Pentagon UFO office tried to convince Navy admiral that Tic Tac was US tech
A tough Tic Tac to swallow.
A dramatic Tic Tac UFO over the ocean with military radar screens. Image by Cybernews.
- Retired Navy admiral Tim Gallaudet says AARO staff tried to sway him about the 2004 Tic Tac sighting.
- Gallaudet says officials pushed the idea that the Tic Tac object was secret US military technology.
- He argues the explanation makes little sense because similar technology has not appeared in combat for 22 years.
- Gallaudet says his account reflects his interpretation, not proof of a coordinated disinformation campaign.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
A retired Navy admiral says the Pentagon ran an "influence operation" to convince him that a 2004 UFO sighting in the shape of a Tic Tac was American military tech. He’s not buying it, though, arguing that hiding revolutionary tech from the battlefield for 20 years makes zero sense.
Speaking on The Good Trouble Show with Matt Ford, Tim Gallaudet ran through the details of the awkward encounter.
The meeting was initially scheduled for 90 minutes, but Gallaudet says it eventually lasted around 2 and a half hours, with the conversation eventually turning to whether the strange objects seen by Navy pilots were actually secret US technology.
What went on in the meeting?
Gallaudet says AARO’s acting director, Tim Phillips, first discussed other issues, including the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, before the conversation moved on to UAP and disclosure of whistleblower Chris Mellon’s criticism of a historical records report by All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a government agency investigating UAPs.
According to Gallaudet, Phillips dismissed Mellon’s criticism by saying Mellon was “full of shit,” before playing up the reputational fact that he worked in counter-intelligence.
Gallaudet recalls that moment as when the meeting began to get strange.
I think that was the bit, that was the whole beginning of the rest of the meeting, that was attempting to basically turn me and my thoughts,retired Navy admiral, Tim Gallaudet.
He says the conversation continued as he exited Philips’ office, with staff desperately trying to convince him that the famous Tic Tac UAP, reported by Navy pilots in 2004, was merely US technology and not an unknown phenomenon.
Gallaudet confronted them directly, telling the Pentagon workers he knew that this was all a secret plan to sway his views.
However, he did concede to Ford that this is his interpretation of events, rather than a full-blown smear or disinformation campaign.
Troubled findings
Gallaudet says he later attended a lecture by former AARO chief Sean Kirkpatrick, where Kirkpatrick again “doubled down on the claim that the Tic Tac was Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) tech.”
Gallaudet's objection is straightforward: if DARPA really possessed technology capable of the extraordinary performance attributed to the Tic Tac, he argues that it would be far too sensitive to discuss openly while the technology remained operationally useful.
“That stuff would be so tightly classified. It’s ridiculous,” he told Ford.
Gallaudet argues that the explanation creates a huge problem: if the US really had this capability, why has it apparently not appeared on the battlefield?
His argument is that the lack of obvious military use over 22 years makes the “secret US technology” explanation difficult for him to accept.
One Redditor on the r/UFO, however, suggested that the government doesn't really have much credence in this, as any secret technology would be in the hands of private companies, explaining that “they can quietly sell their knowledge to countries around the world – including Russia and China.”
The unresolved tension seems to be whether such technology even exists, and, if it does, the mystery remains as to why it hasn't surfaced in military use.
