The Kerman "radiant UFO" crash, Barez mountains, Iran (2007)

January 2007. Relations between Iran and the United States were tense. In Kerman province, the sky had already drawn attention. A few days earlier, a "similar incident" was reported at Rafsanjan. No details of it were ever found.

Wednesday, 10 January 2007. In the Iranian calendar, 20 Dey 1385. Residents of Joupar reported "intense light around 6:30 AM, followed by explosion sounds in the sky, with white smoke visible for several minutes above the Lalehzar heights in Baft." They were not alone. Ali Zadsar, the member of parliament for Jiroft and Anbarabad, said: "People from Jiroft, Kerman, and many other regions witnessed light striking Kerman mountains and exploding."

The Fars News Agency put it in stark terms. "An Unidentified Flying Object crashed in Barez Mounts in the central province of Kerman Wednesday morning." The impact point lay 100 kilometers from the provincial capital. The agency added: "Eye-witnesses assure that the explosion has been caused as a result of the crash of a radiant unidentified flying object onto the ground."

An unnamed informed source gave FNA one more detail. The object "has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash."

Police and other authorities opened an investigation. Helicopters were over the hills from the first hours. A political-security deputy to the governor told ISNA: "Search teams have found no trace of the source of the sound so far."

Abulghassem Nasrollahi, the province's Deputy Governor-General, denied earlier reports of a plane or chopper crash. He reminded reporters that "all the passing aircrafts have been reported as sound and safe." Nobody was hurt. Zadsar admitted: "No information about the explosion's cause has been obtained."

Nasrollahi did not dismiss a meteor. The informed source pushed back, arguing that the burning and smoking ruled one out. Yet meteors appear as bright fireballs, often burn up before reaching the ground, and can leave smoke-like trails high in the atmosphere. A bolide bursting in the air at dawn would account for the wide flash, the boom, the lingering smoke and the empty hillsides.

Officials also suggested such objects could be "spy planes or hi-tech espionage devices." The ufology chronicler Patrick Gross went further: "a failing or shot down US spy drone, as well as an Iranian military plane crash, could have been covered-up as 'UFO' or meteor or spy plane." In the United States, American Thinker ran the story under "Things are getting tense in Iran", beside claims of US submarine movements in the Gulf.

Days later, FNA reported another radiant object, this time over Sepidar in western Iran. Witnesses described it as "as big as a ball, with a yellow ray and a bright reddish color in the center." In August 2011, luminous objects fell over the Sirch heights in Kerman with loud sounds. Later write-ups would blur the two Kerman cases together.

The cause of the 2007 explosion was never officially settled. What remains is a flash at dawn, a boom across the mountains, and a column of white smoke over the heights.