UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

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Originally Posted by Rramjet
Now of course he would NOT do that – for the simple reason that Mooy’s Memorandum-for the-Record is in the public domain and Jafari’s statements can be checked against that at any time – and we have none other than the authority of Phillip J. Klass to vouch for the authenticity of that memorandum (and that it was Mooy who wrote it and that Mooy was in the interview with Jafari)! And I can provide further quotes from Klass to support all of that if necessary.

Of course there's something in the public domain... that is my point.
How do you know that what is in the public domain was actually what happened in a case were confusion played such a prominent part in an event that lasted more than an hour and a half and still resulted in the object not being identified. And from what I read, the provenance of who said what to who seems be very unclear with all sorts of confusions regarding the memorandum, routing slip etc. with the added confusion of two anonymous sources and a guy from the National Enquirer.
And also…
Then by all means do so. Mooy may very well have sat in on the “debriefing” but we still haven’t seen a copy of this memo in full from an official source and the "Mooy as the source of the teletype" account contradicts McKenzie’s and Pratt’s account contradicts Jafari’s…

Jafari isn’t listed as one of the pilots by Pratt and if the memo is undated as Klass points out, how can we be sure when it was actually written and where does Mooy actually claim he wrote the teletype that McKenize claims he wrote? There are some differences between the teletype and the memo so it would seem we have a bit of a chicken and the egg problem here…

What is in the public domain is not merely “something”. There are a number of authenticated documents in the public domain.

1. The initial Memorandum-for-the-Record written by Mooy. This can be found in Klass, P., J. UFOS, The Public Deceived. 1983 Prometheus Books (pp. 111-113)

Mooy sat in on the “debriefing” of the aircrew of the second F-4 (Jafari was the pilot) and had access to a report of the “debriefing of the aircrew of the first F-4.

2. The “Routing Slip” written by McKenzie (with the attached assessment written later by Evans – a DIA intelligence analyst) which followed Mooy’s Memorandum almost word for word. This can be found at (http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/routing_slip_ufo_iran.pdf)

Evan’s assessment of the case included that the information was “confirmed by other sources” and of “high” value.

The provenance here is simply NOT in question. For example Klass states “On October 2, 1977, I telephoned Mooy, now a full colonel who had been reassigned back to the States, and he supplied a little useful background.” (p.117) Earlier in this same document Klass had indicated that he had also directly spoken to Mooy about the provenance of the information in (what has become known as) the Routing Slip.

To further support that we have the Press Club testimony of Jafari (the pilot of the second F-4). In it he confirms the substantive details of the case as well as the fact that Mooy was in the interview with him. This can be found at (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJydT3AZ370)

We also have Bob Pratt (National Enquirer) who talked to McKenzie and Evans about the case. Pratt asked Mckenzie who his source for the “Routing Slip” was and McKenzie prevaricated, trying to throw Pratt of the trail with misinformation (such as: "Well, we read the newspapers, we talked to various people around town, other attachés. It was really quite a topic of conversa¬tion for three or four days.”) Now we KNOW that Mooy was the source (confirmed by Klass in direct conversation with Mooy), and thus we KNOW that McKenzie was providing “misleading” information to Pratt about his source.

When Pratt asked Evan’s about the case:

“We had several other messages that someone would attribute to UFOs," said Major Evans. "I didn't pay much attention to them, but I felt this particular case was very interesting. Here we had a case where we had a visual sighting from three different locations, three different angles, by highly qualified people and they were confirmed by radar from three different points.

"The electromagnetic effects were very interesting to me as an electronic warfare officer, and the fact that this thing was so highly maneuverable impressed me quite a bit. As an electronic warfare officer, I would love to go into combat with the capability of turning off my opponent's weapon system panel at will, and to be able to figure out when he's going to turn it on, and to cut off his communications.”​
(http://www.cohenufo.org/iran.htm)

Pratt also interviewed Hossain Pirouzi, the chief supervisor of the air-traffic control tower on the night in question. This interview also confirmed the details of the case and provided much extra information as well. We also have other documentary comments from a number of civilian as well as military sources - but at this point it must be noted (in no uncertain terms) that the provenance of the information concerning the case is NOT in question. Moreover, there is no inconsistency between the details of the case as presented by the various sources.

Your continued efforts, Stray Cat, to cast doubt in this area are again an example of the “debunking” mentality at work rather than a true scientific appraisal of the evidence. For example you imply that just because Pratt was a reporter for the National Enquirer, we should disbelieve the testimony of the witnesses he interviewed. However, if he misquoted or otherwise distorted the statements of the interviewees, those interviewees had ample time to dispute Pratt’s reporting. NONE of the interviewee statements have been disputed in any way, either by the interviewees or by anyone else for that matter (until this forum…huh!).

You go on to imply that “confusion played a prominent part” in the case. This is utterly disingenuous. First, there is NO confusion about the details of the case. All the eyewitnesses described the events in detail and each is consistent with the other. There may have been “confusion” about what the object WAS… but that is only because they could not identify it! They were certainly able to describe the objects abilities and characteristics in precise detail. Second there is NO confusion about the sources of information that has come into he public domain. That has been described and verified in the above. So it is simply disingenuous (to be polite) of you to imply that confusion played a “prominent” role in the case. This is simply not correct.

