Two UFOS are reported near the flight line at Cannon AFB, New Mexico. Security Police observing them reported the UFOs to be 25 yards in diameter, gold or silver in color with blue light on top, hole in the middle and red light on bottom. Air Force is checking with radar. Additionally, checking weather inversion data. Maryland The National Military Command Center issued another report72, dated 30 July 1976, detailing several reports of UFOs around Fort Ritchie, Maryland in the wee hours of July 30th. After civilians called in sightings reports, two separate military police patrols described observing three reddish, oblong cylinders hovering very low (100-200 feet) over an ammunitions storage site. Independently, an Army police sergeant reported seeing a UFO over the same site while he was driving to work approximately 50 minutes after the report by the two patrols. Interestingly, the final paragraph of this report attempted to explain away the sightings as moisture-saturated temperature inversions. Taken as a whole, the myriad of reports detailed here make an irrefutable case for United States military involvement in reporting UFOs. It is apparent from these reports, which are certainly not all-inclusive, that the U.S. military did indeed have an interest in UFOs and certainly investigated sightings well after the conclusion of Project Blue Book in 1969, which supposedly closed the door on the military’s interest in the subject of extraterrestrials and their space craft.
6.8
Military Chase Over Iran - 1976
The distinction for the best government documentation of a UFO event falls to the remarkable events that occurred in and above Tehran, Iran in September of 1976. The official U.S. government documents73 following this narrative were distributed at the time of its writing by the Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Tehran to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the White House, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of State.74 At half-past midnight on September 19, 1976, the Imperial Iranian Air Force received telephone calls from residents in the Shemiran area of Tehran. The citizens reported "strange objects in the sky," some calling them bird-like and others referring to them as lighted helicopters. The command post knew there were no airborne helicopters at the time and told the citizens they were seeing stars in the sky. The command post checked with Memrabad Tower. Then, looking for himself, observed a large, bright star-like object. At 1:30 a.m., an F-4 jet was scrambled from Shahrokhi Air Force Base and sent up to investigate. F-4s are Scrambled: The pilot reported that the object was so bright, it was easily visible from 70 miles away, which would place it approximately 40 miles north of Tehran. The IIAF pilot pursued the unusual craft. At 25 nautical miles from the unknown object, the pilot suddenly lost all UHF and intercom communications and instrumentation. When the pilot turned back towards Shahrokhi AFB, away from the UFO, he just as suddenly regained communication 72
See original report in Appendix I. (Document A1.9) Note two versions of the report showing different degrees of censorship when the documents were released. Appendix I. (Documents A1.10) 74 This event was later summarized in a confidential document by Captain H. Shields. Appendix I. (Document A1.11) 73
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