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This FAA interview transcript, released through the National Archives and The Black Vault, records Pete Beckner of the FAA questioning JAL flight engineer Yoshie Tsukuba on January 15, 1987, with Sayoko Mimoto interpreting. The subject is the UFO that Captain Terauchi reported on November 17, 1986. Tsukuba says he saw clusters of white or amber lights ahead of the aircraft for about ten minutes, plus a fainter second light and a return on the weather radar. He adds that he was still unsure whether it was a UFO.
.. Tsukuba: It was just at sunset at right front of us. There was a stripe of red line and almost dark, it was almost pitch dark behind us. Beckner: How was the lighting conditions inside the cockpit? Tsukuba: We had night illumination at above sideways. I was using a spot light while calculating the data. I do not remember whether the Captain had the lights turned off or not. There is a switch that can turn the light to regular fluorescent or to dark. It was set to dark. Beckner: How long did you see the object? Tsukuba: The one in front of us, as I mentioned it for about 10 minutes, then, the one at 9 o'clock, together, a total of lights in front of us and the other absolutely different nature of lights. earl i er , I saw on our left side 30 minutes. The one were of two Beckner: Would you show us what they looked like on this paper? Tsukuba: The lights in front of us were clusters of lights like this. I think they were made of two parts. How should I say this, but the lights were shaped like windows of a passenger aircraft. Beckner: What was the shape of the object like? Tsukuba: I do not know. It was just lights. The one in front of us was like an aircraft viewed from another aircraft which was ours. Beckner: Did the object move with your aircraft when you changed direction or altitude? Tsukuba: When we saw the first one in front of us, we did not change the heading, but the second one, it was really hard to see, I had to try real hard to see it, so we changed heading. I think the object was with us when we changed altitude. When we changed altitude, I could not see. The Captain said it was still there, so I felt like it was there. Beckner: Did you see another aircraft? Tsukuba: I saw United Air Line. Beckner: Any other lighted, or unlighted objects? 3
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