Somewhere in the Skies - The Tehran UFO Incident

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

On episode 168 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we are heading to Iran. In 1976, strange lights were being sighted over the city of Tehran. After dozens of reports, the Iranian Air Force sent up several fighter jets to investigate. General Parvis Jafari would attempt to identify the lights, soon discovering it was much more than just lights in the sky. He would soon be involved in one of the most tense standoffs with a UFO ever reported, and the subsequent investigation that would include the Iranian Air Force, the United States Air Force, the DIA, CIA, and NSA. What exactly was seen in the skies that day, and why did it seem that the United States wanted control of the entire investigation? This is the extraordinary story of the Tehran UFO Incident. Voiceover talent provided by Roman Alec Trevino and Conor J. Nolan Support the podcast with a one-time contribution. There's no commitment and you can tip as little or as much as you'd like when you like: https://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies The updated and expanded edition of Somewhere in the Skies is now available! Order now in paperback or E-book. To purchase, and to leave a rating and review, CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at www.CWseed.com Episode edited by Jane Palomera Moore Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE Sources: https://www.thinkanomalous.com/tehran-ufo.html https://www.scribd.com/document/287537295/The-Bob-Pratt-Files https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/now_you_see.pdf https://www.key.aero/combataircraft https://www.mufon.com/iranian-airforce-ufo-intercept---1976.html Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan's bread. September 18th, 1976, Tehran, Iran. It was approximately 10.30 p.m. when the first phone call came in to Hussein Peruzi, a night shift supervisor at the air traffic control tower at the Mirabod Airport. He was training a small group of air controllers at the time. His lesson, however, was soon interrupted by a phone call coming in from a civilian in the area. The voice of a concerned woman came over the receiver as she reported to him that she was seeing a strange object like a sun in the sky, about a thousand meters above her. The colors of the object changed from blue to orange to red to yellow.

It was interesting, but these misidentifications happened all. All the time. Peruzi was quick to discount the event. I told her we didn't have any aircraft in that area. Our radar was not working. It was out of operation for maintenance, so we had nothing on radar either. I did nothing about it then because I was busy with overflying aircraft, and frankly, I thought she was seeing a star.

Peruzi went back to work, brushing off the call and getting back to his lesson with his trainees. But then, the phone rang again. It was a different woman now reporting a similar object in the sky. Along with her young child, the woman reported seeing a strange object lighting up, changing direction, splitting in two, and then merging back together. I began to wonder what was happening. I asked my trainees if they could see anything.

They couldn't. We told the woman the same theory of a star and returned to work. But then another... their call came in and another. strange-lighted object hovering above the city, and they wanted answers. Peruzi was set on giving them an answer, so he made his way onto the terrace of the flight tower, binoculars in hand, and tried to locate the object himself. He expected to see a bright, gaseous star staring back at him, but it soon became clear

that this object was not a distant star. In fact, it didn't appear. appear to be that distant at all. I saw the object in the northeast part of Tehran. It was a rectangular shape about five miles away at a height of about 6,000 feet. The right end was blue, the left end was blue, and in the middle was a flashing red light. The object was sea-sawing up and down and moving towards the north very, very slowly. Peruzzi was intrigued. The erratic behavior left him very curious as well.

But even more curious was that the object suddenly disappeared and then reappeared a mile or so away in mere seconds. It was stunningly bright, but he was able to make out a shape of the object. It appeared to be almost starfish-shaped. To reassure him that he wasn't hallucinating, he handed the binoculars over to one of the trainees to corroborate what he was seeing. The trainee was seeing the same exact thing. Peruzi was concerned at this point because no aircraft was scheduled to land,

and this thing surely looked like it was getting closer and closer to the restricted airspace. But there was something that concerned Peruzi even more. Several aircraft were due to cross into our flight information region, and this object was clearly in the space where this was to happen. The incoming flights began to contact us by radio, concerned as they were hearing emergency signals coming from an automatic, aircraft distress transmitter. The first report in was a B-O-A-C airliner, who called and asked if an aircraft had crashed

in the area because he was indeed receiving an automatic signal. Peruzi assured him there was no crashed aircraft, nor had any made a forced landing. Then came several other calls, including a Swiss airplane, a Luftanzah, and an Iran Airlines plane, all reporting having heard the emergency signal. It was now clear that Peruzi had to do something for the safety of all the flights in the area, and perhaps even more importantly, for the entire city of Tehran. I decided to report the whole thing to the local Air Force headquarters, because by now I was getting really worried. A little after midnight, I explained the situation to one of the officers on duty, and he relayed the information to Brigadier-Juards.

