Nader Yousefi

Nader Yousefi was an officer of the Imperial Iranian Air Force who served as Assistant Deputy Commander of Operations during the 1976 Tehran UFO incident. On 18/19 September 1976 he received the first civilian reports, observed the object himself from his house in northern Tehran and ordered an F-4 Phantom to scramble from Shahrokhi Air Force Base to intercept it. Yousefi was featured in an Iranian government film on the incident and personally observed the electromagnetic effects, including instrument failures, on the intercepting aircraft.

• Officer of the Imperial Iranian Air Force
• Assistant Deputy Commander of Operations during the 1976 Tehran UFO incident
• Received initial civilian reports of an unidentified aerial object on 18/19 September 1976
• Initially suspected confusion with stars or Venus, then observed the object himself from northern Tehran and confirmed it was not celestial
• Ordered an F-4 Phantom to scramble from Shahrokhi Air Force Base to intercept
• Coordinated the response with air traffic control and military command
• Featured in an Iranian government film on the Tehran UFO incident; personally observed the electromagnetic effects on the intercepting aircraft

For the UAP timeline, Yousefi is the political-military decision-maker of the Tehran case: his orders turned civilian reports and his own observation into a combat-ready air force response — and thus into a case that later reached as far as Kissinger's desk.