The above then confirms MY assessment:

Originally Posted by Rramjet
You people really try and put the worst possible "spin" on everything whenever you possibly can. It is a deceitful tactic. Your post Stray Cat represents one of the worst examples of that very thing.

No actually, it presents a possibility. And the only reason I present that possibility is because I have had more experience of it from investigating UFO reports than I have had in finding out that everyone was reported accurately. Again, I am not saying it DID happen, only that I don't think it had been ruled out as a possibility.
Your experience counts for nothing then because you have simply failed to investigate the details of the case. If you had investigated, then you would have found the same information available as I have done. You simply carry out NO investigation – preffering instead to try and cast confusion and doubt about the case instead of conducting a rational, scientific analysis of the evidence on the record. My assessment of your tactics (as above) stand.

Originally Posted by Rramjet
You impugn the reputation of Jafari - an honorable Iranian Airforce pilot - simple because he has accepted invitations to give his testimony in various media forums - forums that YOU assume somehow taint everyone who appears on them! This is not a rational or logical or even scientific way of advancing our knowledge of ANYTHING, let alone the topic under discussion.

No, a rational and logical way to advance knowledge is to actually watch and listen to some of those shows and see the amount of 'similarly' well documented, well researched subjects get covered. I would have thought that if there were really any knowledge to advance in relation to Jafari's testimony, he may have appeared on say the Science channel, but obviously 'the man' don't want him upsetting the applecart
I am sure if the “Science channel” had invited him, Jafari would have been happy to accept. Again my assessment of your “dirty” tactics stands. You insinuate negative conclusions without a shred of evidence to support them. Just because the “shows” you mention may not have a “pristine” reputation according to your standards, does not mean that when a person appears on them to provide testimony he is automatically disqualified as legitimate – especially when that testimony is so easily verified as Jafari’s is. You simply need to refer to the evidence in the case and quit making irrational, illogical, unscientific and unfounded assertions.

Originally Posted by Rramjet
If you are a true skeptic (rather than a mere "debunker") you would take the opportunity to rationally explore the evidence placed before you in an effort to gain whatever knowledge might be available.

I have... conclusion is still UNIDENTIFIED.
My scepticism doesn't over reach toward a conclusion from the information available, that I believe is partly down to a lack of confidence in the accuracy of the data.
I have just demonstrated how you “over reach”. There is absolutely NO reason to have a “lack of confidence” in the data on the basis of the unfounded assertions you have presented.

Originally Posted by Rramjet
Every true scientist is, almost by definition a skeptic. For the members of JREF posting in this thread to call themselves "skeptics", on the evidence of your post at least, is patently doing a disservice to the term and to scientists in general.

Why is presenting possibilities not scientific?
Surely one aspect of the peer review process is to allow other people to suggest possible faults in the idea being reviewed?
Presenting possibilities that are easily refuted by the evidence IS unscientific – unless you have compelling counter-evidence – which of course you do not. And certainly, the peer review process has comprehensively refuted your assertions on the matter.
 
How about the alien ship's log signed by the commander.


UFO_Log.jpg
 
Well here it is. I don’t know if it will be light or heat. I do apologize for the length of this.

The story I’m using is from THE IRANIAN JET UFO CHASE reference early in the thread and appears to be written by someone named Bruce Maccabee, that was taken from a published story by Bob Pratt ( who was an apparent UFO investigator) from the National Enquirer, plus a partial copy of a telex and a Tehran newspaper article. I’ve never heard of either of the gentlemen.

. The whole article is a bloody mess. From the published aircrew debrief, if I had tried that on my intel debriefer, I, my backseater, and the debriefer would have shortly been assigned to Thule AFB, handing out condoms to the troops. Assuming that what was written was at least semi-true, there has to be a lot more to those debriefs than what is here. So I’ll try to put together a somewhat logical flow and make a few comments and questions. I am not going to try to identify the bogey, because there just isn’t enough info and I have no expertise there.

The whole narrative as far as the aircraft side is just, well, strange. And a lot wrong. I would love to listen to the tower tapes. They were in English if Iran at the time was part of ICAO, and I’m almost sure they were and still are. If either of the birds were talking to a military GCI site, it could be either in English or Farsi. I don’t know which. I have worked with Norwegian, Dutch, German and Italian GCI sites, and they were all in English. I would also love to see the scope film of the 2nd bird if it ever existed, to see what was going on with the radar.

The scrambled birds were obviously loaded for air-to-air, which meant that they were carrying wing fuel tanks, four radar missiles almost certainly AIM-7 Sparrows in the semi-submerged wells, four AIM-9 Sidewinders on the inboard pylons and a gun. If they were E models, the gun was internal, if D models, the gun was in a pod mounted on the centerline. This is the universal load for an air-to-air F-4. Especially note the wing tanks. They will be of import later.