General Abdullah Yosefi, the senior officer in charge that night. Not a half hour later, the general himself phoned me back and told me he personally went outside to try to observe the object. His exact words to me were, that's definitely not a star. General Abdullah Yusefi knew that an investigation by the Iranian Air Force was now the only option to determine what could possibly be a threat to the city of Tehran. He ordered an four-Fantom fighter jet from Sharoki Air Force Base into the air, to get a better look at the potentially dangerous object. Piloted by Captain Muhammad Reza Aziz Kani, the Phantom Jet made its way towards the supposed object. Aziz Kani reported that the object was of such brilliance

that it could be seen from almost 70 miles away. It appeared to be rectangular in shape, and judging by the distance, it was very very large. very, very large. The pilot increased his velocity, attempting to get a closer look, but even surpassing Mach 2 speeds, he couldn't catch up to this unbelievably fast object, as it hurtled to the boundaries of Tehran. Unable to observe the object at a discernible distance, Azizcani was ordered back to base. As he was about 150 miles away, the pilot then noticed. that the object had suddenly reappeared directly above the city of Tehran.

It had somehow traveled an impossible distance at impossible speeds. He headed towards the object again as it seemed to have stopped mid-flight. As he approached at about 25 nautical miles, his navigational equipment on board began to malfunction. He veered away from the object and the equipment would returned to normal, but every time he got close, it would shut down again. Confused and obviously concerned, Aziz Kani had no choice but to return to base entirely. After landing and reporting what he'd seen, Aziz Kani quite shaken also reported the instrumentation malfunctions

whenever he was within a certain proximity to the object. This is when General Yusefi ordered a different pilot and different plane to be scrambled. The plan was to see if it was faulty equipment, or if this object was actually affecting the planes. Within 15 minutes, Lieutenant Parvice Jafari, a major and squadron commander, was suited up, got in a different F4 Phantom, and took off in the vicinity the object was last seen in.

As the tower below radioed that they did indeed have the object tracked on radar. They triangulated it, and soon Jafari sped towards it. I approached the object which was flashing with intense red, green, orange, and blue. The light was so bright that I was not able to see its body. The sequence of flashes was extremely fast like a strobe light. We locked on it with red light. radar at 38 degrees left, at range of 25 miles. The size on the radar scope was comparable to the 807 tanker.

As he closed in on the object, he could make out a faint diamond shape to it, with lights on all points of the diamond. Then he noticed that these lights at the points begin to disconnect from the main object, advancing towards Jafari's jet. This is when things got both interesting and downright terrifying. Four other objects with different shapes separated from the main one at different times during the close encounter. Whenever they were close to me, my weapon were jammed

and my radio communications were garbled. One of the object had. it toured me, I thought it was a missile. I tried to launch a heat-seeker missile to it, but my missile panel went out. Jafari wasn't quite sure how to proceed. He had no defense if this object decided to actually fire a weapon on him. It steadfastly moved towards him. Jafari had no functioning missiles and no communication with the tower. He became very frightened at this point. If this object got any closer, he genuinely believed he would have to eject from the plane.

But looking at his ejection equipment, even this was malfunctioning. To avoid a head-on collision with the object, Jafari banked hard left to avoid it. He turned to look out his window, and the object was completely gone out of sight. But before he could even take in this impossibility, another one of the detached objects began circling the plane. Jafari accelerated and tried to get away from the object, but it continued following him. This was the most unusual cat-and-mouse game he'd ever experienced in the air.

And he wasn't even sure if this thing was a plane, a threat or even from this world. Watching as the object caught up to him, he made a quick negative G nose dive and the object shot past him and disappeared. Having literally risked his life to merely dodge this oncoming object, and with his instrumentation failing at every turn,

Jafari finally got a signal on his radio to talk to the town. Two of two of foreign lines of foreign-jee, In general Yusefi to head off her to base. As Jafari began his descent, he looked back to back to still see the main diamond-shaped object hanging stationary in the air. Suddenly, another object separated from it and started heading towards Jafari. But instead of targeting him, it headed towards the ground. One of the separated object landed in an open area radiating a high bright light in which the sands on the ground were visible. Some 15 miles from the ground, Jafari expected some sort of explosion as the object hurtled downward.

