Space Rocks Carry Hundreds of Thousands of Complex Organic Molecules—and We Just Photographed Them

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A mysterious object hovering over Tehran, Iran, has been captured on video, sparking speculation about what was actually seen in the night sky. 

The footage was reportedly recorded on Sunday by a witness on the Azadegan Highway in Tehran at around 7:30 p.m. local time. The object appeared to hover above the city, displaying several bright, colorful lights and a shape that some viewers described as unusual or even distinctly V-shaped. 

Some suggested that the lights could have been part of an elaborate drone, arguing that the unusual colors and patterns were more consistent with a human-made aircraft than with a conventional UFO. Others proposed a much simpler explanation: could the mysterious lights have been a kite carrying LEDs? 

Rep. Tim Burchett reveals that it could be a secret U.S. weapons system that mimic Alien Technology. He noted that reports of unusual objects seem to be appearing with increasing frequency. 

For now, there is no confirmed evidence establishing whether the Tehran object was a UFO, a drone, balloons, or a kite or something else entirely.

Rep. Tim Burchett Reveals Viral ‘UFO’ Spotted Over Iran Could Be Secret U.S. Weapons System That Mimic Alien Technology

"It's legit. It's something up there. It's just, what is it? We're seeing more and more of this stuff..."

"They're always V-shaped. I always have a hard time… pic.twitter.com/hKYxyfUPlP

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 21, 2026

{ https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

EXCLUSIVE - The chilling threat to Americans floating over their heads... as insiders reveal how the next world war will actually take shape

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR and JON MICHAEL RAASCH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT and ELINA SHIRAZI, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER

After a string of mysterious rocket launches by SpaceX this month, the US military has finally confirmed what many suspected: space-based weapons have been placed into Earth's orbit.

The unprecedented announcement came after SpaceX would only say that they were carrying top-secret payloads for the US Space Force, launching a pair of rockets from their California base in less than a week.

Now, the top uniformed officer in America's newest military branch, USSF Chief of Space Operations General Douglas Schiess, has told the Daily Mail that space has quietly become a secret battlefield - and the US is in a struggle with other superpowers to control it.

Schiess said: 'Space is both a battlefield and the backbone of our Joint Force. 

'We face determined and credible adversaries who are building and fielding counterspace systems at incredible speeds to directly target the United States' space advantage.'

'Let me be clear: Today, Guardians [Space Force personnel] operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the Joint Force against space-enabled attacks.'

On September 16, SpaceX launched a classified payload into orbit for the US Space Force, which is charged with defending the country's satellites and communications systems

A Space Force spokesperson specifically singled out Russia and China, claiming that both nations had been testing weapons for use in space for the last two decades.

While the Pentagon has not revealed what the September 2026 rocket launches were carrying for the Space Force, the White House has already made it clear that one of the military's goals is building President Donald Trump's 'Golden Dome' - a giant net of sensors and missile-interceptor satellites around the globe.

On September 14, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made the shock announcement that those interceptors had already gone from the development phase to 'flight-ready hardware' in less than a year.

Speaking at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Meink said the US was prepared to deal with 'evolving threats' but did not elaborate on the weapon's offensive capabilities or when it was put into orbit.

Space Force was created in 2019 with the main mission of protecting satellites used for communications, navigation and surveillance.

However, a military spokesperson told the Daily Mail the US is facing increased threats that could originate from hostile satellites in Earth orbit - comparing the vast vacuum just miles above Earth's surface to an actual battle zone.

'The US has warned about Russian and Chinese weapons testing and operationalization since 2007. Due to their actions, it is no longer a question that space is a warfighting domain,' they said.

'Acknowledging our readiness to protect and defend against adversary use of space weapons deters aggression. The space domain is contested, and we must be able to secure our nation's interests in space - that is why the Space Force was established as the sixth military service.'

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink confirmed the US military placed weapons in orbit above Earth

President Trump has wants a 'Golden Dome' missile defense system by the end of the decade

Pictured: A hypothetical scenario showing how the US 'Golden Dome' system would activate and prevent a nuclear attack on America

The source did not reveal what the new weapons placed in orbit were capable of, when they were launched into space or how these systems operate. 

