The Tehran UFO Incident

The episode opens with a look at Tehran in the 1970s, a modern city under the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with one of the strongest air forces in the Middle East. We set the stage for the night of September 18–19, when dozens of residents began calling the control tower at Mehrabad International Airport, describing a brilliant object glowing above the city.

The first act covers the initial sightings: how air traffic controller Hossein Pirouzi saw a pulsating multicolored light that moved erratically across the sky, not a star, not a plane, but something entirely different. The Iranian Air Force took the matter seriously and scrambled a U.S.-built F-4 Phantom II interceptor from Shahrokhi Air Base.

Listeners will hear how that first pilot’s approach ended in disaster when every instrument in his aircraft failed, radar, communications, and flight controls, only to return to normal as he turned away from the object.

In the second act, we follow Major Parviz Jafari, one of Iran’s most skilled pilots, as he takes off in a second F-4. His encounter reads like a movie: a radar lock on a massive object the size of a tanker, a visual sighting of a sphere flashing red, blue, and orange lights, and an attempt to fire a missile that fails the moment he presses the trigger. Then comes the most chilling moment, a smaller, glowing object detaches from the main one and speeds directly toward his jet.

Listeners will experience Jafari’s adrenaline and fear as his controls die, his jet goes silent, and the object stops just short of collision before returning calmly to its “mother ship.” We’ll recount the strange descent of another smaller object that seemed to land near the city of Rey, and how a dawn helicopter search found nothing, no debris, no crater, no explanation.

The episode closes with the aftermath: how U.S. intelligence took immediate interest, producing a Defense Intelligence Agency report circulated all the way to the White House. The report called the case “a classic” that met every criterion for a genuine study of the UFO phenomenon.

I’ll reflect on why the Tehran incident remains one of the most credible military UFO cases ever recorded, a perfect storm of technology, testimony, and mystery, and how its legacy continues to influence today’s discussions about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

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