But to a surprise, there was a radiating bright light. and the object actually slowed down and seemed to make a gentle planned landing near Ray oil refinery in the city of Maribaba below. After reporting all of this to General Yusefi back at the tower, Yusefie said they'd seen the object land as well and made one last effort to have Jafari fly over and see if he could make any discernible observations of the impact site

and see just exactly what the object. object could be. Jafari, excited and still on guard, took the order and headed over where he saw it land. As soon as he got close, his radio once again went dead, and his instruments went haywire. When he finally got a good distance from the object, the radio returned, and General Yusefie finally ordered Jafari to come back to base. Upon his return to the command center, Jafari was escorted directly to the flight tower, where he was told that while he was landing, the main diamond-shaped object in the sky had suddenly disappeared within an instant.

With excitement and confusion filling the room, they thought it best for Jafari to get some rest and make an official report the next morning. As the early hours rolled on, Jafari returned to headquarters to give an extensive interview to several Iranian generals and an individual from the United States. This was one Colonel Olin Moy, a U.S. Air Force officer with the U.S. military advisory and assistance group posted in Tehran. Jafari explained everything moment by moment as Moy continued taking extensive notes. When Jafari got to the part where he attempted to fire missiles on the object, but couldn't, Moy simply told him, you're probably lucky you couldn't fire on it. After this statement, Jafari had many questions for this U.S. colonel,

as it seemed he knew more about what this could possibly be than he was. was letting on. During my interview at headquarters, after the incident, the American Lieutenant Colonel Alamoi took notes, but after it was over, I could not find him to talk with. The investigation into the object that either gently crashed or landed on the ground was still a big source of interest, and possibly even a remaining threat. An emergency signal, both with the Iranian Air Force and other aircraft in the area, was still being reported. These signals are known as a squawk.

It's a sound similar to the beeping of an ambulance or police car and indicates to any planes in the vicinity of an incident that there was either a crash landing or a pilot had to eject from an aircraft. This particular squawk had gone on for days after the object touched. down on the ground. So where was it, and what in the hell had now landed on the outskirts of Tehran? After a close medical examination and permission to return into the air, Jafari accompanied a helicopter pilot to the area where he'd witnessed the object land. The emergency squawks continued. Something had to be down there. They landed in the vicinity and began a thorough search of the ground. Jafari looked for

burned areas on the ground or an impact site, but he found nothing. The ground was as smooth as ever, and Jafari was confused and concerned. He went so far as to knock on the doors of several small homes in the area, inquiring if anyone had seen or heard anything happened the night prior. Several residents reported having heard a powerful rumbling at one point during the night that shook the walls. But it was brief and no crashed aircraft or explosion site had been witnessed or found. For weeks after the event, with no more answers, Jafari was ordered to base to give countless interviews to scientists and members of the Iranian Air Force. He was tested for radioactivity on several occasions and had to undergo blood tests every month for almost half a year.

The interviews Jafari gave were redundant but concise, and when he'd ask where the information was going, he was told that it wasn't a need to know for a pilot. It would soon become clear where the information was going, and who had taken over the official documentation of the Tehran UFO incident? The United States in 10,000. intelligence agencies. Later once classified document was released through the Freedom of Information Act, the Defense Intelligence Agency documented the event in great detail, and it was sent to NSA, the White House, and the CIA.

This is where things get really interesting. Having what we can assume some connection to the fact that the Iranian Air Force fighter jets, were purchased from the United States and manufactured by American industry. What exactly was it in the skies of Tehran that had both outmaneuvered and directly affected the instrumentation and weapons on our most sophisticated fighter jets? But more importantly, why was all this information being passed on to the U.S. agencies in such a regimented manner? In an interview with Lieutenant General Abdullah Azar Barzine,

then deputy commander-in-chief of operations for the Imperial Iranian Air Force. He stated, Both jets had locked on to the object with their radars, but had received very strong jamming, as had an airliner passing through the area at the time. One phantom pilot got close enough to see the size, shape, and color of the UFO. As of this day, we don't know what the object or objects were that were in the sky, but we did what was protocol at the time. We passed all the information on to the UFO.

the U.S. Air Force. But the question still remained. Why? We have this procedure. If we have information on UFOs, we exchange it. We gave all the information to the U.S. Of course, that was the request from the U.S. We have given all this information to our MAAG.