Five years ago, the Russian military showed how lethal its space-based satellites could be, successfully testing a hit-to-kill anti-satellite missile in 2021.

The device obliterated a defunct, Soviet-era spy satellite launched in 1982, sparking condemnation from around the world.

It is believed that the Golden Dome, which the White House wants completed by the end of the decade, will consist of sensors and tracking satellites, ground and sea-based missile platforms and a planned 'constellation' of space-based interceptors.

Similar to the defense missile used by Israel, the 'dome' would act like a layered shield meant to detect and shoot down missiles and other airborne attacks on the American homeland.

The interceptors in space would sit in orbit and, if used, try to ram an enemy missile early in flight before it can drop warheads or decoys.

Besides the interceptors, Golden Dome is also expected to feature sensor and enemy tracking platforms sitting in orbit.

Those satellites would watch for missile launches from foreign nations or other adversaries, follow the threat across the sky and feed targeting data to the interceptors on land, at sea or in space.

Officials want them there because a missile can appear with only minutes of warning, and space is the only place that can see almost the entire surface of the Earth at one time.

While the Pentagon has not revealed the specifics of these new systems moving into the 'flight-ready' status, lawmakers in Washington have already done the math on how many interceptors will need to be launched to complete Trump's plan.

A so-called 'golden dome' would help protect the United States from outer space

The US has deployed a space weapon in the Earth's orbit for the first time, its air force said

According to a May 2026 report from the Congressional Budget Office, the US would need approximately 7,800 interceptor satellites in low Earth orbit to effectively defend the country.

That estimate came from an assessment of what it would take to stop ten long-range missiles, possibly nuclear-capable ICBMs, which were fired at America at the same time.

The CBO report also laid out a jaw-dropping $1.2 trillion price tag for the Golden Dome. This would cover the development, deployment and operation of these satellites for the next 20 years.

There is one type of weapon that the US has agreed to not launch into space - nuclear missiles or other weapons of mass destruction. These typically include chemical and biological weapons.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which the US signed and ratified, states that countries may not place nuclear devices or other similar weapons into Earth orbit, on the Moon or elsewhere in outer space.

However, that does not ban conventional weapons, signal jammers, missile interceptors or military satellites. 

There are more than 110 'states parties' - meaning countries which are legally bound to obey it - that have signed the agreement over the years.

US lawmakers have raised concerns Russia wants a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space

All major countries which have ventured into space are parties, including Russia and China.

Despite that, US lawmakers, including Republican Mike Turner, the former head of the House intelligence committee, have claimed that Russia is prepared to violate that agreement and take the space arms race nuclear.

In 2024, Turner demanded that the Biden Administration declassify all intelligence on a 'serious national security threat' that was believed to involve Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking to deploy a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space.

Moscow denied the claim. Putin said Russia opposed nuclear weapons in space, and then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 'no such projects.'

{ https://www.dailymail.com/news/index.html }

It might sound like the plot of a bonkers sci–fi film, but the world has now witnessed the very first human vs robot boxing match.

Influencer Frankie Lapenna stepped into the ring last Friday to take on a 6ft–tall humanoid robot with a worrying resemblance to the Terminator.

The event took place in San Francisco, hosted by the robot fighting company REK, which controlled the robot remotely.

While Mr Lapenna made a valiant effort, the fight didn't end well for him.

As the influencer stepped into the ring wearing a helmet and protective pads, his visibly nervous coach said: 'I'm scared for you, man.'

The fight started with Mr Lapenna actually landing a few solid punches that rock the lumbering robot's head back and sent it stumbling.

But humanity's hopes didn't hold out for long as the robot soon countered with a devastating flurry of kicks that sent him flying across the cage.

However, although it might not look that way in the clip, REK says that Mr Lapenna actually won the fight and went on to tackle an even bigger bot later the same evening.

