h00.” It’s not clear from the times at the end of this statement if Baker suggests Kate picked Madeleine up from the Tapas bar area at 6:00pm or earlier. According to the Ocean Club crèche sign in/out form, Kate signed Madeleine out at 5:30pm on May 3rd. Nonetheless Baker is an independent witness who remembers seeing Madeleine alive around 5:30pm. One person’s memory can be fuzzy and this isn’t definitive proof of Madeleine being alive at this time but it seems highly likely that Madeleine left the crèche’s care on May 3rd around 5:30pm. This time is also supported by Gerry’s 10th of May 2007 statement, “Madeleine ate, (the meal) having ended at 5:30pm. After 5:30pm they went to the apartment.”
Catriona Baker, the creche worker who looked after Madeleine for segments of each day for the entire week of the McCanns’ holiday, up until Madeleine’s disappearance.
Catriona Baker with Kate, Gerry and the twins post Madeleine’s disappearance.
Another Ocean Club crèche worker saw Madeleine on May 3rd. Emma Wilding provided a police statement on the 7th of May 2007, “When questioned she states that on May 3, 2007 it was the father that took Madeleine, as was customary, between 9:00am and 9:30am; she remembers that she just said ‘hello’ to him, because as Madeleine did not belong to her group she did not talk to him very much. She only noticed Madeleine and not her father, and nothing seemed abnormal or unusual.” Wilding also recalls seeing Madeleine in the afternoon of the same day, “She remembers that during the afternoon of May 3rd Madeleine was at the Mini Club, but she does not remember at what time she arrived, and if on that day Madeleine accompanied the other children at 4:45pm as was customary.”
A Tapas restaurant cook also recalls seeing Madeleine during the late afternoon of May 3rd. In her 6th of May 2007 police statement, Maria Jose says, “Upon questioning, she states that the last time she saw Madeleine was at approximately 4.30pm on 3rd May 2007 when she was having dinner with the other children in their part of the restaurant, as she did each day of that week.”
There were numerous independent witnesses to see Madeleine during the week. These included tennis coach Georgina Jackson who states that Madeleine had a tennis lesson on May 1st, “Madeleine…had a class, on Tuesday, 1 May.” Ocean Club receptionist, Elisa Romao worked Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. “She recalls seeing the couple and their three children leaving the premises, because they had to go through the reception area to do this.”
David and Fiona Payne’s daughter was only 2 months younger than Madeleine and bore a striking resemblance to her. It is plausible that some holidaymakers and restaurant workers during the week would mistake Lily for Madeleine in police statements- indeed this seemed to happen in the case of Paraiso restaurant owner, Miguel Matias. Overall, there are more than enough independent witnesses who knew Kate, Gerry and Madeleine well enough that can vouch for the fact that Madeleine was alive on May 3rd.
Kate and Gerry’s Endeavours to Find Madeleine
When Kate and Gerry realised Madeleine was missing, they stayed in the vicinity of the apartment and the remainder of the Tapas group physically searched for Madeleine. In Gerry’s 7th of September 2007 police interview he elaborates on this fact, “When asked why instead of scouring the land next to the complex they remained inside the apartment, he replies that it did not happen that way. While the guests and resort workers were searching, he went to the main reception to check whether they had called the Police, and told Kate to wait inside the apartment. After returning from the reception he went back into the apartment where he stayed in the living room and in their bedroom.”
Within a BBC interview with Jane Hill on the 25th of May 2007, Kate is questioned about the McCann parents’ lack of physical searching for Madeleine. She responds, “I mean, the first 48 hours, as Gerry said, are incredibly difficult and we were almost non-functioning…it might not be physically searching but we’ve been working really hard and doing absolutely everything we can, really, to get Madeleine back.” The McCann parents’ lack of physical searching can be portrayed in two starkly different lights. Firstly, they may have known what had happened to Madeleine and hidden Madeleine’s body and therefore physically searching for her served no purpose. Contrastingly, the McCanns would have been experiencing an unimaginable grief post Madeleine’s disappearance. They may have been physically and emotionally paralysed and unable to search. The McCanns have mentioned that their knowledge of the situation was better utilised from the apartment. Namely speaking to police. Many other people were physically searching for Madeleine. Couple these reasons with the parents’ immediate suspicion of an abduction due to the raised shutter and open window and their argument seems logical. Alternatively, it can be argued that parents of a missing child would want to physically search for their child as a parental instinct.
In Kate’s book, ‘Madeleine’ she writes of herself and Gerry doing some limited searching after dawn of May 4th. “As soon as it was light, Gerry and I returned to our search. We went up and down roads we’d never seen before having barely left the Ocean Club complex all week. We jumped over walls and raked through undergrowth. We looked in ditches and holes. All was quiet apart from the sound of barking dogs, which added to the eeriness of the atmosphere. I remember opening a big dumpster-type bin and saying to myself please God don’t let her be in here. The most striking and horrific thing about it all was that we were completely alone. Nobody else, it seemed was out looking for Madeleine. Just us, her parents. We must have been out for at least an hour before returning to David and Fiona’s apartment.”
In the hours following Madeleine’s disappearance, the McCanns phoned up their friends and relatives which seemingly spawned a media campaign to raise the profile of Madeleine’s abduction. Especially in the early years of Madeleine’s disappearance, the McCann parents would appear on countless TV shows and provide interviews with the hope something they said would lead to information from the public about Madeleine. In the following months, Gerry was keen to hire a PR company to get 5-6 workers to keep Madeleine’s name in the media spotlight. The McCanns also hired several private investigator firms over the years.
The McCanns’ behaviour in sparking the media’s fire can be portrayed in two lights. Firstly, they are genuinely trying to raise the profile of Madeleine’s disappearance and the higher the profile, the more chance they have of finding her. A more cynical viewpoint would be that the McCanns had hidden Madeleine’s body and wanted to portray an ‘abduction theory’ to the public as soon as humanly possible. This cynical position may extend to questioning why the McCanns involved the media in the immediate hours after Madeleine disappeared, claiming this wouldn’t be a typical priority of naturally grieving parents.
On September the 9th 2007, the McCanns flew back to the UK. This was over 4 months after Madeleine went missing. They seemed to return with an air of reluctance, wishing to remain in Portugal until they found Madeleine. A key factor in their thinking process to return home was to grant the twins a normal upbringing.
Overall, I view the McCanns’ behaviour as consistent with genuinely wanting to find Madeleine. This isn’t to discount the PJ theory, only that a normal couple who had a child abducted may act in a similar manner. If the McCanns had been involved in Madeleine’s disappearance, it would seemingly make more sense to not contact the media, not appear on numerous TV shows, not to hire people to keep the child’s name in the media, not hire private detective firms and overall not draw more attention to the case that may prove to be incriminatory. If the McCanns had been guilty, a sensible approach would be to minimise the media’s exposure to the case, avoid interviews, move back to the UK as soon as humanly possible and avoid drawing more attention to the disappearance. It can be argued that the McCanns didn’t know the enormity of the media storm they would create and perhaps tried to project an aura of innocence with their actions.
The 49 Questions the PJ Asked Kate McCann
On the 7th of September 2007, the PJ asked Kate McCann 49 questions. These questions provide a window into the PJ’s thinking regarding the disappearance of Madeleine at the time. The following are the questions that Kate was asked:
On May 3, 2007, around 10:00pm, when you entered the apartment, what did you see? What did you do? Where did you look? What did you touch?
Did you search inside the master bedroom wardrobe?
(Shown two photographs of her bedroom wardrobe) Can you describe its contents?
Why was the curtain by the sofa near the side window tampered with? Did someone go behind the sofa?
How long did your search of the apartment take after you detected Madeleine’s disappearance?
Why did you say Madeleine had been abducted?
Assuming Madeleine was abducted, why did you leave the twins to go to the ‘Tapas’ and raise the alarm? The supposed abductor could still be in the apartment.
Why didn’t you ask the twins then what happened to their sister or why didn’t you ask them later on?
When you raised the alarm at the ‘Tapas’ what exactly did you say – what were your exact words?
What happened after you raised the alarm there?
Why did you go and warn your friends instead of shouting from the veranda?
Who contacted the authorities?
Who took place in the searches?
Did anyone outside the group learn of her disappearance in those following minutes?
Did any neighbour offer you help?
What does ‘we let her down’ mean?
Did Jane Tanner tell you that night she’d seen a man with a child?
How were the authorities contacted and which police force was alerted?
During the searches, with the police there, where did you search for Maddie, how and in what way?
Why did the twins not wake up during that search or when they were taken upstairs?
Who did you phone after the occurrence?
Did you call Sky News?
Did you know the danger of calling the media, because it could influence the abductor?
Did you ask for a priest?
By what means did you divulge Madeleine’s features, by photographs or by any other means?
Is it true that during the searches you remained seated on Maddie’s bed without moving?
What was your behaviour that night?
Did you manage to sleep?
Before travelling to Portugal, did you make any comment about a foreboding or a bad feeling?
What was Madeleine’s behaviour like?
Did Maddie suffer from any illness or take any medication?
What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister?
What was Madeleine’s relationship like with her brother and sister, friends and school mates?
As for your professional life, in how many and which hospitals have you worked?
What is your medical speciality?
Have you ever done shift work in any emergency services or other services?
Did you work every day?
At a certain point you stopped working. Why?
Are the twins difficult to get to sleep? Are they restless and does that cause you uneasiness?
Is it true sometimes you despaired at your children’s behaviour and it left you feeling very uneasy?
Is it true that in England you even considered handing over Madeleine’s custody to a relative?
In England, did you medicate your children? What type of medication?
In the case files, you were shown canine forensic testing films. After watching them, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
When the sniffer dog also marked human blood behind the sofa, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
When the sniffer dog marked the scent of corpse coming from the vehicle you hired a month after the disappearance, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
When human blood was marked in the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
When confronted with the results of Maddie’s DNA, carried out in a British lab, collected from behind the sofa and the boot of the vehicle, did you say you couldn’t explain any more than you already had?
Did you have any responsibility or intervention in your daughter’s disappearance?
Kate avoided answering the above 48 questions. Her lawyer advised her not to answer these questions that clearly paint her as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance. The PJ then asked a 49th question:
Are you aware that in not answering the questions you are jeopardising the investigation, which seeks to discover what happened to your daughter?
Kate answered question 49 with the words, “Yes, if that’s what the investigation thinks.”
Part 5- The Clues to Find Madeleine
“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”– Azar Nafisi
At around 9:15pm on May 3rd, Jane Tanner left the Tapas restaurant to check on her children. She walked down the narrow street towards the T junction and recalled seeing Gerry talking to Jeremy Wilkins. Neither Gerry nor Jeremy recalled seeing Tanner. Tanner looked towards the T junction and described what she witnessed in her 4th of May police statement, “a man appeared carrying a child, with a hurried walk, it being this detail together with the fact that the child dressed in pyjamas, without being wrapped up in a blanket, that caught her attention. She only managed to see him from the side, with the child in his arms. She noticed the individual’s presence exactly when she had just passed by Gerry and Jez who were talking, having seen this person step off the pavement that borders on the apartment block where they were staying and rapidly cross the road.” Gerry and Jeremy failed to see the man.
The location of the Tanner sighting area. The small gate to the left of the image is where Gerry and Jez were speaking to one another. Tanner walked from the bottom-left corner of the image to the T junction. The man Tanner saw walked from left to right across the T junction in the distance. (Source: http://madeleinemaccann.blogspot.com)
In her 4th of May police statement, Tanner delves into remarkable detail, describing subtleties of the man she saw. According to Tanner, he was a “Dark skinned individual, male sex, aged between 35-40, slim physical appearance, about 1.70m tall. Very dark, thick hair, longer at the back (she could mainly see him from behind). He was wearing linen type cloth trousers, beige to golden in colour, a ‘duffle’ type jacket (but not that thick). His shoes were dark in colour, classic type. He had a hurried walk. He was carrying a child, who was lying on both his arms, in front of his chest. By the way he was dressed, he gave her the impression that he was not a tourist, because he was very ‘warmly dressed’.”
To compliment Tanner’s vivid description of the man was an equally as detailed description of the child they were carrying, “About the child whom appeared to be sleeping, she only saw her legs. The child appeared to be older than a baby. She was barefoot and was wearing what appeared to be cotton pyjamas of a light colour (possibly white or light pink). She is not certain, but has the impression a design on the pyjamas, possibly a floral pattern, but she is not certain.” Tanner made subsequent descriptions of the man she witnessed in future statements however due to the passing of time I consider this first statement to be more relevant.
There are some argument not to take Tanner’s witness statements as a photographic recollection of events.
Tanner’s sighting was in the dark of night in a relatively poorly lit part of the Ocean Club.
The sighting only lasted a few seconds as the man crossed the road.
Tanner had no need to remember the man when she saw him. She only required this information after Madeleine went missing. This is different from witnessing a crime and someone immediately willing themselves to remember a person’s looks.
Tanner had to recall two people- the man and child. The man she had to recall, mainly had his back to Tanner. The child was lying in his arms and would have been shielded from Tanner by the man’s body.
There was a 45-minute lapse between Tanner witnessing the man and Madeleine being reported as missing making the memory process of recalling the man and child’s visual makeup doubly challenging.
Many studies have shown the fallibility of human memory. Even if a group of people watch a crime occur in front of them undertaken by one undisguised, clearly visible perpetrator in normal light, most of the witnesses can’t pick the offender from a line up. Considering the added obstacles listed above, providing a single detail of the person or child would be some feat.
The location of the Tanner sighting is highly relevant. The man was seen by Tanner as-the-crow-flies just 10 metres away from the McCann children’s bedroom window and front door of the apartment. The description of the clothing the child being carried was wearing bears a strong similarity to Madeleine’s pyjamas. The child having bare feet is also noteworthy- another similarity with Madeleine (Madeleine’s shoes were still in the apartment when Kate discovered she was missing). A forensic artist released an image of the man Tanner had seen in October 2007.
A sketch artist produced this image of the man Tanner saw carrying a child.
Jane Tanner took some time to inform the McCanns of her sighting of a man holding a sleeping child walking away from their apartment. In her 10th of May 2007 statement she clarifies why, “Asked why she did not tell Kate that night about this sighting, Jane Tanner said she always avoided mentioning it to the McCanns because she didn’t want to increase their suffering.” Proponents of the PJ theory have used this lapse in Tanner informing Kate of this potentially crucial sighting as evidence it was fabricated.
The timing of the Tanner sighting is noteworthy and raises questions regarding whether an intruder could possibly have taken Madeleine in the small allowable timeframe or alternatively does the timing increase the chance that it was Madeleine who was sighted by Tanner? Tanner’s statement details that she left the Tapas restaurant, turned left onto the narrow road and saw Gerry and Jeremy talking outside the McCanns’ apartment. It was as soon as Tanner turned onto this road that she saw Gerry and Jeremy speaking.
A re-enactment of Tanner’s sighting. This image shows Tanner approaching the T junction. When Tanner was in this position, the man had just crept out of frame to the right of the image.
A re-enactment of what Tanner saw. (Source: PA)
As Tanner walked the 1-minute journey to the T junction, the conversation between Gerry and Jeremy was still taking place. According to Gerry and Jeremy’s police statements, this conversation lasted between 3 and 5 minutes (we’ll use the average of 4 minutes), commencing as soon as Gerry had left his apartment. The time required for an intruder to walk from the McCanns’ front door or children’s bedroom window, around the front lane and through the carpark entrance to the street corner where they are sighted by Tanner is about 1 minute. In other words, as soon as Tanner left the restaurant premises, the abductor would be required to start leaving the front of the McCanns’ apartment. This provides a maximum 2-minute window for an abductor to enter and exit the apartment once Gerry had exited the side gate. This timeframe becomes even more pressed when one takes into account the requirement to raise the children’s bedroom shutters, open the window as well as turn the light on and off. Add into this equation the entering and exiting process, not involving the back, patio door- as Gerry was standing in front of the gate leading to this door. It doesn’t seem possible that an intruder could enter the apartment, do the necessary actions to make the children’s bedroom scene match what Kate saw and leave the apartment and walk down the street all in the allotted time.
There is a caveat to the above impossibility of an intruder entering and exiting 5a and leaving the scene as found by Kate. This stipulation involves an intruder already being in the apartment as Gerry enters. Gerry found the door more widely open than the McCanns had left it and there is the possibility that an intruder hid in the children’s bedroom when they heard Gerry entering the apartment. Part 3 of this article proved that a single abductor was virtually impossible considering the scene found in apartment 5a. If two abductors were involved, the perfect timing for the abduction may have involved waiting in the apartment until Gerry had left. Following Gerry leaving, Madeleine may have been passed outside the children’s bedroom window to a second abductor who would flee with Madeleine on foot. This chain of events doesn’t preclude the Tanner sighting as being Madeleine.
Soon after Madeleine went missing on May 3rd 2007, the holidaymakers at the Ocean Club resort were interviewed by Portuguese police. This interview process covered the Totman family parents- Dr. Julian and Rachael who were staying at the Ocean Club resort with their children at the time Madeleine disappeared. Rachael Totman told police that the Tanner sighting “could be him (Dr. Julian Totman) but we didn’t hear anything for years.” Dr. Totman dressed in a similar ilk to the description of the mystery man described by Jane Tanner. He had two young children and had picked one of these children up from the crèche on the night of May 3rd. When the British Metropolitan Police carried out a review of the evidence of the Madeleine McCann case in 2011, Dr. Totman’s belief that he was the man Tanner saw, was taken seriously. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said “We are almost certain now this sighting (Tannerman) is not the abductor.”
Dr. Totman on the left wearing clothes he may have worn on holiday. The man Tanner sighted is on the right.
Simple resolutions like this don’t come often in the Madeleine McCann disappearance case and this situation may be no different. The McCann family and indeed the entire Tapas 9 group would have been crossing paths with the Totman family all week at the Ocean Club resort. Gerry played tennis with Dr. Totman, the Totman family ate dinner at the small Tapas Restaurant before the Tapas group, Dr. Totman is a British doctor; much like the majority of the Tapas 9 group and the family frequently used the crèche. Jane Tanner spent an hour in the afternoon of May 3rd watching the Tapas group play tennis including Dr. Totman. The question is raised- would Jane Tanner have recognised Dr. Totman if it were him that she saw on the night of May 3rd? Tanner’s original police statements described the man she saw as having “a hurried walk” and “By the way he was dressed, he gave her the impression that he was not a tourist.” The first words in Tanner’s original description of the man she saw was “Dark skinned individual” whilst Dr. Totman had fair skin. This somewhat mismatched description between Tanner’s witness statement and Dr. Totman’s looks raises the possibility that it wasn’t Dr. Totman that Tanner had seen. Dr. Totman wasn’t necessarily wearing the clothes his is pictured wearing in the above photo during the night of May 3rd. It is unknown what clothes he was wearing this night. These facts coupled with Tanner’s possible familiarity with Dr. Totman yet inability to recognise the person she witnessed doesn’t necessary exclude the person she saw as being Dr. Totman but it raises doubts.