I think they send it to organizations in the United States. This would explain the presence of MAAG, or the military advisory and assistance group and that of Colonel Olin Moy at the briefing Jafari had been a part of. But the Air Force is one thing. How did a UFO report in Tehran then make its way to the desks of several intelligence agencies and eventually even the White House? It seemed to have started with a classified message sent to the Pentagon by Colonel Frank B. McKenzie,

the defense attache at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. In the message, it followed the same string of events and details, as seen in Colonel Olin Moy's report as well. The document itself was finally declassified and released, largely through the persistent efforts of Charles Huffer, an American mathematics teacher at the U.S. Armed Forces High School in Berlin. He spent months while on vacation in 1977 filing Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals. He went so far as going to the Pentagon and physically knocked on doors, office to office,

attempting to get any information he could on this highly intriguing UFO incident. When the Pentagon finally declassified and released the Iran UFO message from Colonel McKenzie, It matched most of the documents that had already been made public. However, there were a few interesting revelations, which included McKenzie's message being sent to the Defense Intelligence Agency, which then retransmitted it to the CIA, the NSA, the Secretary of State, and ultimately the White House. And this was all under what was considered standard procedure.

For many years, American and Canadian military forces operated under J-Nap 146E, or the Joint Army, Navy, and Air Force procedures for reporting vital intelligence sightings. One portion of this requires reports to the Pentagon on any UFO incidents involving military installations, equipment, or personnel, and includes two and a half pages of specials. specific details to check for on unidentified flying objects. Because of our planes being part of an international affair, it would only make sense that this policy be put into place for such a dramatic UFO encounter. Another important side note to all of this is that the fact that during the Tehran UFO incident, there were other reported sightings as well. And they not only bore a striking resemblance,

but so did the fact that it was reported directly to the United States in a similar fashion. On September 25, 1976, King Hassan II of Morocco instructed his commander of the royal gendarmerie to inquire about a strange unidentified craft that he and others had witnessed in the early morning hours over the skies of Morocco. It was late at night on September 18th, when King Hussauds. Hassan II described the UFO as a, quote, silvery, luminous circular shape that gave off intermittent trails of bright sparks and fragments and made no noise. A confidential memo, which was made public through WikiLeaks, was sent to the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, asking for help or information on the strange disc-shaped craft that flew over Morocco. According to the memo,

Reports of the UFO sighting came pouring in from Agadir, the Marrakesh area, Casablanca, Rabat, Kenitra, and other areas throughout Morocco. Despite being reported from different locations around the country, the description of the object remained consistent within each report. The UFO was described as disc-shaped, silver in color, occasionally throwing off trails of bright sparks and fragments. The craft made no sound as it flew slowly overhead, traveling up the Moroccan Atlantic coast in a northerly direction.

After a significant and lengthy delay, Henry Kissinger replied to the inquiries by the Royal Gendarmerie, stating the following. It is difficult to offer any definitive explanation as to the cause of origins of the UFO cited in Moroccan area between 0-100 and 0.130 local time 19 September, 1976. An extensive investigation of this subject was made in the U.S. in 1969 under the Condon Committee. This study indicates that detailed sightings of UFOs by reliable witnesses can be explained in many ways.

For example, local balloon aircraft, satellite activity, meteorological or atmospheric conditions, including meteor events and by astronomical objects. The United States government is unaware of any U.S. aircraft or satellite activity, either military or civilian, in the Moroccan area, which may have been mistaken for such sightings as that on 19 September. However, this does not preclude aircraft flights of other countries or unusual atmospheric conditions or events as a possible cause. Although there was no major meteor shower in September,

Remember, the sporadic meteor rate in the northern hemisphere is at a maximum in the early morning and the autumn months. But meteors are usually visible at an altitude around 100 kilometers, not 1 kilometer. However, subjective estimates of the height of such sightings are usually too low. The flat trajectory southwest to northeast could conceivably be compatible with a meteor or a decaying satellite. In order to analyze the Moroccan event thoroughly, further discreetly, or photographs from the local area would be needed. In the meantime, one would tend to believe the event was indeed a meteor, and probably a spectacular one.

