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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.

It was about seven or so minutes since we began paying
attention to the lights, most unexpectedly two spaceships stopped
in front of our face, shooting off liahts. The inside cockpit
shined brightly and I felt warm in the face. Perhaps firing of
jets was the result to kill inertia of their quick high speed
maneuver, but the ships appeared as if they were stopped in one
place in front of us. Then three to seven seconds later a fire
like from jet engines stopped and became a small circle of lights
as they began to fly in level flight at the same speed as we
were, showin& numerous numbers of exhaust pipes. However, the
center area of the ship where below an engine might be was
invisible. The middle of the body of the ship sparked an
occasionally stream of lights, like a charcoal fire, from right
to left and from left to riaht. Its shape was a square, flying
500 feet to 1000 feet in front of us, very slightly higher in
altitude than us, its size was about the same size as the body of
a DC-8 jet, and with numerous exhaust pipes. The firing of the
exhaust jets varied, perhaps to maintain balance, some became
stronger than others and some became weaker than others, but
seemed controlled automatically.
We did not feel threatened or in danger because the
spaceship
[Personal statement concerning JAL Flight 1628 sighting of
unidentified air traffic, Nov. 17, 1986. Written by Capt.
Kenju Terauchi; translated by Sayoko Mimoto, F(\A 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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