Paranormal Headquarters: (Tie) Tehran, Iran Incident, 1976

Up until 1976, the complaint had always been that UFOs seemed remarkably resistant to being spotted on radar (though not always) implying that they were more imaginary than extraterrestrial. That all changed when in the predawn hours of September 19, 1976, Iranian jet fighters (this was before the Islamic Revolution when the U.S. and Iran were close allies) were sent to chase after a wildly maneuvering UFO in the skies over Tehran after several radar stations picked the thing up. Even more impressive, the craft effected the jet’s systems directly whenever they drew too close, rendering their electronics equipment inoperable and, in one case, even causing one jet’s weapons system to fail completely as it closed to fire. The incident is regarded as one of the premier UFO encounters ever recorded, not only due to the quality and preponderance of evidence (the craft may have even been picked up by the military satellite DSP-1) but because of the direct impact it had on the instrumentation and radars of several different aircraft involved in the pursuit. Skeptic’s charges that the pilots were simply in hot pursuit of an especially bright planet Jupiter was met more with laughter than anything else