Or, on the account of descriptions of slow velocity, no noise, and burning fragments, it could have been a decaying satellite part, of which there is no precise re-entry record. This response and its delay were presumably because Kissinger had to be brought up to speed on the year. UFO front, and his response had to be concise and downplay any talk of interplanetary travelers or unexplained phenomena. This came in the form of first acknowledging the Condon report, which first and foremost pronounces that UFOs aren't worthy of further study, at least in the

United States, and that they pose no national security threat. Second, the explanations of meteors or satellite pieces most likely came from the usual briefings on UFOs from the United States Air Force, the main branch of military existing for the sole purpose of keeping our skies safe. Could this Moroccan UFO have been a meteor or satellite? Absolutely. A silver luminous object giving off a bright trail and sparks. is not unlike many descriptions of a meteor.

But not many meteors can slow down or change their trajectory, which is what was reported in Morocco, spanning more than an hour in total as well. The object also slowed as if to make a landing. Sound familiar? And the last piece of the report that really connected to the Tehran incident, the southwest to northeast course of the object. If it continued on that course, it would have ended up directly over Iran.

So could it have been the same object? Or objects that Jafari and the other pilots had come into contact with? It seemed all too coincidental. Returning to the Tehran incident, we learn of another document that was shared within the Defense Intelligence, agency. Late in 1978, Todd Ziegle, then a UFO researcher, and one of the founders of citizens against UFO secrecy, uncovered this highly revealing document. He'd received a copy of a military intelligence analyst's evaluation report of the Iran incident, as reported by Colonel McKenzie.

This report was written by Air Force Major Roland B. Evans. who was then stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1979, UFO researcher and author Bob Pratt phoned Major Evans to discuss the report in great detail. Major Evans, then 40, had served as a military capabilities analyst. For the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington for four years, He was then reassigned to Offutt Air Force Base in July in 1978, where he was serving as an electronic warfare officer flying in an RC 135 reconnaissance aircraft with the 343rd reconnaissance squadron. Major Evans told him the following.

The 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. In his evaluation of the Tehran case filed October 12, 1976, Major Evans stated the following. The object was seen by multiple witnesses from different locations and viewpoints, airborne and from the ground.

The credibility of many of these witnesses was high. An Air Force General, qualified air crews, and experienced tower operators. Visual sightings were confirmed by radar. Similar electromagnetic effects, EME, were reported by three separate aircraft. There were physiological effects in some of the crew members, i.e. loss of night vision due to the brightness of the object. An inordinate amount of maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs. To me, there were too many circumstances that fit in,

indicating this thing was not an aberration, it was not swamp gas or anything else of the sort. There's just no other way to explain it. It was real. It was there. This case is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of the UFO phenomena. There's another interesting side note to this entire affair concerning that of our original pilot, Pervis Jafari. After the events had taken place and word began to spread amongst the military ranks, someone very specific took a keen interest in the event. And that was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. While still in power at the time, the Shah had visited Jafari's squadron at Cherokee Air Base.

The Shah called a meeting attended by high-ranking officers and the pilots involved with the incident and wanted to hear a play-by-play of the event. When it came time for Jafari's side of the story, the Shah asked him point blank, quote, what do you think it was? End quote. Jafari responded that, in his opinion, whatever it was could not be from our planet. Because if anyone on this planet had such power, it would bring the whole planet under its command. The Shah responded simply by nodding and leaving Parviz Jafari with a firm, quote, Yes.

The Shah then went on to explain to the pilots that they were not the first to report such incidents in Iran. While we may never know what the other cases are that the Shah was referencing, we do see a long history of UFO events having occurred in and around Iran. One of the most recent could possibly shed some light on the bright objects seen back in 1976, but we'll have to fast forward to 2004. Vabeq Tagwahi is an accomplished journalist who was written extensively on the Iranian Air Force. In an article in the October 2013 edition of Combat Monthly, Tagwahi stressed how Iran had attempted to intercept what it believed to be a U.S. spy drone,

flying over nuclear facilities in current day. What was intriguing about these reports were how the Iranians described the intruding objects. They were said to be some sort of luminous object, and almost silver in color. This could compare to the descriptions by the pilots and witnesses of the 1976 incident over Tehran. But Tugvahi also states that perhaps it wasn't so much an otherworldly light in the modern incident. but light emitting from a drone to enable night photography. These drones are thought to have been developed through the CIA to gain intelligence on Iran's nuclear capabilities.

