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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 10~
moved ao euddenly. We probably would have felt more in dangez
and would have been prepared to escape if the spaceehips were
ehaking unsteadily or were unable to atop themselves. It ia
impossible for any man-made machine to make a sudden appearance
in front of a jumbo jet that is flying 810 kilometers per hour
and to move along in a formation paralleling our aircraft. The
ships moved in formation for about three to five minutes, then
'
two ehips moved forward in a line, again slightly higher i~
altitude as we were, 40 degrees to our left. We did not report
this action to the Anchorage Center. Honestly, we were simply
breathtaken. The VHF communication, both in transmitting and
receivi~g were extremely difficult for ten or fifteen minutes
I
while the little ships came close to us and often interfered with
communication from the Anchorage Center; however, communication
conditions became just as good as soon as the ships left us.
There were no abnormalities in the equipment or the aircraft. I
have no idea why they came so close to us.
Then again, there was a pale white flat light on the
direction where the ships flew away, moving in a line along with!
us, in the same direction and same speed and in the same altitude
as we were.
[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

About this file

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.