Using the DOC of the article that was referenced (Iranian Jet Case.doc) , Page 2. Henry who was at Shahroki Air Field stated that it was rare for jets to take off full speed at night with afterburner. WRONG! Shahroki is at 5600 feet elevation, a very high altitude fighter field and probably density altitudes of over 8,000 ft would be common in the summer. F-4s always use full burner and take off at “full speed”, whatever that means.. I only used a military power take off a couple of times and those were on FCFs (functional test flights) looking for something specific.

Page 6, para 2. The statement of a beeper on 121.12 Mz looks like either a typo or some one writing that was ignorant of that item. Beepers xmit on 121.5 in VHF and 243.0 Mz in UHF. Every ICAO and FAA tower monitors these frequencies. Since the tower appeared to not have heard it, the beeper was away from it and in a radio shadow of the tower. Also, beepers don’t normally just fall out of planes. Possible, but ultra improbable. Pure conjecture;: some one was playing with a light plane beeper. In any case, I don’t see any connection.

I don’t know how close the Elburz mtns are to Tehran; Babolsar at 85-90 miles away, would not have been able to paint anything over Tehran less than about 18k ft. MSL, Shaharoki at 135-140 miles away should be able to see something over about 4k ft. AGL with several caveats. I’m not any type of expert on this.

Now to F-4 #1.Pages 8-10
. The moon phase was an early waxing crescent with moonrise a little after 0100. The thin crescent of the moon had been only up for an hour when the interactions started so it was almost as dark as no moon.. The moon won’t be overhead until a little past 0700.The visibility at altitude over the desert should be unlimited. The only problem is that you can’t see anything in the dark. He launched at 0130 from Shahroki heading northeast to intercept 40 miles north ot Tehran, so he was traveling 150 miles. He was probably told this was an ID pass, he probably climbed to about 20k ft MSL till he got to within 50-40 miles of the bogey, then descended. He probable was traveling around 420 knots, since that is a good all round combat speed for an F-4. It gets you where you’re going fairly quickly without using too much fuel. It would take about 22 minutes at that speed to arrive. The story does not mention any of this of course.

“It appeared to now be as high as 12,000 ft”
. Was this from the aircrew or from the tower chief? If the aircrew, the bogey would be at 12k MSL, if from the tower, it would be at 16k MSL and a wild guess at best.

“he could see it from 70 miles away”
On a dark night like this, I see no problem seeing a light at that distance over a desert, especially if it is aimed in his direction and at altitude. The only thing that would cut visibility short of an inversion layer, would be light pollution and airborne crud in the vicinity of the city.

“he approached at more than the speed of sound”
Why? This was just an ID pass. There was no critical time factor.

“the object sped up to stay ahead”
How far was he from the bogey when it did this? How far ahead did it stay? What direction did they go? Did they stay at 12k feet or change altitude?

“while the jet was about 150 miles from Tehran, the object appeared over the city again, having beaten the jet back to the city”
Well apparently they climbed out, then went east about 200 miles and turned around. The time for this would be around a minimum of 50 minutes up to about an hour. The bogey is able to do 10,000 knots down in a thick atmosphere or can teleport itself?

““….his engines were working normally, the lights on the instrument panel were working but all his navigation aids were out…”, when he got to a range of about 25 nautical miles, he “lost all instrumentation and communications (UHF radio and intercom).”
So the bogey is keeping him 25 miles or better, and if he gets closer he gets jammed With respect to the engines, there should be no problem with their working, as the fuel tanks have hydraulic pumps as well as electrical, and the throttle connections are mechanical. Think of a diesel engine.

“…” Youssefi ordered him to close again to get a better view”
Now the bogey loiters around Tehran for about a half hour until #1 gets back? I’m thinking that #2 got to play for a while, but I don’t know. There is some time missing.

This is about the right time for him to declare bingo and go home. He has been mucking around at fairly high powers setting for roughly an hour-40 to two hours. The big chase must have been fairly high to get over the mountains around Tehran, so he was probably above 20k altitude. If he had been down low, he would have had to recover at Mehrebad, and sucking fumes. #2 was on station by now.

“The jet-UFO chase just described occurred over a period of about 10 minutes”
Whoa Nelly, how does an hour and a half +, get compressed to about 10 minutes, since there was a long distance chase? If it was 10 minutes, the long distance chase didn’t happen.


And so to F-4 #2 Pages 10-13
After #1 was airborne for 10 minutes, the General launched #2, so he got off the ground about 0150, when #1 is first getting entangled with the bogey. Why is a Colonel sitting alert? Colonels don’t sit alert. He should be pushing mountains of paper, unless he has to fill a square once a year or something.

