East Coast: the W-72 Reports

The reports

The Navy FOIA reading room holds eight hazard reports printed from the Naval Safety Center’s system on 29 May 2019. Seven come from warning area W-72 and from three F/A-18 squadrons flying from NAS Oceana; the eighth, of 2019, comes from another warning area and is set beside them for comparison.

• 27 June 2013, VFA-11, 12:20, day. The crew “visually acquired an aircraft pass down the right side of their aircraft with approximately 200 feet of lateral separation”, climbing “with a visible contrail or smoke plume emitting from the aft section”; it “was white in color and approximately the size and shape of a drone or missile”. “The HF had no radar return on the aircraft.” Afterwards “CSFWL contacted operating units but no one reported operations of this nature.”
• 18 November 2013, VFA-143, 12:55, day. A single pilot found a radar track at 12,000 feet and Mach 0.1 and then saw “a small aircraft. The aircraft had an approximately 5 foot wingspan and was colored white with no other distinguishable features. Due to the small size, the aircraft was determined to be a UAS.” He followed it “for approximately 1 hour”. The controlling facility saw no radar return, and “Post flight, the controlling agency contacted numerous local UAS operators, but none claimed knowledge of the HUAS.”
• 18 December 2013, VFA-143, 15:00, day. Again a radar track at 12,000 feet and Mach 0.1, and “a small white visual return at the location of the radar track”, like that of 18 November. “Post flight analysis was unable to determine the origin of the unidentified aircraft.”
• 26 March 2014, VFA-106, 16:30, day. A radar track at 19,000 feet and Mach 0.1, which the pilot “initially thought … was a false track file, due to the high winds noted in the area (100+ knots at 18,000’)”, then “a small metallic object” that “appeared to be small in size, approximately the size of a suitcase, and silver in color”, passed within 1,000 feet. His wingman’s radar showed nothing.
• 23 April 2014, VFA-11, 22:51, night. “Radar indicated Hazard Unidentified Aerial Device (HUAD) 1 at 0.0 Mach and 15 thousand feet. HUAD2 indicated 12 thousand feet traveling at 0.0 Mach. HAC used multiple on-board sensors to verify that HUAD1 and HUAD2 were small IR significant objects and not false radar track files. While tracking HUAD2 on radar and forward looking infrared (FLIR,) two additional, non radar-significant objects, HUAD3 and HUAD4, were seen flying through the FLIR field-of-view at a high speed”.
• 24 April 2014, VFA-11, 12:47, day. Two F/A-18Fs held “a stable radar trackfile as well as a steady CATM-9X track” on an object at “0.0 Mach and 11 thousand feet” and flew to it: “Neither HAC1 or HAC2 were able to visually acquire HUAD.”
• 27 April 2014, VFA-11. “F/A-18F: Near mid-air with balloon like object in W-72.”, rated “CRITICAL RISK”, with no time, position or narrative. The squadron’s commander: “This is the third occurrence in five days, and the fourth in the last ten months observed by the squadron.”
• 13 February 2019, VX-23, warning area W-386, for comparison. “a red weather balloon was visually spotted at 27,000 feet MSL”, and “Multiple other radar contacts were noted with similar altitudes and speeds (0.1-0.2 IMN).” The report’s recommendation: “Weather balloons often look identical to spurious radar contacts.”

What the reports call the objects

The VFA-11 reports of 23 and 24 April 2014 spell out their label on page 1: “Radar indicated Hazard Unidentified Aerial Device (HUAD)”. Their subjects read “Unidentified aerial vehicles operating in W-72 without coordinating with controlling agencies.” and “Unidentified aerial vehicle operating in W-72 without comms with controlling agencies.” As the accepted cause they give “UADs in controlled airspace without coordination” (23 April) and “UADs operating in W-72 without coordination” (24 April); the report of 27 April gives “UADs operating in W-72.” The reports of 23 and 27 April recommend a “Brief to all UAV operators.”, and all three carry the commanding officer’s comment: “The operation of UAVs and other aerial devices must be properly coordinated and communicated to keep aircrew informed and safe.” The VFA-143 and VFA-106 reports speak of a “Hazard UAS (HUAS)” and of an “unidentified UAS”. No report spells out ‘UAD’ on its own or ‘UAS’. The reports thus call the objects unidentified and at the same time treat them as devices that someone flew without coordination; none records who (our reading).

What Graves told Congress

Ryan Graves, a VFA-11 pilot in 2014, testified under oath on 26 July 2023: “After upgrades were made to our jet’s radar systems, we began detecting unknown objects operating in our airspace. At first, we assumed they were radar errors but soon we began to correlate the radar tracks with multiple onboard sensors, including infrared systems, eventually through visual ID.” (p. 10) He described a training mission in “Warning Area W–72, 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach”, in which “two F–18 Super Hornets were split by a UAP”, an object “described as a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere”, that “came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft”; “Our squadron submitted a safety report” (p. 10). He gave no date. Of the VFA-11 reports in the reading room, those of 27 June 2013 and 27 April 2014 record near mid-airs, with an object “approximately the size and shape of a drone or missile” and with a “balloon like object”; neither mentions a cube or a sphere (our reading).