There is another, perhaps stronger argument against the person Tanner saw as being Dr. Totman- the direction Tanner saw the mystery man walking. Tanner sketched a map documenting the precise location and direction she saw the possible abductor of Madeleine walking. This was clearly away from Madeleine’s apartment- across the T junction. In the case of Dr. Totman, he had picked up his child from the night crèche at the Ocean Club resort which was operating from the Ocean Club’s main reception area. Dr. Totman recalls walking near the McCanns’ apartment that night. Dr. Totman’s apartment was G4M. If Dr. Totman was returning from the night crèche carrying his child, he should have been walking in the opposite direction.
The red x marks the location of the night creche. The blue x marks the location of the Tanner sighting and the green x indicates Dr. Totman’s apartment. Given the direction Tanner saw the man carrying a child walking, it couldn’t be Dr. Totman picking his child up from the night creche.
Tanner describes the man she witnessed walking from her left to her right. Dr. Totman would have been walking from her right to her left. In other words, Dr. Totman would have been walking in the general direction towards Tanner meaning she would have had a clearer view of his face. Tanner would have also followed Dr. Totman as she rounded the corner and saw where he was travelling. She doesn’t describe any of these events. The routes from the night creche to Dr. Totman’s apartment don’t even involve Dr. Totman travelling in the opposite direction across the T junction, from Tanner’s right to left.
There are perhaps some innocent explanations to reverse the direction that Dr. Totman is walking. He may have left the night crèche, arrived at his home and decided to leave again whilst carrying his daughter. This scenario does sound decisively odd- why carry a relatively heavy, sleeping child somewhere extra after returning from the night crèche?
Retired Metropolitan Police officer, Ian Horrocks is also sceptical in discounting the Tanner sighting. Horrocks has said, “The man Ms Tanner saw had been walking from west to east, while Dr Totman would have gone the opposite way… I cannot see how it can be totally dismissed.” Like so many pieces of evidence in the Madeleine McCann case, there are different ways of interpreting the Tanner sighting.
The Smith Sighting
A family known collectively as ‘the Smith family’ were enjoying a holiday in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance. Part of the family holidayed from the 30th of April 2007 and returned to their British home on the 9th of May 2007. The other part of the family returned to Ireland on the 4th of May 2007. This Smith family refers to both of these groups and encompasses: Martin, wife Mary, their son Peter, their daughter Aoife, their daughter-in-law and 4 small children. In total the group comprised nine members with four of these being adults. On the night that Madeleine disappeared, the Smith family enjoyed dinner at the Dolphin restaurant until 9:30pm before heading to Kelly’s Bar. They decided to depart Kelly’s Bar at 9:55pm. The Smiths’ describe their reason to leave at this time being twofold: a member of their group wasn’t feeling well and part of the group was returning to Ireland the following day. 120 metres into their walk back to their apartments, the Smith family noticed a man carrying a sleeping child. This was 350 metres away from the McCanns’ apartment.
The green rectangle represents the location of apartment 5a. The red cross shows the location of the Smith sighting. The yellow dots represent a possible route between both points.
The man was walking in the opposite direction to the Smith family and in the direction away from apartment 5a. Due to the Smith family’s large number, they were scattered along the street and encountered the man in drips and drabs. The entire family would recall the man carrying the child, other than the young children. In Martin Smith’s 26th of May 2007 statement to police, he describes the time he encountered the man as “around 10:00pm”. This is the time that Kate attended apartment 5a to notice that Madeleine was missing.
A re-enactment of the Smith family on the left walking past the man carrying the child on the right. (Source: Cutting Edge)
The Smith family gave individual statements to police that described the man in slightly varied terms. One family member described the man as aged 40, another as aged between 20-30, another as 35 years old and the last member of the family described the man as 35-40 years of age. He seems to have been about 175cm tall with a thin to average build. The man was described by most of the family’s witness accounts as having short, brown hair, a dark coloured jacket or blazer and beige trousers.
The Smith family produced these e-fits of the man they saw carrying a child.
Once again, due to the sheer number of witnesses there are varying accounts describing the sleeping girl he was carrying. She was typically portrayed as about 3-4 years old, having blonde hair, wearing light coloured pyjamas or clothes and being barefoot. Martin and Peter Smith both said in their statements, “Having already seen various photographs of Madeleine and televised images…the child that was carried by the individual may have been her.” Aoife Smith said, “She has seen photographs of Madeleine McCann and thinks that it could have been her. Asked, she said she was 60% certain.”
There is also disagreement amongst the Smiths’ statements regarding the demeanour of the man holding the child with Martin Smith stating, “he did not hold the child in a comfortable position, suggesting [the carrying] not being habitual.” Contrastingly, Peter Smith states, “The man carried the child on his arms, with the head resting on the left shoulder, as such on the right of the deponent, appearing to him in a natural manner.”
Peter Smith describes the man’s walking style, “(He) walked normally, with a fairly quick step because he was coming downhill”. Aoife Smith’s police statement also refers to the man’s walking style, “The individual’s gait was normal, between a fast walk and a run.”
Mary Smith’s statement describing walking past the man isn’t in the police files. In a subsequent media interview, the Smith family have recalled more details about their encounter with the man. Martin Smith has said, “The one thing we noted afterwards was that he gave us no greeting…My wife Mary remembered afterwards that she asked him, ‘Oh, is she asleep?’ But he never acknowledged her one way or another…He just put his head down and averted his eyes. This is very unusual in a tourist town at such a quiet time of the year.”
The location that the Smith sighting occurred. The black line represents where the Smith family were walking and the red line denotes where the man carrying a child that they sighted was walking. (Source: The Truth of the Lie)
The Smith Sighting and Gerry McCann
After the Smith family made their original police statements on the 26th of September 2007, there was a lull in their involvement in the case. The family became focal points again on the 9th of September 2007 when Martin Smith was watching the 10:00pm news on BBC. He watched news footage of Gerry and Kate departing the plane and descending the steps onto the tarmac after they landed back in the UK. Each parent was holding one of the twins. Martin Smith said, “It was like watching an action replay of the night he saw the male carrying the child back in Portugal. He states the way Gerry was carrying his twin triggered something in his head. It was exactly the same way and look of the other male seen the night Maddie went missing.” Despite Martin Smith’s certainty, it took him 11 days before he contacted the police to report Gerry’s similarity to the man carrying the child down the road that his family had passed. Martin Smith phoned the Leicestershire police with this information on the 20th of September 2007 and the person who received his phone call said of Martin Smith, “He sounded quite shaken and worried whilst speaking to me.”
Gerry descending the plane’s stairs as he arrived back in the U.K.
Gerry carrying Sean off the plane after arriving back in the UK. It was this footage that caused Martin Smith to phone the police with the belief that the man he saw in Praia da Luz carrying the child may have been Gerry.
Martin Smith provided a police statement detailing his reasoning for thinking Gerry and the man he had witnessed on May 3rd were the same person. His statement says, “something struck me that it could have been the same person. It was the way Gerard McCann turned his head down (in the BBC news broadcast) which was similar to what the individual did on 3rd May 2007 when we met him. It may have been the way he was carrying the child either. I would be 60-80% sure that it was Gerard McCann that I met that night carrying a child. I am basing that on his mannerism in the way he carried the child off the plane…I (have since) spoken to all my family members who were with me on the night of 3rd May 2007 about this and the only one who felt the same way as me was my wife. She had seen the video clip of Gerard McCann walking down the stairs of the plane earlier that day.”
Despite Martin Smith and his wife’s confidence in the man they witnessed carrying the child in Praia da Luz being Gerry McCann, there are some strong arguments against this possibility. When giving his initial statement to police 23 days after Madeleine had gone missing, Martin Smith said of the man he saw on May 3rd, “it is not possible for him to recognise the individual in person or by photograph.” Another member of the Smith family concurred with this. Aofie said in her police statement, “that probably she would not be able to recognise either the individual or the child.”
There are some further arguments against the person witnessed by the Smith family as being Gerry. The street was poorly lit when the Smith family walked past. The police statements of the family emphasise how difficult it was to describe the man due to the poor lighting. There was no impetus for the Smith family to recall the man they walked past at the time. By the next morning when they heard of a local child missing, 12 hours would have passed. Imagine walking past someone in a dark street on a holiday amongst many other events. It’s unlikely you would go out of your way to remember this person’s facial details unless there was some motive. Similarly, the Smith family had no motive at the time to recall the details of the person they walked past until around 12 hours had passed. Add to this, the fact that Martin Smith himself said he wouldn’t recognise the person if he saw a photograph again. After four and a half months, when he phoned police to report that the man he saw resembled Gerry, his memory would have been even more fogged, with less clarity of who he had seen. There was also an 11-day lapse between Martin Smith viewing the BBC footage of the McCanns and phoning the police- this implies added uncertainty. Martin Smith would have been familiar with Gerry’s appearance days after May 3rd as Gerry’s image was broadcast around the world yet Martin Smith didn’t report Gerry as being the man he had witnessed until viewing the aeroplane departure footage in September. The PJ had raised the McCanns’ status to arguidos two days before Martin Smith saw the BBC footage of Gerry carrying Sean. This may have influenced Martin Smith in believing he had now seen Gerry on May 3rd carrying the child.
Gerry McCann in comparison to the e-fits compiled by the Smith family
The question is raised, was it possible for Gerry to physically be in the position that Martin Smith saw the mystery man carrying a child on May 3rd? According to the Tapas 9’s police statements, Gerry returned from his check on the children in apartment 5a around 9:15pm on May 3rd and remained seated at the Tapas restaurant until Kate returned around 10:05pm. There was such a commotion created at 10:05pm that it seems probable but not certain that Gerry was at the Ocean Club at this time as many people’s police statements refer to Gerry in the ensuing, frantic minutes.
Could the Smiths’ sighting have occurred any earlier, allowing Gerry to return at 9:55pm to the Tapas restaurant as one Tapas restaurant worker suggested? (Although as discussed in a previous section, this was possibly another Tapas 9 member). Within the Smiths’ statements, the earliest time mentioned as passing the mystery, child holding man is 9:55pm. It’s possible due to the lapse between the event on May 3rd and the police statements 23 days later that the Smith family’s timeline is slightly out.
The Smith family report leaving the Dolphin restaurant at either 9:00pm or 9:30pm according to two members of the family’s police statements. According to credit card statements, the Smith family paid for their meal at the Dolphin restaurant at 9:27pm. They walked for 50 metres before arriving at Kelly’s Bar. They had “some drinks” here before leaving and seeing the man carrying the child. There are four till receipts recorded in Kelly’s Bar between 9:00pm and 10:15pm. These are:
9:39pm = 13.75 euros
9:46pm = 8.00 euros
9:49pm = 8:00 euros
9:50pm = 5.00 euros
It isn’t clear which of these receipts (or which combination) belonged to the Smith family. It also isn’t clear if they paid for their drinks before or after drinking them. In order to arrive at the earliest possible time, let’s attribute the 9:39pm receipt to the Smith family. In bars it is standard to pay for drinks whilst ordering them. If the drinks were consumed quickly, say within about 10 minutes then the earliest possible time the Smith sighting could have occurred at is 9:51pm. If Gerry was the man the Smith family then saw, it doesn’t provide him with enough time to dispose of Madeleine’s body and then walk back to the Tapas restaurant before 9:55pm. This is all contingent on the Smith family having accurately recalled the name of the bar they attended and the approximate time of the visit within an hour or so.
Peter Smith recalls the Smith family spending 50 minutes to one hour in Kelly’s bar. Martin Smith remembers the Smith family spending around 55 minutes in Kelly’s bar. If the Smith family actually spent this long in Kelly’s bar, there are two possible paths leading to differing implications. The first scenario involves a delay in the Smith sighting to approximately 10:30pm. A very different second scenario involves the Smith family not attending Kelly’s bar on the night of May 3rd– it may have been another night completely (or prior to the Dolphin restaurant). It seems at the very least curious that the Smith family would leave the Dolphin restaurant at 9:30pm (after paying the bill at 9:27pm) then attend a bar for drinks. There were drinks available at the Dolphin restaurant, it was getting late for a family that had numerous young children, Peter’s wife was pregnant and feeling unwell and part of the Smith family were going to fly back to Ireland early the next morning. Also, the receipts for Kelly’s bar don’t match a group of 9 people.
The Dolphin restaurant where the Smith family ate prior to going to Kelly’s bar. (Source: Luz holidays)
Kelly’s bar, where the Smith family had drinks on the night of May 3rd prior to their sighting. (Source: Luz holidays)
The McCanns haven’t been overly enthusiastic to promote the Smith sighting, leading to speculation that it was indeed Gerry who the family sighted. In Kate McCann’s book, ‘Madeleine’ there are six individual sightings mentioned and five of them contain an artist’s sketch. The only sighting that doesn’t is the Smith sighting. On the official ‘Find Madeleine’ website the Tanner sighting that the police believe they have discredited is given prominence over the Smith sighting. Within interviews, the McCann parents have only on occasions mentioned the Smith sighting. This is perhaps anomalous considering the strong likelihood that if Madeleine was abducted, the Smith sighting documented her abductor.
The Smith Sighting Implications
The location of the Smith sighting provides some arguments for the individual sighted as being the abductor of Madeleine. If Madeleine was taken from apartment 5a, there are three directions an abductor could have travelled. One is through the centre of the Ocean Club itself- towards the Tapas restaurant which seems highly doubtful, the second is along the road outside the apartment to the north-east which leads to a thoroughfare and passage straight out of Praia da Luz. The final direction is in a south-westerly direction along the road outside apartment 5a.
The red cross indicates the McCanns’ apartment. The blue route leads to a fairly main road that leads out of Praia da Luz. The green route leads into the centre of the Ocean Club resort. The yellow route leads to a fairly busy road that if followed north leads out of Praia da Luz. The small yellow arrow indicates the path the Smith sighting man may have taken to the narrow, less busy road he was sighted on.
It is this final route that would have been followed by the Smith sighting abductor if they had taken Madeleine. From this point, there are two paths to travel into the heart of Praia da Luz and towards the beach. The first option is along a main road and the second is along a windy, narrow and small side street that runs alongside the main road. This is where the Smith sighting occurred. If someone had wanted to walk from apartment 5a to the beach vicinity or the southern part of Praia da Luz, then this is the most inconspicuous route. If the man the Smiths’ sighted continued in the direction he was travelling, he would encounter a narrow set of steps that would take him to a road adjacent to the rocky and desolate section of the beach. The Smith sighting occurred just 100 metres from this stretch of rocky beach.
The red arrow is placed over the location the mysterious man carrying a child was sighted. The arrow points in the direction he was walking. The green arrow is placed over a narrow set of stairs.
The narrow set of stairs that are a continuation of the path the mysterious man may have taken.
The man the Smith family saw was a 350 metre walk away from apartment 5a when he was seen. This is about a 4-minute walk. If the general consensus time of the Smith sighting of 10:00pm is accurate then the man would have left apartment 5a at 9:56pm, just minutes before Kate arrived there. This would indicate that Madeleine’s abduction wasn’t necessarily well planned as the intruder only missed encountering Kate by a matter of 4 minutes.
The question arises, why would an abductor make such a long conspicuous walk whilst holding a child? The situation would be fraught with risks including Madeleine waking up, crying out, CCTV in the area or from inside shops proving identification and the risk that more witnesses would see the abductor. Why wouldn’t the man take a car? An argument against an abductor taking a car would be if just one abductor was involved; it would be challenging to restrain a child and drive.
Within three members of the Smith family’s initial police statements, they detail the child lying against specifically the left shoulder of the man they saw. Aoife said, “She did not see the child’s face because she was lying against the individual’s left shoulder.” Peter Smith said the man “carried the child on his arms, with the head resting on the left shoulder, as such on the right of the deponent, appearing to him in a natural manner.” Martin Smith stated, “the individual carried the child in his arms, with her head laying on the individual’s left shoulder,” These three accounts provide strong evidence that it was indeed the left shoulder of the man that the child lay on.
Madeleine lay in her bed with her head to the right of the bed from the abductor’s point-of-view. This suggests that an abductor would have picked her up in the orientation she was lying and thus placed her head on his right shoulder. There are three likely reasons the man seen by the Smiths carried the child on his left shoulder
He switched which shoulder he was carrying her on- although this doesn’t seem necessary for someone unfamiliar with carrying a child. If someone gave me a child to carry, I wouldn’t change the way I held them. Although admittedly, over a longer distance or to shield her from people, the abductor may have changed the way he held Madeleine.
An abductor may have picked Madeleine up with her head on the right side of him, in the orientation Madeleine lay and handed her through the window to someone else, meaning Madeleine’s positioning on this secondary person would result with her head on their left shoulder as seen in the Smith sighting
It wasn’t Madeleine.
The Smith family’s description of the man they saw carrying a child on his left shoulder also has relevancy to the PJ theory. Gerry carried Sean on his left shoulder in the footage of Gerry exiting the plane after landing back in the UK. There are no studies indicating what percentage of the population carry 2-3 year old children in which orientation and on which shoulder. Despite Gerry’s method for carrying children matching the Smith sighting orientation and shoulder, a large portion of adults may carry children in this manner and on this shoulder.
Within Martin Smith’s original statement, he mentions the commonality of sighting someone carrying a child in Praia da Luz, “he saw an individual carrying a child, who walked normally and fitted in perfectly in that area, in that it is common to see people carrying children, at least during the holiday season.” As common a sight as a man carrying a child is in these parts, there is something suspicious about the location the man was seen.
Why would an innocent man carrying their own child walk down this narrow, poorly lit road when the adjacent road is busier, better lit and safer? Why would the child be wearing pyjamas and sleeping? The child’s clothing and behaviour suggests they had been in a bed asleep. Other than a night crèche, there doesn’t seem to be a likely reason for this scenario. Multiple members of the Smith family noted the lack of blanket on the child. The cold night of May 3rd makes this even more puzzling. Where would an innocent man be carrying their child? There are mainly local houses and shops in the immediate vicinity of the Smith sighting. The Tanner sighting has the explanation of the vicinity to the holiday apartments to explain the pyjamas and sleeping child. The Smith sighting lacks this. The Ocean Club night crèche is in the wrong area to lead to the Smith sighting location. It’s also unlikely that a parent would carry a child such a distance.