#2 heads toward Tehran. #2 and #1 had to be talking to each other as well as to the tower. Meanwhile #1 is chasing the bogey east at about the same speed and is about 125 miles ahead of #2. #2 gets a little beyond Tehran (probably SE of town) about the time the bogey and #1 turn around, and is about 50-70 miles east of there when the bogey magically appears back over Tehran. So what does he do until #1 gets back to Tehran in about 20-25 minutes, gets jammed and goes home? The narration doesn’t say. It immediately jumps into #2’s playtime as though #1 wasn’t around.. The bogey starts jinking around and they both end up in a circle chase (this implies a distance of less than about two miles, probably less than one mile). This is apparently south of Tehran. Then the bogey extends? #2 gets a lock at about 25 miles with a positive delta V, so the bogey speeds up until they are back to 25 miles. It seems that the bogey is comfortable beyond 25 miles but gets really shy inside that. The writer seems amazed that the lock held for 48 secs. (Barring countermeasures, the radar will hold lock on a target as long as the target stays in front and within the radar’s limits, and does not get lost in any clutter.) They then turn east and push up the speed. Before this they were maybe close enough to Tehran to see the shape against the background city lights, but now it gets dark again..

” The pilot put the “pedal to the metal” and reached a speed of about Mach 2.2 (1,500 mph or 25 miles per minute) and still couldn’t catch it”
“pedal to the metal - (not an aviating term; the writer is using his creative writing)
Mach 2? MACH 2??? I call major B.S. This can’t be done! Remember the external fuel tanks? With them and the ordnance hanging in the breeze, and at 25-30k ft. straight & level, even a great D model might get M-1.3 and an E model about .1 more. The drag of the tanks is the major limiting factor. Someone is dreaming.

“Youssefi ordered him to return to Tehran if he couldn’t catch it, so he turned and headed back eastward. The object also reversed direction and began to chase the plane.”
Perhaps he meant westward. It seemed that they were heading east at the time. There is not enough info to be sure though.

“ Jafari reported “something is coming at me from behind. It is 15 miles away…now ten miles…now five miles…It is level now…I think it is going to crash into me…It has just passed me by…missing me narrowly..”
There are a lot of ellipsi. What is missing? They are still out east of Tehran and in the dark, only a thin crescent moon. He is saying that the bogey is chasing him and he is giving ranges every 5 miles from 15. The only way he can see the bogey is by the supposed lights on it. He can’t see an unlit object at all. Even under a full moon, he would have to be within a mile or so to see a shape. To be able to put an eyeball on it assuming it is about co-altitude, he has to turn enough to put it at his 5 or 7 o’clock. There is no depth perception out that far, he can’t radar paint it and he has absolutely no idea how far away it is. (An aside- since most of the chases were out to the east, why didn’t the General have Babolsar scramble one or two? They were a lot closer to the action. I assume that he was keeping a close eye on all this.}

They apparently get back to somewhere near town and south of it, where he turns into the bogey. At this time, he has been airborne over an hour at fairly high power settings and has been using burner for at least 5 min..maybe as much as 15 during his chase. He is not going to punch off his tanks unless he has permission from the General, and there is nothing in the narration that says that he did. By this time he is starting to get low on fuel.

“The object and the pursuing F-4 continued a course that was south of Tehran when another brightly lighted object estimated to be 1/2 to 1/3 the apparent size of the moon, came out of the original object.
This second object headed straight toward the F-4 at a very fast pace. The pilot attempted to fire an AIM-9 (heat seeking) missile at the object but at that instant his weapons control panel went off and he lost all communications (UHS and intercom). At this point the pilot initiated a turn and a negative G dive to get away. As he turned the object fell in trail at what appeared to be about 3-4 nm. As he continued in his turn away from the primary object the second object went to the inside of his turn and then returned to the primary object for a perfect rejoin”
OK, the bogey shoots what appears to be a missile, but the size estimation is extremely iffy as there is not much moonlight and the description of lit sounds like a propulsion device . How far away was the bogey at this time? He had to be very close to see the launch, but had to be at a long range for the missile to fall into trail at 3-4 miles. It appears that he is somewhere around the magic 25 mile difference, but at that distance, he won’t see a launch. He turns away and pushes over? He has to be far enough away to attempt to get the missile to his beam so as to dodge it, but then he pushes over. That would just solve the firing solution for the missile, because he just straightened out his flight path. . As he turns away, he should be inverted and pulling to break the solution, not doing a push over.

“. The pilot reported to Pirouzi that the secondary object started heading toward the airplane. At this time the pilot was approaching the airport and Pirouzi and the others at the control tower saw this happening. According to Pirouzi, “I saw this light for the first time, though only for a few seconds” after it first appeared. As the plane went “screaming” over the airport Pirouzi and the others saw a dark rectangular form almost “sitting” on top of the jet. It was at about this time that the communications were lost, cut off in mid-sentence. The plane then went into a diving turn and it wasn’t until the plane and object were over Saveh, about 15 miles south of the airport, that communications were re-established. Then the pilot reported to Pirouzi that the second object had broken off the chase and was traveling within a few meters of the first. Then he reported that they had rejoined, as described above.
“ Now according to the tower, this happened directly over the tower and that the missile chasing #2 was within about a hundred feet of the plane. But the pilot reports it is 3-4 miles behind him. The pilot then reports that the missile goes back to the bogey and formates within a few meters of it. To see this, #2 has to be within about a couple thousand feet of the bogey if they are still over the city, and if away from the city, within about two hundred feet. Remember there is only a sliver moon (probably about 30-40 degrees or so up by now, and it is still dark out away from the city lights. Did the bogey haul up close to #2? Previously, the bogey had been keeping both birds at about 25 miles. How high were they above the field, a thousand feet or so or around 20k ft area? For the tower to see both machines they had to be low but in the next event that immediately followed, they were at 26k feet. More high power maneuvering. By this time they had to be sucking fumes.

