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English translation of Terauchi statement (Meeting the Future)

FAA via National Archives / The Black Vault · 14 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is an English translation of Captain Kenju Terauchi's personal statement about the November 17, 1986 sighting by Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 over Alaska. Sayoko Mimoto of the FAA Alaskan Region translated it, and the FAA received it on January 2, 1987. Terauchi describes two lights pacing the Boeing 747 cargo jet, square spaceships stopping in front of the aircraft, a green object on the plane's weather radar, and a gigantic mothership seen near Fairbanks. He says the encounter lasted about 50 minutes and ended north of Talkeetna.

~Page 6~
Anchorage Center when we reach above Pottat(sp?) where Alaska
Territorial Air begins. Pottat locates approximately 480 miles,
approximately 890 kilometers, North-northeast of Anchorage, 67
degrees 56 minutes North Latitude, 141 degrees West Longitude.
We began the communication with the Anchorage Center about
5:05 p.m. The flight course we had acknowledged was Jet 529,
direct to Ft. Yukon and Jet 125 via Nenana, Talkeetna, Chaiger
(sp?), and to Anchorage. The Anchorage Center ordered us to fly
direct to Talkeetna, provided us transponder codes and placed us
on a radar scope at the same time. The strange phenomenon
happened immediately 'after we began left rotation, following the
order of taking the direct flight course.
There was an unidentifiable light ahead of the rotation. We
set the course toward Talkeetna and began level flight. Then we
saw lights that looked like aircraft lights, 30 degrees left
front, 2,000 feet (600 meters) below us, moving exactly in the
same direction and with the same speed as we were. We were at
the altitude of 35,000 feet (10,600 meters), flying speed was
900 kilometer per hour to 910 kilometer per hour.
[Personal statement concerning JAL Flight 1628 sighting of
unidentified air traffic, Nov. 17, 1986. Written by Capt.
Kenju Terauchi; translated by Sayoko Mimoto, FAA Alaskan
Region, Airway Facilities Division. Received by FAA 1/2/87]

Cases discussed

  • The Mantell UFO Incident 1948
    U.S. military fighter called the mustang that had flown up high for a confirmation and a tragedy

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 14 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.