Influencer Frankie Lapenna stepped into the ring last Friday to take on a 6ft–tall humanoid robot with a worrying resemblance to the Terminator

Cix Liv, CEO of REK, told the Daily Mail that hosting human vs robot fights was not something the company originally planned to get into.

The San Francisco–based firm's main business is staging fights between remote–controlled robots, like a real–life version of the film Real Steel.

However, when Mr Lapenna reached out about two months ago saying he wanted to get into the ring himself, the opportunity seemed too good to turn down.

'When he reached out to us, he said he didn't want to wear any protective clothing,' Mr Liv told the Daily Mail.

'But we told him that he had to, and when he saw what the robot could do, he actually said that he needed more.'

REK described the event as its first human-versus-humanoid robot fight.

In the fights, Mr Lapenna wore motorcycle gear to shield him from the worst of the blows and spiked boxing gloves to cushion his hands.

On social media, fans were terrified by the footage of a robot pummelling a human to the floor.

On Instagram, one commenter wrote: 'Didn't we have, like, 6 movies explaining why this is a bad idea?

REK, the company hosting the fight, says that Frankie wore motorcycle protective gear and spiked boxing gloves so that he could stand a chance of surviving the robot's attacks 

'This could've been a Black Mirror episode,' chimed in another.

While one bluntly wrote: 'Stop. Teaching. Them. To. Fight.'

Across the entire evening, the influencer actually took on three robots, starting with a tiny Unitree G1 and working his way up to face two of the hulking six–foot bots seen in the viral clip.

Those large robots are adapted versions of the ENGINEAI T800, which weighs up to 187lb (85kg) and costs $40,500 (£30,332).

Although they are not specifically built for fighting, their powerful limbs make an extremely powerful base for a robotic warrior.

Mr Liv says: 'We have like 500 try–hard men emailing us saying they're going to fight the robot, but they don't realise that it's like trying to punch a metal wall.'

While the average adult can kick with about 650lb (294kg) of force, REK says its large robots deliver 850lb (385kg) of force with their blows.

Although it can't be seen in this teaser clip, Mr Liv says that the influencer actually 'defeated' the massive bot seen kicking him around the ring.

The 'Terminator' robot was just one of three bots that the influencer took on that night, with each round seeing the human fighter sent flying by kicks 

Mr Lapenna apparently managed to unbalance the bot and send it tumbling into the wall, where it seized up and 'ripped its head off'.

Mr Liv says he doesn't want to give away the results of the next fight, which will be released in a video tomorrow, but cautions that things didn't go so well for the human fighter.

Despite that, the only real damage sustained by Mr Lapenna is a self–inflicted hand injury that came from 'punching metal', and the influencer was otherwise unhurt.

Watch the video here:

The unusual showdown quickly attracted attention on social media, with users speculating about whether human-controlled robots could eventually become part of professional combat sports.

Mr Liv says that the company had never considered hosting human fights long term and added that this was always intended to be 'a stunt'.

But with so many people already begging to get in the ring, he says: 'We'll have to do it again.'

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‘UFOs and God’ movie: Why the year’s most unsettling film isn’t just about aliens

Scientists in California say that if Venus once had a moon of its own, the planet would inevitably have “eaten” it. The moon would have gradually lost angular momentum, eventually ending with a fall onto the planet’s surface. However, no traces of such an event have yet been found.

Venus. Source: www.skyatnightmagazine.com

A Moon of Venus

Recently, people on Earth were able to watch the Moon “eat” Venus. Of course, this was only an illusion caused by the fact that the two objects happened to line up from Earth’s point of view. However, as phys.org reports, scientists from the University of California, Riverside suggest that Venus may once have had a moon of its own, which it later consumed. A paper on the subject has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Astronomers have long been puzzled by the question of why Venus, which is very similar to Earth in mass and size and lies right next to us, has nothing comparable to the Moon. The new paper proposes looking for the answer in what is happening to our own moon.