The Smith family sighted a lone man carrying a sleeping child, fitting Madeleine’s age and general appearance. The family described the man’s fast walk, lack of interaction, avoidance of eye contact and non-response to Mary Smith’s question. The family themselves believe the child they saw to be Madeleine. The man who was sighted still hasn’t come forward despite the large-scale search to identify him. The location of the sighting, direction the man was walking and timing of the sighting along with the aforementioned factors all provide compelling evidence that if Madeleine McCann was abducted then the Smith family saw the getaway process, the abductor and Madeleine herself.
The First Formal Suspect- Robert Murat
The first arguido or formal suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine was Robert Murat, a 34-year-old man from Britain who lived in his mother’s house in Praia da Luz. The mother’s house was just a 137-metre walk from apartment 5a in the same direction that the person in the Tanner sighting was seen walking. Murat had originally been assisting police by translating Portuguese and English between officials and witnesses being questioned about Madeleine’s disappearance. A journalist for the Sunday Mirror informed police that Murat had been asking them questions about Madeleine’s disappearance- an action deemed suspicious by the journalist.
Robert Murat (Source: National Ledger, Paul Lewis)
Russell O’Brien, Fiona Payne, Rachael Oldfield, Ocean Club crèche worker Charlotte Pennington and two tourists all said they had witnessed Murat outside apartment 5a in the immediate aftermath of Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3rd. Murat claimed to have been home for the entire night, a claim supported by his mother. Murat’s mother’s house and garden were searched by police and numerous items of his were seized and examined.
The outside of Robert Murat’s mother’s house.
Sergey Malinka was a 22-year-old who owned a computer company in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance. Malinka had been making a website for Murat around the period of May 3rd 2007. At 11:30pm on May 3rd a phone call was made from Murat to Malinka. Neither Murat or Malinka recall this phone call and it has been suggested by them to be a pocket dial. This caused authorities to investigate whether Malinka was involved in Madeleine’s disappearance with a theory being that Murat and Malinka had abducted Madeleine in collaboration. Malinka subsequently had his car torched with the Portuguese word ‘fala’ meaning ‘speak’ spray-painted on the adjacent pavement.
Sergey Malinka’s car was targeted by vandals. They spray-painted the word ‘fala’ on the footpath next to it which means ‘speak’ in Portuguese.
Ultimately there was no evidence to link Murat or Malinka to Madeleine’s disappearance. Murat had his arguido status removed on the 21st of July 2008, over a year after he was named a formal suspect. Both Murat and Malinka have been cleared of any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
Orphanage Collection
Early in the spring of 2007 (just prior to Madeleine’s disappearance) a British woman living in Portugal had a knock on the door of her Praia da Luz villa. There was a man at the door who said he was collecting for an orphanage in nearby Espiche. There are no orphanages in Espiche and this was a scam to get money. As the British woman spoke to the man, he looked past her, instead focusing his attention on her 3-year-old daughter who was playing inside the villa. A few hours later, the woman saw the same suspicious man at the end of her road. The very next day, the woman was insider her villa on the ground floor with her daughter. The woman went upstairs for a few minutes to do some laundry and upon returning downstairs she saw a man in the living room with her daughter. She only saw the man’s legs but believed it to be the same man who she had spoken to the previous day who was collecting for the non-existent orphanage. The woman believed the man had intended to take her daughter and would have done so if she hadn’t interrupted him.
On April the 20th 2007, just 13 days prior to Madeleine’s disappearance, a different woman in Praia da Luz, Gail Cooper answered the door of her holiday villa located 400 metres from apartment 5a. According to Cooper’s 21st of May 2007 police statement, the man who had knocked on the door said “I am collecting for a local orphanage in a nearby village, Espiche.” Cooper further recalls what this man said, “He told me that the Portuguese government allow them to collect money once a year and that he could give me a receipt for any money that I give him. He then went on to tell me about an English family that had been killed on the EN125 motor way 3 days prior and that three children from that family had been looked after by the orphanage.” Cooper further describes the man as “very pushy” and “intimidating”. He didn’t seem to be Portuguese and his English skills were good.
Epiche is a village in close proximity to Praia da Luz however it doesn’t have any orphanages. (Source: Bud Wichers)
Gail Cooper made a follow up statement to police on the 16th of January 2008. In this newer statement Cooper describes some extra information that she forgot to include in her initial statement. Cooper and her family were at the Habana bar on the promenade area of Praia da Luz on the 22nd of April 2007. This was just two days after her previous encounter with the orphanage collector. Cooper noticed a man who physically looked identical to the orphanage collector although wearing different clothes. The man was walking behind a group of children and adults from the Ocean Club crèche. She described him as looking “strange and out of place”.
The Habana bar is where Gail Cooper believes she may have seen the orphanage collector again. On this occasion the collector may have been walking behind children from the Ocean Club creche. According to Cooper, he appeared “strange” and “out of place.”
Cooper describes the man she saw on both occasions as having a Mexican looking moustache, a general Mediterranean appearance and aged between 40 and 45 years old. Sketch artist Melissa Little produced a drawing of the man that Cooper saw. When Jane Tanner viewed this sketch, she said it had an 80% likeness to the man she saw carrying a child away from apartment 5a on May 3rd.
The sketch of the man Gail Cooper described as knocking on her door. The man claimed to be collecting money for an orphanage however the orphanage was not existent .
The face of the man Gail Cooper spoke to who was collecting money for a non-existent orphanage.
Immediately prior to the McCann family’s stay in apartment 5a at the Ocean Club, another family stayed in the apartment. This family consisted of Paul Gordon, his wife, their 3-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. Their stay lasted from the 21st of April 2007 to the 28th of April 2007. On the 6th of May 2007, Paul Gordon provided a statement to police about an incident with a suspicious man, “During our stay at the apartment on either Wednesday 25th April or Thursday 26th April, I was sun-bathing alone on the patio area. My wife and children were in the apartment and I know that the children were sleeping. At approximately 2.30pm… I was approached by an unknown male. He came to the light green barred gate which leads to the road running adjacent to the apartment…he introduced himself and started to explain that he had permission to be on site in order to collect money for either a charity or project. I went over to where he stood, and he explained some more. I remember him making reference to the fact that he was only allowed to collect for one week of the year (or something about one week) and that the money would go towards the orphanage. I got the impression that the orphanage was not nearby. I got the distinct impression that I was being had over, but gave the man ten Euros just to get rid of him.” This event happened one week prior to Madeleine’s disappearance, outside the very apartment that Madeleine disappeared from.
Paul Gordon provided a description of the man, “Portuguese looking, very tanned, medium build and about 5ft 7″ to 5ft 10″ tall. He looked between 40 and 45 years old and spoke really good English with a foreign accent.” There are some similarities between the man Gail Cooper spoke to and this man however this man didn’t have a moustache. Both incidents involved a man collecting money for a non-existent orphanage. The man in both cases flashed an ID card. Could this man be the abductor of Madeleine and could he have spent the time that Paul Gordon was inside, studying the inner layout of apartment 5a?
This man approached apartment 5a in the week before Madeleine disappeared and asked for the occupants to provide money for a non-existent orphanage. This composite sketch was created of the man.
On the afternoon of May 3rd, just hours before Madeleine vanished, around Praia da Luz there were at least 4 more reported incidence of men collecting money. This included at 4:00pm, two black-haired males asking for funds for a hostel or hospice in or around Espiche (this was the same location that Gail Cooper’s orphanage collector used). At 5:00pm, two men spoke to another British tourist with a similar story.
It’s not clear how linked these men collecting for a non-existent orphanage are to Madeleine’s disappearance. It’s possible they were just trying to make some small cash through a money collecting scam. Alternatively, they may have been knocking on the people’s residencies to scope whether people were home and perhaps subsequently burgle them. It’s also unclear the breadth of the scam and how many individuals were involved. The fake orphanage collections were no longer reported for a period after Madeleine’s disappearance although this may be due to the large police presence that had gathered in Praia da Luz. A regular fixture of charity collectors eventually restarted in Praia da Luz and continue operating to this day with some continuing to knock of people’s doors for bogus charities.
The chilling account of an orphanage collector entering the house of the 3-year-old girl provides some connection between the collectors and a potential Madeleine abduction. There is an alternative scenario for this event entailing the man looking inside the apartment in the hope or robbing it, not specifically looking at the woman’s daughter.
Suspicious People Around the Ocean Club Prior to May 3rd
Mentioned in the previous section was the fake orphanage collector asking the occupants in 5a for money prior to the McCanns’ stay. This wasn’t an isolated piece of suspicious behaviour in the Ocean Club in the lead up to May 3rd. There were a plethora of suspicious people and activities noted by witnesses in the prelude to Madeleine’s disappearance. Break-ins to the Ocean Club were a common fixture and the most commonly broken into area was ground floor apartments- much like the McCanns’ apartment.
According to Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood from the Metropolitan Police, there was a fourfold increase in burglaries in the Praia da Luz area between January 2007 and May 2007. This included two burglaries in the McCann’s block of apartments in the 17 days preceding Madeleine’s disappearance. On both of these occasions, the burglars had entered through windows. In 2006 at the Ocean Club resort, a man broke into a ground floor apartment and stole nothing, instead he creepily stood still staring into a child’s travel cot.
In late 2006, a babysitter witnessed a man hiding in the bushes outside apartment 5a. In a separate incident, a British nanny was looking after a six-year-old boy inside apartment 5a in December 2006. The boy was asleep and she went to get some food. When she returned, she witnessed a man trying to lift the shutters of the window outside the apartment. According to a source, “The man was trying to get in the same window police think Madeleine’s abductors may have used.” This event was just months before Madeleine’s disappearance in notably the same apartment and same specific set of shutters that are the focus of Madeleine’s disappearance.
There were some further suspicious behaviour in the vicinity of the Ocean Club in the immediate week preceding Madeleine’s disappearance and whilst the McCanns were staying at the Ocean Club resort. A British tourist was taking a walk with her daughter on the 29th of April 2007. She noticed a man “acting suspiciously”. The mother grabbed her daughter’s hand and held her. Four days later, on the day Madeleine went missing, this mother noticed the same man again at about 3:00pm. She said, “I paid particular attention to him because he appeared to be focused on watching the apartment block.”
A re-enactment of the suspicious man seen near the McCanns’ apartment on April 29th. The mother of the child felt uneasy whilst walking past the man so she grabbed her child’s hand. On the day Madeleine disappeared, the mother noticed this man watching the apartment block.
Another witness was Tasmin Sillence, a 12-year-old school girl who saw a man leaning on apartment 5a at 8:15am on the 30th of April. He was also starring into the balcony of apartment 5a. The girl’s witness statement is specific to 5a as she said, “My grandparents used to live in that apartment so I always look at it as I pass by.” Sillence’s grandmother lived in apartment 5a until 2002. On May 2nd 2007 at 12:30pm, the day prior to Madeleine going missing, Sillence saw the same man at the entrance of the Ocean Club and staring in the direction of 5a. This man was described as “ugly”, having blonde-hair, aged in his mid-30s with spots on his face.
A re-enactment of a man acting suspiciously and leaning against the wall behind the McCanns’ apartment on April 30th.
A close up of the re-enactment of the suspicious man leaning on the McCanns’ apartment wall on April 30th.
An artist’s sketch of the man seen watching the McCanns’ apartment. He was described as “ugly” and as having spots on his face.
On either May 2nd or May 3rd, another witness statement detailed a man staring at the McCanns’ apartment block. The statement also described a white van was parked nearby. Each of these witness statements describes suspicious behaviour to some degree. Despite this, the Ocean Club is often a heavily populated resort with numerous people staying for short periods of time. Many of the above people may have been staying at the resort and simply in the proximity to their own apartments. The sheer number of incidents specific to apartment 5a indicate that is was a hotspot for crime due to its ground floor and corner location.
A re-enactment of another witness statement reporting a man watching the McCanns’ apartment block on either the 2nd or 3rd of May.
May 3rd Suspicious People Around the Ocean Club
Many witnesses have come forward detailing suspicious behaviour around the Ocean Club and often in the vicinity of apartment 5a on the 3rd of May 2007. There were a string of sightings by separate witnesses of two blonde haired men around 5a on the afternoon in question. Two British sisters, Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire saw two blonde men aged in their 30s standing on the balcony of a non-occupied apartment just a few doors down from the McCanns’ apartment 5a. This is an area of the apartment that is beyond the gate leading to the apartment and in front of the apartment’s patio doors. There was no innocent reason for them to be there. The pair of blonde men were looking in the pool direction and were described by Jayne Jensen as “wrongly placed”. This sighting occurred at 2:30pm.
Sisters Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire witnessed suspicious people near the McCanns’ apartment on May 3rd. (Source: Daily Mail)
Jensen and Wiltshire saw two blond men in front of the unoccupied apartment circled in red on May 3rd. This was near the McCanns’ apartment.
At some stage between 4:00pm and 5:00pm, a blonde-haired man was sighted by another witness as being near apartment 5a. At 6:00pm, an Ocean Club worker spotted a British tourist hiding in the stairwell just 12 metres away from apartment 5a. The Ocean Club worker described this man’s behaviour, “he was monitoring the car park area, stairs and elevator.” At 11:00pm, after Madeleine’s disappearance, another witness spotted two blonde haired men in a nearby street. They were both speaking loudly until they realised they had been noticed. At this point, they lowered their voices and departed the area.
An Ocean Club worker found a British tourist hiding in this stairwell in the late afternoon of May 3rd. The stairwell is just 12 metres from the McCanns’ apartment. (Source: Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)
On the 22nd of April 2008, Carole Tranmer provided police with an interview. Tranmer is the niece of Pamela Fenn- the lady who heard a child crying in the McCanns’ apartment on the night of May 1st. Fenn, living in the apartment directly above the McCanns, had a visit from Tranmer during the late afternoon of May 3rd. In her police interview, Tranmer describes someone exiting one of the small gates near the McCann’s apartment, “I saw someone… closing the gate very gently as they were leaving, opening and closing the gate with much caution and in silence. It appeared to me very strange. They looked to one side and the other, shut the gate and walked very quickly downwards. It was at this point that I turned to my aunt and my husband and exclaimed ‘That was really very strange’,”
A laneway behind the apartments has gates leading to the apartments. Carole Tranmer saw a man opening and closing one of these gates repetitively on the late afternoon of May 3rd.
A close up view of one of the gates leading to the apartments. Carole Tranmer was located on the balcony at the very top of this picture and witnessed a man acting strangely by opening and closing one of these gates repeatedly. (Source: Bud Wichers)
The view from Pamela Fenn’s balcony from which Tranmer saw a man opening and closing a gate repeatedly.
Tranmer describes the man as having short, blonde hair and aged between 30 and 35. In another part of the interview, she emphasises the suspicious nature of the man opening the gate, “he opened the gate from inside and made so he did not make any noise, it was what made me feel strange about it. He did this all very quietly, as if… you know, when a gate creeks, but he ensured that it did not make noise… It looked as though he was leaving, he closed it with both his hands, many times, closing it in silence and cautiously with both hands and he looked lastly this way downwards, first to this side.” There were two gates leading to the backyard of the McCanns’ apartment and it is plausible that the man Tranmer witnessed was preparing a quiet entry or exit for Madeleine’s later abduction.
An e-fit image of the man Tranmer saw using a gate suspiciously near the McCanns’ apartment on May 3rd.
Adding to the glut of suspicious behaviour around 5a on May 3rd was a sighting by Jenny Murat, the mother of former arguido in the case, Robert Murat. At night, Jenny Murat drove past 5a and noted a young woman wearing plum-coloured clothes acting in a suspicious manner. The young woman was “watching intently” the apartments. Jenny Murat describes the scene, “It struck me as strange. It’s so usual for anyone, particularly a woman, to be standing alone on the street in our resort, just watching a building.” This area wasn’t near shops, bus stops or houses. Jenny Murat also described a brownish, gold Nissan driving quite recklessly past the woman. The car was travelling the wrong way down the one-way street. This was prior to Madeleine’s abduction however the possibility lingers that it may have been a dress-rehearsal.
Other Crimes and Suspicious Behaviour
There were some further criminal events and suspicious behaviour in the years adjacent to Madeleine’s disappearance. The location, crimes and in some cases, links to Praia da Luz make these crimes worthy of mentioning for any possible linkage to Madeleine’s disappearance. On the day following Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate McCann was informed of some unsettling behaviour in the Algarve region by British Consul Bill Henderson. There were many documented cases of crimes that had similarities to Madeleine’s abduction in the preceding 3 years.
A man had entered British holiday homes in the western Algarve region including two in Praia da Luz itself. A man had sexually assaulted five girls aged between 7 and 10 whilst they were in their beds. The man in these assaults was described as having tanned skin and short, dark hair. He spoke English with a foreign accent, slurring his words. He also had a distinctive smell. In one unsettling attack that occurred in the Algarve region, an intruder attempted to abduct a 3-year-old girl. In total, 12 incidents were reported in the area between 2004 and 2010. The PJ had a suspect for four of these incidents occurring between 2004 and 2006. His name was Euclides Monteiro- at that stage a former Ocean Club restaurant worker who hailed from Cape Verde.
Former Ocean Club worker Euclides Monteiro was suspected of sexually abusing children in the Algarve region.
Police determined that the mobile phone of Monteiro had been near the Ocean Club on the night of May 3rd 2007. He had been fired from the Ocean Club the previous year for theft. The PJ suspected that he had broken into apartments to steal money to finance his drug abuse. Monteiro died in 2009 in a tractor accident. His widow claims that Monteiro had been previously questioned by police about break-ins resulting in sexual abuse of children however he had been cleared of these crimes by DNA evidence.
‘Jos’
Over thirty countries co-operated in sharing mobile phone tracking data to determine who was near apartment 5a at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance. This analysis resulted in phone calls and text messages emerging between a 30-year-old Ocean Club bus driver who I will refer to as ‘Jos’ and his 53 and 24-year-old friends. On the day of Madeleine’s abduction, Jos didn’t go to work. He made three phone calls to another suspect who I will call ‘Ric’. These phone calls occurred at 5:26pm, 9:38pm and 9:51pm. A text message was also sent from Jos to Ric at 9:25pm. This timeframe is especially suspicious as according to the McCann’s statements, Madeleine vanished between 9:08pm and 10:00pm. During May 2007, Jos was living near the Smith sighting location on the second floor of the Edificio Luztur building which overlooked the Ocean Club.
The Edificio Luztur where ‘Jos’ lived at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
The yellow cross denotes the location of the McCanns’ apartment. The green cross shows the position of the Tapas restaurant and the red cross indicates where Jos’s apartment was situated.
The Edificio Luztur where ‘Jos’ lived is denoted by the red cross. The red rectangle shows the location of apartment 5a. (Source: The Sun)
At 11:00pm, Jos was outside, enjoying some fresh air from the balcony in his building despite the cold weather conditions. At around this time, a witness saw two men arguing by Jos’s building and speaking quite loudly to each other. When the men were noticed, they lowered their voices. Jos also had a police record for theft. Jos started working at the Ocean Club on the 26th of March 2007, just 5 weeks before Madeleine’s disappearance. His job involved driving tourists from the Ocean Club reception to their apartments.