“The Air Force message continues, “The crew descended from their altitude of 26,000 ft to 15,000 ft and continued to observe and mark the object’s position. They had some difficulty in adjusting their night visibility for landing. “ [Note: this could be evidence of the great brightness of the object; their night vision problem would be like looking at the bright full moon for many seconds or a minute and then trying to see stars in the dark sky at a distance away from the moon.] “So, after orbiting Mehrebad a few times they went out for a straight-in landing. There was a lot of interference in the UHF and each time they passed through a magnetic bearing of 150 deg from Mehrebad they lost their communications (UHF and intercom) and the INS [inertial navigation system] fluctuated from 30 to 50 degrees. The one civil airliner that was approaching Mehrebad during this same time experienced communications failure in the same vicinity (Kilo Zulu) but did not report seeing anything.”
We now have the third gizmo drop to the ground and illuminate the area. This was close to the refinery. There is no indication of what was found the next day on the helicopter trip for either the flare or the beeper.. They then had some comm problems on the 150 radial that appeared to be at the reporting point KZ although it doesn’t actually say, and had problems with the INS platform. That indicates something on the ground in a hole jamming both the UHF and VHF frequencies. The INS? No idea. Was there a huge magnet? Probably not. (If the platform got dumped, then the show was over & they would immediately land if possible.) The description of the INS fluctuation 30-50 decrees does not state in which axis.

“While the F-4 was on a long final approach the crew noticed another cylinder shaped object (about the size of a T bird at 10,000 ft) with bright steady lights on each end and a flasher in the middle.”
It does not mention what color the lights were but all aircraft flying at night carry nav lights on the tips of the wings that are green and red, with a white light on the tail. There is also a red rotating beacon on the fuselage. By seeing this from below in the city light glare, it could look like the description, with the wings appearing to be a cylinder, the beacon in the center and the nav lights at the ends. It would have been about 6k ft above them. The aircrew should have known that it was another bird though.

Ok, a short class on the F-4 electrical system! I’m doing this from memory after 35 years, so bear with me. If anyone wants better information, let me know & I’ll dig my dash one out of the closet and go into detail.

All the systems on this airplane are late 1950’s technology. It has a generator on each engine that produces DC with a transformer that converts some of the power to AC, a battery, and a Ram Air Turbine (RAT) (the RAT is an emergency generator) that can be deployed to produce both DC and AC if both generators fail. There is also a bus tie so that if a generator fails, the other can pick up the total load. There are about five DC buses that run various lighting systems, some instruments, part of the weapons system, intercom and some pumps. There are some seven or eight AC buses that run the nav, comm, radar, platform, most of the weapons systems, and some delivery computers. There are various relays that latch each of the electrical sources to each other and to the different buses. There are also about a jillion circuit breakers for almost everything in the world, with almost all of them in the back seat.

Navigation consists of two components, the TACAN system, and the “platform” that carries the attitude information, electronic compass system and inertial navigation system. It gets its heading information from a fluxgate and TACAN information from, of course, the TACAN. The rest is internal. One of the shortcomings of the INS is the fact that the position drifts, so it can’t be used for precision nav. After two or so hours, the indicated position could be off by as much as a mile. The TACAN is a military system that reads a ground site and gets bearing and distance from the site. It does not have a VOR, ADF or ILS system, and is way too early for GPS. The radio is UHF only. The radar can be used for navigation, but is not designed for it.

The radar is made by Westinghouse and is what Henry (and Bob?) worked on. It’s analog, not digital, and is a hybrid system of solid state & tube (valve for our Brit friends) technology. A real EMP would have fried the semiconductors & knocked it out till repair, So Henry is right about self repair. The display is not the cathode ray tube that everyone thinks of as a radar display. It has what is called a storage tube and is designed for air to air. There is no gradation of the return display, there is just a return or not a return depending on what the gain level is. The backseater controls the level of return of the display and the elevation of the radar antenna with a couple of knobs. It is extremely hard to give a size of an unknown target using just the radar, simply by the way it is used, so the estimate of the bogey having a radar return of a tanker is somewhat of a guess without having looked at a target of a known size shortly before hand.

