Mystical places in Iran

Tehran and the Night of the Two Phantoms

On the night of 19 September 1976 residents of northern Tehran began ringing Mehrabad airport: a bright object was standing over the city. The Iranian Air Force scrambled an F-4 Phantom; as it closed, its communications and instruments failed and it turned away. A second was sent up, locked the target on radar, and when it tried to fire, the weapons system and radio failed and the pilot broke off. By the crew's report a smaller object separated from the first, went down and landed, flooding the ground with light. The American defence attaché's report on the case was circulated to the State Department, the CIA, the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and has long been declassified. It is among the best-documented military episodes in the subject.