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Anchorage Daily NewsANCHORAGE. ALASKA. FRTOAY, JANUARY 9.1987 PRJCE 25 CENTSvocxm, N0.9 70 PAGES
Controller says unknown image tracked on radar
Image seemed to be following JAL cargo plane that reported sighting of UFO
ByHALBERNTON
New9-busines3 reporter
Three air traffic controllers
track^ on radar an image
that seemed to be following
the Nov. 17 flight of a Japa
nese Air Lines cargo plane,
according to one of the con
trollers who helped monitor
the radar.
The captain of the JAL
plane reported that an uni
dentified flying object was
tailing his aircraft at the
same location as the radar
three of us thought
there was a track," said Sam
Rich, a controller who has
worked for the Federal Avia?
tion Administration for more. '
than a decade;. A track Is*
what air traffic controllers
call the radar image of an
aircraft.
In previous news ^eases^
the Federal Aviation Admin
istration reported onlj one
controller sitting the myste-
rloua object — described by
the crew as wavering lights —
.on radar. That controller,
:whose name has not been
r^eased by the FAA,.mistak
enly interpreted a spUt-imagfr
of the cargo plane as ^aecondi
object, FAA officials iud fol
lowing a revidv^ ol^.radar
tap^
.ChiThursday,- FAA spokes
man Paul Stei^e said he had
no Vknowledge of additional
controllers who had tracked
the UFa-reported by tbe
JAb'a . pilot and two-man-
crew.
Capt. Kenju Terauchi said
the UFO tailed their plane for
more than 300 miles as it
crossed Into Alaska air space
en route from Iceland to an
Andiorage refueling spot. -
Terauchi told United Press
kitexnaticnal that he saw two
brightly lit objects and. a
third enormous object —
twice the size oLan aircraft
carrier —. follow the plane.
' See BackPipe, UN
UFO; Controller says there was something on the radar
I Continued from Page A-1 |
That report triggered a new
FAA investigation of the inci
dent and a burst of interna
tional publicity for Teraudii.
Controllers have been in
terviewed by FAA officials,
but until Thxirsday had not
talked to the press.
Rich said he was on duty
for the half-hour during
wUch the JAL plane reported
spotting the UFO.
He said the JAL crew first
contacted fiie Anchorage air
controllers as their plane flew
over Fort Yukon. "They said
'something was following
them.' It appeared to be light.
And appeared to be white,
orange and yellow," he said.
Rich said the pilot sounded
shaken. "He was concerned.
There was-a quaver in his
voice."
Rich said the controllers
immediately turned down
their radar range to
small-scale that would better
dei^e the air space around
the JAL plane.
"There did appear to be a
track near the plane about
where he (Terauchi) said there
was. So we kept looking."
The track was not real
strong, lUch said, but neither
he nor any of his colleagues,
then thought it might be a
split image;
After spotting the track,
Rich said he called the Mili
tary Regional Operations
Control Center. "They in
formed me that they had the
same track;"
. Another controller then
told the pilot to make a series
of turns and a descent in an
effort to shake the UFO. Fi
nally, as the plane headed
south from Fairbanks, the
controllers lost track of the
UFO.
Since the Noveml^er inci
dent, the FAA launched a
major review of the radar
tapes; initially confirming the
controller tracking, then dis:
missing it as a split or dou
ble-image of the JAL plane.
Rich confirmed that double
images often occur on the
FAA radar screen, which re
lies on computer-generated
data. But the plane didn't fly
through the areas where the
split images normally occur.
The JAL pilot isn't the first
pilot to report strange things
in that northern corridor.
During the past decade,
there's been about a baif doz
en reports of unidentified
lights from civfiian and mili
tary pilots. "It's pretty real to
them (the pilots)," Rich said.