USS Princeton (CG-59)

The strike group was large.

The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, several destroyers, and various support ships, all operating together as an integrated naval force.

The Princeton, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, carried the SPY-1 radar system, one of the most advanced naval radar platforms in the world.

The SPY-1 is a phased array radar, meaning it does not rotate like a traditional radar dish.

So we're going back to mid-November 2004.

There is a nuclear aircraft carrier called the USS Nimitz and a guided missile cruiser called the USS Princeton.

And they were doing a training exercise roughly about 50 to 120 miles away from San Diego, California.

And they were doing that training exercise because they were very soon after going to the Persian Gulf to actually do some live military work.

And on November the 10th, some radar operators on the USS Princeton were carrying out some setup work.

Basically, they had changed their radar systems and they'd upgraded it to a newer version.

And what they saw on the radar systems when they booted them up was potentially some anomalies, something that they couldn't really understand and something that they found very strange.

And so there was no one around, so we just started talking back and forth, and I didn't know him.

And it turns out Kevin was the chief petty officer on the USS Princeton, which is the Aegis cruiser in the Nimitz task force, and that's the main radar for the whole carrier group.

And he was, you know, the supervisor of it, and he was on board.

He was in, in charge of that unit when the Tic Tacs started showing up.