Earth’s Moon is thought to have formed shortly after a large body collided with the very young planet. Some of the debris gathered in orbit, much closer to the surface than the Moon is today. Since then, the “jewel of the night” has been moving very slowly away from us.

This happens because Earth itself rotates around its axis much faster than the Moon orbits it. It is known that the Moon transferred its rotational momentum until its rotation became synchronized, so that it always faces us with the same side. But the reverse is also true: Earth very slowly transfers part of its daily rotational momentum to the Moon, causing it to gradually move farther away.

Venus “Ate Its Moon”

For Earth, one possible scenario for losing the Moon would be for it to escape the planet’s gravitational influence. For Venus, however, the new study suggests the opposite. Venus rotates around its own axis extremely slowly, once every 243 Earth days. If it had a moon, that moon would orbit the planet in a much shorter period than this. Instead of gaining angular momentum, the moon would lose it.

As a result, the orbital period of a hypothetical Venusian moon would continue to shrink until the moon eventually crashed into the planet. Scientists carried out computer simulations with different moons, first for Earth to verify that they always move outward, and then for Venus, where they consistently fell toward the planet. The more massive the moon, the sooner the collision occurred.

Doubts and Implications

The idea is elegant and plausible, and the study’s authors suggest that our neighboring planet may indeed have had a moon in the past. However, there are no signs that such a moon ever existed, and most scientists doubt that Venus could ever have had anything massive in orbit.

The problem is that if Earth’s large Moon originated from a giant impact, then something similar would also have had to happen to Venus early in the history of the Solar System. Two such events within a single planetary system would be quite a coincidence.

Nevertheless, the new study is important. It shows that large moons orbiting slowly rotating planets are doomed eventually to fall onto them. This matters when considering what we should expect from Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

As for the absence of impact traces on Venus, the explanation may be that the planet’s entire surface underwent a major resurfacing event in the relatively recent past, around a billion years ago. So even if such an event was caused by the fall of a moon, no traces would remain — just as no remnants remain of the oceans in which life may once have existed.

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

Now, a research team led by Na Li, a professor at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Bo Dai, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, is tackling the question with a new open-source benchmark called RLE-Bench. The benchmark measures whether general-purpose AI agents can complete tasks associated with building and engineering robotic systems.

RLE-Bench evaluates whether an AI agent can understand how software interacts with sensors, motors, mechanical components, and the laws of physics. It includes 48 tasks across four areas, ranging from developing control and perception algorithms to designing robot hardware and interfaces.

Some challenges involve creating algorithms that allow robots to move, teaching robotic systems to perform tasks, interpreting sensor data, and designing hardware components and interfaces.

“Benchmarks are important because they give the field a common measuring stick, allowing us to compare systems under the same conditions and identify where important capability gaps remain,” Li said in a statement. “Robotics already has many valuable benchmarks, but many focus primarily on learning and evaluating control policies. RLE-Bench takes a broader view. Can an AI system perform the range of engineering tasks required to make a robotic system actually work?”

The tasks take place in simulation, where AI agents can create code, run their solutions, review the results, and make decisions to improve their work. Importantly, however, the challenges are designed around real-world engineering constraints.

An AI system, for example, might produce a design that appears successful in simulation but fails once factors such as weight, torque, balance, or geometry are taken into consideration.

Li notes that the current benchmark is only the beginning.

“RLE-Bench 1.0 is only a starting point,” he says. “We hope researchers and robotics practitioners will contribute tasks based on the engineering problems they encounter in their own work. Our goal for RLE-Bench 2.0 is to capture a much broader picture of what an AI system needs to do to function as a robot learning engineer.”

In one example, an AI agent must design a mobile base capable of supporting multiple robotic arms that need to reach objects at different heights on a shelf. While the AI-generated design might appear to work digitally, its real-world counterpart could be unstable and tip over.

China’s Robot Olympics 

China seems to be advancing quickly with regard to both robots and AI. In August 2026, Beijing hosted the second World Humanoid Robot Games, an event that put robotic systems through a variety of physical challenges.

The games featured more than 2,000 robots from 666 teams across 16 countries, with events involving potential real-world applications such as household tasks, industrial operations, and emergency rescue.

