In our opinion, one of the best UFO cases available in the public record is the 1976 Tehran, Iran UFO incident. It involved multiple witness accounts, a possible landing, and the attempt by two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantoms to intercept the unknown.

Some of our readers are likely rolling their eyes at this point, with the mention of Iran. But before discounting the story as "so much Ayatollah nonsense," we must remember that we are not talking about the present-day Iran -- disjointed and terrorized by a less than level-headed government.

The Iran of 1976 was still under the administration of the Shah, and was a steadfast ally of the United States. With the benign attitude of the country toward the West at the time, one can safely accept that the Shah and the corporate infrastructure of Iran was squarely into the pockets of the United States. Their oil production and reserves were a very important logistic point for our economic game plan at that point in history.

Just as important, from a military perspective, was the fact that Iran's Air Force was not the piece-meal product of "get it where you can" hardware-procurement during this period. The United States supplied and helped maintain their aircraft, and their fighter pilots were trained and supported by our own Air Force.

With this understood, our readers can more clearly see the scope and reliability of the people involved in this incident.

The objects seen over Iran in this incident were witnessed by numerous persons, both civilian and military, from several locations. The reports do vary somewhat in description, but the fact remains that these objects could be seen both by the naked human eye and by military radar. In-fact the radar at Mehrabad airport indicated the object was the size of a Boeing 707 tanker. And some of the naked eye sightings were reported from as far away as seventy miles.

At the height of intensity during this affair, two F-4 fighters were scrambled to investigate the intruders. As these state-of-the-art, American-built aircraft approached the unknowns, they lost all of their communication and instrumentation facilities. Under these circumstances, the confused (and probably frightened) pilots were forced to turn away from the pursuit. Strangely, once the chase was abandoned, the planes regained their electronic capabilities. This effect of electrical instrument malfunction has been reported in other UFO encounters, and is quite functionally demonstrated in the Iranian incident.

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