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There may be some basis in astronomy for this observation. The ecliptic was quite steeply inclined as seen from Tehran on this night, so Jupiter, the Moon and any bright stars such as Capella near the ecliptic would have been rising quite rapidly in altitude angle during the night. This would...

Also from Maccabee's report is this map, showing the location of Shahroki base, the location of Pirouzi in Tehran, the location to which the planes were supposedly directed, and the direction of the Afghan border. Although some accounts suggest the planes flew onwards towards Afghanistan...

Maccabee actually seems to have interviewed one of these technicians himself. The individual called 'Henry' in his account claimed that he lived close to the base, and would have been woken up by aircraft taking off at night. Perhaps the night planes routinely took off with no afterburner, but...

Bear in mind that the planes took off from Shahroki Air Base, which is now known as Hamadan Air Base; Hamadan air base is slightly south of west of Tehran, so for much of their flight the two planes would have been flying east. They would have been flying towards Jupiter, but also towards the...

Yes, I've heard of that. Another manifestation of the secondary scattering phenomenon is the opposite of iceblink, known as water sky; an observer standing on a continuous ice sheet can sometimes find open water by observing a darkening of the cloud layer, since reflected light from open water...

Wild speculation here; could someone have stolen or otherwise acquired or manufactured an emergency beacon in order to cause confusion and uncertainty? This was, after all, only three years before the Revolution in Iran, and there were potentially unfriendly states on its borders. Not everybody...

(see post #62 about iceblink for an example of bright, and easily visible, secondary scattering). Note that iceblink involves two different instances of diffuse reflection, first from the snow, and second from the cloud layer. The secondary scattering that may have happened above Alderney would...

One phenomenon which involves secondary scattering from clouds due to reflected sunlight in daylight is iceblink, which involves light reflected off distant ice onto clouds. This phenomenon can be used by arctic explorers to detect ice over the apparent horizon, so is quite a useful effect.

Secondary scattering from a haze layer could have increased the brightness of that haze layer significantly, and would be sufficiently unusual to have puzzled even the most experienced observer. Reflected sunlight shining onto a surface often looks unusual and unfamiliar - this would be a kind...

I note as well that Bruce Maccabee gives a similar story; from https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/760919_tehran_maccabee_report-1-pdf.59274/ Nothing definite, but the 'falling out of an airplane' motif is repeated, many years before Dunning's article.

The only source I can find about the transponder is Dunning, who says this; I remember reading that Mooy provisionally identified the source as a US transponder ejected by accident, but I can't find the reference now. It may be that this was just speculation on Mooy's part, or that someone...

We don't have any other data to back up Jafari's claim that the craft jumped about, apart from the apparent fact that the radar was malfunctioning. In the heat of the pursuit, it would be easy to lose sight of a target while relying on the radar data from the airman in the back seat. Since the...

I have been requested by the moderator to post a quote from the link I posted earlier, to highlight the section of the Baure/Clarke report I was referring to. Here is the quote; The first explanation is the one I find most plausible. If there were two, separate banks of greenhouses in direct...

Following on from that last quote, I would be very interested to determine what kind of 'night visibility' technology these pilots were using. We know that they had forward-looking radar in the F4, operated by the airman in the back seat. According to Dunning (once again) If the radar in...

Reading Maccabee's report, it seems that General Yousefi did see something, although the details are somewhat vague. Once again we only have Pirouzi's account to go on. Of course, if they were both looking at Jupiter, the General would have been correct 'it isn't a star'. ------- According...

From Dunning https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4315

Dunning also points out that Pirouzi is the only first-hand witness that observed this phenomenon from the ground; all the other witnesses are second-hand, reported by Pirouzi himself. I note that Pirouzi had already decided that this object was a star, just from the nature of the reports he had...

My mistake; the witness that observed the phenomenon through binoculars was Hossain Pirouzi, not General Yousefi. Yousefi is the officer who ordered the planes to be scrambled. I am not aware that Yousefi saw anything. The planes were scrambled at 01:30 and 01:40. Hossain Pirouzi continued to...

Well there is this, from Yousefi; https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/1976_09_17_ir_07_tehran_pratt_multwit-radar-pdf.59310/ Note that Jupiter looks like a very large star low in the sky, and generally does not twinkle as seen by the naked eye. All the details he described were only visible...

If the Universe is infinite, then Tyson, Cox and the others are probably correct - there is almost certainly life elsewhere. The same combination of events that caused abiogenesis on Earth will have happened an infinite number of times in an infinite universe, which would almost certainly lead...