Interference
The easiest way to block communications is to transmit noise on the same frequency with more power than the radio you’re talking to. The effect is that you get blasted with constant noise. There was no indication in the story as to what the effects of the comm problems were. Since the problems were at the same location for both the commercial bird and #2, there may have been a dead spot in that area. It did not say the location of #1’s problem. Just not enough info. As for navigation, all that is necessary is to blast noise and the TACAN reception is knocked out. In fact, the TACAN will occasionally lose lock for short periods while just flying straight & level.
Radar jamming works much the same way in the search mode, except that modulation is not used. The effect on the display is a totally flooded area anywhere the radar horn can see the target. Any lobe will do. The operator knows that the target is there, he just doesn’t know where. The problem for the target on this one is that when the strength of the reflected return becomes greater than the strength of the transmitted return, then the target gets burnt through.
Finally, Chaff is the oldest method of jamming radar, and was used in WWII. Still effective

In the attack mode the most popular counter is what is called a gate stealer. It breaks your lock and you have to reacquire another lock for launching a Sparrow. I don’t think it is still classified, but I don’t know, so I won’t go there. There are other methods of playing with radars that I know of, more that I’ve heard of and don’t know how they work, and I don’t know how many that I’ve never heard of (take that Rumsfeld). B-52s and E-F/B-111s carried quite an arsenal of jamming & spoofing equipment. I know the Marine EA-6s also carried it but I have no idea how much or of what. For what it’s worth I don’t think that any US electronics or Soviet planes were there. But then, I don’t know.

Jamming the AIM-9 is simply drawing the seeker away from the target by providing another stronger IR source. Note the film clips of A-10s in Bagdad pulling off an ordnance delivery pass and kicking out a half dozen flares to spoof any Strellas. Radar is not needed for the AIM-9.

What happened with all the losing and regaining stuff? The exact instruments and their mode of failure are not indicated. The general description is not the way the electrical system would work. If you lose something like the systems, or instruments, even by something external, a circuit breaker normally pops, and the GIB has to reset it. When #2 tried to fire a Sidewinder, he said he lost the fire control panel and comm. I wonder if they had been on hot mike and someone switched to cold mike on the intercom. That would have given roughly the same effect at least for a short time. With the Sidewinder, did he have a growl or did he try to hose it off ballistically? If I remember correctly, the launch signal is on one of the DC buses, can be powered by only the battery and only needs the trigger pull if the switches are set correctly. The switches are all mechanical or relay and he didn’t indicate a total electrical loss. Again, Radar is not needed for Sidewinders If there was a failure on the weapons panel only, It should have been a circuit breaker pop with a need to reset. There was nothing mentioned. The fact that the panel failed at the exact time he tried to shoot is really suspicious. There is no way to tell that a Sidewinder is being launched from outside the plane. Also it is a short range weapon with a normal range of not more than about two miles. Why was he trying to shoot at a missile at a range of over ten miles? Even when the missile fell in behind him it was still out of range. He was a Colonel, so he had a lot of time in the bird even though he was no longer as proficient as a senior Captain or Major. And due to his experience, he shouldn’t get rattled like a Lt. might.

The telex is incomplete but looks normal although I was not familiar with them. Since the incident was odd, the normal list of addresses would be a shotgun approach to see if anyone in the world had any information. The next question is: what was the expertise of Lt. Col. Mooy. It appears that he was not an F-4 driver and may have not even been rated. He did what he was supposed to do by taking down the next day interview and sending it on. What was in the telex would have been a glaring indication of “strange, that doesn’t sound right” for someone familiar with the bird. It apparently went out without someone at MAAG who was familiar with the F-4 looking at it. I think the next day briefing was not the real debrief but one put on for the general. The real debrief would have taken place immediately after the flight.

My take on this is that apparently something odd happened, but the story is so garbled and error riddled that it can’t be used for anything.. It also seems that there is a lot missing from this story. Someone is spoofing someone?



I have gotten another link from a post in the thread, from Wickipedia org
/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident
I’ll use this for a few more comments, but I’m not going back & editing.

This version has the Air Force Command Post getting the civilian call first instead of the tower. So who got the calls and who were the aircrews really talking. to? My opinion is that civilians in the area would not have the phone number of the command post, so it was the tower they talked to. The aircrews? Who knows.

#1 aircrew Captain Mohammad Reza Azizkhani, & Yaddi Nazeri
#2 aircrew Lieutenant Parviz Jafari & ??

So at this time, Jafari was not a Col. but a Lt. Considering that he was a new guy, I think that he got himself into a tight spot, flubbed his switch settings, and then tried to cover his ass. What he was seeing, I have no idea, but it seems he saw something. (When we practiced air-to-air, there was usually other stuff hanging on the pylons, so we did not do the switch drill. When the only task for the flight was air-to-air, and carried captive missiles or empty pylons, we did do the switch drill. As a result, early in the flights, there was usually some switch errors that negated a successful kill, usually by not turning on the master arm switch). My guess is that he got into the habit of not doing switches, and tried to do an AIM-9 launch with the missile still safed. Or even, tried to launch it with the pickle button rather than the trigger. He seemed to be excited at that point.

In this version, the tower chief says that #2 was about 2500 ft when he went over the tower with the bogey, not its missile, in close trail. The first description is that of a dark rectangle without mentioning lights. The description of the object on Wiki resembles that of the object seen while #2 was on final approach, resembling an aircraft with nav lights and rotating beacon. Again, if it was an aircraft, they should have recognized it as such, so I’m not going to speculate. Extra question: nowhere does it indicate that either of the F-4s were flying blacked out, so did they stay lit during all this?