There are some compelling reasons to suspect Jos as being involved with Madeleine’s abduction. From part 3 in this article, it was determined that an abduction of Madeleine would require at least two people to be involved for the children’s bedroom to be in the state it was found in. It was also speculated in part 3 that someone familiar with the inner workings of the Ocean Club apartments may have been involved. The location of Jos’s flat as matching the Smith sighting direction also supports his involvement. The phone calls and text messages sent by Jos were numerous in the precise period that Madeleine went missing. Add to this fact that an argument was witnessed near Jos’s apartment and he has a record of theft. Jos was in the area of apartment 5a during the night in question and didn’t work on May 3rd. These reasons all combine to make Jos a suspect. It took until 2014 before Jos and his friends were interviewed by detectives- some 7 years after Madeleine disappeared. Jos and his clique denied any involvement in the disappearance.
Christian Brueckner
Note: This section on Christian Brueckner has been added since this article was completed due to new evidence in the case.
In June 2020, police officially announced Christian Brueckner as a new suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance. Brueckner is a 43-year-old, blonde, German man who is currently imprisoned in Germany. He was 30-years-old when Madeleine’s vanished. Brueckner lived in the vicinity of Praia da Luz in 2007, has a history of sexual assault of girls, exhibited suspicious behaviour around the May 3rd 2007 date and in later years told someone that he had “snatched” Madeleine.
German suspect, Christian Brueckner.
Brueckner received a phone call on May 3rd 2007 at 7:32pm. The phone call lasted exactly 30 minutes, ending at 8:02pm. This was just an hour before the earliest time Madeleine may have been abducted. The call was made from Portuguese mobile number +351 916 510 683. Police don’t know who this phone number belonged to and are currently seeking public assistance in determining the owner of this number.
Detective Chief Inspector, Mark Cranwell, has spoken of Brueckner’s location on the night of May 3rd, “We know he was in the resort on the night, about an hour before Madeleine was last seen about 9pm.” Cranwell hasn’t made it explicitly clear why police believe Brueckner was inside the Ocean Club’s perimeter on the night of May 3rd. Other suspects in Madeleine’s disappearance haven’t been narrowed down to such a definitive area based on mobile phone activity. This is due to phone towers only providing a general area that a phone may be located in.
In 2017, on the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, Brueckner was in a German pub with someone he had committed crimes with in the past. A news report appeared on the TV screen regarding the 10th anniversary of Madeleine vanishing. Brueckner allegedly told his friend that he had snatched Madeleine. He didn’t mention killing her, only that he had taken her.
Brueckner then showed his friend video footage of him raping a 72-year-old American woman in the vicinity of Praia da Luz. The American victim lived just 1km away from Brueckner’s rental property. On the 2nd of September 2005, Brueckner had broken into the woman’s flat that was located on a path between his rented house and the beach. A route that Brueckner walked daily. Brueckner planned the attack in great detail. He entered the woman’s house through her living room’s open door at around 10:30pm. Brueckner had a curved sword and used a rope to tie the woman to a beam. He blindfolded the victim, gagged her and hit her with the sword before raping her and robbing her. The victim informed police that Brueckner had enjoyed torturing her.
Brueckner’s hair was found at the rape scene leading to a DNA identification. At the rape trial in 2019, a witness gave evidence against Brueckner. They said they had seen him “climb through open windows in one or another holiday flat”. The witness continued on to mention that Brueckner told his friends that he specifically stole touristy items from the holiday flats such as camera, passports, wallets and change. Brueckner also entered the apartments during the night or whilst the residents were having a siesta.
Kiel Prison in northern Germany currently houses Brueckner. (Source: Reuters)
Christian Hoppe, director of Germany’s National Crime Agency, has said that Brueckner had been convicted of “sexual contact with girls” on two occasions in the past. A number of other crimes by Brueckner have also been revealed, tallying a total of 17 convictions. These include:
1992- Breaking and entering
1994- A sex crime whilst Brueckner was just 17-years-old
2008- Manufacturing and trafficking drugs
2015- Assault
2017- Child exploitation material
2017- The sexual abuse of children
2018- A drugs violation
2019- A drugs violation
2019- Rape
2020- A drugs violation
Brueckner had a 1993 British Jaguar, XJR 6 that is thought to have been in Praia da Luz and the surrounding areas in 2006 and 2007. The car had German license plates and was registered in Germany. The car had been registered in the German suspect’s name. On May 4th 2007, the day after Madeleine vanished, the Jaguar was re-registered to another person who lived in Augsburg, Germany. Police found the timing and nature of this suspicious.
Brueckner’s Jaguar was re-registered to someone else the day after Madeleine’s disappearance.
The front of Brueckner’s Jaguar.
The rear of Brueckner’s Jaguar.
Brueckner regularly lived in the Algarve region of Portugal between 1995 and 2007. He rented a remote, run-down farm building from an English owner. The suspect’s yard was scattered with old cars that he would buy and sell. The property was located part way between Praia da Luz and Lagos and was approximately 3km from the Ocean Club. Months prior to Madeleine’s disappearance, Brueckner left this farm building and lived in his camper van. According to Scotland Yard, Brueckner was driving his camper van in the Praia da Luz area in the days leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance. He is believed to have continued living in the camper van for some weeks after May 3rd. Brueckner was thought to have access to another property around 22km from the Ocean Club. He lived a transient life.
The red cross shows the Ocean Club’s location. The green cross indicates the property 22km away from the Ocean Club that Brueckner may have had access to. The yellow cross shows the location of the rented property that Brueckner lived in until 2006.
The run down farm house that Brueckner lived in until 2006. This house was just 3km from the Ocean Club however Brueckner didn’t live here in May 2007.
The house Brueckner may have had access to around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance. This house was located approximately 22km from the Ocean Club.
Neighbours of the rented farm building premises of Brueckner have spoken of his temperament. “He was always a bit angry, driving fast up and down the lane, and then one day, around 2006, he just disappeared without a word. I think he left some rent unpaid.” The same neighbour provided details as to the inner state of the building Brueckner lived in. “About six months later I was asked to help clean up the place and it was disgusting, absolutely vile. It had been trashed, with broken stuff like computers all over the place… We found a bin bag and inside were wigs and exotic clothing, whether just fancy dress or something stranger I couldn’t tell.”
The lounge room of the German suspect’s rented house.
The interior of Brueckner’s rented home.
Brueckner worked a number of jobs including as a waiter and barman in various locations around Lagos. German police claim he also made money by burgling holiday resorts and hotels in the area as well as dealing drugs.
Is Christian Brueckner Connected to Madeleine’s Disappearance?
Brueckner has fair skin and is 6-foot tall. In 2007, he was physically slim and had short, blonde hair. Witness Tasmin Sillence described the person she saw near apartment 5a on the 30th of April and 2nd of May 2007 as having blonde hair and being aged in his mid-30s. On the afternoon of May 3rd 2007, Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire saw two blonde haired men standing on the balcony of an unoccupied apartment just two doors down from the McCanns. Another witness saw a blonde haired man near apartment 5a between 4:00pm and 5:00pm on May 3rd. Carole Tranmer was visiting the apartment above 5a on the afternoon of May 3rd and saw a man opening and closing a nearby gate repeatedly as to not make a sound. She described this man as having short, blonde hair and believes he was aged between 30 and 35. After Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3rd at 11:00pm, two blonde haired men were spotted on a street near the Ocean Club speaking loudly until they realised they had been noticed. There would only likely be a small number of males around 30-years-old, with blonde hair in Praia da Luz on May 3rd 2007. The suspicious nature of these incidences does raise questions about Brueckner matching many of the descriptions.
The left and middle e-fits show the person that Carole Tranmer saw repeatedly opening and closing the gate near the McCanns’ apartment. The right photo is of Christian Brueckner.
Brueckner drove and lived in a white camper van from at least April 2007 until some period after May 2007. This covers the May 3rd date of Madeleine’s disappearance. Tourist, Derek Flack, witnessed suspicious activity involving a white, dirty, old, van outside the McCanns’ apartment on either the 2nd or 3rd of May 2007 (he can’t recall the exact date). According to Flack’s police statement, he saw a 25-35 year-old Portuguese looking man with dark hair, standing near the McCanns’ apartment and watching it. Flack’s statement says, “the man’s attention was fixed on the area in question (the vicinity of apartment 5a).” Flack found this suspicious. On the other side of the road from this individual a white van was parked just 1 metres from the McCanns’ apartment. There was a second person either inside or just outside the vehicle however Flack couldn’t recall this second person’s appearance. It’s possible this second person was Brueckner.
The red outline indicates the McCanns’ apartment. The blue cross shows where the Portuguese looking man was standing. The black arrow indicates the direction he was looking. The green rectangle is where the white van was located with another man inside or next to it.
The camper van that Brueckner was living in at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Brueckner’s camper van parked on the Algarve coast.
At the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, Brueckner had another car registered in his name- a 1993 British Jaguar, XJR 6. It is suspicious that he had this Jaguar for a relatively long period of time and chose to re-register it to someone in another country on May 4th 2007, the day after Madeleine’s disappearance. Despite the Jaguar being in Portugal at the time, it was curiously re-registered to a person in Germany.
Brueckner’s 30 minute phone call just over one-hour prior to Madeleine’s disappearance in the vicinity of the Ocean Club is another potentially incriminating factor against the suspect. Brueckner’s history of sexually assaulting girls, past instances of rape and history of break-ins to resorts in the area specifically at night provide more potential evidence against the suspect. Police often keep extra pieces of evidence to themselves against suspects and this may be the case regarding Brueckner. Christian Hoppe, director of Germany’s National Crime Agency has said “German police believed they had almost enough evidence to charge him (Brueckner) with Madeleine’s abduction and murder.” German prosecutors say they believe Madeleine is dead and say they believe they know how she died.
In mid-June 2020, German prosecutor, Christian Wolters who is leading the investigation into Christian Brueckner sent a letter to Kate and Gerry. The letter informed them that Madeleine is dead. Wolters says the police don’t have forensic evidence of Madeleine’s death but despite this are 100% convinced of her passing. Based on inferences from Wolters’ comments it seems possible that police have video or photographic evidence of Madeleine found in Brueckner’s possession.
Where Could Madeleine Have Been Taken by An Abductor?
The geography of Praia da Luz and the 12-hour lapse in police instigating roadblocks mean that Madeleine could have theoretical been taken almost anywhere. Praia da Luz itself doesn’t have a marina however the proximate city of Lagos, only 8km away and an 8-minute drive from Praia da Luz has a marina, meaning Madeleine may have been taken somewhere by boat.
The north-western part of Africa is separated from southern Spain by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. Madeleine could have been driven to Tangier along this route in about 7 hours including a ferry crossing. Alternatively, the distance by boat from the Lagos marina to Tangier marina in Morocco is less than 300km- a relatively short journey.
If Madeleine was killed/died and hidden somewhere around the Algarve area there are numerous potential locations she could be. There are hundreds of deep wells in the region, typically away from the tourist areas. Some of these wells extend down beyond 100 feet. The rocky coastline off the south-western coast of Praia da Luz is full of crevasses and cliffs. The sniffer dogs searched some of this area to no avail around 3 months after Madeleine’s disappearance. Another possible method that may have been used to conceal Madeleine’s body involves dumping it into the sea, off the Praia da Luz coastline. The University of Algarve oceanography department tested out this very theory. They concluded that it was unlikely that the wave action would be strong enough for a body to be taken out to sea from Praia da Luz.
This rocky part of the Praia da Luz coast is close to where the Smith sighting man was seen. (Source: Mike Teskowski)
This coastal property contains overgrown grass and is fairly close to where the Smith sighting man was seen. There are numerous places similar to this one scattered around Praia da Luz. (Source: Mike Teskowski)
The Smith sighting was just 100 metres away from a large grassed region containing overgrown grass and hundreds of overgrown bushes. This area is accessible by car and is typically void of people.
The area contained within the red square is a large grassed area with overgrown bushes. It has dimensions approximately 200m x 200m. The red ‘x’ denotes the Smith sighting location, just 100m away from this grassed area.
Part of the grassed location within the red square area on the map.
This image demonstrates the vastness of this bushy, overgrown area that is situated only 100 metres from where the Smith sighting occurred. (Source: Shining in Luz).
The Barcelona Marina Woman
Madeleine McCann is arguably the most famous missing person in modern history. It is therefore unsurprising that there have been a plethora of sightings of her, reported from around the world in the days, months and years following her disappearance.
On May 7th at 2:00am in Barcelona- about three days after Madeleine’s disappearance, a British executive was in a bar in Barcelona. The witness wasn’t drinking. A woman approached the witness in an agitated state, mistaking him for someone else. She asked the man something along the lines of, “Are you here to deliver my new daughter?” or “Have you got her, have you got the child?” The man was asked similar questions three times before she became aware that the man wasn’t the man she had been waiting for. She then sat down in a nearby bar and had a heated exchange in Spanish with a man who had bumped her chair. She then walked away in the general direction of the hospital and ferry and cruise ship terminals.
A woman approached a witness in Barcelona just 75 hours after Madeleine’s disappearance and asked the witness “Are you here to deliver my new daughter?”
The woman who possibly had an Australian accent and was fluent in Spanish was said to resemble Victoria Beckham. The encounter occurred in the marina section of Barcelona, outside El Rey de la Gamba. The location of this bar is on the waterfront. It is plausible that Madeleine was taken by boat from Portugal to the Barcelona marina. An average sized power boat could have made the journey in enough time. It’s also conceivable that Madeleine was driven the 1,250km (or around 13 hours) in a car to Barcelona with the woman planning to leave the marina with Madeleine on a yacht.
The woman who asked the witness at the bar if he was there to ‘deliver her new daughter’ resembled Victoria Beckham. This is an e-fit of the woman.
The Barcelona marina. The woman approached the witness at the El Rey de la Gamba, denoted by the blue cross.
The El Rey de la Gamba restaurant on the waterfront in the Barcelona marina. It was here that a woman approached a witness asking if he had her new daughter.
The witness was described as “very credible” however there are some reasons to discount this peculiar event as relevant. Firstly, it took two years for the witness to come forward with this information as the witness didn’t want his wife to have the belief that he was approaching strange women. Secondly, if Madeleine was taken with the purpose of being given to this woman, outside a pub in public seems like a risky location for the handover to occur. Thirdly, Madeleine’s disappearance had become worldwide news by the 7th of May- the day this event supposedly occurred. For someone to bring Madeleine in public and hand her over to someone in the midst of CCTV cameras and the hordes of people in vicinity seems unlikely. Finally, it’s possible the woman knew the hand over would occur in another location. If this was the case, it would be unimaginably naive for her to approach people on the street so blatantly with the words “Are you here to deliver my new daughter.”
The Lagos Marina Couple
Another potentially relevant sighting of Madeleine occurred on May 4th at 5:55am near Lagos marina. This was around 8 hours after Kate noticed that she was missing. This sighting was made by a Pizza Hut owner, George Brooks (he is often referred to as George Burke). Brooks was driving home when he saw a couple carrying a child. This occurred near the Lagos marina- the closest marina to Praia da Luz and only 8km or an 8-minute drive away from apartment 5a.
An aerial image of Lagos Marina, just 8km from Praia da Luz. (Source: News Winnow)
According to Brooks’s statements to the media, “It was hard to make out exactly what the couple looked like, but through the gloom I could definitely see a very suspicious-looking man and woman, carrying a child who fitted Madeleine’s description. Though there was nobody else on the road, they were hurrying across a dual carriageway that leads straight to the train station and marina in Lagos. The woman was in her thirties, darkhaired and slim. The man, also in his thirties, was less than six feet tall and slightly stocky. He had shoulder-length hair and looked quite tanned. They did not look like tourists and they certainly didn’t seem to be British. You could tell from their posture that they were trying to carry the child without anyone seeing it and they were extremely disturbed when I caught them in my headlights.”
Lagos marina. (Source: Heri)
Lagos marina from the air. The marina houses a large number of boats.
The Moroccan Petrol Station
The petrol station in Marrakesh where a woman believes she saw Madeleine McCann.
On the 9th of May 2007 at 10:00am, just over 5 days after Madeleine disappeared, Norwegian woman Marie Olli walked into a petrol station in Marrakesh, Morocco. She saw a girl who resembled Madeleine McCann. The petrol station was located next to the Hotel Ibis in Marrakesh. Olli contacted the police the very next day when she learnt of Madeleine’s disappearance. She provided police with a statement of what she saw, “She was clearly wearing blue pyjamas. Some pattern on the top, trousers little darker. Don’t think the trousers had any pattern. She was very small. Under 1 meter. She was with a man. She was standing alone, the man about a meter from her. I looked at her because she was very sweet. And it was a strange situation because the man didn’t look like her father. And it’s very strange to see a blond small girl standing alone in Marrakesh. She was very small and normally you would hold her in your arms or at least her hand. And the man was turning away from her. She looked sad. I looked in her face, she looked at me. Then she turned to the man and said something that sounds like: ‘Can we see mommy soon?’ I am not sure if he replied.”
A Norwegian tourist saw a girl resembling Madeleine in a petrol station in Marrakesh, Morocco. The girl asked the man she was with, “Can we see mommy soon?”
Olli didn’t know of Madeleine’s disappearance when she saw the girl in the petrol station. Despite this, she thought the scenario she had witnessed was strange. At 6:00pm the day after the sighting, “she saw the news and pictures of Madeleine and felt sickened as she was 99.9% sure that Madeleine was the little girl she had seen in Marrakesh. She remains 99% sure at this time.” By the time police contacted the petrol station, the CCTV had been routinely wiped clean.
Child Abduction Statistics
Numerous studies have been conducted to examine both the outcomes for children that are abducted based on their age and the actual incidence of abductions. This data provides a backdrop to the Madeleine McCann case and may provide evidence regarding whether Madeleine was indeed abducted and if so, what a motive may have been.
Research into child abductions has found that the younger a child is abducted, the more chance there is that the child is kept. Couples who are infertile or have lost a child through a miscarriage provide some fraction of child abduction cases and it is these groups who tend to raise the younger abducted children. If Madeleine was abducted by someone with the hopes of raising her, the question is raised, why not take someone younger like one of the twins who were sleeping in the same room?
Almost every child of Madeleine’s age who is abducted by a child sexual predator is dead within the first few hours. The data on non- family abductions for children of all ages shows that 67% of abductions are fatal. From this 67%, 44% are killed within the very first hour after the abduction, 73% are killed in the first 3 hours and 99% are killed in the first 24 hours. It has often been quipped that parent’s struggle to look after their own crying and demanding children so a stranger who has abducted them for their own pleasure has no desire to keep them alive for any length of time. Child sexual predators do tend to abduct children older than Madeleine’s age.
