IAF's Rafale fighter jets hunt for ‘unidentified flying object’ sighted at Imphal airport

The Indian Air Force (IAF) scrambled its Rafale fighter aircraft to search for unidentified flying objects sighted near the Imphal airport on Sunday.

The sighting of the UFO over the Imphal airport happened around 2:30 pm after which a few commercial flights were affected yesterday. “The UFO was visible with bare eyes moving westwards of the airfield till 4 pm,” said an official of the Air Traffic Control.

“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,” defence sources told ANI.

“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,” they said, adding that after the first aircraft returned, one more Rafale fighter was sent for the search but the UFO was not seen around the area.

“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.

Eastern Command, in a post on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), said, “IAF activated its Air Defence response mechanism based on visual inputs from Imphal airport. The small object was not seen thereafter.

“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.

Normal flight services at Manipur’s Imphal International Airport were affected on Sunday afternoon over sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO), officials said.

Two flights were diverted and three others delayed. Services normalised after around three hours. “Due to sighting of an unidentified flying object within Imphal controlled airspace, two flights have been diverted and three departing flights have been delayed. Flight operations commence after receipt of clearance from the competent authority,” a statement issued by Airport Director Chipemmi Keishing told PTI.

Manipur is bordered by Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam, besides sharing an international border with Myanmar to its east.

With inputs from agencies.