USS Ronald Reagan orange orb
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 9 May 2022 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Military encounters (topic) |
| People | Ronald Reagan |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 206 |
| Year | 2022 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2022 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 3 |
In May 2022 The Debrief published accounts from five Navy veterans who said that during a night watch in early 2004, while the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was operating off the U.S. East Coast, they saw a large glowing orange object hovering above the carrier's flight deck.[1][2]
The witnesses
The witnesses were Quartermaster Karol Olesiak, the quartermaster of the watch on the bridge; Seaman Derek Smith, a starboard lookout; Seaman Patrick Gokey, a lookout; and two others who asked not to be named, a female trainee on watch with Smith and a boatswain's mate. None could recall the exact date; the authors placed it between December 2003 and May 2004, before the carrier left Norfolk for San Diego on 27 May 2004.[1]
The object
Witnesses described a self-luminous orange object, round or oval with a fiery or gaseous-looking surface, about 10 to 40 feet across, hovering silently about 100 to 200 feet above the flight deck forward of the island. It paced the ship, made half-circle manoeuvres and finally left at high speed. Estimates of how long it stayed varied from about 30 seconds to Olesiak's belief that it remained through his four-hour watch. One witness said the tactical operations centre reported an air-search radar contact.[1]
Logs
Several witnesses said they understood the sighting was not to be logged: one saw an officer order pages removed from the deck log, and another said his chief told him to tear out his entry. Bridge officers reportedly carried on normal operations, and flight operations continued.[1][2]
Assessment
No Navy record of the sighting has been released, and the account rests on witness testimony given nearly two decades later. It adds to a series of reported UAP encounters around Navy carriers in 2004, the same year as the USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" encounter off California.[1][3]
People and topics
- Ronald Reagan — 40th U.S. president whose diary and speeches touched on space and alien threats.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- The Debrief — A news site covering UAP and science.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- Nimitz Tic Tac encounter — The November 2004 encounter between Navy pilots and a white Tic Tac-shaped object off California.
On the Timeline
- Coulthart on contractor scientists (2022) (May/June 2022) — Coulthart describes scientists said to work on secret UAP research.
- Politico "Skull and Bones" faction report (16 May 2022) — An official tells Politico a 'secret society' withholds UAP information from Congress.
See every 2022 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Dave Beaty, Sean Munger and Craig Labadie, "Navy witnesses describe 2004 encounter with UAP aboard the USS Ronald Reagan", The Debrief (May 2022) · thedebrief.org · archived copy
- "USS Ronald Reagan UFO encounter", Daily Caller (May 2022) · dailycaller.com · archived copy
- USS Nimitz UFO incident — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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