On frequency he spoke of briefings, not of a count: “Soon these encounters became so frequent that aircrew would discuss the risk of UAP as part of their regular preflight briefs.” (p. 11) His written statement: “The sightings were so frequent that they became part of daily briefs.” Asked about other pilots, he said that “in the 2014 to 2015 time period, anyone that had upgraded their radar systems were seeing these objects” (p. 17). He does not name the radar, and no document we can open does.

The Office of Naval Intelligence put “near daily incursions” on its task force briefings of 27 February and 11 March 2020: “Initial Effort: Standardize and ‘De-Stigmatize’ Reporting of near daily incursions”. The slide names no region and no year.

What the Navy said later

• On 23 April 2019 the Navy answered a press query: “There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years.” and “A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft.”
• The next day Jay Stratton wrote, in an internal e-mail about a Washington Post follow-up query: “The wide proliferation and availability of inexpensive unmanned aerial systems (UAS) such as commercially available quadcopters has increasingly made airspace de-confliction an issue for our aviators.” and “Based on this increased airspace complexity, US Navy aircrew were provided with reporting instructions in order to determine the frequency and location of any UAS operating in our training areas.”
• After an Office of Naval Intelligence briefing for Senator Warner on 19 June 2019, the Navy’s account records that he “Directly asked if the Navy is seeing more of less [sic] of these objects now (2019) than in the 2014 to 2015 timeframe when reporting of these objects first began.”
• The Office of Naval Intelligence briefing of 11 March 2020: “Within the Task Force we refer to these UAPs as ‘Range Foulers’.” and “They are RADAR/IR Significant and visible to the human eye.”
• The ODNI in 2021: “No standardized reporting mechanism existed until the Navy established one in March 2019.”

None of these documents names the W-72 reports or ties the reporting mechanism to them (our reading).

Theodore Roosevelt

Until this revision the case was titled “Roosevelt / East Coast”. Of the documents we can open, two name the carrier. A Navy e-mail of 9 May 2019: “A VT-9 instructor pilot has been contacted by NYT and A&E about a potential UFO sighting which occurred in the Atlantic in 2015. He was flying with his WSO from THEODORE ROOSEVELT when they noticed a flying object that had a heat signature that was unlike any aircraft they had seen.” And the report of NASA’s independent study team on UAP, of 2023, on the GOFAST video: “A well-known UAP event is the ‘GoFast’ video, recorded by navy aviators from the USS Theodore Roosevelt.” (p. 28) The W-72 hazard reports name no carrier. The two Navy videos of January 2015 are separate cases in this base, GIMBAL and GOFAST.

Why this scores where it does

Witnesses: 4. Aircrews of three squadrons in their own hazard reports, two crews together on 24 April 2014, and a VFA-11 pilot under oath in 2023 (p. 10). Not 5: no crew member is named.

Radar: 3. In five of the seven reports the aircraft’s own radar held a track, at Mach 0.0 to 0.1 and between 11,000 and 19,000 feet; on 23 April 2014 the crew used “multiple on-board sensors to verify that HUAD1 and HUAD2 were small IR significant objects and not false radar track files” (VFA-11). Not higher: no radar data can be opened, and the controlling facility’s radar, in the reports that mention it, saw nothing.

Optics: 0. The reports describe infrared detections, but no image can be opened.

Physical trace: 0. None.

Multi-channel: 3. Radar, infrared and sight in the same reports: on 23 April 2014 radar and FLIR on the same objects, and on 24 April, in two aircraft, “a stable radar trackfile as well as a steady CATM-9X track”, though neither crew could see the object.

Documentation: 4. Seven formal hazard reports with their commanders’ comments, and later Navy correspondence. Not 5: the reports survive as printed on 29 May 2019, one has no time, position or narrative, and another blanks its position.

Anomaly: 3. Radar tracks at “0.0 Mach” at 15,000 and 12,000 feet that the crew checked were not false track files, and objects flying through the FLIR’s field of view “at a high speed” (23 April 2014). Against that, the reports give as the cause objects operating “without coordination”, and the report of 27 April 2014 describes a near mid-air collision with a “balloon like object”.

Data today: 2. The reports can be opened; no radar or infrared data from any of the seven events can.

The overall is 2.3: class C, material gaps.

What would settle it

The squadrons’ radar and infrared data for the dates of the reports, the FACSFAC radar tapes (on 27 June 2013 the facility “reviewed radar tapes and no aircraft was indentified [sic] or noted in the area”), and counts of reports from W-72 before and after the radar upgrade Graves describes. None of them can be opened.