In the article, Dagvahi explains that, quote, according to Iranian sources, the CIA's intelligence drones displayed astonishing flight characteristics, including an inability to fly atmosphere, attain a maximum cruise speed of Mach 10 and a minimum speed of zero, with the ability to hover over a target. Finally, these drones use powerful ECM that could jam enemy radars using very high levels of magnetic energy, disrupting navigational systems.

In one intercept over the Iraq nuclear facility in November of 2004, an Iranian F4 Tomcat tried to lock its radar onto a luminous object only to have the radar being disrupted. The pilot described the object as being spherical with something

like a green afterburner creating a considerable amount of turbulence behind it. The intruder then increased its speed and disappeared out of sight. Tugvahi proposes that these supposed objects

are more likely an experimental missile of sorts that could one day become unmanned aircraft. Looking back once again at Pervis Jafari's descriptions of lights, leaving the main object and heading towards him, he did think that it could perhaps have been a missile of some sort coming at him. In Tugvahi's conclusions, he stated that, quote, if the luminous objects described by Iran really did fly at Mach 10, jam radars, and zoom away from jet interceptors,

then this suggests a hypersonic aircraft, mature and reliable enough, to be trusted with sensitive reconnaissance missions. So this brings forth an interesting question. Could what Paris Jafari have seen in 1976 have been a highly advanced and highly classified reconnaissance drone technology, spying on Iran. There is a huge gap in technological advancement between 1976 and 2004, understandably. But is it possible that the large diamond or rectangular-shaped craft and the small-lighted objects that detached could have been very early versions of what we now know

as drones? This begs another question. Was the United States so intrinsically connected to the event, not because of the Iranian-leased fighter jets, but by covertly implementing this possibly early drone technology to keep a bird's eye view on the Iranian's activity both in the air and in and around nuclear sites. It was only a year prior that President Gerald Ford spoke directly to the nation with the Shah at his side. Since your imperial majesty's last visited Washington, the world has seen many changes. But throughout this period, the United States' commitment to peace and progress for the world has remained firm. Our commitment to a continuity of relations and constructive cooperation with friends such as Iran has remained constant,

even while the world has changed. As you mentioned, Mr. President, the world is changing, and very rapidly. Sometimes for the better and sometimes I hope not for the worse. But in that changing world, those who remain faithful to the principles of human dignity and human liberties will have, in a spirit of interdependence, to try to, if necessary, create that new world. President Gerald Ford published a directive that very year, explaining in a memorandum circulated by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

that would, quote, permit U.S. material to be fabricated into fuel in Iran for use in its own reactors, end quote. The directive also would allow the Iranians to buy and operate in American built nuclear processing plant for extracting plutonium from reactor fuel. Interviewed by the Washington Post in 2005, Henry Kissinger said this of the deal. They were an allied country, and this was a commercial transaction. We didn't address the question of them one day moving towards nuclear weapons. But had the question been addressed in the most covert of ways, could the U.S. have been using the most early versions of drone technology

to spy on Iran? This does not, however, explain the massive craft or mothership of sorts witnessed by Parviz Jafari and the other pilots. But is it possible that the drones were released by some sort of high-altitude carrier of the smaller luminous objects in question? The strings to tie the drone activity in modern day to that of what Jafari witnessed in 1976 is rather loose. It's completely theoretical, like most other explanations for the event. But when the true answers seem so well hidden and buried beneath U.S. intelligence agencies, politics, foreign relations, and even the possibility of an extraterrestrial intervention, the public is left with no other choice but to speculate.

Returning to the timeline of Iran and their nuclear capabilities in relation to unknown objects in the vicinity, there is another incident that leads us to another question. When Iran's suspicious nuclear program was revealed to the public, Western nations, led by U.S. and Israel, warned it to abandon its nuclear activities. The U.S. attempted to gather information concerning the activities at three important Iranian nuclear facilities. The reactor of Boucher, an additional reactor in Iraq, and the fuel enrichment plant at Nantan's. In the Togvahi article, he relays another interesting story that took place at the Boucher reactor site.