RLE-Bench and competitions like the World Humanoid Robot Games evaluate very different aspects of robotics and therefore cannot be directly compared. RLE-Bench asks whether general-purpose AI agents can perform the engineering work required to design and develop robotic systems, while physical competitions provide developers with opportunities to test how robots perform under real-world conditions.

Together, these approaches illustrate two sides of a growing challenge in robotics: developing AI systems capable of reasoning about physical machines and determining whether the resulting robotic technologies can actually perform reliably outside a simulated environment.

• Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

Their recent study explores how interactions among neurons, astrocytes, and molecules surrounding brain cells could support the physical processes underlying memory, emotion, and thought.

The idea springs from something people are all familiar with: a simple song that suddenly brings back a childhood memory, a familiar smell that reminds someone of a place or person, or even a frightening experience that sparks a negative emotional or physical reaction.

“Biological creatures do not simply store information; they experience memory together with emotional and physiological states,” says researcher Dr. Gerard Marx of MX Biotech Ltd, one of the study’s co-authors.

“A traumatic memory, for example, is not just data. It can involve fear, bodily reaction, chemical signaling, and a felt state. At present, there is no formula or algorithm that encodes an emotive state in AI equivalent to the lived experience of biological organisms,” Marx adds.

One difference between computers and the human brain is that while computers can store and retrieve information, biological memory appears to involve something far more complicated and intricate.

Chemical memory 

Marx, along with his colleague Prof. Chaim Gilon, draw on a theory they call the Tripartite Mechanism of Memory. The idea is that memory develops through interactions involving three components: brain cells, particularly neurons and astrocytes; the molecular environment surrounding those cells; and chemical substances, including metal ions, neurotransmitters, and gliotransmitters.

From this perspective, the brain may not encode and retrieve information through electrical activity alone. Chemical interactions could also play an important role in how information is physically written and read.

Astrocytes may also contribute by interacting with neurons and the brain’s chemical environment to help process and store information. The researchers suggest this pathway could extend beyond memory and potentially help explain aspects of thought itself.

In an email to The Debrief, Marx says this distinction becomes particularly important when comparing biological intelligence with AI.

“Understanding what makes biological mentality different from machine intelligence is scientifically essential,” Marx said.

He argues that while AI systems can process information, recognize patterns, and imitate aspects of human reasoning, biological intelligence appears to involve something more: “living tissue, chemical signaling, memory, emotion, and bodily states.”

“Our work attempts to clarify this distinction by proposing a biochemical mechanism for memory,” Marx explains. The model, he says, suggests that memory depends on interactions among neurons, astrocytes, the extracellular matrix, and chemical “dopants” such as metal ions, neurotransmitters, and gliotransmitters.

“If memory is not only electrical or computational, but also biochemical and emotive, then biological intelligence may be fundamentally different from machine intelligence, even when both can produce intelligent behavior,” Marx says.

Is memory more than information? 

One obstacle to understanding memory is that memories do not exist simply as objective pieces of information. Looking more deeply at the physical nature of memory, the researchers argue that any comprehensive explanation must also account for its emotional dimensions.

This argument raises another question: Could the same pathways that help the brain store and retrieve information also contribute to thought, intelligence, and consciousness?

“Our research does not yet provide such a test, but it points toward what such a distinction might require,” Marx told The Debrief. “A machine may become extremely good at imitating conscious behavior, including language, reasoning, memory-like responses, and even expressions of emotion. But imitation is not the same as biological mentality.”

“If consciousness depends on the biochemical mechanisms that connect memory, emotion, and bodily life, then a purely computational system may only be able to simulate the outward signs of consciousness but without possessing consciousness itself,” he adds. “In that sense, our work may help frame future scientific criteria for distinguishing biological mentality from artificial imitation: not by asking only whether a system behaves intelligently, but by asking whether it possesses the biological and chemical mechanisms that generate emotive states and judgment based on that.”

What about AI?

