IncidentUSS Theodore Roosevelt encounters (2014–2015)

F/A-18 pilots from CVW-1 off the USS Theodore Roosevelt reported daily encounters with unidentified objects off the U.S. East Coast over more than a year; Lt. Ryan Graves testified to Congress in 2023 about the operational frequency.

A US Navy F/A-18 Hornet — the squadrons flying off USS Theodore Roosevelt logged near-daily UAP encounters in 2014–15.Wikipedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · Erik Drost · Take

USS Theodore Roosevelt at sea — carrier of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group during the 2014–15 east-coast UAP encounters.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael D. Cole · 2008

What's documented

From the summer of 2014 through March 2015 and again from late 2015, F/A-18F Super Hornet pilots of Carrier Air Wing One, deployed first aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt during workups off Virginia, reported near-daily detections by the AN/APG-79 AESA radar — recently upgraded — of objects flying at altitudes of 20,000–30,000 feet, in restricted military airspace, with no transponder returns. The ‘Gimbal’ and ‘GoFast’ videos, declassified by the Navy in April 2020, were both captured during this deployment. Lt. Ryan Graves, then a VFA-11 ‘Red Rippers’ pilot, testified before the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security on 26 July 2023 that he had personally observed objects in the W-72 warning area off Virginia Beach near-daily.

Notable & intriguing

Lt. Ryan Graves, F/A-18F pilot with VFA-11 'Red Rippers,' testified under oath to the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security on 26 July 2023: 'These sightings were not rare or isolated; they were routine. Military aircrews and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.'

House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing, 26 July 2023, transcript p. 23
The 'Gimbal' video, captured by an F/A-18F's AN/AAS-46 ATFLIR pod off the Florida coast in January 2015, shows a saucer-shaped object rotating in apparent defiance of its forward motion vector; one pilot's voiceover says: 'There's a whole fleet of them — look on the SA.'

Gimbal video declassified by U.S. Navy, 27 April 2020; *The New York Times*, 16 December 2017
After two near-mid-air collisions in the W-72 restricted military airspace off Virginia Beach in 2014, the Roosevelt's air wing filed at least two formal Hazard Reports (HAZREPs); the reports prompted the establishment of a UAP reporting standard within the Navy in 2019.

Office of Naval Intelligence statement, April 2019; Secretary of the Navy guidance, 'UAP Reporting Procedures,' 2019