On January 26, 2012, a mission was launched when an Iranian Air Defense Command radar site near Boucher captured sight of an unknown aircraft flying towards the area. A fighter jet was ordered to scramble, but only moments after it took off to pursue the object, the fighter jet exploded, killing both crew members instantly. The reason for the incident remains a mystery. Was it a fatal malfunction within the jet itself? Or could it have possibly been at the hands of the unknown object? Either way, it leads to our next question. Whether or not these objects in the skies of Iran were malevolent or not, perhaps the real danger or threat didn't actually lie with the unknown objects,

but with ourselves. Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day. Don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your bags and come on through. Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. Comfort Inn.

It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song. Book Direct at sourcehilltails.com. In her 2010 book, U.FOs, Generals, Pilots, and Government, and officials go on the record. Investigative journalist Leslie Kane

stresses that in the case of Parvice Jafari and other pilots who have been in similar incidents, that time and time again we see that even given the opportunity to somehow use a weapon against our human pilots, these unknown objects rarely, if ever, do so. The aggressor is usually always us, with some good reason. Protecting our national security and the defense of our nations in general as human beings is essential.

But herein laid the problem, when it comes to technology and demonstrations far beyond that of our own defense, do we risk becoming the threat to ourselves more than these objects or the supposed intelligence behind them? Here's an interview with Leslie Kane with RT News in 2010. We don't know to what extent things are being kept secret by the government. We don't know to what extent they do know what these things are or don't know what they are. But certainly they must be baffled by them. And, you know, it's understandable to me that a government would not want to, especially the United States government, would not want to step out and say, well, there's strange things flying around our skies.

You know, they affect aircraft. They sometimes affect national security. And gosh darn it, we can't tell you what they are and we have no control over them. I mean, it's just not an announcement that anybody would really want to make. But the interesting thing is that other governments, such as Belgium, France, the UK, have acknowledged the reality of UFOs. They have acknowledged that they're unexplained phenomenon in the sky. And nobody's panicked, and it hasn't caused any big disruptions in the society. So it seems that we want the United States government to behave a little more like the rest of the world.

And we don't think it's going to be such a big disaster if they'd have acknowledged this and try to find out a little more about it. In her book, Leslie Kane also argues that the risk of the risk of the risk of the world. in engaging military with something this powerful and completely unknown are self-evident. No one can predict the behavior of something we don't understand. She also goes on to make a crucial observation that rings true with Jafari and other pilots in these situations. She says that, quote, they had received no training or any preparation for dealing with such an unanticipated eventuality.

So, in essence, it appeared that the threat was a complete lack of protocol by foreign and domestic pilots in relation to encountering UFOs. Instead of creating a way of dealing with the issue, it was either dismissed as a misidentification or it was flat out denied as ever happening. In 2017, a bombshell article from the New York Times took the world by storm, titled Glowing Oars and Black Money, the Pentagon's Mysterious UFO Program. The public was treated to a lengthy article co-written by Leslie Kane, Ralph Blumenthal, and Pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper. In the article, we learned of a secret defense department program. called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or A-TIP.

Earlier this week, the New York Times in Politico revealed the existence of a secret government program to investigate UFO sightings. It was especially focused on encounters by members of the military. The program began in 2007 and ended five years later, but its former head, Luis Elizondo, is convinced that something compelling is out there. What we are seeing is something that is not traditional aircraft. It's not a drone. It's not something that we can easily say, oh, that's an airplane or that belongs to this country or that country.

In fact, my submission is that what we are looking at is truly, by definition, exotic technologies, beyond next generation technologies. Among the reports analyzed by ATIP was a video that had been released that depicted a white oval-shaped object that was chased by two fighter jets off the coast of California. in 2004 during a training exercise. The object was originally picked up on radar off the USS Princeton by Navy Chief Petty Officer Kevin Day. Eventually, fighter jets off the USS Nimitz carrier were deployed to intercept the object. This object, which has since become known as the Tick-Tac UFO,

was moving at high speeds and had no apparent means of propulsion It went from an elevation of 65,000 feet, dropped to the surface of the ocean, and then ascended to 24,000 feet within seconds. One of the pilots, Commander David Fravor, witnessed all of this. After the chase, the object took off at breakneck speeds and disappeared out of sight. This is what Commander Fravor had to say about what occurred after the incident. We watched it for five minutes with our eyeballs, and there was four of us. And we all have the same story. We all saw the same stuff.

