Videos of an unidentified luminous object in the night sky over Tehran and Mashhad on September 20 have circulated widely on Iranian social media, with further sightings claimed over Mashhad the same night, local media reported on September 21.

The footage has spread through a capital whose airspace has been contested since the US and Israel began attacking on February 28, and where drones have been a nightly presence for seven months, with fears of unannounced new US military tech flying above the capital of 10 million people. 

No Iranian official has commented on the objects, their altitude or their flight path, and none of the clips has been independently verified.

One video was attributed to the Azadegan expressway. The clips show a cluster of coloured lights that appears to move or shift position, with at least two different objects filmed.

 In the video above, the user cites religious phrases saying then adds "It's a UFO" in Persian, according to audio. 

The report said the footage's quality and angle do not allow the size, altitude, distance, or speed to be established.

Second video from Mashhad, shows a different type of UAP, over the large eastern city near the border of Turkmenistan. 

Local social media users have variously suggested a drone, a formation of drones, an aircraft or a kite. One said the Mashhad video showed an ordinary airliner, identifiable by the green and red wingtip lights that indicate an aircraft's direction of travel.

Another user who ran the footage through an AI verification tool was told the video appeared genuine but that the object resembled an illuminated drone, and that the low resolution ruled out a firm conclusion.

The report said the possibility that the clips were generated by artificial intelligence tools cannot be excluded without precise timing, positional, or radar data.

The sightings have revived interest in the September 1976 Mehrabad incident, in which Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantoms were scrambled after the control tower reported a brilliant object over Tehran, and pilots reported intense light, interference with some aircraft systems and four separate light sources.

The pre-revolutionary incident has yet to be explained by the subsequent government of the Islamic Republic, despite top-secret files from the 1980s. 

No link between the two events has been reported or confirmed.

Iranian officials have also not said whether the Islamic Republic is testing out newer forms of drones, which it has become synonamous for since the war with the US was initiated and its supply of low-cost Shahed drones to Russia in the conflict with Ukraine. 

However, in a 2024 IntelliNews report, officials in the US said Iran was flying UFOs off the American Atlantic Coast, which was immediately rejected by experts in the sector. 

Representative Jeff Van Drew, in a December 2024 interview with Fox News, claimed he had received intelligence evidence to support this assertion, though his remarks were widely ridiculed online.

The FBI was called in to investigate but told a Congress committee called to look into the issue that “We don’t know what they are,” when questioned by the panel.  

"I don't have an answer of who's responsible," Robert Wheeler Jr, the assistant director of the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group told lawmakers at a congressional hearing on December 10. "But we're actively investigating."

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed that there were no Iranian ships in US waters on December 11 and flatly denied the presence of an “Iranian mothership” over New Jersey.

Van Drew alleged that Iran, with alleged backing from China, had deployed a carrier vessel responsible for the unidentified aerial objects reported in New Jersey’s airspace.

“We have a serious problem with our aerospace,” he said during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s hearing on December 11. “The recent sightings of unidentified drones in the state of New Jersey, my home state, [are] justifiably causing tremendous public concern,” which he claims are coming from a “mothership.”