The principals in the Tehran UFO incident
Sighting Date: September 19th 1976.
Location: Area surrounding Tehran city, Iran
First hand witness accounts
Houssain Pirouzi, tower controller, Mehrabad airport (source: interview by John Checkley via MUFON)
(
http://www.mufon.com/famous_cases/1976 Iran Part 1 MUFON Case File.pdf)
Pirouzi received calls from 4 civilians reporting UFOs.
He looks northeast for a UFO and sees it through binoculars.
He describes it as cylindrical and bright and flashing blue, orange, red and yellow (in cycle) and it then changing its shape to resemble a “starfish”.
Pirouzi also describes the UFO as moving towards the north, very, very slowly and then “Suddenly, it appeared at another position one mile further on.”
Then 4 civilian planes began reporting an emergency distress signal (BOAC, Swissair, Lufthansa and Iranian Airlines).
General Yousefi (the “senior officer responsible on duty”) was called by a duty officer and the General called Pirouzi back.
Pirouzi reports that the General also saw the UFO “from the porch of his house” and then ordered an F-4 from “Hamadan” (Hamadan is the town and Shahrokhi airbase is about 20miles NNE of Hamadan) into the air.
(UFO now at 15000 feet to the NE of Tehran).
Pirouzi “I was getting instruction from Gen. Yousefi and passing them on to the pilot”. Thus we can assume Pirouzi was passing on information from the F-4 to the General.
The F-4 reports reaching Mach 2 but cannot catch the UFO.
Both UFO and F-4 were now “heading toward the border with Afghanistan” so Pirouzi orders the jet to turn back. He does so.
However, the UFO “had beaten him back” and was now again in front of the F-4 over Tehran!
The pilot reported that “every time he came close to the object, it affected his radio and all his instruments” (including “navigation aids”). He also reported receiving “some emergency signals”.
The pilot reports his fuel is now running short and will have to return to base.
UFO now 15 miles from Mehrabad tower at about 12000 feet.
A second F-4 had already been sent up and the pilot (we now know was squadron leader, Major Jafari) called the second plane “You go back to base … I’ll follow the object”.
This means of course that the second F-4 pilot (Jafari) KNEW what was happening to the first (a critical point).
Second F-4 is still 100 miles from UFO at this time.
General Yousefi orders Jafari to orbit at 15000 feet.
Jafari reports UFO “keeps changing position very fast indeed. I cannot follow the path of the object … he appears here, suddenly he appears there, and I can’t track him”.
Priouzi reports “We could all see the object with the naked eye” (there were others in the tower with him).
Jafari reports the object now “… divided into two and an illuminated object has separated and is following me.”
Jafari flies over Mehrabad tower and Pirouzi reports seeing this second light, for the first time “500 feet above and just behind him”.
Jafari reports the second object now “rejoins” the first and “They now appear to be discussing together”.
UFO and second object now (according to Pirouzi) about 15 miles from the tower.
Jafari then reports “Now they have joined together”.
Jafari decides to return to base because it was “too dangerous to go any closer” because “every time he got close, his navigation and electronics systems went crazy”.
Jafari then reports that the object has again split in two and “the illuminated” part has “settled on the ground” (according to Pirouzi) to the southeast of Tehran “near a place called Rey”.
Interestingly Pirouzi denies that Jafari tried to fire on the UFO.
According to Checkley “The air traffic controller made his report to Air Force headquarters the next day, in which he reported full details of the arial battle of wits, including the fact that both pilots reported their navigation aids and their missile-firing equipment both went out of action when they got close to the UFO.”
NOTE: Interestingly I discovered a video of a UFO from Brazil (30 Dec 1990) that looks almost exactly like the droopy starfish shape Pirouzi describes (and draws) (
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t3s0_ovni-a-niteroi-bresil-30dec-1992_tech). Now here is a repeat of a UFO of the same description! (and who said there were no discernible patterns to be found in the study of UFOs!).
NOTE:
Brigadier General Abdullah Yousefi was senior officer in charge on the night and in direct phone contact with tower controller Pirouzi during the incident.
Major Parviz Jafari, pilot of the second F4 (source: Press club statement and interview) (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJydT3AZ370) and (
http://www.iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/parviz-jafari-2)
There also exists a highly detailed moment to moment account by Jafari in an (as yet unpublished) forthcoming book by Leslie Kean [Random House] (source: The Paracast 18th Oct. 2009, 19:38) (
http://www.theparacast.com/show-archives/)
Jafari confirms the substance of what Pirouzi reports but adds details – including the claim that he DID try to fire on the UFO but that his missile systems failed when he did this. This may seem inconsistent but Pirouzi is actually CORRECT in that a missile was NOT fired. Pirouzi’s language in his denial is also VERY interesting. He stated that “The pilot did not
try to fire on it” (italics added). Now WHY would he have stated “try”? - unless he actually
knew that a
failed attempt HAD been made! Otherwise he would simply have stated that the pilot “did not fire” on the UFO. And besides, why even
mention the (attempted) missile firing thing if he was not being defensive? Thus the seeming inconsistency here IS explicable; Pirouzi WAS being defensive (probably not knowing if Jafari had reported the incident in HIS “debriefing”).
Henry & Bob, avionics engineers (source: interview by Dr Bruce Maccabee)
(
http://www.brumac.8k.com/IranJetCase/) Maccabee reports (“When I talked to Henry in late 1982…”) “Several days after that, he and co-workers were allowed to examine the planes. They found that all the electronics were operating normally. This was surprising, considering what the pilots reported had happened during the chase!”
Accrding to Maccabee “Henry was a Westinghouse Corporation avionics engineer stationed at Shaharoki AFB where he participated with the IIAF in maintaining the operation of the radar and other electronics in the F-4 jets.”
