by Leslie Kean
Also, four days later, there was an earthquake off the Kent coast some 200 miles away. Could they have been earthquake lights, a rare phenomenon coincident with earth tremors? Unlikely. These are not seen over water, since they are discharged directly from a fault line. And could one of them manifest as a stationary, brilliant, sharply defined object, with an exact duplicate some distance away? Highly doubtful.
Or, was the brilliance of the objects just an aside, since perhaps they were part of some secret experiment? I would be interested to know if an overflying military or government satellite had picked up this extraordinary power source or brilliant light, which would seem likely. In any case, the Ministry of Defence stated in writing that this was not a military exercise or anything belonging to them.
My conclusion for all that ask the question is simple: I believe that there were two solid craft working in unison that day, shown by the fact that their sortie was linked together in both time and space. What they were, I cannot answer. What they were doing, once again I cannot answer. What I will say is that for machines so huge that they are visible from 50-plus miles hence, from two independent sources and with radar evidence to support their provenance, I can only conclude that they were not from around here, and in that I mean they were not, can not, have been manufactured on Earth.
So, what’s next? Well, this case, like so many others, was closed before it even started, as far as the authorities are concerned. The British and French military showed their now customary “Not too worried, really” colors, since their respective airspaces were not under direct threat. I interpret this to mean “We see it, but there’s not a thing we can do to stop it or make it go away.”
I believe that what we witnessed that day, along with what many other pilots witness around the world on a regular basis, is known to the relevant authorities as something not originating on this planet, and this has been known for a very long time.
But what if the people of the world were informed of this? It could result in recrimination against government, religion, and authority, possibly large-scale civil unrest culminating in a new world order which might or might not be beneficial to the planet, or a myriad of other complicated and unpredictable scenarios. The authorities may do well to consider keeping the lid on Pandora’s box at this time.
On the other hand, I believe the time is coming when they will no longer be able to keep sweeping this issue under the mat. With improved technology available and with more sightings being faithfully recorded every day, the time is surely not far away. Soon they will have to confront the people with what is known. Depending on what they know, or what we might be able to learn once they do this, I suspect this might turn out to be the time when the human race will grow up. Forced to confront their own smallness in relation to Earth’s place in the universe, humans may at last face up to a future as a tiny fish in a big sea.
This whole episode has exposed a new world to me that I didn’t know existed. I’ve come to know a very unusual group of people who are fascinated with the subject of UFOs—an eclectic bunch of dedicated believers and dreamers, writers, skeptics, filmmakers, witnesses, psychotherapists, former military officials, and all hues in between. Some of the people that I have met firmly believe in extraterrestrial intelligence; others insist on refuting any idea of a greater intelligence than the human mind. Either way, the beliefs are firmly held and vocally expressed in all forms of media. And a complete industry has emerged to service the hunger for knowledge surrounding this subject.
As for myself, life has returned pretty much to normal. I still give the occasional newspaper, TV, or radio interview, but here at home in Guernsey, the incident is mainly forgotten. People have other things on their minds now, and concern about something otherworldly when the mortgage payment is due falls firmly into second or third place. Regardless, the day may be coming when the whole human race will have to face the frightening reality that we are coexistent with others in this universe. In my view, we may be well advised to get along with this now, because, frankly, we have very little choice.
CHAPTER 8
UFOs as Air Force Targets
Commercial passenger jets operate quite independently from military aircraft, and obviously, as described by Richard Haines, have limited options when it comes to responding to a nearby UFO. Also, at least in America, the stigma against reporting such events is high among civilian pilots, who face the possibility that, if reported, the story might be leaked to the media, compounding the derision even further. Not one witness would go on the record regarding the 2006 O’Hare case, despite the numbers who validated the incident and despite the legitimate concern about aviation safety expressed by many of them. But what happens when pilots in military jets, fully armed, encounter UFOs? Or, if electromagnetic radiation from UFOs disables sensitive equipment at military bases, as it can do in the cockpit of an airplane, does this become an issue of national security? These considerations go one step further than that of aviation safety problems caused by accidental proximity to UFOs. When is it appropriate for military jets to take aggressive action, if ever?
As contrasted with commercial aviation, the military operates within a more self-contained, less public arena. Unlike commercial pilots, who are committed to assuring the comfort and safety of often hundreds of passengers as well as protecting their personal reputations and the reputations of their parent companies, Air Force officers have a very different set of priorities. Instead, these pilots are oriented toward protecting their homelands from attack and maintaining readiness for an unanticipated invasion or terrorist assault. Military fliers are prepared to defend themselves if necessary; their jet aircraft are loaded not with passengers but with lethal weaponry that can be used either to attack or to defend.