There is a permeating fear throughout society about child abduction by strangers. The data on child abduction by strangers shows how exceedingly rare such an event is. In the USA, the event of a child being abducted by a non-family member occurs around 160-200 times per year. A 2002 USA study found that only 20 children who were under the age of 5 were abducted by strangers in a given year. Despite being ‘only 20’ this number is far too high however dwarfs the number of American children that went missing in the same year- 800,000.
There is also some further data on who the instigator of child murders and abductions are likely to be. In 84% of cases, the events are committed by the child’s parents. 96% are committed by friends and relatives of the child. This leaves just 4% of cases having the murderer or abductor as a complete stranger to the victim.
This data may provide some insights into Madeleine’s disappearance. Madeleine belongs to the age group of abducted children who have the best chance of being abducted to keep. If she was abducted by a sexual predator, it is almost certain she would be dead by now. Abduction of children in Madeleine’s age group by strangers are almost unfathomably rare. It is many times more likely for someone known to Madeleine to have killed or abducted her. Having said this, the data doesn’t account for the possibility of a child being killed accidentally. All of this information should be interpreted in conjunction with the evidence around Madeleine’s disappearance.
Part 6- Theories
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct them to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”– Friedrich Nietzsche
I am not claiming that any of the following events occurred. They are merely theoretical scenarios that I am presenting and evaluating for theoretical plausibility.
The ‘Wandered Off’ Theory
A possible explanation to account for Madeleine’s disappearance is the ‘wandered off’ theory. This idea entails Madeleine waking up some time after Gerry’s check on the McCann children at 9:05pm. Madeleine would have woken and found that her parents weren’t home and thus left the apartment in search of then. The theory then splits into two variants.
She was abducted by someone passing by. This could have been as a result of the passer by hitting Madeleine with their car.
She fell into some sort of crevasse. This could have been an open construction site, a drainage system, open roadworks, waterway or a well.
Arguments for the ‘Wandered Off’ Theory
Kate described Madeleine as adventurous. If Madeleine left the apartment on her own accord, it would have been consistent with this description.
It was dark and relatively void of people outside on the night of May 3rd from 9:05pm-10:00pm. This may account for the fact that no-one saw Madeleine leave the apartment or on the streets nearby.
Madeleine would turn 4-years-old in the coming week. Children of this age can often walk several kilometres.
At a similar time (10:30pm) on May 1st, the apartment occupant above the McCanns described hearing a child of Madeleine’s age crying for over an hour. Madeleine may have woken up a bit earlier on May 3rd and in contrast to her crying exploits, decided to find her parent’s outside.
During the previous night of May 2nd, Madeleine woke up and cried. Madeleine asked Kate on the morning she went missing, “Why didn’t you come when Sean and I cried last night?” Kate and Gerry returned home at 11:50pm that night and Kate slept in the children’s bedroom and didn’t report Madeleine crying. This suggests that Madeleine and Sean had been crying earlier in the night. Perhaps this behaviour continued on May 3rd.
The wandered off explanation avoids the rare scenario of a child abduction and avoids the unusual situation of parent’s hiding a child’s body. The theory avoids a blatant macabre act.
There were open construction works near apartment 5a on the night of May 3rd.
Arguments Against The ‘Wandered Off’ Theory
The PJ rejected the wandering off theory
The McCanns rejected the wandering off theory.
According to Kate, for Madeleine to leave apartment 5a on her own accord, she would have to slide open the unlocked patio doors, close the curtain behind her, slide the door closed again behind her, open and close the childproof gate at the top of the stairs and open and close the gate leading to the street.
When Kate and Gerry left the apartment with Madeleine, they would inevitably leave through the back, sliding door so other exit points wouldn’t have been considered by Madeleine.
When Kate and Gerry left the apartment with Madeleine, they would inevitably walk in the Tapas restaurant direction. If Madeleine had left the apartment it’s likely she would have used this familiar path.
The path to the Tapas restaurant area was downhill and the easiest direction for a young child to walk. She would have been noticed if she walked in this direction due to entering the heart of the Ocean Club area.
The scene found by Kate in the children’s bedroom consisted of a shutter pulled up. This process was complicated and far exceeded Madeleine’s abilities. Locking the shutter in place in a raised position required someone much taller than Madeleine.
The window was found slid open to its full extent. This would also have exceeded Madeleine’s abilities due to her age and height.
It was dark in apartment 5a making the processes of raising the shutter and opening the window even more challenging as Madeleine was too small to turn the light on and off
Opening the shutters and window would serve no purpose for Madeleine as she was not tall enough to exit through this point and wouldn’t have known it could be an exit point as her family used doors for the entire holiday.
There was cadaver odour in the McCann parent’s bedroom.
There was blood scent behind the couch in the lounge room.
There were other alerts by the sniffer dogs.
In scenario ‘A’, “She was abducted by someone passing by. This could have been as a result of the passer by hitting Madeleine with their car” There are now two unlikely events we have to explain. As abduction requires just Madeleine being abducted whilst her escaping and being abducted is even more remote.
In scenario ‘A’, a car hitting a child and would have created quite a scene and potentially noise which would have been noticed by one of the overlooking apartments.
In scenario ‘A’, it is highly unlikely that the first person who noticed a 3-year-old wandering alone outside is going to be one of the rare members of society who will abduct a child.
In scenario ‘B’, “She fell into some sort of crevasse. This could have been an open construction site, a drainage system, open roadworks, waterway or a well” these structures were searched by hundreds of police and members of the public and no traces of Madeleine were found.
In scenario ‘B’, there were only a few open structures in the immediate vicinity of the Ocean Club. These were checked thoroughly by searchers.
The other open places in scenario ‘B’ were far removed from the Ocean Club and would have required an extensive and an uphill walk by Madeleine.
Conclusion AboutThe ‘Wandered Off’ Theory
The ‘wandering off’ theory doesn’t provide an explanation as to how Madeleine left apartment 5a. Her parents who knew her abilities the best said she was incapable of leaving the apartment on her own accord and closing all of the necessary doors, curtains and gates behind herself- something three-year-olds don’t typically do. The scene in 5a when Kate and eventually others arrived was of an abduction with an open window and a difficult to manoeuvre shutter that was raised. This is something Madeleine couldn’t possibly achieve on her own due to her age and height. The scene in apartment 5a showed an abduction. The pertinent question is- was this scene caused by an actual abductor or was it staged? Quite simply, the ‘wandering off’ theory is not a deus ex machina. The PJ never seriously considered it, the McCanns never seriously considered it and it fails to provide an explanation for either the evidence supporting an abduction or the evidence in the case supporting the PJ theory of a staged abduction. I am conclusively ruling out the ‘wandering off’ theory.
The ‘Madeleine Died Pre-May 3rd’ Theory
This ‘Madeleine died pre-May 3rd’ theory will be examined in relation to the PJ theory that Madeleine died in apartment 5a on the evening on May 3rd. There are multiple offshoots of the pre-May 3rd death theory. These include:
Madeleine dying early on in the holiday such as on Sunday the 29th of April or Monday the 30th of April.
Madeleine died during the middle section of the holiday such as on the 1st of May or 2nd of May.
This ‘Madeleine died pre-May 3rd’ theory entails Madeleine dying in apartment 5a. Kate and Gerry then signed Madeleine into and out of the crèche on the subsequent days of the holiday without actually dropping her off or picking her up. Eventually, Kate and Gerry disposed of Madeleine’s body. This theory requires the remainder of the Tapas 9 to be aware of Madeleine’s death and to have made false police statements.
Arguments for the ‘Madeleine Died Pre May 3rd’ Theory
These arguments are relative to Madeleine dying in apartment 5a on the evening of the 3rd of May, as the PJ alleged.
If Madeleine died in apartment 5a on the evening of May 3rd, it would be more challenging for a cadaver odour to be produced in the timeframe described before her body was removed from the apartment. A study mentioned in the ‘sniffer dogs’ section of this article determined that the earliest a human cadaver could emit a detectable smell by a cadaver dog was 1 hour and 25 minutes. The 5 cadaver dogs in the study all eventually detected cadaver odour between 2.5 and 3 hours. If Madeleine died in apartment 5a on the evening of May 3rd, it may have been impossible, due to time restraints, for her body to produce the detectable cadaver scent that Eddie alerted to. If she had died pre-May 3rd, there would be sufficient time for her body to emit a detectable cadaver odour.
Some expert dog handlers expressed doubts over whether the cadaver scent in apartment 5a would still be detectable after 3 months. This is the time period from Madeleine’s possible death in 5a to the time that Eddie alerted to cadaver odour in 5a. If Madeleine had remained deceased in the apartment for multiple days, there would be a higher chance that Eddie would have detected this cadaver odour- which he did.
There was cadaver odour detected by Eddie in the cupboard of Kate and Gerry’s bedroom that may have circulated to this location from elsewhere in the room. If Madeleine had died in 5a on May 3rd, there would be little to no reason for the McCann parents to store the body in their bedroom. If Madeleine had died earlier in their holiday week, then a reason is provided as to why they needed to store a body- they needed to bide time to determine how to act.
Eddie the cadaver scenting dog gave a soft indicator of cadaver odour in the back garden of apartment 5a. If Madeleine had died on the evening of May 3rd, there would have been little reason for her body to be stored here if it was going to be moved imminently. If Madeleine died pre-May 3rd, then her body may have been moved outside the apartment if it was starting to produce a human detectable odour and the garden may have been the best place to store the body before disposing it. Alternatively, when the cleaner or shutter repair people entered the apartment, the McCann parents may have moved Madeleine’s body into the garden to avoid them seeing the body.
If Madeleine died on the evening of May 3rd due to a fall from the lounge room sofa as the PJ alleged, there would have been very little time for the McCann parents to clean up the blood from the fall. Blood that sniffer dogs Keela and Eddie alerted to. Keela alerted to blood on the bottom part of the curtains that must have been cleaned as it wasn’t visibly present after 10:00pm on May 3rd. Keela also alerted to the tiles in the same region. If Madeleine died on the evening of May 3rd, cleaning products may have been required to clean up the blood on the scene. Kate and Gerry arrived at the Tapas restaurant at 8:35pm, leaving them a very small window to clean up a bloody scene and dispose of the evidence. If Madeleine died earlier in the week, there would have been sufficient time to acquire cleaning products and clean up the scene.
Kate, Gerry and the entire Tapas 9 group acted normally on the evening of May 3rd according to staff at the Tapas restaurant and fellow holidaymakers. If Madeleine had died in apartment 5a on the evening of May 3rd, at least Kate and Gerry would have been aware of this. The normal behaviour of Kate and Gerry according to Jeremy Wilkins, the Tapas restaurant workers and the fellow members of the Tapas 9 suggests that Kate and Gerry hadn’t just learnt of Madeleine’s death. This would have produced detectable grieving behaviour which wasn’t noted on the evening of May 3rd prior to 10:00pm. If Madeleine died earlier in the week, Kate and Gerry may have recovered from the initial shock of Madeleine’s death and therefore blended in at the Tapas restaurant on the evening of May 3rd.
A pre-May 3rd death would also provide sufficient time for the McCann parents to find a place to hide Madeleine’s body. Somewhere obscured enough that hundreds of subsequent searchers would fail to find it. A May 3rd evening death of Madeleine in 5a would make it challenging for the McCann parents to quickly find a hiding spot for the body amongst their other grim tasks.
There is some evidence to support ‘A’, “Madeleine dying early on in the holiday such as on Sunday the 29th of April or Monday the 30th of April.” The McCann family changed their behaviour around Sunday the 29th of April. Namely, avoiding restaurants for meals, staying away from large gatherings and not joining the other families for activities. This change in behaviour may have been an indicator that Madeleine had died and the family were grieving. The family may have also tried to avoid being seen in public as people would notice that Madeleine was missing.
There is some evidence to support ‘B’, “Madeleine died during the middle section of the holiday such as the 1st of May or 2nd of May.” Pamela Fenn, the person living directly above the McCanns’ apartment reported a child crying from the apartment below for 1 hour and 15 minutes on the night of May 1st. Fenn believed the child was older than the twins. The McCann parents denied any notion that the child crying was Madeleine; this may have been because Madeleine had injured herself and subsequently died.
There is some further evidence to support ‘B’. On the night of May 2nd, Kate admitted to having an argument with Gerry and thus sleeping in the children’s bedroom. There are some reasons to believe that the argument occurred on May 1st. Gerry invited an attractive quiz host back to his table post quiz. There is evidence that Kate wasn’t at the quiz. Kate also used her phone to text or phone numerous times between 10:16pm and 10:27pm that night. She also used her phone the next morning just after 7:30am to speak to her friend, Amanda. These phone usages were the only times pre the night of May 3rd that a Tapas member used their phone after dinner or before 8:30am. This signals something as being wrong. On May 2nd, Kate signed Madeleine out of the crèche as KM Healy, this was the only time she didn’t sign herself as McCann the entire week. This could indicate an argument with Gerry or someone else signing Madeleine out of the crèche- as Madeleine wasn’t really at the crèche.
The crèche workers may have been too embarrassed to concede that they had erred and Madeleine wasn’t present when they were supposedly looking after her. As a consequence, they may have either misremembered another child as her or lied about her presence in the crèche.
The deletion of virtually the entire week’s phone calls and texts from the phones of Kate and Gerry points to suspicious behaviour that preceded May 3rd.
There is a photo of Madeleine by the Ocean Club swimming pool that Kate and Gerry claim was taken on May 3rd at 2:29pm. This is despite the camera’s clock being off by 1 hour and showing 1:29pm. The photo shows Gerry, Amelie and Madeleine dangling their legs into the Ocean Club pool. The clothing each person is wearing is consistent with hot weather clothes. The background of the photo shows sunny conditions with each object in the background casting a crisp shadow meaning the sun was out. The weather conditions of Praia da Luz for May 3rd were cool and cloudy. It was around 18 degrees celsius at the time of the photo with 50% cloud cover. This suggests the McCanns used a previous photo from their holiday to feign that Madeleine was alive on May 3rd.
The pool photo of Madeleine. According to Kate and Gerry this photo was taken at 2:29pm on May 3rd.
Arguments Against The ‘Madeleine Died Pre May 3rd’ Theory
Crèche worker Charlotte Pennington told police that she read a story to Madeleine on the morning of May 3rd and saw the McCann family together at lunch on this day, including Madeleine. Pennington in an independent witness who is reporting this interaction and sighting.
Crèche worker Catriona Baker looked after Madeleine for the entire week of the holiday. She describes in great detail her interactions with Madeleine, Gerry and Kate for the week. Baker clearly describes her dealings with Madeleine for the day of May 3rd, leading up to about 5:30pm at which time Kate signed Madeleine out of the crèche and Madeleine went back to apartment 5a. Baker is an independent witness who didn’t just notice Madeleine in passing but instead actively interacted with her for hours each day. It is highly unlikely that she is lying or mistaken.
There were further witnesses that reported seeing Madeleine alive on May 3rd. This includes crèche workers such as Emma Wilding and a Tapas restaurant worker. These are all independent witnesses.
Madeleine was seen alive during the week by further independent witnesses. This includes two tennis coaches who taught Madeleine tennis and an Ocean Club receptionist.
Five members of the Tapas 7 group recall seeing Madeleine alive on May 3rd. The two people who didn’t recall seeing Madeleine that day were Diane Webster and Matthew Oldfield who recalled seeing Madeleine the previous day.
The McCann group had numerous interactions daily with non-Tapas members during the breadth of their holiday, this included at restaurants, playing tennis and with fellow holidaymakers. If Madeleine had died another day in the holiday, we are simply shifting the goalposts of the McCann parents’ emotional reaction needing to occur on the evening of May 3rd to some other date within the holiday. No-one interacting with the McCann parents in any form on their holiday, on any date, reported anything unusual in their interactions with the parents.
To counter some of the aforementioned ‘Arguments for The Madeleine Died Pre May 3rd’ Theory’, there still could be time for Madeleine’s body to produce detectable cadaver odour in apartment 5a if she had died in the evening of May 3rd.
Despite the dog handler experts expressing doubt at the likelihood that Madeleine’s cadaver odour scent would still be detectable after 3 months, the studies suggest otherwise. One study had 98% of sniffer dog trials accurately recognising cadaver scent after a period of 65 days under certain circumstances. These circumstances are relatively analogous to the McCanns’ cupboard which smelt of cadaver scent.
If Madeleine had died on the evening of May 3rd in the apartment, there still may have been time for the McCann parents to clean up the scene and dispose of the body given the restraints of the timeline.
The concept of checking a child into a crèche daily and signing her out when she is dead sounds more like the plot of a movie than a real-world strategy.
It only takes a slight break in the clouds for the sun to shine through and produce the light and shadows seen in the pool photo of Madeleine, Amelie and Gerry. The “50% cloud cover” at the time of the photo means that half the sky was covered with clouds and half the sky wasn’t covered with clouds. In other words, from a particular location, there was a 50% chance that it would be sunny- as seen in the photo. The summer attire can be attributed to being on holiday and all three people dangling their legs in the pool. 18 degrees is a relatively warm day for people from Leicester- where the McCanns live. The McCanns are concerned with proving Madeleine didn’t die during the evening of May 3rd– what the PJ allege. If a photo was to be concocted of Madeleine and attributed to a time, then the evening of May 3rd would be a more sensible time for the McCanns to provide proof of Madeleine being alive. The 2:29pm photo serves no argument against the PJ theory that Madeleine died on the evening of May 3rd.
Making out Madeleine was spending the day in a crèche would be a highly risky and arguably stupid strategy. The first day this occurred, the crèche workers would have likely realised that Madeleine wasn’t present and thus people would have searched for her. The McCann apartment would be checked and Madeleine’s body would be found implicating Kate and Gerry. The idea that this happened multiple times on numerous days, defies logic on Kate and Gerry’s part (and the crèche workers part). The risk of getting caught would be astronomical.
The crèche workers would have no incentive to concoct a lie that Madeleine was in the crèche all week. If authorities determined that Madeleine had been dead and thus absent from the crèche and the workers had been lying, the crèche workers would be risking jail time for helping cover up a death. A cover up for a family they had only just met.
The idea of making out Madeleine was alive for several days would likely serve no purpose. It wouldn’t take more than a few hours to clean up behind the sofa if Madeleine had died there and hiding her body wouldn’t take a lengthy amount of time. There seems to be no real reason behind this multiday ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ type plot.
The PJ never seriously considered this Madeleine died pre-May 3rd theory. The PJ had access to photos, interviews and witness statements for the entire week of the McCann holiday from hundreds of people in and around the Ocean Club and other locations the McCanns attended. This includes much information that isn’t publicly available. The PJ would have been very well aware if Madeleine wasn’t alive prior to May 3rd.
