Miscellaneous

P H E N 0 M E N A R E S E A R C H R E P 0 R T
Vol. 3 No . 6 Robert J. Gribble, Editor Issue No. 3o
A NIGHT FLIGHT TO REMEMBER--A full moon shown in the Arctic sky as Captain
Kenju Terauchi to ok off fr om Iceland November 17, 1986, in a Japan Air Lines
cargo jet loaded with French Beaujolai s wine. He was bound for Anchorage,
Alaska on a rout e acroe s Greenland to Eismere Island, Canada, over the
Beaufort Sea, then into Alaeka air space above Fort Yukon. For the first
two and a half hours, the flight--crewed by Terauchi, co-pilot Takanori
Tamefu ji and engineer Yo shio Tsukuda--was uneventful. The mky was clear and
the winds--except for aome light gust! over Greenland--were calm. Then
Terauchi's jet cruised into Alaska, and he first saw the two belts of light.
They were an estimated three miles ahead of the plane, slightly to the left
of the pilots cockpit seat, and 2000 feet lower than the plane. They
emitted a steady amber glow. They hovered almost stationary, ehifted from
side-to-side, then pulsed across the sky in abrupt bursts of speed. The
objects, Terauchi believes "were not made by human kind. They were of a
very high technology and intelligence. 11
The events recounted by Terauchi in the 50 minutes after that first sighting
of lights are some of the most bizarre in Alaska aviation history. Since
first becoming publi c in late December, 1986, the reports have transformed
this sort-spoken, 47-year-old, Anchorage-based pilot into an international
celebrity, interviewed by People magazine, Tokyo television and more than a
dozen other national and international publications. Terauchi has an
impre8sive list of professional credentials to lend weight to his rather
incredibl e tale. He has 29 years flying experience. Until November,
Terauchi says, he never believed in UFOs. Now he does. He is convinced
thst the lights he ssw in November were spaceships of some unknown, extra-
terrestrial origin. In interview after interview, he methodically makes his
case, charting the events of the sighting on flight maps of the Arctic sky.
Teraucb.i's encounter began ~ith his sighting of the two belte of amber
ligb.tg. To check them out, he radioed Anchorage air traffic controllers.
The controllers re~lied that no militar~ or civilian flights were in the
vicinit~. The two belts of light continued to dance in front of the plane.
Terauchi grabbed for his camera, but realized that taking a picture would be
futile because there was not enough light to expose the film properly. Five
minutes later after the lights first appeared in front of the plane, they
suddenl~ moved farther out ahead of the plane, he said. He could then make
out the ehapes of the crafts--cylinders wrapped in lateral lines of light
that extended from a darker center. The lines appeared to be exhaust
outlets, and they alternately pulsated light from the two sides of the
cylinder. They appeared to be controlled by computers, he said. As the two
objects reversed direction, the exhaust lights appeared to flare brighter.
Co-pilot Tamefuji, in a separate interview, also reported seeing the two
strange lights. "I saw several lights in front of us, and then I couldn't
see them, and the captain told me they were on the left-hand side," he said.
After about 15 minutes, the first two lights disappeared, Terauchi said.
Then, on his left, he saw a big band of glowing white light, similar to the
light emitted by fluorescent bulb. He turned on his weather radar and tuned
it to a 20-mile re.dius. At eight miles, on the left side of the screen, the
radar showed a tiny ball. Terauchi radioed the FAA flight control center in
Anchorage. Three controllers monitoring radar saw what they thought was an
object at about the same reference point on their monitor, according to Sam
Rich, an air traffic controller, and Paul Steucke, an FAA spokesman.
Steucke, however, said subse quent examination of the radar tape showed the
object to be a split-image of the JAL plane. Rich said none of the
controllers, at the time, thought that was the case.
As the plane flew over Fairbanks, the lights of the city gave Terauchi a
better view of the new object. He says the band of light circled a huge
walnut-shaped object that appeared to be twice the size of an aircraft
carrier. As the lights of the city faded, Terauchi again could see only the
white band of light. To try to lose the object, he got permi1aion from a
controller to descend from 35,000 to 31,500 feet. The object descended "in
formation," he said. Then Terauchi, after consulting with the controllers,
made two 45-degree turns to the right. The object remained i n view. As the
JAL plane flew past Mount McKinley, controllers asked a Fairbanks-bound
Unit ed Ai r l ines flight to try to confirm the sighting. The United plane