“The same thing happened at Mehrebad where the second jet landed. Bob, another Westinghouse avionics engineer, was not allowed to examine the jet for several days after the incident. However, the Iranians did examine it during the day after it landed and subsequently told him that everything was OK. Four days after the incident Henry was allowed to examine the first jet and Bob was allowed to examine the second jet. They could find no problem with the avionics or radar. Henry told me that there was no possibility that the Iranians had switched radar systems (taken out the system used during the chase and replaced it with another system) because the Westinghouse engineers had kept track of the system serial numbers. The serial numbers were all the same. Hence the Westinghouse engineers had to agree with the Iranians that the jet chase had occurred, apparently with “self-repairing” failures of the avionics on two jets when in the vicinity of the UFO. Bob told me that he had worked on radar systems such as on the F-4 for many years and had never had a self-repairing failure such as reported by the Iranian pilots.”
Second hand accounts
General Abdullah Azarbarzin deputy operations commander in chief of the imperial Iranian Air Force (source: John Cathcart via MUFON)
(
http://www.mufon.com/famous_cases/1976 Iran Part 1 MUFON Case File.pdf)
Confirms the story and adds details such as:
“Q: Is it true that they were unable to fire their missile?
A: No, they could not because they had very strong jamming.
Q: Jamming – some jamming you obviously couldn’t find a reason for?
A: No we couldn’t because that happened to both of them – and one airliner, which was flying in the area at the time.
Q: Right. The equipment on the airliner was also jammed?
A: Well, yes, it was jammed. Of course, they only had radio.”
So he too is under the impression that (at least one) pilot
tried to fire on the UFO but “could not because they had very strong jamming”.
Lieutenant Colonel Olin Mooy (Memorandum for the Record) (MUFON via FOI requests)(
http://www.mufon.com/famous_cases/1976 Iran Part 1 MUFON Case File.pdf)
Mooy was invited to sit in on the interview with the pilot of the second F-4 major Jafari. Thus he had a firsthand account from which to draw information from and also General Yousefi states:
“Q: Are you planning g to take further action?
A: No, no, we do not but we have - - all we have done we have given all the information - - of course that was the request from U.S. We have given all this information to our MAAG. I think they send it to the organisation in the Sates and - - we haven’t done anything since that time.”
Meaning of course that he (or the Iranian intelligence) passed ALL the information they had onto Mooy (who WAS the MAAG representative in Iran at the time)! So Mooy had ALL the pertinent information about the case from which he then constructed the Memorandum for the Record. Mooy then obviously passed this memorandum to Colonel Frank B. McKenzie.
NOTE: The Memorandum for he Record is ESSENTIAL reading for anyone who wants to understand the case.
Colonel Frank B. McKenzie, the defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran at the time, with some minor editing, created what is now known as “The Routing Slip” (
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/routing_slip_ufo_iran.pdf)
which is practically a word for word copy of Mooy’s memorandum.
The Routing Slip was sent to various US agencies including the DIA where Air Force
Major Roland B. Evans (who was then stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska) wrote an “assessment” of the Routing Slip for the DIA. Evans, in his professional capacity, concluded that the information it contained was “reliable” (confirmed by other sources) and of “high” value as “current intelligence”. Also that the “credibility” of the witnesses was high” and that the visual sightings were “confirmed by radar”.
According to Bob Pratt (a National Enquirer reporter) who interviewed Evans (“I phoned Major Evans in January 1979”), “I was an intelligence analyst," said Major Evans. "This (Iran incident) came through as a routine intelligence analysis. I was given the report because my field is electronic warfare. The DIA intelligence community is broken up by region. Within each region we have some specialties. I was in the Middle East region and I was an air defense expert. I was given this particular case because of my electronic warfare and air defense field.”
“This was a classic case because everything that was bizarre about it was confirmed with real sources," he told me. "We don't have this capability to jam all these systems simultaneously.”
In his evaluation of the Tehran case, filed October 12, 1976, and approved by a civilian superior, Clifford J. Souther, Major Evans stated:
"An outstanding report! This case is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of the UFO phenomenon:
"(a) The object was seen by multiple witnesses from different locations (i.e. Shemiran, Mehrabad, and the dry lake bed) and viewpoints (both) airborne and from the ground.
"(b) The credibility of many of the witnesses was high (an air force general, qualified aircrews and experienced tower operators)
"(c) Visual sightings were confirmed by radar.
"(d) Similar electromagnetic effects (EME) were reported by three separate aircraft.
"(e) There were physiological effects in some crew members (i.e., loss of night vision due to the brightness of the object).
"(f) An inordinate amount of maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs.”
The UFO's ability to jam several systems simultaneously greatly impressed Major Evans, who said this was the only UFO case he had evaluated in his four years with the DIA.
"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 manoeuvrable 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)
The above then represents the principle witnesses and documents in the case. The above also represents the substantive FACTS of the case. ALL other representations of the case are derived principally from the above sources.
There are of course other researchers involved (like Klass) and documents that are secondary to the case (like newspaper reports, most of which may be accessed at (
http://www.mufon.com/famous_cases/1976 Iran Part 1 MUFON Case File.pdf) and finally there was also the
Now you see it article by Captain Henry S. Shields, ASAFE/INOMP) (
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/now_you_see.pdf) which can also be found in its original context (in the USAF Security Service MIJI Quarterly Journal) at the MUFON case file site (as already cited above (
http://www.mufon.com/famous_cases/1976 Iran Part 1 MUFON Case File.pdf).
Now that we have the principle sources sorted out we can investigate questions about the case more coherently.