One other thing that he stated was that he tried to eject but the “eject button” didn’t work. This is another major “I call major BS” item. There is no such thing as an eject button. The ejection system is totally mechanical. There are two handles for ejection, one between your legs on the front of the seat in the form of a large triangular ring The other is a curtain on the top of the seat with a circular ring at each front.corner. All mechanical by rods, pneumatics, explosive charges and rockets.

I would like to see what both pilots’ total time in type and night time in the last quarter was. It might explain at least a little if they were ultra low time.

My take still stands. Due to the munged information on the aircraft side, I’m guessing that the rest would be just as bad, and I think that it would be useless as proof of anything.
 
So at this time, Jafari was not a Col. but a Lt. Considering that he was a new guy, I think that he got himself into a tight spot, flubbed his switch settings, and then tried to cover his ass. What he was seeing, I have no idea, but it seems he saw something. (When we practiced air-to-air, there was usually other stuff hanging on the pylons, so we did not do the switch drill. When the only task for the flight was air-to-air, and carried captive missiles or empty pylons, we did do the switch drill. As a result, early in the flights, there was usually some switch errors that negated a successful kill, usually by not turning on the master arm switch). My guess is that he got into the habit of not doing switches, and tried to do an AIM-9 launch with the missile still safed. Or even, tried to launch it with the pickle button rather than the trigger. He seemed to be excited at that point.

This is interesting and reminded me of a story my father told me when he was on the Lake Champlain in Korea. He was an AO3 or something like that and a Banshee/Panther (I can't recall which) came back with most of it's ammunition from the cannon/MGs or bombs still aboard. My father and his compatriots went over the plane and could not find out why the guns did not fire/the ordinance did not drop/arm. It turns out the pilot was a new Ensign, and despite claiming that he did not screw up, it was determined by the group that he was the reason the oridinance did not work. He implied that this was not unusual and this happened at various times with other pilots. Most of the time it was not the weaponry but the pilots that caused the failure.

Thanks for the information about the electrical systems as well (as an Electonics Tech I found it pretty informative). I recall seeing an episode of "DOGFIGHTS" where Cunningham was flying his F-4 after being practically destroyed by a SAM. They lost just about everything and still kept the bird flying until they got over the water so they would not end up in a Vietnam POW camp. It seems the Phantom tended to be able to survive heavy damage.
 
... Quoted to give credit and sniped to save space...

Great post Puddle Duck.
For me (as a non flyer, non expert in the military), the biggest immediate red flag was the bit about the ejector seat not working. With no technical expertise in the actual mechanical system used, my thought was that no one would even attempt to eject from a flyable plane. But now as you point out, if he pulled the mechanical lever and it failed to 'go off', is he left with the 'ring pull' part in his hand with the possibility that he is now sat on an armed explosive seat that could go off (for instance when it's out of range of the UFO that is claimed to have caused the system failure) at any time?

Regarding the rest of your analysis - Maybe what we need is a flight plan worked out from the descriptions of speed, direction etc. I'm not well enough versed in doing stuff like that to attempt it though.
 
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Presenting possibilities that are easily refuted by the evidence IS unscientific – unless you have compelling counter-evidence – which of course you do not. And certainly, the peer review process has comprehensively refuted your assertions on the matter.
In light of the new technical analysis done by Puddle Duck, I think my thoughts are quite well laid out and have not been "comprehensively refuted" at this point.

Your constant refusal to accept that this story could be a mish mash of ambiguity wrapped up in sensationalisation speaks volumes about how you manage to cling to your religious belief in Alien Craft.
 
In light of the new technical analysis done by Puddle Duck, I think my thoughts are quite well laid out and have not been "comprehensively refuted" at this point.

Your constant refusal to accept that this story could be a mish mash of ambiguity wrapped up in sensationalisation speaks volumes about how you manage to cling to your religious belief in Alien Craft.


So we're over 2800 posts into this thread. The opening poster made a claim that aliens exist, and stated with confidence that he would bring the evidence to support that claim. He tried with the Rogue River sighting, and gave us nothing but arguments from ignorance and incredulity. He was unable to demonstrate his contention that mundane explanations couldn't apply. Totally failed.

Then he moved to the Iran incident, and again offered arguments from ignorance and incredulity, nothing more. Extreme doubt has been cast on the descriptions of the incident which he's relied on to support his incredulity. And now we know, because of all the apparent factual errors in his description of the incident, that much of his argument is based on ignorance, again. Another total failure.

Seems you're using a lot of words to get nowhere, Rramjet. You've lost your argument with the Rogue River and you've lost your argument with Iran. Where to next?
 
As if it were necessary to remind and repeat....

... that's the problem with testimonies on a matter of this sort. Everytime a witness reports fantastic UFO stories, and independant data becomes available for assessment, we discover plenty of errors, mistakes and inaccuracies.

Sometimes the witness is trying to decieve, most times the witness decieve themselves. There's nothing unusual in the former and nothing bad on the latter, it's just human nature. But it speaks volumes on the low reliability of testimonies.

Well, but you all knew this already, ..... with some exceptions, that is.
 
So we're over 2800 posts into this thread. The opening poster made a claim that aliens exist, and stated with confidence that he would bring the evidence to support that claim. He tried with the Rogue River sighting, and gave us nothing but arguments from ignorance and incredulity. He was unable to demonstrate his contention that mundane explanations couldn't apply. Totally failed.

