Did the NASA Hypersonic X-43A Play a Role in the "Tic Tac UFO" Incident?

By now everyone who follows the UFO developments has heard all about the "Tic Tac" UFO video, taken off the coast of San Diego in November, 2004 and leaked, not released, from the Pentagon. There is a good discussion of it on Metabunk.

The much-hyped "Tic Tac UFO" video

 Michael Huntington posted something concerning the Tic Tac video to the Black Vault that was almost completely overlooked but could turn out to be extremely important: Launched on November 16, 2004 off the coast of San Diego, "X-43A Becomes First Aircraft to Reach Mach 10, 3rd Test Flight 2004 NASA, Hypersonic Scram."  This YouTube video, amazingly, has had only 29 views! Wikipedia says,

NASA flew a third version of the X-43A on November 16, 2004. The modified Pegasus rocket which was launched from a B-52 mother ship at an altitude of 43,000 ft (13,000 m). The X-43A set a new speed record of Mach 9.6[note 1] at about 110,000 feet (33,500 m) altitude,[10] and further testing the ability of the vehicle to withstand the heat loads involved.[11].

Imagine if a thing like that turned up on your FLIR!!!

On May 18, reporter George Knapp, who has made a career reporting on UFO-related stories (and has a long association with Robert Bigelow as well as Bob Lazar) published what is called an "Executive Summary" of  the Tic Tac UFO incident and video (USS Nimitz 10-16 November 2004). It is 13 pages long. According to that "Executive Summary," the main encounter with the Tic Tac occurred on November 14, not November 16. But the 'encounters' were still reportedly going on until the 16th, and it's entirely possible that NASA aircraft were doing practice runs several days earlier.

Concerning that Executive Summary, John Greenewald of the Black Vault says,

there are some issues with the above story that need to be pointed out.   First and foremost, the document itself does not, in any way, resemble a report prepared by the Pentagon or any branch of the U.S. Military.  Although there are many types of report and briefing formats, and they vary from agency to agency, there are still common characteristics that you will find in documents such as this.

The most obvious, to me, is a lack of any classification stamp or  header/footer. It is noted in Mr. Knapp’s story the document was “unclassified” — however, most “unclassified” documents still contain the identifying marks to stipulate the classification level of the document.  (EXAMPLE #1 | EXAMPLE #2) Of course, there are exceptions and mistakes, but this is a sign it was probably not prepared by the Pentagon, or it would contain such a classification level stamp or mark.

Second, there are no headers, contracts numbers or any cover page. Most, if not all, reports of this nature contain a cover page identifying what the information in the report is, what it refers to, what contract it pertains to, etc. (EXAMPLE #1 | EXAMPLE #2). In these examples cited here, from different time frames and agencies, they both have cover pages and reference pages about what the reports are about. This is another indication this document in question, is not official.

Third, the names are blacked out with the exception of Commander David Fravor.  At first, I noted this as being suspicious, but later got clarification that Mr. Knapp was the one who did the redaction, based on a tweeted comment he posted on Twitter.  Although that explains the discrepancy, it does bring up another fact, and that is, nothing about the document’s release is close to being “official” or “by the book.”  Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), when documents such as these are released, ALL names are redacted/blacked out. This is due to FOIA exemption (b)(6) which stipulates that for privacy reasons, names (and other personally identifiable information) are redacted to ensure their identities remain private. Whomever gave this document to Mr. Knapp, obviously did not care to conceal identities of those mentioned, and I think Mr. Knapp deserves credit for taking the step to ensure these names remain outside the public domain (except Commander Fravor who has gone public). I will note, Mr. Knapp never claimed this was obtained under a FOIA release. However, I note this FOIA exemption because this is a standard rule/practice when agencies release documents, they will follow the same policies and procedures when they proactively release information to the public, but not under the FOIA.  These facts support the document was a “leak” rather than a “release.” 

An image of the X-43A on its second flight in March, 2004. NASA Launched the fastest aircraft ever on its third flight off the coast of San Diego, November 16, 2004.

Notice the location of the camera: 33 deg 14.9' North, 121 deg 6.38' West. This is  off the coast of Southern California, near Los Angeles and San Diego. The reported position of the aircraft detecting the Tic Tac UFO was 31 deg 20' N, 117 deg 10' W, about 70 nautical miles south of the US/Mexico border and 30 nautical miles off the Baja coast.

The location of the camera filming the X-43A. "X" marks the approximate position of the Nimitz's F-18 aircraft.