The Night of September 18
Shortly after midnight on September 19, 1976, Tehran residents began calling the Imperial Iranian Air Force to report a bright object in the sky. The duty officer at Shahrokhi Air Base, having seen it himself, scrambled an F-4 Phantom II. As the jet closed to within about 25 miles of the object, its instruments and radio failed; when the pilot turned away, they returned.
A second F-4, flown by Lieutenant Parviz Jafari with a weapons officer, got a radar lock on something the size of a tanker aircraft. As they closed, a smaller bright object detached from it and came at them; Jafari tried to fire a Sidewinder missile and found his weapons panel and communications dead. He turned away, the object followed, then returned to the larger one. A third object appeared to descend and land near Rey, glowing.
The DIA Report
A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report on the incident, sent to the White House, NSA, and CIA and declassified in 1978, rated it a "classic" that "meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of the UFO phenomenon": multiple credible witnesses, radar and visual contact, electromagnetic effects on two aircraft, and physiological effects on a crew. It is one of the strongest official documents in the field, and the reason the case appears on every list of the best military encounters.
The Skeptical Readings
Philip Klass argued the primary object was Jupiter, unusually bright that night, and that the equipment failures were the known unreliability of Iranian-maintained F-4s, with a meteor shower supplying the "detached" objects. Others note the radar lock. The Iranian Air Force never released its own investigation, the Islamic Revolution three years later scattered the witnesses, and Jafari, who became a general, testified about the night at the 2007 National Press Club panel of military witnesses.
Why Tehran Is a Benchmark
Tehran is the case ufologists cite when asked for a military encounter with paperwork: two fighter crews, ground witnesses, radar, weapons failure, and an intelligence assessment that took it seriously. Skeptics have a coherent alternative in Jupiter plus faulty avionics. What nobody has is the Iranian file, and without it the case sits exactly where the DIA left it.
Frequently asked questions
What happened in the 1976 Tehran UFO incident?
Two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantoms were scrambled after a bright object over Tehran on the night of September 18–19, 1976. Both reported instrument and communications failures as they approached; one crew got a radar lock and lost its weapons system when a smaller object came at them.
Is the Tehran UFO incident documented by the U.S. government?
Yes. A Defense Intelligence Agency report distributed to the White House, CIA, and NSA and declassified in 1978 called it a classic case meeting every criterion for serious study.