Conclusion Aboutthe ‘Madeleine Died Pre-May 3rd’ Theory
At first glance, the ‘Madeleine died pre-May 3rd’ theory looks like an attractive scenario to explain the events of the week. The cadaver scent time issues become less of a problem when compared to a May 3rd evening death. Other time issues that would have faced the McCanns if Madeleine died on the evening of May 3rd are also overcome. This includes, cleaning any blood if Madeleine died behind the sofa, planning to stage an abduction, conspiring with the other Tapas 9 members to make untruthful police statements and hiding a body. The theory also provides an explanation as to how the McCann parents and indeed the entire Tapas 9 group lacked showing signs of grief on May 3rd. An earlier death means the clique hadn’t just learnt of Madeleine’s death and thus could hide their emotions with greater ease.
When the pre-May 3rd theory is analysed closer, it seems highly unlikely. The glut of independent witnesses who saw Madeleine on May 3rd are hard to dismiss. This wasn’t just people on the street who thought they had seen a small blonde girl days ago. It instead includes multiple crèche workers who became intimate with the idiosyncrasies and movements of Madeleine and her family throughout the week. The concept that Kate and Gerry considered it a clever idea to portray to the world that Madeleine was alive when she was in reality deceased also seems fanciful and quixotic. Checking a non-present Madeleine into and out of the crèche daily and on multiple occasions would have almost certainly been noticed. Only a small number of children were in each crèche group who the nannies knew well. The PJ had more evidence than is publicly available including interviews and photos from hundreds of people around the Ocean Club resort and Praia da Luz on that fateful week. With their extra evidence, the PJ never seriously considered the possibility that Madeleine wasn’t alive pre-May 3rd.
Overall, I deem this ‘Madeleine died pre May 3rd’ theory to be unlikely enough to be ruled out. It would require some grand conspiracy involving the independent crèche workers, other workers at the Ocean Club and a fiction like plot involving the McCann parents and all of the Tapas 9. There also seems to be no real benefit for the McCann parents by indulging in such a plot with the risk of getting caught heavily outweighing any rewards.
The PJ Theory
In the scope of this section, the PJ theory refers to the idea that Madeleine died in apartment 5a on the evening of May 3rd. Kate and Gerry then made a conscious decision to hide Madeleine’s body and create a scene in the children’s bedroom that resembled an abduction. Madeleine’s body was retrieved from its hiding position several weeks later and transported in Kate and Gerry’s Renault hire care to a more secure hiding location.
This section is written in the tone of a pro PJ theorist. Personally, I don’t necessarily support the arguments claiming Madeleine’s death was covered up by her parents. I am simply presenting the arguments for such a case.
The PJ Theory: Pre 5:30pm May 3rd
According to the PJ theory, there wasn’t any suspicious behaviour by the McCann parents or the Tapas 7 prior to 5:30pm on May 3rd. There are some instances of curious behaviour by the McCanns prior to May 3rd and these have largely been covered in the above ‘Madeleine died pre-May 3rd’ theory section. This behaviour included:
Kate and Gerry deleting virtually all of their text messages and call logs for dates on the holiday prior to and including May 3rd.
The argument between Kate and Gerry on the night of May 2nd which led to Kate sleeping in a different bed. The phone calls by Kate late on May 1st and early on May 2nd that had an uncharacteristic timing when compared to the rest of the Tapas group’s phone usage times during the week. The Healy signature Kate used to sign Madeleine out of the crèche on May 2nd.
The McCann family’s lack of attendance to restaurants and meals with other families post 29th of April.
Pamela Fenn claiming that a child was crying for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the McCann apartment on the night of May 1st.
Overall, the behaviour of Kate and Gerry on holiday prior to May 3rd can be viewed as relatively normal. The minor argument that Kate detailed to police between her and Gerry was according to Kate, so minor that Gerry wasn’t aware of it. I believe for the reasons in ‘2’ that the argument wasn’t over something as petty as Kate claimed. I also believe that the argument pre-dated the May 2nd night origin- stemming back to May 1st. I don’t believe this has any relevance to Madeleine’s disappearance. Madeleine’s crying on nights prior to May 3rd may have led to Kate and Gerry considering how to stop Madeleine crying whilst they were at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd.
The PJ Theory: 5:30pm- 8:35pm
The first questionable occurrence in this time period was Gerry asking David Payne to check if Kate needed help getting the children to the play date. The stories of Kate, Gerry and David in this time period are inconsistent enough to be fabricated. The importance of the timing of this visit raises further suspicion regarding the supposed encounter. Around this time, Kate opted not to take her children to a communal play date with the other Tapas 9 children. This is suspicious. Doubly so in the timeframe that Madeleine may have died.
It is during this time period of 5:30pm-8:30pm that the PJ alleges Madeleine died in apartment 5a. If she died post 8:35pm (when Kate and Gerry left the apartment for the Tapas restaurant) then it is virtually impossible for Madeleine’s body to produce a detectable cadaver odour in the apartment. Gerry left for his tennis game at 6:00pm. It seems unlikely he would leave if Madeleine had just died. Also, Madeleine couldn’t have died just prior to Kate and Gerry heading to dinner (and arriving first at the Tapas restaurant) as there would be inadequate time to clean up and plan a course of action. These points narrow down the timeframe of her death to about 6:00pm to 8:00pm.
The most common theory regarding Madeleine’s cause of death involves her falling over the couch in the living room. There is evidence for this with the couch normally positioned 60cm away from the wall (according to the previous residents of the apartment)- enough for a child to fall. The fall is only from a low height meaning an awkward landing on the head may be required to cause death. The blood detected by Eddie and Keela in this area is consistent with a fall. It is hard to come up with another reason why blood would be behind a couch on a curtain and tiles. Also consistent with a fall is the DNA sample containing “bodily fluids” from this area that had some matches with Madeleine’s DNA. Another possibility, albeit less likely, is that Madeleine fell into the garden area of apartment 5a. If her body lay there for long enough, it may explain the cadaver odour found in this area. The drop height is much higher than the sofa location. I think this second suggested location for a fall is far less likely. It requires both McCann parents to be out and to not notice Madeleine missing in order for her to remain in the garden for 85 minutes plus to produce a cadaver scent.
Madeleine’s shoes were still in the apartment post 10:00pm when the apartment became a focal point. Madeleine’s pyjamas were missing from the apartment. This suggests that Madeleine had died whilst wearing her pyjamas and not wearing shoes. If she died whilst playing on the couch, this further narrows down the timeframe. The children’s bedtime was 7:30pm. The earlier in the evening the death occurred, the more time the McCanns had to tidy up the scene, stage an abduction and prepare to dispose Madeleine’s body. This point coupled with David Payne’s unusual and supposed visit around 6:30pm suggest that Madeleine may have died not long after 6:00pm.
There is a rather important question acting as a backdrop to the entire PJ theory- why would the McCann parents hide their daughter’s death? On the surface here is seemingly little motive. There are a few scenarios that involve Kate and Gerry wanting to avoid the consequences for being culpable for Madeleine’s death.
Madeleine died from an overdose of a medication, perhaps to help her sleep.
Madeleine died from an accident in the apartment and may have had a sedative in her system perhaps making her drowsy and more prone to an accident. The McCann parents may have been held culpable when an autopsy was performed.
Madeleine was intentionally killed by her parents.
Madeleine was accidentally killed by her parents perhaps in an act of disciplining her.
‘A’ and ‘B’ seem like the most likely scenarios to explain the parents wanting to conceal their daughter’s death. The nature of both Kate and Gerry being doctors means that procuring medication would be easy for them. This reason in tandem with the timing of the possible death, the crying of Madeleine on previous nights and the circumstances of leaving her alone whilst dining all support the notions of ‘A’ or ‘B’. I don’t think there is any substantial evidence to support ‘C’ or ‘D’. The McCanns appeared to be loving parents who were desperate to have children and went to the lengths of IVF to make this happen. The Tapas 7 and other friends of the McCanns always spoke of Kate and Gerry’s fondness of their children and unbridled love.
For the PJ theory to pan out as alleged, Madeleine must have died fairly instantaneously on the evening of May 3rd. This would ensure that Kate and Gerry didn’t phone an ambulance of call for help. Kate and Gerry’s status as doctors would ensure that they were aware Madeleine was indeed deceased and gaining external medical assistance would be futile. Perhaps it was their knowledge as doctors that led them to become concerned over their culpability in providing medication to her and they feared subsequent autopsy results. These aren’t typically the thoughts of non-medical people.
The PJ Theory: Post 8:35pm
According to the PJ theory, Madeleine was already dead at this stage and Kate and Gerry were to attend the Tapas restaurant at 8:35pm. They were the first people from the Tapas 9 group to arrive. It is during this 8:35pm to 10:00pm timeframe that Gerry may have returned to apartment 5a to hide the body of Madeleine. The sunset at 8:26pm on May 3rd 2007 in Praia da Luz. It may have been viewed as too risky to move a body before this time hence the necessity to move it during the Tapas meal.
Gerry left the Tapas restaurant table for a significant amount of time during May 3rd. This is confirmed by Jane Tanner mentioning how Kate was moaning about how long Gerry had left for. Gerry’s police statement only allows him about 8 minutes away from the table. Not nearly enough time for Kate to “moan” about. There is some confusion by the Tapas restaurant staff over whether it was Gerry or Russell O’Brien who left the table for a significant amount of time. The PJ theory seems to part into two paths now.
Gerry left the table at 9:05pm to hide Madeleine’s body.
Gerry left the table closer to 10:00pm to hide Madeleine’s body and was therefore seen walking towards the beach by the Smith family.
Option ‘A’ seems to mesh more with the Tapas 9 statements as well as Jeremy Wilkins who spoke to Gerry around 9:08pm. Option ‘B’ has the backing of Goncalo Amaral due to his belief that the Smith family saw Gerry carrying Madeleine.
If Gerry moved Madeleine, it may have been risky to carry a bleeding child through the streets of Praia da Luz. Concealing the body in a bag may have been a safer option. A bag was photographed in the McCann cupboard on May 4th– above where Eddie alerted to cadaver odour. Could this have caused transference of the odour?
The question beckons- where do you hide a body in a few minutes without a car in an unfamiliar town that is largely concrete? There are no shovels or other materials to help you and unlikely any other people to aid you. A body may have been hidden around the rocky part of the coastline. The body may have been hidden in an original location and relocated in the early hours of the next morning. People at this stage weren’t searching for a body but rather a girl who had wandered off so it’s unsurprising it wasn’t found.
At 9:30pm Matthew Oldfield checks on the McCann children however doesn’t look to see if Madeleine is in her bed and isn’t sure if the shutters are up and window is open in the McCann children’s bedroom. This uncertainty over checking on Madeleine and the status of the room at such a key juncture in the night is suspicious. It resembles a situation of someone lying but uncertain of what lie to tell.
The McCann parents managed to put on a brave face at the Tapas restaurant. Perhaps the alcohol helped or perhaps they took a substance such as diazepam.
Kate returns to the children’s bedroom at 10:00pm and opens the window thus her fingerprints are left on the window. She raises the shutter and opens the curtains despite the left curtain being wedged between the bed and the wall.
In the subsequent hours, Kate and Gerry phone up friends and family and tell them to inform the media that an abduction occurred. They are unaware that experts will refute their claim of the shutters being ‘jemmied’. Over the days, months and years, Kate and Gerry take part in so many interviews they start to believe that Madeleine was abducted and they find it easier to lie. Kate and Gerry also delete the text messages and call log records of the holiday from their phone. There may have been incriminating evidence of a text message mentioning a sedative or a phone call may have occurred to someone talking about a sedative. Alternatively, Kate and Gerry may have discussed what happened to Madeleine in one of the phone calls between 11:14pm and 11:17pm. They then decide to delete these phone logs with the thought that it may be incriminating. To avoid suspicion, they delete virtually the entire week’s data.
Six weeks after the night of May 3rd, in the dead of night, Kate and Gerry retrieve Madeleine’s body from its hiding spot in Praia da Luz and hide it somewhere more permanently in the west of Portugal. They place it in the boot of their Renault hire car and some of Madeleine’s dry blood makes contact with the boot’s inner, right wall. Gerry had moved Madeleine’s body and touched some of Madeleine’s dry blood before touching the car’s key. Ultimately, he transferred the odour to the key. The transportation of Madeleine’s body creates an obnoxious stench in the boot of the hire car causing the family to leave the boot open for several days and nights to reduce the odour.
Arguments for the PJ Theory
Each of these arguments has been discussed more comprehensively in the article. This includes the details, evidence, more nuanced viewpoints and arguments against each idea. Nonetheless, here are some potential arguments supporting the PJ theory.
The children’s bedroom window that was found open just had Kate’s fingerprints on it.
The window is small, narrow and elevated. It would be virtually impossible for an individual to carry a child out of such a window.
The open window’s lock had not been forced.
The shutters that Kate found raised, could only be kept open from the inside.
The McCann parents told friends and family that the shutters had been “broken” and “jemmied.” Experts refuted these claims. The McCanns eventually agreed that the shutters hadn’t been broken or jemmied.
Kate claimed that both closed curtains in the children’s bedroom flew apart as she entered the room. This couldn’t have happened as the window when fully extended still covered the left curtain thus no air could hit the left curtain.
The curtains couldn’t have flown apart as the left curtain was tucked between the bed and the wall.
The lights were off when Kate arrived at the children’s bedroom. If an intruder exited through the window, they wouldn’t have been able to see where there were going in the darkness of the room therefore would likely need the lights on as they left the window however the lights were found off.
If an intruder left through a door carrying Madeleine, there would be no need to turn the children’s bedroom light off whilst carrying Madeleine out of the room, yet the lights were found off.
The police reported no signs of a break-in to apartment 5a.
There was no evidence that an intruder entered or exited through the doors leading outside from 5a. The front door showed no signs that someone had tampered with its lock. The back door still had a closed curtain in front of it.
Gerry initially told police that he had entered 5a via the front door for his check of the children at 9:05pm on May 3rd. This route involved a longer, superfluous walk. He later changed this story to entering through the back door and using the shortest route.
Gerry initially told police that Kate had also entered 5a through the front locked door during her 10:00pm check. He later changed this story to claim entered through the back door.
A cadaver scenting dog and blood detecting dog both with excellent credentials alerted to many items linked to the McCanns.
Eddie, the cadaver scenting dog alerted to cadaver scent near the cupboard in Kate and Gerry’s bedroom.
Both Eddie and Keela detected human blood scent behind the couch in the lounge of apartment 5a. This included on the tiled floor and base of the curtain.
Eddie, the cadaver scenting dog alerted to cadaver scent in the back garden of apartment 5a.
Eddie, the cadaver scenting dog alerted to cadaver scent on Madeleine’s toy, Cuddle Cat that Kate constantly held after Madeleine disappeared.
Eddie, the cadaver scenting dog alerted to cadaver scent on Kate’s blouse, her chequered pants and to Sean’s t-shirt.
Eddie and Keela both alerted to the McCanns’ Renault Scenic hire car. This was a car they hired 24 days after Madeleine disappeared.
Eddie and Keela alerted to human blood on the key of the hire car.
Keela alerted to human blood on the right, interior of the boot of the hire car.
The precise location that Keela alerted to human blood in the boot of the hire car matched the location of a DNA sample that may have contained DNA of a McCann family member.
No other car or apartment that was searched by the sniffer dogs resulted in an indication by either sniffer dog.
There were bodily fluids behind the couch in the lounge room of apartment 5a.
DNA components from these bodily fluids matched some corresponding DNA components of Madeleine’s DNA.
The bodily fluids sample behind the sofa was in proximity to the location that Keela alerted to blood scent.
The blood scent location and bodily fluid location were found behind the sofa- somewhere blood wouldn’t innocuously appear.
The twins both slept for 6 hours after Madeleine disappeared. This was despite the commotion of people searching for Madeleine in the same room, the window being open causing cold air to enter the room and despite being moved to another apartment. This raises the possibility that they were given some form of sedative to help them sleep.
Kate checked to see if the twins were still breathing multiple times during the night of May 3rd.
The rental car that the McCanns’ hired 24 days after Madeleine went missing had a strange smell coming from the boot around July 2007. As a consequence, to remove the smell, the boot of the car was raised for several days and nights and the carpet from the boot was washed.
There was a 60cm gap between the blue sofa in the lounge room of apartment 5a and the wall. This was according to the previous family who stayed in the apartment. This gap may have been large enough for a child to fall down.
Kate deleted around 40 phone calls from her call log that occurred during the holiday in Praia da Luz. Despite this, she kept the phone call logs from before the holiday
Gerry deleted 24 calls and texts he received during the holiday in Praia da Luz.
Pamela Fenn, the resident living above 5a, heard a child crying in apartment 5a for 1 and a quarter hours on the night of May 1st. The crying increased in intensity and stopped when the child’s parents returned home. This may have been the catalyst for providing Madeleine with a sedative.
David Payne visited Kate at 6:30pm on May 3rd. This encounter resulted in quite drastically conflicting stories regarding the details of the visit according to Kate, Gerry and David Payne’s accounts.
Kate decided not to join the other families for a children’s play date on the evening of May 3rd.
Multiple Tapas restaurant workers recall a man leaving the Tapas 9’s table for about 30 minutes on the night of May 3rd.
Kate commented on how long Gerry had left the table for at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd. Despite this, calculations based on the Tapas 9’s statements indicate Gerry was gone for just 4 minutes at this stage.
When Kate returned from her apartment just after 10:00pm having discovered Madeleine missing, she called out “we’ve let her down” and “they’ve taken her”. These comments can be viewed suspiciously.
When Kate left the apartment to inform the Tapas 9 group that Madeleine was missing, she left the twins in the apartment despite believing that Madeleine had been abducted and the environment wasn’t safe.
The Smith family sighted a man carrying a child towards the beach on the night of May 3rd at 10:00pm. Martin Smith was 60-80% sure this man was Gerry.
The man the Smith family saw carrying a child was walking quickly, didn’t acknowledge the Smith family’s comments, was walking in the direction away from the McCanns’ apartment and was carrying the child on their left shoulder. This is in the same manner and on the same shoulder that Gerry carries children.
Statistics pertaining to abductions of those under 5 show how astronomically rare such abductions are by strangers. In the vast majority of cases of children going missing, someone the child knows is responsible.
Any child abductor would be wary of taking a British tourist’s child as this would create an international incident, result in extra media exposure, increased police involvement and exponentially increase the chances of getting caught. There are many orphans or local Portuguese children that could be abducted with greater ease. It therefore seems improbable that Madeleine was actually abducted whilst in Portugal on holiday.
The PJ who investigated the case deemed Kate and Gerry responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance.
