What happened
After midnight on September 19, 1976, residents of northern Tehran began calling Mehrabad Airport to report a bright light over the Shemiran district. Air traffic controller Hossein Pirouzi saw it himself and alerted the air force. At about 1:30 a.m., the first F-4 Phantom II took off, piloted by Lieutenant Yadollah Nazeri; at a distance of about 25 nautical miles from the object, he lost communications and instrument readings, so he turned back. In the second fighter, Major Parviz Jafari and Lieutenant Jalal Damirian saw a smaller bright element separate from the object and head toward them; when Jafari tried to fire a missile, the weapons panel stopped working. The next day, a helicopter searched the spot where something had supposedly landed. The report was sent to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
Witnesses
Iranian Air Force pilots, including Major Parviz Jafari, controller Hossein Pirouzi at Mehrabad Airport, and residents of Tehran.
Explanations and hypotheses
A memorandum from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) described the case as a classic one meeting the criteria for a credible sighting. Skeptic Philip J. Klass believed the pilots first saw the bright planet Jupiter and that the failures were due to equipment faults – one of the aircraft had a known history of electrical problems. Others pointed to meteors visible that night. Jafari, who later became a general, maintained publicly for years that the object was nothing known.
Unexplained There is no convincing explanation.
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