Military pilots and their air-traffic controllers are trained to obey orders and not ask too many questions, and the system is well practiced in the arts of both reporting sensitive information and maintaining its confidentiality. Within the armed services, pilots are more likely to file reports as a matter of duty, free of the risks that commercial pilots face, because they know that such information will likely be restricted. When Air Force pilots are faced with a UFO, there are often other witnesses from a second aircraft or a base below, and information can be quickly relayed up the chain of command. These officers know that other aircraft can readily be scrambled as support in response to any unusual engagement. And they can defend themselves instantly if necessary.
Knowing this, one naturally wonders: Have military pilots ever shot at UFOs? The shocking answer is yes.
In November 2007, I was fortunate to meet and spend a few days with two pilots who have both engaged in lengthy “dogfights” with targeted UFOs. Retired Iranian general Parviz Jafari was a major in the Iranian Air Force in 1976 when he was ordered by the Air Force Command to man his Phantom F-4 II jet and approach a luminous UFO observed over Tehran. Several times during a wild cat-and-mouse chase, he and his backseat navigator attempted to launch a Sidewinder missile at additional smaller objects heading their way, but at the moment of fire their equipment shut down, returning to normal only when their jet moved away. The main object had been pursued by a second Air Force jet, was recorded on cockpit radar, and was observed from the ground by a general and experienced air navigation crews.
A second, similar event occurred four years later, in 1980, over an air base in Peru, when then Lieutenant Oscar Santa María Huertas was ordered to intercept what was at first believed to be an aerial spying device. He fired at the balloonlike object and barraged it with machine-gun shells, but they had no effect. He quickly realized this was something unknown, a UFO. Three different times he locked on to the object to fire when it was stationary, but each time, at the last instant, it shot straight upward. This UFO was witnessed in broad daylight by over a thousand soldiers and staff at the La Joya military base.
General Jafari and Comandante Santa María1 met for the first time at our 2007 press conference in Wash
ington, D.C., also attended by General De Brouwer, Captain Ray Bowyer, and a number of other contributors to this book. This was an opportunity to present statements publicly, but it was also a unique opportunity for these men to converse over the course of a few days, forming the basis of an international network.
As the co-organizer and media contact for the event, and host for our panelists, I was privy to many private discussions over morning coffee and some that lasted late into the night. I will never forget the evening two days before the press conference when General Jafari and Comandante Santa María shook hands and sat down together for the first time. They had just arrived at the Washington Hotel after long journeys from very distant parts of the globe. These two unassuming gentlemen joined a small group of us at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant, weary but relieved to be among friends and excited about the momentous press event that lay ahead. General Jafari, sitting to my right, was affable and animated, and soon was responding to a host of questions from those at our table about the 1976 incident. Neither Jafari nor Santa María knew much about the other’s experience, and the conversation that followed was unplanned and spontaneous, with no tape recorders or cameras present to curtail its intimacy.
Comandante Santa María did not speak English, but shortly after Jafari began his account, a Spanish-speaking couple at the next table confessed that they couldn’t help eavesdropping, and one of them offered to translate for him. Following Jafari, he told his story, prompted by questions from those around him. Both men, each a witness to one of the most unusual events in Air Force history, discovered through the ensuing exchange how similar their experiences were. Each could identify with the fear and awe expressed by the other in the retelling of his story. As Air Force pilots on two different continents, they both had suddenly found themselves face-to-face with something utterly impossible, yet powerfully real. It was one of the most remarkable, and chilling, few hours I’ve spent since beginning this journey ten years ago, and I felt privileged to bear witness to it. Both retired military men were humble, understated, and direct, as well as entirely believable. Jafari described one speeding object coming after his Phantom F-4 jet as he prepared to return to the base. Someone at our table asked him how he felt. “At that moment,” he replied in his imperfect but colorful English, “I doubled my scare.” Santa María made a drawing of his UFO on a sugar pack served with our coffee, which I saved as a memento.
And why had the two pilots felt compelled to fire at these UFOs? General Jafari explained that he was acting in self-defense. He initially had no intention of taking any such action, because the Iranian general who ordered him and his navigator aloft was simply interested in getting a better look at the brilliant starlike object, to try to determine its identity. But Jafari soon found himself confronted with actions highly unexpected and threatening to his aircraft. Santa María’s circumstances were different. At the outset, he was told the purpose of his mission was to destroy the “espionage device” above his air base, since it had failed to respond to normal communications. Neither pilot realized how futile his actions would be when attempting to fire at a UFO.
In retrospect, there will always be a question as to whether actual aggression was displayed by the UFOs, and we have no idea as to their intention or purpose, or even whether these concepts apply. However, such incidents, although rare, do raise serious national security questions. As it stands now, there appears to be uniform agreement at the highest military levels that UFOs are not belligerent. Even when provoked by human aggression, they do not retaliate—and we have to assume they have every capability of doing so. As General Denis Letty of France assured readers in the COMETA Report, although “intimidation maneuvers have been confirmed,” UFOs have demonstrated no hostile acts to date.
