The Iranian UFO Wave and F-14 Intercepts over Nuclear Sites

April 2004. Across Iran, thousands of people reported something in the sky. On the night of Tuesday 27 April, Reuters counted sightings over eight towns. Iranian state television showed a sparkling white disc it said had been filmed over Tehran. Over Tabriz, Ardebil and Golestan province, objects were seen beaming out green, red, blue and purple rays. Some were said to be ovoid. An IRNA journalist filmed one.

Sa'dollah Nasiri-Qeydari, head of the Astronomical Society of Iran, described the witnesses as farmers, villagers and pilots. A Revolutionary Guards air force officer, quoted in the reformist daily Vagha-ye Etefaghiyeh, urged the Supreme National Security Council to investigate whether these visitors from afar had hostile intent.

In 2004 Iran formed a task force of eight F-4Es, eight F-14s, an ex-airliner Boeing 707 and a C-130 to guard its nuclear sites at Bushehr, Arak and Natanz. One night an F-14A Tomcat flew a combat air patrol over the Arak heavy-water reactor near Khondab. One account dates it to 28 October 2004, another to November. The crew found a glowing object that seemed to be collecting data from the reactor.

The pilot described it as spherical, with something like a green afterburner creating a considerable amount of turbulence behind it. The AN/AWG-9 radar locked on while it flew a straight path. Then the scope was disrupted. The pilot selected an AIM-7E-4. The object increased its speed and then disappeared like a meteor.

It was not alone. F-4E crews over Khondab and Bushehr fought at least two "dogfights" without any success. Task force reports described luminous objects with astonishing flight characteristics. They could hover. They reportedly flew outside the atmosphere at up to Mach 10, gave off blue light at night, and could jam radars and disrupt interceptors' navigation systems. In several cases, F-14s faced them but were unable to operate their armament systems properly.

Late December 2004. Along the Caspian Sea and the Iraq border, people reported red flashes in the sky, streaks of green and blue and low, racing lights. On 25 December the newspaper Etemaad said UFOs had appeared over Bushehr on a number of occasions, particularly in recent weeks. The CIA translated the article.

Iran's space agency looked into the sightings. It first considered UFO explanations. Then air force commanders identified the objects as US drones, and Iran protested through Swiss diplomatic channels. In 2006 the army recovered the remnants of a crashed example and studied them for two years. Its conclusion: US intelligence drones. In 2009 an IRIAF research project reviewed five decades of sightings and judged the objects man-made, seen mostly near ballistic missile and nuclear sites. The encounters reached Western readers through Babak Taghvaee, writing in Combat Aircraft in October 2013. In December 2017 he posted scans of an internal IRIAF report.

For the April wave, Nasiri-Qeydari offered Venus. "In my opinion, flying saucers do not exist," he said. In February 2005 Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post reported US drones over Iran since April 2003, carrying radar, video, still photography and air filters. Retired USAF Col. Thomas Keaney explained: "By coaxing the Iranians to turn on their radar, we can learn all about their defense systems."

Not everyone was convinced. David Axe noted that the Iranians credited the supposed drones with performance far beyond what any known drone can achieve. His verdict: "Hell if I know." Michael Peck suggested jamming could have disrupted the F-14's 1970s-era radar. The raw radar data has never been published.