The Indian Air Force (IAF) scrambled its Rafale fighter jets last Sunday after receiving information about the sighting of unidentified flying objects over the city of Imphal airport in Manipur, India, The New Indian Express reported.
The sighting reportedly took place around 2:30 p.m. and caused some commercial flights to be temporarily grounded.
“Soon after information about the UFO near the Imphal airport was received, a Rafale fighter aircraft from a nearby airbase was scrambled to go and search for the UFO,” defense sources said. “The aircraft equipped with advanced sensors carried out low-level flying over the suspected area to look for the UFO, but it did not find anything there.”
After that aircraft returned, another was sent out to search for the UFO but ultimately found nothing.
“The agencies concerned are trying to find out the details of the UFO as there are videos of the UFO over the Imphal airport,” they said.
That same day, soon after the Imphal airport was cleared to resume traffic, Asian News International (ANI) shared a screenshot of a tweet by Eastern Air Command IAF stating, “IAF activated its Air Defence response mechanism based on visual inputs from Imphal airport. The small object was not seen thereafter.”
Eastern Air Command IAF tweets, “IAF activated its Air Defence response mechanism based on visual inputs from Imphal airport. The small object was not seen thereafter.” https://t.co/wRO6Kvh7fU pic.twitter.com/E2DwO4oM4v
— ANI (@ANI) November 19, 2023
“A drone that was very small in appearance was spotted by security personnel at Imphal Airport on Sunday at 3 p.m. An alert was issued to other agencies at the airport and operations were postponed till security clearance. Three flights were affected due to the security clearance. The flight operations resumed at 5:30 p.m.,” ANI reported they were told by airport sources.
At least one video of the reported UFO has made its way to social media so far.
Eastern Air Command IAF tweets, “IAF activated its Air Defence response mechanism based on visual inputs from Imphal airport. The small object was not seen thereafter.” https://t.co/wRO6Kvh7fU pic.twitter.com/E2DwO4oM4v
— ANI (@ANI) November 19, 2023
The article published by The New Indian Express made special mention of current IAF maneuvers along India’s border with China.
“The Rafale fighters of the Indian Air Force are deployed at the Hashimara air base in West Bengal and keep flying from different air bases in the eastern sector along the China border,” the news site reported. “The Rafale fighters recently also took part in the mega Air Force exercise Poorvi Akash along the China border where all major assets of the force participated along with the troops of the Army.”
This reference to China reflects concerns that the UFO might have been a Chinese spy balloon, similar to the one shot down off the coast of South Carolina last February.