Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Tuesday, September 08, 2026 @ 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)
One of the most important interviews ever presented on Podcast UFO, host Martin Willis sits down with former U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot Alex Dietrich for a candid discussion of the November 14, 2004 Tic Tac UFO encounter involving the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. Dietrich describes how an otherwise routine training mission suddenly changed when her flight was redirected by the USS Princeton to investigate an unidentified contact. She recalls the disturbance in the ocean, the moment the white Tic Tac-shaped object entered her field of view and the confusion of watching it react to Commander David Fravor’s aircraft. “We weren’t supposed to be there,” Dietrich explains. “What the hell is this thing? Where did it come from? What is it doing? How is it doing that? Is it a threat?” Flying high cover during the encounter, Dietrich found herself fascinated and unnerved. The aircrew were unarmed, the object could not be identified and no one knew what it was capable of doing. Years later, after questioning whether they might have been unknowingly sent into a secret American test, she says she was repeatedly reassured that the object was not a U.S. system, that no submarine was operating in the area and that there was no evidence of American or allied activity responsible for what they witnessed. Dietrich also discusses the troubling absence of an immediate formal investigation. No specialized reporting system, debriefing procedure or UAP investigative infrastructure existed for the aircrews at the time. When she was eventually questioned at the Pentagon years later, details had already begun to fade. The conversation goes far beyond the mechanics of the encounter. Dietrich explains why she does not consider herself a whistleblower, how her identity became public after information from the case appeared online, why she resisted media attention and what finally persuaded her to appear on 60 Minutes. She speaks about the ridicule experienced by military witnesses, the need to examine extraordinary reports without automatically embracing or dismissing them and the importance of treating experiencers with dignity. Her position remains neutral: she does not claim to know what the Tic Tac was, but she believes unexplained objects in controlled military and civilian airspace deserve serious, scientifically responsible investigation. This is the story of the Tic Tac encounter from one of its principal eyewitnesses, told with honesty, humor and extraordinary clarity. ***VIDEO CLIPS PROVIDED BY DAVE BEATY
BIO: Alex Dietrich is a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who served for 20 years as a naval officer and F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighter pilot. She completed two combat deployments supporting Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and later served on the ground in Afghanistan as an infrastructure reconstruction engineer. Her military honors include the Bronze Star and Air Medal.
Dietrich is best known publicly as one of the four naval aviators who witnessed the now-famous Tic Tac UFO during a training mission with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group on November 14, 2004. Flying as Commander David Fravor’s wingwoman, Dietrich maintained high cover while observing the smooth, white, wingless object maneuver above a disturbance in the Pacific Ocean before rapidly departing. She has since briefed officials at the Pentagon and Congress and appeared on 60 Minutes and other major news programs to discuss the encounter.
Following her operational career, Dietrich taught Naval Science at a consortium of Washington, D.C., universities and served as a military professor in Leadership, Ethics and Law at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her academic work has included critical thinking, leadership, ethics, resilience and change management. Despite the attention surrounding the Nimitz encounter, Dietrich remains deliberately neutral about the object’s origin and advocates for careful, evidence-based investigation without stigma or sensationalism.
In 1969, just before the December 17th press 
Martin Willis interviews Dean Merchant live at the Rye Public Library for a fascinating discussion about UFOs in New Hampshire, including the legendary 1965 Incident at Exeter. The program features firsthand testimony from Mike Geanoulis who describes seeing a massive object with extremely bright red lights over the Exeter area, as well as retired Exeter police officer George Dufour, who served on the force at the time and personally knew officers Gene Bertrand and David Hunt. Dean also explores the Betty and Barney Hill case, Stratham Hill, Pawtuckaway, Raymond, Ossipee, the White Mountains, and other New Hampshire UFO hotspots, along with theories involving nuclear activity, geology, and decades of unexplained sightings across the Granite State.
Veteran UFO researcher Rich Hoffman joins Martin Willis to discuss his remarkable six-decade journey, from investigating sightings near Project Blue Book as a teenager to helping lead the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. Rich examines the Tic Tac encounter, reported radar jamming, government transparency, private defense contractors and the limitations of UAP videos without adequate data. They also explore the New Jersey drone wave, AI-generated UFO footage, common misidentifications, near-death experiences and the possibility that science has only begun to understand the true nature of UAP and consciousness.
Australian UAP researcher, activist and podcaster Grant Lavac joins Martin Willis to discuss Australia’s continuing reluctance to investigate unidentified anomalous phenomena, despite its participation in the Five Eyes UAP Caucus Working Group. Grant examines Australia’s lack of a formal reporting system for military personnel and civilian pilots, what his Freedom of Information research suggests may be happening behind closed doors, and why some Australian pilots have instead submitted reports to Ryan Graves’s Americans for Safe Aerospace. The conversation also explores new developments surrounding the 1966 Westall UFO incident, the mysterious disappearance of pilot Frederick Valentich, and the Australian government’s failure to respond to calls for an independent Westall inquiry. Martin and Grant also confront the UFO community’s growing “disclosure fatigue” and ask whether it is finally time for firsthand witnesses, verifiable evidence and receipts.
Retired U.S. Air Force Pararescueman Scott Gearen discusses the mysterious aerial object he photographed and filmed for approximately three and a half hours over Panama City Beach, Florida. He explains why he rejected the weather-balloon explanation, what appeared in the enhanced images and why he wonders whether the object could have been biological or intelligently controlled. Near the end, Scott shares his remarkable near-death experience following a catastrophic 1987 parachuting accident—and how he later returned to complete more than 500 additional jumps.
Starting in December 1975 and continuing into the middle of 1976, there was a UFO flap in the area of Madoc, a village in Ontario, Canada, halfway between Toronto and Ottawa. Investigators from the Ontario-based Neptune Research Organization went to the area, interviewed witnesses, and were able to see for themselves what may be the most unique UFO-related trace evidence ever recorded.
Legendary UFO researcher Jacques Vallée joins Martin Willis to discuss Forbidden Science 7: Final Report, the concluding volume of his journals covering 2020–2025. Vallée reflects on today’s disclosure movement, his own unexplained 1955 sighting and missing memory, the dangers of amateur hypnotic regression, alleged structured contact with an unknown intelligence and a database containing approximately 260,000 UFO cases. After nearly seventy years of research, he leaves us with a profound question: Are we living in a reality that can be manipulated—and are our present scientific methods capable of recognizing it?
What if UFOs do not defy gravity through advanced propulsion, but through consciousness itself? Yale-trained philosopher and author Christopher Noël joins Martin Willis to explore his proposal that consciousness may be an undiscovered field of nature capable of interacting with physical reality. They discuss the Oz Factor, altered perception, missing time, unexplained cold and silence during encounters, electromagnetic disturbances, psychokinesis, orbs, UFO propulsion and the similarities connecting UAP, ghosts, Sasquatch and other high-strangeness phenomena. Christopher also shares his provocative theory that apparent alien beings and craft may temporarily manifest from an unseen level of reality rather than simply traveling here from distant planets. The conversation also touches on the Buga Sphere, Nazca mummies, the Ariel School encounter and whether UFOs use consciousness to manipulate matter. Christopher Noël is the author of The Anatomy of Thin Air and Homegrown Monsters.
On April 24, 1964, in Socorro, New Mexico, Sgt. Lonnie Zamora of the Socorro Police reported seeing an egg-shaped object and two small humanoids dressed in white coveralls. On April 24, 1964, in Newark Valley, New York, farmer Gary Wilcox reported seeing an egg-shaped object and two small humanoids dressed in white coveralls. The difference is, Wilcox claimed he talked with the creatures he saw.