Indian Air Force Pune Airbase UAP 2004

On November 8, 2004, Pune Air Base radar controllers detected an unidentified contact over Maharashtra State at 20,000 feet performing a stationary hover. IAF MiG-21 fighters were scrambled. The crews acquired a metallic disc-shaped contact that, when the MiG-21s approached, demonstrated apparent awareness of the intercept by performing a high-speed escape maneuver to the east. The encounter lasted 18 minutes from initial radar detection to final contact loss. The IAF classified the report immediately. The 2004 Pune encounter did not become publicly known until 2013, when researchers examining the pattern of IAF UAP reports found it in military research literature alongside the contemporaneous November 2004 Nimitz encounters in the Pacific — suggesting a possible global pattern in the same month. The Pune case became part of the evidence base that ultimately prompted DRDO's decision to deploy scientific monitoring equipment to Ladakh.