The 1976 Tehran UFO Incident is probably the most disturbing and well-documented UFO sighting in history. Because it included visual confirmation by two experienced Iranian Air Force pilots, radar signatures picked up by air traffic and control towers, communications equipment failures experienced by the two F-4 Phantom II pilots as well as the captain of a commercial passenger jet, and visual confirmation by potentially thousands of people who say they saw an object of such luminosity that it could be spotted from 70 miles away. Below you find a summary of this remarkable UFO incident.
Major Parviz Jafari, a squadron commander in the Imperial Iranian Air Force, along with First Lieutenant Jalal Damirian as weapons officer, was dispatched in a second F-4 Phantom II to intercept the object. Major Parviz Jafari approached the UFO, which he described as “flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue lights so bright that I was not able to see its body.”
A summary of the UFO incident that occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 1976, over the Iranian capital Tehran.
- Civilians reported a fast-moving, luminous object flying over Tehran. Realizing they were getting phone calls from different parts of the city, local authorities quickly sent it up the chain of command.
- An Iranian general, who was the highest-ranking officer of the watch on that shift, initially dismissed the reports, but after seeing the object on radar, he scrambled an F-4 Phantom II jet to intercept.
- The Phantom lost instrumentation when it came within 25 nautical miles of the object, then regained control after breaking off the attempted interdiction.
- The authorities scrambled a second Phantom, which also lost instrumentation on approach, including the loss of weapons systems when the pilot tried to fire a missile at the object.
- The captain of a commercial passenger jet reported a communications equipment malfunction at the same time while traveling in that general airspace.
- The object was confirmed by radar, and experienced air traffic controllers also confirmed the sighting.
- Witnesses described such luminosity that the shape of the object was difficult to determine but also reported a series of smaller lights that don’t correspond to known aircraft configurations.
- One of the pilots continued his military career and retired as a general. Upon retirement, he’s become involved in the effort to find out more about the incident and unearth old government files about it.
Did they chase Jupiter?
UFO skeptic Phillip Klass claimed the pilots were incompetent and they had mistaken Jupiter for an aircraft, so they were literally chasing a planet. What are your thoughts?