As AI systems rapidly become more capable, questions about intelligence and consciousness are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Today’s AI systems can store and process information, identify patterns, solve complex mathematical and informational problems, and generate responses that can appear remarkably intelligent. However, there is currently no established evidence that AI systems experience information or the world in the way humans do.

Marx and Gilon’s work challenges the assumption that simply increasing an AI system’s computational complexity would inevitably produce consciousness. The researchers do not claim to have solved the consciousness enigma. Instead, they propose a biochemical framework for investigating how physical processes in the brain might connect memory with emotion, cognition, and thought.

Elizabeth (Liz) Ngonzi, of the American Society for Artificial Intelligence (ASFAI), offered a different perspective in an email to The Debrief, noting that she doesn’t see “a fundamental separation between humans, living nature, and technology.”

“Everything is energy and information,” Ngonzi said. “Just as humans learn by absorbing cultural knowledge, fine-tuning through experience, and adapting through feedback, AI models are trained on, fine-tuned by, and animated through our collective human knowledge and interaction.”

“AI is not a separate, alien entity—it is a technological mirror of how collective intelligence evolves.”

“Trying to build ‘conscious AI’ out of silicon confuses calculation with living awareness,” Ngonzi added. “It’s a category error. Instead of chasing the illusion of machine consciousness, our real work in AI governance is Co-Intelligence, using AI as a non-conscious amplifier of human capability, while keeping human wisdom, embodiment, and ethical stewardship firmly at the center.”

AI Whistleblowers 

The discussion comes amid broader concerns about the future development of increasingly capable AI systems. Former Anthropic AI researcher Jacob Coxon recently left the company and the industry and publicly warned that he believes advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity by 2030.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible—but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger,” Coxon recently told The Guardian.

Ngonzi argues that biological life and technology should not be viewed as competitors for consciousness, but as interconnected expressions of energy and information. Rather than attempting to recreate human consciousness in machines, she believes AI should be developed as a tool for “Co-Intelligence,” amplifying human capabilities and relational intelligence.

“When we stop trying to force silicon to recreate organic awareness and instead design AI to amplify human relational intelligence, we move from the distraction of artificial consciousness to the true promise of Co-Intelligence,” Ngonzi told The Debrief.

But the debate over AI risk also raises a more fundamental philosophical question: What is intelligence?

Marx and Gilon’s work could ultimately help researchers investigating the relationship between AI and consciousness approach that question from a different direction. If human thought emerges from more than electrical signals—if chemistry, cells, and embodied experience are also part of the equation—then understanding consciousness may require us to look not only at how information is computed, but at what kind of system is doing the computing.

• Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and founder of VOCAB Communications. She hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton and at chrissynewton.com.

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{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

A mysterious UFO hovering over Iran has been captured on video, sparking theories that the strangely shaped craft was not made by human hands.

The video was taken on Sunday by a witness on the Azadegan Highway in Tehran around 7.30pm local time.

A man identifying himself as Ali Sedaghati shared the sighting on X, describing a large, crescent-shaped craft completely illuminated with multi-colored lights. 

The witness said: 'I really don't know what it is, but it was near the clouds, had special lights, and was hovering in the space without any sound!'

The object appeared to be a single-wing craft, with a small tail section that curved to a sharp point.

Some have suggested that the silent craft was a drone hovering over the Iranian capital, which is still engaged in a months-long military conflict with the US.

Sedaghati said on X that the object was approximately the size of a large plane, claiming 'it wasn't human-made. It was a UFO, I'm sure.'

The witness was only able to record for just over 20 seconds. He added that when he tried to take more video about ten minutes later, the craft had disappeared.

A man in Tehran, Iran has shared clear footage of an alleged UFO flying silently over the country on September 20

Many viewers of the shocking sighting, which has already been viewed more than 5.2 million times as of Monday morning, believed the UFO was an elaborate drone sighting, claiming a real UFO would not have had such colorful lighting. 

Others have suggested that the video captured advanced military surveillance equipment, while Iranian authorities have not identified it.