Perhaps the real national security problem lies with impulsive, even if understandable, attempts by military pilots to defend themselves against what they soon discover are phenomena of vastly superior technology with unknown agendas—a truly frightening prospect. But even if pilots feel that self-defense is warranted, such actions could have disastrous consequences if they were ever successful in damaging their target, or if the object did respond aggressively after an attempt to destroy it. The risks in engaging militarily with something this powerful, and completely unknown, are self-evident. No one can predict the behavior of something we don’t understand. Being in attack mode also diminishes the possibility of establishing communication with the UFO, if that were possible, or of simply learning more about it through cautious observation at close range. The accounts of Jafari and Santa María give the inside stories of what two Air Force pilots experienced when attempting to shoot down a UFO. They had received no training or any preparation for dealing with such an unanticipated eventuality.
CHAPTER 9
Dogfight over Tehran
by General Parviz Jafari (Ret.), Iranian Air Force
At about 11:00 p.m. on the evening of September 18, 1976, citizens were frightened by the circling of an unknown object over Tehran at a low altitude. It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter. Some called the air traffic control tower at Mehrebad Airport, where Houssain Pirouzi was the night supervisor in charge. After receiving four calls, he went outside and looked through his binoculars in the direction people had reported. He saw it, too—a bright object flashing colored lights, and changing positions at about 6,000 feet up. It also appeared to be changing shapes.
Pirouzi knew there were no planes or helicopters in the vicinity that night. At around 12:30 a.m., he alerted the Air Force command post. Deputy General Yousefi, who was in charge at the time, walked outside, and he also saw the object. He decided to scramble an Air Force Phantom F-4 II jet from Shahrokhi air base, located outside of Tehran, to investigate. The F-4 carried two people, Captain Aziz Khani and First Lieutenant Hossein Shokri, the navigator.
I was a major and the squadron commander at the time, and one of my pilots, who was among the first men alerted in the area, took off immediately. I left my house and headed for the base in order to be responsive to the operation there.
The F-4 was up when I arrived at the base, and both Khani and Shokri had seen the object and were attempting to chase it. But it was moving close to the speed of sound, so they couldn’t catch it. When they came within a closer distance to it, all of their instrumentation went out, the radio was garbled, and they lost communication. After the F-4 moved away again, it regained all the instruments and could resume communications.
About ten minutes later, I was ordered to take off in a second jet to approach the object, which I was piloting. It was now about 1:30 a.m. on September 19. First Lieutenant Jalal Damirian, my second pilot in the backseat, operated the radar and other equipment; we called him “the backseater.” When we took off, the object looked just like what had been reported. It was so brilliant, flying at a low altitude over the city, and then it started climbing.
Captain Khani had approached the Russian border, and at that point he was told to turn back. When he turned around, he said that he could see the object in front of him at twelve o’clock. I said, “Where exactly do you see it?” He said, “Over the dam, close to Tehran.” I told him, “You go home, I’ll take care of it.” As he headed back, I looked over, and then I saw it.
It was flashing with intense red, green, orange, and blue lights1 so bright that I was not able to see its body. The lights formed a diamond shape—just brilliant lights, no solid structure could be seen through or around them. The sequence of flashes was extremely fast, like a strobe light. Maybe the lights were only one part of a bigger object, which we couldn’t see. There was no way to know.
I approached, and I got close to it, maybe seventy miles or so in a climb situation. All of a sudden, it jumped about 10 degrees to the right. In an instant! Ten degrees … and then again it jumped 10 degrees, and then again.… I had to turn 98 degrees to the right from my heading of 70 degrees, so we changed position 168 degrees toward the south of the capital city.
I asked the tower whether they had it on radar. The operator replied, “The radar is out of order. It’s not operational right now.” All of a sudden my backseater, Lieutenant Damirian, said, “Sir, I have it on radar.” I looked on the radar screen and saw the marker. I said, “Okay, brake lock and repaint it.” This was to make sure it wasn’t a ground effect or a mountain that we were picking up on the radar. We now had a good return on the screen, and it was at 27 miles, 30 degrees left; our closing speed was 150 knots and in a climb.
We kept it locked on with radar. The size on the radar scope was comparable to that of a 707 tanker.
At this moment, I thought this was my chance to fire at it. But when it—whatever it was—was close to me, my weapons jammed and my radio communications were garbled. We got closer, to 25 miles at our twelve o’clock position. All of a sudden it jumped back to 27 miles in an instant. I wondered what it was. I was still seeing that giant, brilliant diamond shape with pulsating, colored lights.
Then I was startled by a round object which came out of the primary object and started coming straight toward me at a high rate of speed, almost as if it were a missile. Imagine a brightly lit moon coming out over the horizon—that’s what it looked like. I was really scared, because I thought that maybe they had launched some kind of projectile toward me. I had eight missiles on board, four operated by radar and four heat-seeking ones. The radar was locked on to the larger, diamond object, and I had to make a very fast decision as to what to do. I realized that if this moonlike, second thing was a missile, it would have some heat associated with it. So I selected an AIM-9 heat-seeking missile to fire at it.