The statement of General Parviz Jafari follows:

"Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen…

My name is Parviz Jafari, and I am a retired General of the Iranian Air Force.

At about 11 p.m. on the evening of 18th September 1976, citizens were frightened by the circling of an unknown object, over Tehran, the capital city of Iran, at a low altitude. It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter.

They reported it to the tower and it was seen by the tower man too. He alerted the Air Force command post and Deputy General Yousefi decided to scramble an F-4 to investigate.

The pilot in the first jet lost instrumentation and communications when he got too close to the brilliant object, so he headed back. About 10 minutes later, they scrambled a second jet, which I was piloting. At the time, I was Squadron Commander.

I approached the object, which was flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue light so bright that I was not able to see its body. The sequence of flashes was extremely fast, like a strobe light.

We locked on it with radar; it was at 30 degrees left, at a range of 25 miles. The size on the radarscope was comparable to that of a 707 tanker.

Four other objects with different shapes separated from the main one, at different times during this close encounter.

Whenever they were close to me, my weapons were jammed and my radio communications garbled.

One of the objects headed toward me. I thought it was a missile. I tried to launch a heat seeking Missile to it, but my missile panel went out. Another followed me when I was descending on the way back.

One of the separated objects landed in an open area, radiating a high bright light, in which the sands on the ground were visible.

We could hear emergency squash all the way, which was reported by other airliners flying at the time and continued for another couple of days.

During my interview at H.Q. after the incident, an American colonel took notes, but after it was over, I could not find him to talk with.

Later, a once-classified document was released here in America through the Freedom of Information Act. The Defense Intelligence Agency documented the event in great detail, and it was sent to NSA, The White House and the CIA. The DIA assessment said "this case is a classic that meets all necessary conditions for a legitimate study of the UFO phenomenon."

I would be happy to answer questions and tell you more.
Thank you."