While some are sure the lights were proof of extraterrestrial life, the US government has maintained that there has never been any evidence recovered that proves UFOs or extraterrestrial life exists and has visited Earth.

However, the sighting also came almost on the exact anniversary of another infamous UFO sighting over Tehran 50 years ago.

That encounter, involving a showdown between Iranian military jets and a giant, diamond-shaped craft, was so concerning to the US that the Pentagon investigated what took place over the Middle East.

A Pentagon spokesperson told the Daily Mail they had 'nothing to provide' regarding this incident when asked for comment on whether the US military detected the object or was conducting operations in the area at the time of the UFO sighting. 

However, on September 19, 1976, another brightly lit craft the size of a large airplane was seen flying over the city of Tehran, and even 'attacked' a military fighter jet sent to observe it.

Fifty years ago, the Imperial Iranian Air Force, which was an ally of the US at the time, scrambled two F-4 Phantoms after multiple civilians saw a giant diamond-shaped UFO over the city around 1.30am local time.

The UFO appeared to have a crescent shape and was illuminated with multi-colored lights around its structure

Major Parviz Jafari, the pilot of the second F-4 sent to intercept the UFO, has said in interviews since his encounter that the object appeared to launch multiple glowing orbs, which allegedly circled his plane and shut down his weapons. 

Jafari has said that the UFO was as big as a 747 commercial jet, and that at one point, it 'jumped' roughly 28 miles across the sky instantaneously as his jet was approaching it.

That was when the first glowing orb appeared to exit from the bottom of the diamond and fly in circles around his plane, despite the fact that Jafari was traveling at supersonic speeds.

A second orb would eventually approach Jafari's F-4, causing the veteran fighter pilot to believe he was under attack and prepare to launch his missile.

However, the Iranian pilot claimed that some type of electromagnetic pulse from the UFOs completely disabled the panels that controlled his plane's weapons.

A third object was later seen following Jafari's fighter after he disengaged and was returning to his base. That object was seen appearing to crash in Iran, near the Mehrabad International Airport, but no wreckage was ever found.

Pictured: An F-4 Phantom like the fighter jet which intercepted the UFO over Iran in 1976

(Stock Image)

A declassified report from the Pentagon revealed that the US military investigated the 1976 UFO sighting of Iran

The newest sighting came just 48 hours after the Pentagon released its sixth batch of UFO files, including more videos of unidentified craft flying over the Middle East in recent years.

The latest tranche contained incidents which had been filmed by US drone aircraft flying over Iraq and other Middle East countries between 2022 and 2025, including one which featured a cluster of strange orbs flying in formation.

The group of glowing orbs was seen traveling past an oil rig, flying at high speed next to each other in an almost perfect horizontal line before splitting up into groups of three.

Other videos followed individual orbs traveling over the desert or over water at extreme speeds before disappearing from view after several minutes. 

{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

UFO over Tehran? Viral Iran video shows mysterious lights in night sky

Theories remain up in the air.

Marcus Walsh - Journalist

Reddit reaction to alleged Iran UFO sightings.

Others, however, tussled over the possibility that it could be a multicolored kite, with one observer pointing to the seemingly low altitude at which the UAP was flying as evidence.

Two disagreeing Redditors chimed in, with one doubting that locals would fly a kite in a warzone at 10 p.m.

Another skeptic pointed out that a kite, at night, “can look completely stationary in the sky.”

Reddit reaction to alleged Iran UFO sightings.

A historical parallel

An enigmatic coincidence people picked up on was the resemblance to a UFO incident on September 19th, 1976, in which locals reported a multicolored craft.

Iranian fighter jets were also deployed for investigation at the time, though the logging of the incident comes from US government records.

And, as this is remembered as one of the most “credible” spottings among so-called ufologists, the comparisons seem inevitable.

As political tensions between the US and Iran continue to ramp up, discussions of what the actual aircraft was, along with conspiracy theories, look set to continue.

Until more official classification and verification become available, however, the speculation remains as kaleidoscopic guesswork, at best.

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