Arguments Against the PJ Theory
Many of the pro-arguments for the PJ theory contain a black or white interpretation of the facts. In the real world the situation is more shaded. A large portion of the pro-arguments can be refuted or at the very least reinterpreted.
It wasn’t overly surprising that Kate’s fingerprints were found on the window as she had resided in the apartment for almost a week. She may have not-consciously closed the window upon finding it open and mentions this possibility herself.
Intruders often entered apartments within the Ocean Club via windows.
The window wasn’t necessarily used for an adult to navigate through. It’s possible that an intruder handed Madeleine to someone else through the window. This explains why the shutters were raised from the inside and why the window was open.
The shutters could have been raised by someone standing outside and reaching through the window and pulling the shutter’s strap.
The McCanns have since conceded that the shutters weren’t “broken” or “jemmied”. It’s possible Gerry thought they had been jemmied as when he arrived on the scene they had been raised and he had assumed they had been raised from the outside in order for an intruder to gain entry. Gerry may have believed this was not an intended mechanism of the shutters and thus they were broken.
Kate’s description of the curtain wasn’t provided in official police statements. During the moments around learning Madeleine had disappeared, her focus would have been on Madeleine’s wellbeing. She may have misremembered details about the curtains. She probably replayed entering the children’s bedroom repeatedly in her head and details may have changed in her recollection. Alternatively, the curtains may have blown partially in the wind and this could be what she described.
The entire scene found in the children’s bedroom is consistent with two intruders. One intruder may have entered 5a via the unlocked, back, sliding door after monitoring the comings and goings of the apartment. Following this, their actions may involve: opening the children’s bedroom door, switching the light on, opening the shutters using the strap and locking them in place fully opened, opening the window and opening the right curtain. Taking Madeleine, handing her to someone outside the window then quickly pulling the right curtain closed to shield the outside world view into the room, switching the light off and leaving the apartment via the front door. This scenario is consistent with the scene that was found in the children’s bedroom and with an intruder gaining access to the apartment.
Gerry provided his first statement to the police on May 4th, less than one day after Madeleine disappeared and he barely slept that night. He would have been stressed, tired and emotional. The statement he provided on May 4th regarding entering the apartment through the front door could easily be attributed to Gerry’s physical and mental state. He entered his apartment dozens of times throughout the week through the two different doors and it’s reasonable to mix the entry door up on one occasion that was of seemingly no relevance.
Sniffer dogs do make mistakes. Everyone acknowledges this. It is possible that the alerts by Eddie and Keela were simply mistakes or a response to cues provided by dog handler Martin Grime.
Keela was only used when Eddie had detected a scent so Keela didn’t explore the other people’s cars and apartments. Keela may well have found alerts in other people’s apartments of someone who had bled months ago. Her alert to blood in 5a could have come from one of the hundreds of occupants the apartment had over the years.
Eddie alerted to cadaver scent in the garden of 5a. If any cadaver scent was in this location from 3 months prior, it would have dissipated due to the outdoor circulating air and direct sunlight condition. This suggests that Eddie gave false alerts. The PJ theory doesn’t necessarily incorporate Madeleine’s body as being in the garden of 5a and thus acknowledges this alert as false. It’s conceivable that other alerts of Eddie’s were also false.
Eddie alerted to cadaver odour near the cupboard in the McCann parents’ bedroom. It is challenging to come up with a timeline that involves Madeleine lying around the apartment for enough time to produce cadaver odour. A study found that all cadaver scenting dogs alerted to cadaver odour at the earliest 2.5-3 hours after a person had been deceased. For this to be the case in Madeleine’s disappearance, she would have had to die around 6:15pm and be removed from the apartment after 8:45pm. This seems highly unlikely as Kate and Gerry went to the Tapas restaurant at 8:30pm and no other Tapas diner or restaurant staff member noticed any unusual behaviour of Kate or Gerry. They would have been grieving quite visibly yet no-one reported this. Jeremy Wilkins, an independent witness, spoke to Gerry at 9:08pm and told police how calm Gerry was. The cadaver alert by Eddie in the apartment can’t possibly have come from Madeleine as the timeline doesn’t fit with Kate and Gerry’s normal behaviour that night.
The location of sample 3a that may or may not have contained Madeleine’s DNA in the form of bodily fluid was in a different area behind the sofa to the precise location that Keela alerted to blood scent. If it was Madeleine’s DNA and it was blood then why didn’t the dogs alert to the precise location as opposed to 1 metre away?
Keela alerted to blood in the boot of the Renault Scenic of the McCanns and both dogs alerted to the hire car key as having blood. The McCanns hired this car 24 days after Madeleine disappeared. This implies that weeks after her disappearance they moved Madeleine’s body in the boot of the car. Once a person dies, livor mortis sets in and a person’s blood sets after 6 hours. As the hire care was hired 24 days after Madeleine disappeared, any bleeding from her body would have stopped weeks before the McCann parents possibly had a chance to move her. The blood scent in the hire car can therefore not be Madeleine’s.
The McCanns’ hire car was plastered with pictures of Madeleine. This meant dog handler Martin Grime likely knew the car belonged to the McCanns. This may have caused him to spend longer with the dogs on their car and thus a false alert was produced.
All the DNA tested in the apartment and hire car could have easily been Madeleine’s parents’ DNA. The Portuguese police originally misinterpreted the DNA report and DNA experts unanimously state that all DNA collected and tested that has similarities to Madeleine could have come from her parents.
Gerry’s brother-in-law, Alexander Cameron spilt blood from shrimp, fish and beef in the boot of the McCanns’ rental car. This could easily account for the smell that was noticed and thus the boot was raised. Cameron links the dates of the spill occurring with the boot’s carpet being cleaned and boot being left open.
The twins slept for such a long period on the night of May 3rd because an abductor may have sedated them along with Madeleine. This could have occurred at some earlier time in the day. Kate states that her children were uncharacteristically tired that evening and a budding abductor may be responsible.
Kate pushed for the twin’s hair to get tested for sedatives. This isn’t the behaviour or someone who sedated her children.
A sedative test was conducted in October 2007 on the twin’s hair samples and it came back negative. Toxicology experts state that a sedative would remain detectable in a person’s system for many months or years.
There were no phone calls made from or received by Kate or Gerry remotely in the timeframe that Madeleine disappeared.
In the 2007 era, it was normal to delete texts. Kate and Gerry may have deleted call logs to make more space on their phones with the belief that they would be interacting frequently with their friends and family post Madeleine’s disappearance.
David Payne’s visit to apartment 5a on the afternoon of May 3rd would have been one of countless interactions Gerry, Kate and David Payne had on their holiday with other people. The exact details of the visit would be easy to misremember amongst the backdrop of numerous conversations that week. Kate, Gerry and David Payne would have been emotional when making police statements and thought nothing of an arbitrary, quick visit by David and thus the details would rightly be hard to recall.
Kate emphasises how tired her children were on the evening of May 3rd and this is a valid reason to not attend the play date.
The Tapas workers’ statements seem to describe Russell O’Brien, not Gerry leaving the table for the significant amount of time of May 3rd. This concurs with the Tapas 9 statements about their movements.
Kate referred to Gerry being absent from the Tapas restaurant table for a long period of time. If Gerry was doing something suspicious, why would Kate bring attention to Gerry’s absence? The police statements of all Tapas 9 members detail Gerry only leaving the table for 5-10 minutes. Perhaps Gerry’s unexpected conversation with Jeremy Wilkins was the cause of Kate being surprised at how long Gerry was absent for.
Kate would have gone into a state of shock when she noticed Madeleine had disappeared from her bedroom. The things she called out would have been natural expressions of her inner turmoil. “They’ve taken her” would have referred to the window being open, shutters up and scene indicating an abduction. “We’ve let her down” would refer to Kate’s anger at leaving Madeleine alone or putting her in a situation where she could be taken.
When Kate found out Madeleine had been taken, her thoughts would have been solely on Madeleine, not on the twins. She had probably accepted the fact that an abductor had left the apartment as the window was open and Madeleine was gone. Leaving the twins for a couple of minutes wouldn’t have been the focus of Kate’s mind.
Despite Martin Smith claiming the man he saw on the night of May 3rd was Gerry with 60-80% certainty, Martin Smith’s police statement following his initial sighting claimed he wouldn’t be able to recognise the man he saw if seen again. Martin Smith also failed to register the man he sighted carrying the child as Gerry when he saw Gerry on the news regularly in the months following the sighting.
Martin Smith only considered the person he saw as being Gerry, two days after Gerry was made an arguido. This could have been the catalyst for Smith’s opinion- not solid, impartial witness evidence.
According to witness reports, including Tapas workers, Gerry was at the Tapas table when the Smith sighting occurred.
Despite statistics emphasising the rarity of child abductions by strangers, these events do occur. The location of apartment 5a on an intersection with multiple access points, an unlocked door and easy access by the public to a ground floor apartment provide a perfect situation for an abductor. Couple this with the Tapas 9 parents leaving their children alone for hours during the night and it is not unrealistically surprising that a child was taken.
Although the PJ suspected Kate and Gerry as being involved in Madeleine’s disappearance, they were removed as formal suspects. The main antagonist of Kate and Gerry, Goncalo Amaral was fired from leading the investigation. British authorities investigating Madeleine’s case are largely convinced of the McCann parents’ innocence.
It was in the PJ’s interests as well as the interests of the Portuguese government for Kate and Gerry to be responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance. If an abductor had taken Madeleine in such a high-profile case it would prove catastrophic to Portuguese tourism; it was therefore in the PJ’s interest to accuse Kate and Gerry of being responsible.
There are many more arguments against the PJ theory. These subsequent arguments aren’t necessarily rebuttals of the pro-PJ theory arguments as listed above…There is no evidence of Kate or Gerry ever committing a crime or harming a person. There is no evidence that they treated their children badly indeed quite the contrary- anyone that knows them details how well they treated Madeleine and the twins. There is no evidence of any cruel, malicious or unflattering personality traits of Kate or Gerry. They have both dealt with numerous patients through being doctors and hordes of former patients haven’t come forward to cast aspersions on them. The concept of hiding their daughter’s body seems quite incongruent with who Kate and Gerry are.
The PJ theory requires the entire Tapas 9 group to make false police statements and agree to engage in a largescale conspiratorial cover-up of hiding a child’s body and staging an abduction. This seems highly unlikely. In the many years since Madeleine’s disappearance, not one member of the Tapas 9 has expressed doubts over Kate and Gerry’s claims of innocence. Also, no-one linked by proxy to the Tapas 9 has spoken of a Tapas 9 member speaking of their involvement in concealing Madeleine’s death from authorities.
All members of the Tapas 9 acted normally at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd according to each other and to restaurant staff. This included eating their meals (other than Russell O’Brien who was looking after his sick child). This suggests the Tapas 9 weren’t involved in the disappearance and their subsequent police statements are truthful.
The allegation in the PJ theory is that the McCanns (namely Gerry) hid Madeleine’s body whilst he left the Tapas restaurant table. Why would Gerry do this while the Tapas group were eating and why not wait until after the meal, during the night? The McCanns had all the eyes of the Tapas restaurant around them, monitoring their comings and goings. They could have easily waited until after dinner to hide the body at which point everyone would have returned to their apartments and the streets of Praia da Luz were quieter. This didn’t happen therefore the PJ’s theory seems not only flawed but likely false.
The PJ’s claimed timeline of May 3rd involves an inordinate amount of tasks to be performed by Kate and Gerry. Once Madeleine had died, they needed to debate and eventually decide to cover up her death and stage an abduction and work out who in the Tapas group to inform. They also needed to clean the blood off the tiles and curtains (which would be close to impossible in the timeframe and with limited supplies). The abduction scene would need to be staged and they would need to not only choose a place to hide the body but also transport it there. Finally, this location would have to be close enough for them to carry Madeleine’s body to but well-hidden enough for hundreds of searchers to overlook. Finally, they would have to spend the evening conversing with friends without showing signs of emotion from 8:35pm-10:00pm. The time restraints are too great for this to have occurred.
The PJ theory alleges that Kate and Gerry moved Madeleine’s body at least 24 days after she was hidden by Kate and Gerry. The McCann family had hundreds of journalists following them around and camping outside their apartment and villa at this time. They became household names and faces around the world. It seems quite improbable that they decided to leave their villa undetected, find Madeleine’s body that was so well hidden no-one had found it and finally move it elsewhere. This is without a single local, media person or police officer noticing.
Conclusion About ‘The PJ Theory’
The PJ theory is appealing in a sense. There are countless oddities in this case surrounding Kate and Gerry. Each curiosity by itself doesn’t sound incriminating however the sheer number of them when viewed collectively, paint a potentially chilling portrait. For each of these suspicious pieces of evidence to be the result of a coincidence, bad memory or sniffer dog mistake would be bad luck for Kate and Gerry. This PJ theory jigsaw puzzle of evidence when assembled does lack some key pieces.
No matter how hard I try to tessellate the stubborn evidence of the PJ theory, I fail to create a sound theory that fits in with the known timeline, cadaver scent and normal behaviour by Kate and Gerry at the Tapas restaurant. If we assume Kate and Gerry didn’t know about Madeleine’s death until a check at the apartment approaching 10:00pm then we explain their normal behaviour at the Tapas restaurant. This does however shift the goal posts on when Madeleine died. Kate and Gerry left their apartment about 8:35pm to head to the Tapas restaurant and she must have been alive then. If she died just one minute after this at 8:36pm, there wouldn’t be time for a detectable cadaver scent to be omitted from Madeleine’s body. There also wouldn’t necessarily be time to clean up any scene, conjure up a fake abduction and hide the body.
Within the PJ theory, questions also linger over how a blood scent was detected on the hire car’s key and in the hire car’s boot. Madeleine would have stopped bleeding hours after dying yet the PJ allege that her bodily fluids were in the back of the McCanns’ hire car. A car that was rented out 24 days after Madeleine disappeared. This is another challenging aspect of the case to easily explain. This doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable only that it requires creative thinking. The McCanns’ well documented behaviour post-Madeleine disappearance appears at least to me, to contain only genuine elements. From Kate’s emotional outburst following learning that Madeleine was missing through to the desperate lengths they have gone to in order to find her including countless media interviews and helping to create a larger-than-life atmosphere surrounding the case.
Attempting to create a consistent idea around the PJ theory with pieces of evidence is akin to a chemistry experiment; balancing the amount of a chemical in test-tubes yet failing to reach the perfect balance. It’s possible the PJ theory or some variant is true however it’s challenging to even manufacture a consistent scenario in which Madeleine dies in apartment 5a and Kate and Gerry hide Madeleine’s body.
The Abduction Theory
The abduction theory is simple to understand. At least one abductor entered apartment 5a and left with Madeleine. There are however many faces to this theory. Kate and Gerry left apartment 5a at 8:35pm on the night of May 3rd. Madeleine was asleep in her bed at this time, next to the twin’s cots. Gerry checked on his children at 9:05pm and reported seeing Madeleine yet the door to the children’s bedroom may have been opened wider than it had been left. At 9:30pm, Tapas 9 member Matthew Oldfield checks on the McCann children. He reports sighting the twins asleep in their cots. From his position, he can’t see into Madeleine’s bed to determine if she is there. At 10:00pm Kate checks on her children. The window is open, shutters are raised and heartbreakingly, Madeleine is gone. As Kate is searching around the apartment for Madeleine, a suspiciously acting man is seen by a family of witnesses carrying a sleeping child matching Madeleine description 350 metres away from apartment 5a.
Arguments for the Abduction Theory
There are numerous possible motives behind Madeleine’s abduction. These include: a burglary gone wrong, a couple wanting to raise a child, a person/group intent on sexual abuse and a person/group selling children on the black market.
It is difficult to create an argument for an abduction having occurred- normally the absence of a person is sufficient enough. Nonetheless, there are many factors supporting the notion that Madeleine was abducted.
The raised shutters and open window are consistent with an abductor handing Madeleine through a window to a secondary abductor.
All the evidence at the scene of the children’s bedroom is consistent with two abductors with one inside and one outside. This would also provide a level of security as the outdoor abductor could monitor the apartment to ensure no adults were entering.
If an abductor opened the window from outside, they could have reached into the children’s bedroom and pulled on the shutter strap to raise the shutters. This scenario seems plausible. Following this, the abductor could have climbed through the window, grabbed Madeleine and taken her out through the front door.
Burglars had entered other ground floor apartments of the Ocean Club via the window.
The back, sliding door of apartment 5a was left unlocked. This provides an entry or exit point to the apartment
The McCanns may have left the front door of the apartment unlocked. This provides an intruder a secondary entry or exit point.
Kate and Gerry left their children alone in the apartment each night. This repetition would have provided a budding abductor who was monitoring the apartment, a pattern so as to not get caught when abducting Madeleine.
The Tapas 9’s restaurant booking publicly listed the group as leaving their children in the beds whilst the Tapas 9 were dining.
The ground floor apartments of the Ocean Club were the most prone to break-ins. The specific apartment of 5a was located in arguably the most ideal location in the resort for break-ins or abductions. It was situated at a T junction with multiple places to watch the apartment and enter or exit the apartment.
It was very dark outside the children’s bedroom of 5a as documented by a previous resident of the apartment. This cloak of darkness would have provided any abductors a level of safety to not get caught.
On the morning of May 3rd, Madeleine asked Kate why she hadn’t come when she and Sean were crying the previous night. This alludes to the possibility that an abductor was present the previous night too.
Kate noticed a stain on Madeleine’s pyjama top on the morning of May 3rd. This stain may tie in with the theory that an abductor visited the apartment on the night of May 2nd
According to Gerry, Matthew Oldfield and Kate, the children’s bedroom door was opened wider than the previous person had left it. This raises the possibility that an abductor was inside the children’s bedroom.
According to the Tapas 9, independent witnesses in the Tapas restaurant and fellow holidaymakers including Jeremy Wilkins- Kate and Gerry exhibited completely normal behaviour on the night of May 3rd until 10:00pm when Kate noticed Madeleine missing.
Numerous independent witnesses reported how genuine Kate’s emotional response was when she noticed Madeleine was missing.
Kate and Gerry both completed their meals at the Tapas restaurant on May 3rd. If their daughter had just died, this wouldn’t likely be the case.
A man was seen by the numerous Smith family carrying a sleeping child towards the beach. This was within the timeframe that Madeleine was abducted. The child matched Madeleine’s description.
The man the Smith family saw didn’t respond to a question by Mary Smith. He avoided eye contact, was walking quickly and acting suspiciously.
It is challenging to think of a differing explanation for the man the Smith family described other than being Madeleine’s abductor. The child wasn’t wearing shoes, was wearing pyjamas and was sleeping. The Ocean Club’s night crèche wasn’t on the route to where the Smith sighting occurred. What other reason could the man be carrying a sleeping, blonde girl towards the beach at 10:00pm who was wearing pyjamas and aged about 3 years old?