We all came back and looked at each other and scratched our head and said, WTF, you know, I mean, serious, what was that? Now we go out and we have these things that are coming at will, and there's nothing we can do about it. We don't know what they are. We have confirmed sighting by two aircrew, four of us, two planes, that said, look, this is not an airplane, this is not a weather balloon, this is not a blip. It has performance well beyond. You know, in the airplanes that we were flying at the time were literally brand new Super Hornets right out of the Boeing factory. And you go, why wasn't something done?

You know, I know there are other events that are not out, recent events where people have been called in to go, hey, I've seen this thing. So the investigation process is still going on. You know, you go, well, A-TIP ended. So you go, what are they doing since then? Well, I mean, I'm pretty sure there's still people looking at this and there's still people that are taking this serious. I will tell you that there are people inside the United States government that are taking this serious. And I've been down to D.C. twice, you know, behind closed doors to go, and I've got a lot of you got to be joking. I mean, this seriously happened.

And I'm like, yeah, it did happen. And it is real. You know, what are you doing about it? These individuals who Commander Fravor spoke to have since made several comments on the briefing. One of those individuals was Senator Mark Warner. the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. After the briefing, he stated the following. I think some of the press reports are accurate. I think people are taking this issue much more seriously. And I'm not going to get into any of the contents of the briefing.

It was a classified briefing. But what I think one of the key takeaways I'd have is that the military and others are taking. making this issue seriously, which I think in previous generations may not have been the case. While we may not know how many individuals were involved with these briefings, or what was specifically said, the response to the briefings soon spoke for itself. It wasn't long after that the U.S. Navy announced a new protocol in relation to UFO reporting. The U.S. Navy is set to introduce new guidelines for military personnel on reporting.

according sightings and encounters with unidentified aircraft. It says it's updating and formalizing the process of collecting and analyzing the sightings. The Navy said in a statement that the move is in response to a, quote, number of reports of unauthorized and or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated airspace in recent years. To be clear, the Navy is not saying extraterrestrial spacecraft are behind those experiences. but it does want to create a more orderly system to record and study the events. It seemed as though things were changing in terms of how military would handle the issue of UFOs,

at least from a Navy standpoint. This does not account for the Army, Marines, or even the Air Force, who we'd assume would want to be all over this. Maybe they are. We simply don't know. Hell, we didn't even know about A-Tip for years. So, with technology far beyond anything, even our most advanced and experienced pilots, can't identify or understand,

it begs a much larger question. Is this a threat to national security for each nation dealing with it? And if so, are we more of a threat than we think? When it comes down to it, does anyone on this planet have any clue what we are actually dealing with when it comes to UFOs? Does it even matter? It does to the pilots who encountered it, and it does to the hundreds upon thousands of people across the world who've experienced it as well. And as we move forward on the UFO issue, we have cases like the 1976 Tehran incident. to look back on in order to fuel the fire of curiosity within us all.

Parvice Jafari died in 2018. But he left behind an incredible career as an Air Force pilot and witnessed testimony to one of the most compelling and officially documented UFO events of all time. In fact, he recounted the event at a 2007 conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The audio clips of Jafari you heard throughout this episode came directly from his presentation in Washington.

He was joined by other pilots, generals, and government officials who, on the record, recounted similar experiences in the air with unknown aerial phenomena. The staggering amount of testimony and calls for action by military officials and pilots from across the globe screamed that something must be done about the UFO issue in our skies. When faced with the unknown, what could we do to initiate contact without the threat of danger looming in the air? Perhaps it could be best summarized by Parviz Jafari himself. He had two regrets from that incident in the late hours of September in 1976.

One was that he did not have a camera to capture images of the UFO. Understandable. And at least this has changed in terms of being capable of capturing UFOs as displayed by the more recent Navy encounters. But Jafari's second regret truly showed that sometimes words are far more important than any action could ever resolve. Later on, I was so sorry that why I did not call on the radio, ask them, who are you? Please make communication with us.

Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.