Chad Underwood is a former U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot who flew with the USS Nimitz carrier group during its November 2004 training operations off Southern California. After David Fravor and Alex Dietrich’s visual encounter, Underwood launched on a later mission and used his aircraft’s targeting pod to record the object associated with the case. The resulting infrared clip became widely known as FLIR1.

Underwood’s part in the Nimitz sequence occurred after the initial visual encounter, when the carrier group still needed sensor documentation of the contact. His training as a weapons-systems operator and pilot shaped the vocabulary he later used to describe tracking behavior, display symbology, and possible interference. For years his name remained less familiar than Fravor’s, but later interviews clarified that the best-known video was produced by a separate crew performing a distinct follow-up mission.

Underwood has said he called the object a “Tic Tac” because of its smooth, oblong appearance. His account focuses on the difficulty of obtaining a stable track and on indications he interpreted as unusual behavior or possible electronic interference. The short video alone does not show the entire sequence described by participants, and analysts continue to debate apparent motion, viewing geometry, range, and sensor behavior. Underwood does not claim to know the object’s origin.

Underwood occupies a specific place in the history of military UAP video: he was the aviator operating the sensor that recorded the object rather than a later commentator studying an online clip. His account complements the visual observations and radar testimony from the Nimitz encounter. Platform knowledge and direct participation make his recollections central to reconstructing how the footage was captured and understood aboard the carrier group.