Kate and Gerry have spent years searching for Madeleine with the hopes of finding her. Despite a hostile media, they have done countless interviews to raise awareness of her disappearance and have hired PR people to try and keep the case in the public’s consciousness. They have also hired several detective firms to find Madeleine. These are the actions of a couple who are desperate for their abducted child to be found.
There were two blonde men acting suspiciously around apartment 5a in the lead up to Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3rd including standing in nearby empty apartments, looking at apartment 5a and trying to look into the Ocean Club pool area.
A blonde man was seen opening and closing the gate near apartment 5a repeatedly on the afternoon of May 3rd. He was trying to ensure the gate didn’t make a sound and looked around suspiciously. This gate was only used by those in the apartments, not those outside the Ocean Club. It is difficult to come up with a reason behind this man’s unorthodox behaviour other than planning for Madeleine’s abduction.
In the weeks leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance, there were a spate of people in Praia da Luz collecting for non-existent orphanages. They knocked on a British woman’s door asking for money and seemed fixated with her daughter who was Madeleine’s age. The next day, the woman saw the man inside her house next to her daughter. She believed he was trying to abduct her daughter. This is a very specific and niche situation- a British tourist with a 3-year-old daughter who was almost abducted. It matches what happened to Madeleine perfectly.
A person collecting for a non-existent orphanage approached the rear of the McCanns’ apartment in the week prior to their stay asking for money. The occupant at the time went inside to collect money providing the fake-collector with time to familiarise himself with the inside of apartment 5a.
On the day Madeleine went missing there were at least 4 other reported encounters of the non-existent orphanage collectors knocking on people’s doors in Praia da Luz. They stopped after Madeleine disappeared. This provides a timeline indicating they were in the vicinity of the Ocean Club on May 3rd.
One witness to the non-existent orphanage collectors saw the collector again near the beach. They seemed to be following the Ocean Club’s crèche group and appeared to the witness as looking “strange and out-of-place”.
Arguments Against the Abduction Theory
Many arguments that belong in this section have already been described in the ‘Arguments for the PJ Theory’ section above. Nonetheless, here are some further arguments against the abduction theory:
The scene in apartment 5a was more reminiscent of a staged abduction than a real abduction.
The McCanns may have lied about the front door being unlocked.
The back, sliding patio door entrance showed no sign that an intruder had entered or exited as the curtain was drawn when Kate entered the apartment.
Kate and Gerry may have considered the staging abduction concept due to leaving their children alone during their Tapas meal and thus providing themselves with an alibi- the Tapas 9 group.
The Tapas 9 book with details of the group’s children remaining in their apartments wasn’t easily visible and required entrance to the Ocean Club to view as well as the unlikely event of a person reading through other people’s booking details- a rather dull topic.
Kate may have concocted the story of Madeleine telling her she had been crying during the night of May 2nd as well as the stain that had supposedly appeared on her pyjamas.
Madeleine may have frequently cried throughout the holiday, with Pamela Fenn claiming she cried excessively on May 1st. This may indicate that Madeleine’s crying wasn’t due to an intruder. Madeleine also didn’t mention an intruder to Kate when she told her of her crying on the morning of May 3rd.
The stain on Madeleine’s pyjamas was thought to be tea according to Kate. Madeleine was a tea drinker – a simple, innocent explanation.
The door was supposedly more widely open for Gerry, Matthew Oldfield and Kate. This covered the outlier visits 55 minutes apart. It’s unlikely an intruder stayed this long in the apartment and this door-being-more-ajar story sounds fabricated to fulfil the abductor theory. The fact that three people are using the story, not just one is suspicious.
It is possible that Gerry didn’t actually complete his meal at the Tapas restaurant as one meal was only half-eaten.
Martin Smith was 60-80% sure that the man he saw carrying the child towards the beach was Gerry McCann.
The McCanns may have started believing their own lie- that Madeleine was abducted. If they have told themselves this story repeatedly, they may have accepted it. The interviews they perform could be a result of this. They may also make money through some interviews.
The blonde men at the Ocean Club could simply have been tourists who were staying at the Ocean Club.
The orphanage collector who was in the British woman’s house, may have been inside to burgle the villa as opposed to abduct her child. The collector looked past the woman when he initially knocked on the door the prior day. He perhaps wasn’t looking at her daughter but rather at items inside the house or to determine if the villa was worth burgling.
The orphanage collectors sound like a group system to scam money from people. This is a very different and much pettier crime than abducting a child. They may have stopped collecting in Praia da Luz post-Madeleine disappearance due to the increased police presence. The sheer number of collectors suggest a widespread financial scam not a child abducting unit.
There were numerous supposedly suspicious people sighted before Madeleine disappeared, on the day she vanished and after she vanished. They often have quite varied appearances according to witness statements. If we are to exclude almost all of these suspicious people bar one or two as the pro-abduction theory claims, it is plausible that we can eliminate all of these people.
Any time a major crime is committed in the vicinity of numerous people, it is inevitable there will be a glut or reports of supposedly suspicious people. These almost invariably turn out to be innocent bystanders.
The best efforts to explain away the sniffer dog results seem either quixotic, unscientific or naive. The sniffer dogs were some of the most accurate and well credentialed in their fields who only alerted to the McCanns’ items and locations- not others.
Conclusion About the Abduction Theory
The abduction theory is the explanation for Madeleine’s disappearance that I want to be true as cruel as that sounds. It paints the parents in a positive light and provides a glimmer of hope that Madeleine is still alive. Despite this, it is tremendously challenging to explain the sniffer dog results if the abduction theory is correct. I can find justifications for all of the other bite-sized pieces of evidence stacked against Kate and Gerry yet the sniffer dogs’ evidence is incriminating.
Eddie and Keela were expert sniffer dogs. They didn’t alert to any other place they searched in Praia da Luz including 4 other apartments. They didn’t alert to the 9 other cars in the underground carpark. They are trained to only alert to human cadaver scent and human blood scent. One dog alerting in a location can be attributed to a mistake however Eddie and Keela both alerted to blood scent behind the sofa- a location that one imagines a child could fall from. This blood scent location was in the vicinity of the DNA sample that was obtained of human bodily fluid that had some matches to Madeleine’s DNA. Both dogs alerted to the McCanns’ hire car and specifically the car’s key as having blood. This occurred when the key was in a fire bucket full of sand. The instant Eddie entered apartment 5a, handler Martin Grime noticed that he smelt something he was trained to detect- cadaver odour. He detected its origin as being in Kate and Gerry’s bedroom. No-one had been recorded as having died in the apartment and cadaver scent fades after time. For the abduction theory to be correct, Kate and Gerry would have to be awfully unlucky to have the sniffer dog results transpire as they did.
The circumstances surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance paint her abduction as plausible. A child being left physically distanced from her parents in an unlocked apartment provides the circumstances for an abduction. The specific scene found in the 5a children’s bedroom in my opinion does permit one primary form of abduction- two people being involved and Madeleine being passed through the window from one person to the other.
The abduction theory is very well possible. I want to believe it. If the sniffer dog results were deemed 100% inaccurate, I would be vocally championing the abduction theory. Overall, I deem the abduction theory as possible. Partially due to the evidence, partially due to the only valid alternative- the PJ theory at present not providing a consistent framework that incorporates all of the evidence.
Another theory
I should emphasise that I don’t subscribe to this theory. It is simply a theoretical explanation I have compiled to explain the evidence in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance- a case that is a mystery with an unknown explanation.
I present an alternative to the PJ theory that attempts to reconcile the time required for a cadaver scent to be produced and an explanation for the normal behaviour exhibited by Kate, Gerry and the Tapas 7 at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd.
This theory diverges down two possible paths starting with the timing of Gerry and Jeremy Wilkins brief talk at the gate to apartment 5a.
This encounter actually took place when Gerry left apartment 5a to attend the Tapas restaurant for the first time on the night of May 3rd. Gerry and Kate didn’t necessarily leave the apartment simultaneously as it was only a 1-minute walk to the Tapas restaurant. According to Jeremy Wilkin’s initial police statement on the 7th of May 2007, “I left about 8:15pm to 8:30pm. I was pushing the pram around the complex and went to the toilet near the bar. I could not see inside the restaurant. As I got the baby to sleep, I was on my way back to the apartment. I came out at the top road. I met him (Gerry) near the stairs of a ground floor.” Gerry spoke to Wilkins whilst Wilkins was on this walk. A walk that he started as soon as 8:15pm. The standard timeline has Gerry and Wilkins talk occurring at 9:08pm- almost one hour after Wilkins began his walk. This seems like a rather excessive walk around the Ocean Club by Wilkins. A more plausible scenario involves Gerry and Wilkins talk occurring closer to 8:40pm, 25 minutes into Wilkin’s walk- when Gerry had just left the apartment to head to the Tapas restaurant for the first time, with Kate just ahead of him.
The second scenario involves the Gerry and Wilkins talk occurring around 9:08pm as is widely accepted. In Wilkins’ original police statement, he says, “I met him (Gerry) near the stairs of the ground floor. There was a gate leading up to some stairs. I was pretty certain that he had left the apartment.” In this scenario, we are required to dismiss Wilkins inference that Gerry was leaving the apartment and instead place Gerry on a route to the apartment to check on his children. This explains Gerry’s relaxed, normal demeanour as described by Wilkins.
Regardless of whether ‘1’ or ‘2’ is correct, Gerry leaves the Tapas restaurant at about 9:10pm-9:20pm to head to apartment 5a to check on the children.
Svetlana Vitorino, a kitchen assistant was working at the Tapas restaurant on the night of May 3rd. By this part of the week, the Tapas restaurant workers had become familiar with the Tapas 9 group due to their nightly, lengthy meals, in a restaurant that only houses 15 people maximum. On May 4th Vitorino told police, “One individual, purportedly the father of the missing (Gerry), left the dinner table where a group of friends (in number 8 or 9), for about 30 minutes. After having returned, a woman whom she believed to be his wife, also left the table, there having passed a few moments, all the guests left the table in question, except one elderly lady, who told her [Svetlana’s] colleagues that that child had disappeared.” Vitorino’s statement suggests Gerry left the Tapas restaurant at about 9:20pm and remained away from the table for about 30 minutes.
Supporting Vitorino’s statement is a statement by Tapas waiter Joaquim Batista. He also spoke of the Tapas group’s movements on May 3rd. Batista told police on the 4th of May, “The first to leave was about 40/45 years old (tall, skinny, white complexion, with a full head of hair of colour gray) and the period of his absence was about 15 minutes, being that they had to re-heat his food, which had cooled”. Batista also recalls another man leaving the table, “The second to leave (about 40/45 years of age, having the physical characteristics of the first, but having less bulky hair) did so for about 30 minutes, and that shortly after he returned, all left the table, except for an elderly person.” The description Batista provides of the first man leaving the table perfectly describes Russell O’Brien. He had grey, “bulky” hair. O’Brien also confirmed that he left the table to look after his sick child and required his meal to be re-heated. This suggests that it was O’Brien who left the table for 15 minutes. The second man to leave the table had “less bulky hair” than O’Brien which matches Gerry’s description.
Russell O’Brien has grey, bulky hair, matching Joaquim Batista’s description of the man who left the Tapas restaurant for 15 minutes.
According to Vitorino and Batista’s accounts, Gerry may have left the table at about 9:10pm-9:20pm for a period of about 30 minutes. When Gerry does leave the table, he either doesn’t see Wilkins as according to ‘1’ he had already met him around 8:40pm or he speaks to Wilkins (scenario ‘2’) whilst on his way into the apartment to check on the children. At this stage of the night, everything is normal from the McCanns’ perspective. Their behaviour is normal and their interactions with the Tapas 9, restaurant staff and Jeremy Wilkins are normal.
When Gerry enters his apartment, he doesn’t see Madeleine in her bed and therefore looks around the apartment for her. He finds her deceased behind the sofa in the lounge room. Madeleine had tried looking out the window behind the sofa and had slipped, fallen behind the sofa and passed away. Perhaps out of fear of an autopsy of Madeleine exposing sedatives (or another substance) in her system, Gerry panics. He fears potential jail time for Kate and himself. He fears Kate and himself losing their medical license. He fears the twins being taken from Kate and his care. It’s even possible that he doesn’t want Kate to know Madeleine has died and in the moment thinks Madeleine being abducted would hurt Kate less. The idea of staging an abduction resembles one person’s poor judgement. If Kate and Gerry discussed such a plan, one voice of reason would likely prevail and no abduction would be staged. In the heat of the moment and in an erratic combination of fear and love for his family Gerry tries to protect his family’s future by hiding Madeleine’s body.
Gerry moves Madeleine’s body out from behind the couch, washes the blood off the tiles and pushes the sofa back- into a position that covers what has happened; a position that has the sofa right against the curtain, crimpling it and sandwiching it against the wall. Previous residents of apartment 5a have explained how the sofa was 60cm from the wall. In the police photos from May 4th, it is well and truly against the wall.
This police photo from the early hours of May 4th show the couch pressed against the curtain and the wall.
Gerry decides to hide Madeleine’s body under one of the hundreds of overgrown bushes around Luz Bay View Point. The area is void of people, contains hundreds of potential hiding spots for a small body and is just 100 metres from the Smith sighting location. He carries her through the side streets, hoping no-one will see him at this time of night. There are two possible paths that the story can potentially follow from this point.
Gerry walks down to the beach undetected at about 9:45pm.
Gerry walks down to the beach at 10:00pm and is seen by the Smith family. In this version, Gerry has already raised the shutter of the children’s bedroom and opened the window to stage an abduction scene.
Some of the many overgrown bushes around the vast area surrounding Luz Bay View Point.
During or prior to Gerry’s journey to the Luz Bay View Point, Kate notices that Gerry has been gone for close to 25 minutes. Jane Tanner says “before I actually left (the table) there had been the conversations about him being waylaid.” According to Jane Tanner “Kate had been moaning that…(Gerry) had been gone a long time watching the football”. Kate is unaware of what Gerry has actually been doing.
The story again diverges down possible paths.
Gerry returns to the Tapas restaurant at 9:55pm as per the two restaurant worker accounts. He informs Kate to go to the apartment. He sits at the restaurant quietly for a few minutes before Kate returns hysterical- she has either discovered a note written by Gerry explaining what has happened or she has witnessed the scene of an abduction.
Russell O’Brien returns to the Tapas restaurant at 9:55pm at which time Kate decides to check where Gerry could be. She finds him in the apartment and the crazy scene ensues.
Kate enters apartment 5a whilst Gerry arrives at Luz Bay View Point with Madeleine’s body. Gerry returns post 10:00pm. Perhaps Diane Webster remained at the Tapas restaurant despite all other Tapas members leaving, to inform Gerry that everyone was now at the apartment.
Regardless of the details, the Tapas 7 haven’t been informed of Madeleine’s death. The group compile a timeline collectively that becomes the foundation of all future timelines. Kate and Gerry insist key events occurred and the Tapas 7 agree, either out of politeness, empathy or knowledge of what has panned out.
The morning following Madeleine’s death, at about 6:00am, Gerry shows Kate Madeleine’s body. Within Kate’s book, she describes walking around Praia da Luz early and undetected with Gerry on the morning of the 4th of May, “The most striking and horrific thing about it all was that we were completely alone. Nobody else, it seemed was out looking for Madeleine. Just us, her parents. We must have been out for at least an hour.” It is natural and understandable that Kate wanted to see Madeleine. She holds her deceased child in her arms. It’s even possible that Gerry and Kate move Madeleine’s body to somewhere more hidden. As a result of Kate hugging Madeleine’s body, cadaver scent is transferred to Kate’s black and white chequered trousers and white blouse. Madeleine has been deceased for around 9 hours at this stage, meaning that cadaver scent is easily emitted by her body.
Kate returns to apartment 5a and gets changed in her bedroom into other clothes. She places her black and white chequered pants and white blouse inside her cupboard- on the 2nd level from the bottom. A location that was photographed containing a pile of clothes. The cadaver scent from the clothes dissipates across the cupboard and in the future, it will be detected by Eddie. Kate’s clothes are touching Sean’s t-shirt and the scent is further spread. Alternatively, Kate holds Sean when she returns from holding Madeleine prior to getting changed.
Eddie alerts inside the cupboard to the second shelf from the bottom.
There were clothes on the cupboard’s shelf in the area that Eddie would later alert to.
There was never anything malicious in the McCanns’ actions. One circumstance simply snowballed into another.
Conclusion
The question of what happened to Madeleine McCann has been left unanswered for far too long. Madeleine’s disappearance has churned out a wealth of circumstantial evidence. Almost each piece can be interpreted in multiple ways through a confirmation bias. I have deemed there to exist three potential theories to explain her disappearance, having eliminated the ‘wandered off’ theory and the ‘pre-May 3rd death’ theory.
The first scenario that may have eventuated is the PJ theory. There are a glut of tiny fragments of evidence that together produce a fractured mosaic of what eventuated on the night of May 3rd. The significant sniffer dog results bolster this theory’s supporting evidence. Despite this, it is challenging to concoct a variant of this theory that accommodates all of the evidence. How could Gerry and Kate seamlessly blend in with the Tapas restaurant crowd despite just learning of their daughter’s death? If one prolongs their learning of Madeleine’s death closer to 10:00pm then an issue arises concerning the time Madeleine’s body would have had to produce a detectable cadaver odour. On the surface this theory seems plausible. Despite this, I struggle to fully subscribe to it without a consistent explanation describing all of the evidence. It also seems wicked to accuse parents who have lost their daughter of a crime if there is an iota of a chance they are innocent.
The second theory encompasses Madeleine being abducted. This is a theory my heart subscribes to- the hope that an innocent child may somehow still be alive. The sniffer dog results provide the largest obstacle to this theory. There are numerous pieces of small, circumstantial evidence in this case that cast aspersions upon the McCanns. Kate and Gerry would have had to be terribly unlucky for Madeleine to have been abducted in tandem with these pieces of evidence making the abduction look suspect. The abduction theory is plausible and if true would be a doubly wicked blow for an unfortunate Kate and Gerry.
The final theory is a theory I have written. It attempts to explain how Kate and Gerry behaved in such a relaxed manner prior to 10:00pm. It also provides a mechanism for how cadaver scent could be detected in apartment 5a. I don’t subscribe to this theory or claim it accurately represents what happened on the night of May 3rd. I only attempt to detail a consistent chain of events that accounts for the evidence. Within this theory, the McCann parents aren’t malicious, just compassionate human being who must act a certain way due to an unfortunate chain of events.
Each proposed theory to explain the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has strong arguments against it. Yet we know she disappeared on that fateful night. The explanation of what specifically happened to Madeleine remains unanswered. What is certain is that the world changed on May 3rd 2007.
The Digital Labyrinth 