Then he moved to the Iran incident, and again offered arguments from ignorance and incredulity, nothing more. Extreme doubt has been cast on the descriptions of the incident which he's relied on to support his incredulity. And now we know, because of all the apparent factual errors in his description of the incident, that much of his argument is based on ignorance, again. Another total failure.

Seems you're using a lot of words to get nowhere, Rramjet. You've lost your argument with the Rogue River and you've lost your argument with Iran. Where to next?

You forgot his brief flirtation with the Mexico City hoax video, where he presented Maccabee as refuting the analysis that the video had been hoaxed, when in fact Maccabee simply found frames in the video where the effect discovered through analysis was visible to the naked eye.
 
Interference
The easiest way to block communications is to transmit noise on the same frequency with more power than the radio you’re talking to. The effect is that you get blasted with constant noise. There was no indication in the story as to what the effects of the comm problems were. Since the problems were at the same location for both the commercial bird and #2, there may have been a dead spot in that area. It did not say the location of #1’s problem. Just not enough info. As for navigation, all that is necessary is to blast noise and the TACAN reception is knocked out. In fact, the TACAN will occasionally lose lock for short periods while just flying straight & level.
Radar jamming works much the same way in the search mode, except that modulation is not used. The effect on the display is a totally flooded area anywhere the radar horn can see the target. Any lobe will do. The operator knows that the target is there, he just doesn’t know where. The problem for the target on this one is that when the strength of the reflected return becomes greater than the strength of the transmitted return, then the target gets burnt through.
Finally, Chaff is the oldest method of jamming radar, and was used in WWII. Still effective


Interestingly the shah of Iran was recommended by Richard Hallock of RAND to set up an AWACs system in 1973.

The shah considered the choice excellent as a way of saving money - 7 airborne radar systems meaning they could economize on the 30 ground systems.

From: The Life and Times of the Shah - By Gholam Reza Afkhami

In August of 1973, the Shah selected to buy the F-14 Tomcat, The F-14 is also used as a mini-Awacs aircraft with its powerful AN/AWG-9 radar, and the sale was approved by the US government in November of 1973.
The Iranian Tomcat was virtually identical to the US Navy version, with only a few classified avionics items being omitted.
The base site for Iranian Tomcat operations was at Isfahan - roughly 300km South of Terhan.
The first of 80 Tomcats arrived in Iran in January of 1976.

Puddle Duck – and hear! hear! a great post by the way – could these Tomcats have been used to jam the radars as part of a training exercise? It might also explain why a General was 'sitting alert' and not merely ticking boxes.
 
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Occam's Razor rules out any alien UFOs. The explanation with the least amount of assumptions is usually correct. And if the explanation requires more extraordinary, more complicated questions to answer the hypothesis, then usually there's nothing there to explain.
 
The provenance here is simply NOT in question.
Umm... before you go jumping to conclusions again. Wait, too late…

I just found what I was looking for… an actual copy of Mooy's "Memorandum for the Record”, and more importantly, the responsive letter to Klass from Mooy’s Commander it was originally attached to.

Stay tuned…

(short on time and still digesting Puddle Duck’s most excellent post)
 
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From what I understand the explanation for many UFO's, especially in the southwest, is also related to military experimental vehicles and aircraft. Anyone got any actual info on this to show the believers?
 
From what I understand the explanation for many UFO's, especially in the southwest, is also related to military experimental vehicles and aircraft. Anyone got any actual info on this to show the believers?
Well, here’s one early example…

(from the unclassified CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 by Gerald K. Haines available at the CIA website)

CIA's U-2 and OXCART as UFOs
In November 1954, CIA had entered into the world of high technology with its U-2 overhead reconnaissance project. Working with Lockheed's Advanced Development facility in Burbank, California, known as the Skunk Works, and Kelly Johnson, an eminent aeronautical engineer, the Agency by August 1955 was testing a high-altitude experimental aircraft--the U-2. It could fly at 60,000 feet; in the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew between 10,000 feet and 20,000 feet. Consequently, once the U-2 started test flights, commercial pilots and air traffic controllers began reporting a large increase in UFO sightings. (44) (U)

The early U-2s were silver (they were later painted black) and reflected the rays from the sun, especially at sunrise and sunset. They often appeared as fiery objects to observers below. Air Force BLUE BOOK investigators aware of the secret U-2 flights tried to explain away such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature inversions. By checking with the Agency's U-2 Project Staff in Washington, BLUE BOOK investigators were able to attribute many UFO sightings to U-2 flights. They were careful, however, not to reveal the true cause of the sighting to the public.

According to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 project and the OXCART (SR-71, or Blackbird) project, over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights (namely the U-2) over the United States. (45) This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project. While perhaps justified, this deception added fuel to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy of the 1970s. The percentage of what the Air Force considered unexplained UFO sightings fell to 5.9 percent in 1955 and to 4 percent in 1956.
The rest of the report should be required reading for anyone interested in the subject of UFOs and "disclosure"…
 
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