New USS Nimitz Witness (Kevin Thomas)

We would really appreciate it if you could just tell us exactly what happened on the Nimitz back in 1991. I was a production petty officer in the photo lab, so I ran the photo lab downstairs for the enlisted personnel. And I got into this habit of going to watch the sunset after my shift was over to just kind of decompress. By now it's night, it's dark. So we went to darkenship and when a ship goes to darkenship, everything gets turned off. There can be no light anywhere on the ship. Darkenship is a defensive maneuver where all lights go dark and the entire crew locks down inside the ship in order to camouflage the ship from enemy attack. The crew isn't told if an order to go darkenship is a drill or an actual threat. You have a certain amount of time to get inside the bulkhead or you're trapped outside and you're not going in. And when I went to open up the bulkhead, it was locked. So I figured no big deal, I'll just ride it out out here. So I found my way to the starboard side of the ship and I looked around the corner and there was something about halfway out of the water. It looked like a huge black triangle. I would estimate it was bigger than the Nimitz at about 200 yards away. And the Nimitz is what, 1,000 foot long? I think it's 1,119 or 1,019. It was big. And I just kind of was froze there. I mean, I have this image of it just looking like this clean, dark thing sitting there with no water dripping off it. So did it make a sound? No. Okay. I got a real clear view, probably raised up 30, 40 feet and then it was gone. Did you tell anyone about what you saw? I didn't have to. I was at my duty station the next day and there was a guy at the front office of the photo lab and he came back to me and said, there's two guys here to see you. And nobody ever says, there's two guys here to see you on an aircraft carrier. It's just very, very odd. I had a feeling at that moment, my heart kind of stopped it. Uh-oh, I'm in trouble. For being out during the dark out? Yeah, I think that maybe I saw something I wasn't supposed to see and I'm going to get in a lot of trouble. And were they in uniform? No, they were just in civilian clothes. What did they ask you? They asked me, why didn't I make it back to general quarters? Why wasn't I on my duty station? Was I outside? And they just kept asking over and over in different ways, what did I see? How did you feel during that? What was in my mind at the time the guys interviewed me was, don't tell these people what you saw or you're going to be kicked out of the military. I basically just told them I stood at the aft of the ship and I just waited until it was over and then came inside. And I was really silent about it for years until the tic-tac footage came out. That is what really has got me thinking about this. Probably the reason I let you in the door. What similarities did you see between the tic-tac and then yours? But there were some places in the video where it moves and it's like, that's the same movement. Yeah, see, it kind of went slow at first and then it went boom and it was gone. That's exactly what I saw. It went slow at first and then boom, it was gone. At what kind of speed did it move? Oh, supersonic. So I would have to say Mach 15, Mach 20. Could a human survive that? No. The G-forces would turn you into a pancake. You'd be like soup on the floor. Was this an advanced propulsion system? No. In order to have propulsion, that's pushing something in a direction. There was no propulsion. There was no displacement of the water when it took off. It just was there and then it moved. Do you think it's coincidental that this event occurred during darkenship? No, I think darkenship was called so nobody saw it. Do you think somebody on that ship knew what was going on? Yes, absolutely. I have no doubt that someone on the ship knew what was going on. And I feel that the reason that I was talked to is to make sure I didn't know what was going on.