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This FAA file, released through the National Archives and The Black Vault, collects 1987 newspaper clippings about Japan Air Lines Flight 1628. Capt. Kenju Terauchi reported that lights and a huge walnut-shaped object followed his 747 cargo jet over Alaska on November 17, 1986. The articles quote FAA spokesman Paul Steucke saying the radar returns were a split image and military clutter, and report Philip Klass's explanation that Terauchi saw Jupiter and Mars. Terauchi's second sighting in January was attributed to village lights reflecting off ice crystals.
“Japan Air Lines Flight 1628”7 pages
-^j,?vy '*^"- - ' V' V ••vl^tV'^.^-''«r^^**5iT"^ NATIONAL AFFAIRS Strange Encounter Over Alaska^ with his own on-board weather rad^. Both • Air Force an,d civilian flight controllers reported briefly seeing echoes of what might have been another craft nearby the JAL flight. But when radar tapes covering the period were replayed by FAA investiga tors, Steucke says, the reported echoes could not be found. The Air Force, he add ed, is now attributing the supposed radar sightings to "clutter." "A mystery': Approaching Fairbanks, Ter auchi steered his plane in a 360-degree cir cle, but the object stayed with him, finally disappearing as the 747 approached An chorage. FAA officials interviewed the crew on the ground and found them, in Steucke's words, "professional, rational, well-trained people." The FAA confirmed the incident after inquiries from Japanese reporters, who heard about it from a rela tive ofone ofthe crewmen. But it has closed its inquiry into the sighting. "It's a mys tery,!' Steucke concedes, "but, really, we have nothing here to investigate. The con trollersawwhat he saw. . .As far as what it could be, on the extreme side it could have been the proverbial unknown object, or possibly military aircraft from the United States, Canada or some foreign country." As for Terauchi, he told a UPI reporter that he believes the object he saw over the Alas ka sky that night must have come from another planet with a civilization far more advanced than ours. Only that can explain, he says lightly, their interest in his cargo: cases of French Beaujolais wine. Was an FAA-confirmed sighting really a UFO? It was big—^bigger than anything knownto fly, according to an experienced pilot who watched it from as little as eight miles off. It was fast—fast enough to keep pace with a 747jet for halfan hour as it flew over the empty Alaska wilderness. It was flanked by two smaller objects that maneu vered with it; together the three objects flashed abrilliant pattern of yellow, amber and green lights. And—if this sounds aw fully familiar to connoisseurs of UFO tales—there is one thing that set this par ticular apparition apart: it may have shown up on radar. Although the Federal Aviation Adminis tration confirmed last week that some sort of sighting did take place aboard J apan Air Lines Flight 1628, much of what happened remains a mystery. The incident began on the evening of Nov. 17, with veteran pilot Kenjyu Terauchi, 47, at the controls of the JAL cargo plane, which was en route to Anchorage from Reykjavik, Iceland, the middle leg of a Europe-to-Tokyo flight. The weather was clear as the jet crossed the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's north coast. Sud denly Terauchi and his two fellow crew- BLUMRICH UTEWSWEEK men spotted flashing lights moving along side them—about eight miles off, at the plane's altitude of 35,000 feet. Terauchi radioed FAA controllers and received per mission to descend to 31,000 feet. After a minute the controllers asked if the lights were still there. "It is descending in forma tion," the pilot replied; Terauchi said he glimpsed the full craft only once, in profile. "It was a very big one—two times bigger than an aircraft car rier," he reported. He sketched it as wal nut-shaped; with a wide flat rim and bulges above and below. According to FAA spokes- - man Paul Steucke of the Anchorage re gional oflice, Terauchi located the object The;'Onion Fieldlmol^l^MB Califofnlans may have vgtr" ed to unseat Rose Bird; but;; the controversial chiefjustiLm ^of.,ix:ei'Angele3';pplice officer, ii':Ian-jCampl>ell^.whoiwas .ex^-: .•put^Vatipomt^blankl-'.range-.; ou^deBakefsfieldi-'^e incL' ,hdent|wasrdeta0^lm;'Josephi: :?-waspus^after^eyeai? oh^ "thecoii^'stopjoba^ •h'erippi^bsitipri>to;^ py^^sixM^efdre^ ftdo^^Bi^iHunafe^ Huphpldthepw^ 4v^^^idutinema |sevec^b^pogg^.^MBir^^ ^p^^dtohfe^ !rofl|cefjBut'henyp sotKer^;fpund]bf^^^^^ a^d'sent'state pfficifi^^sc^^mi^^^^ bBut'^when! thelmye;a'famsh'rt "fat a rehearmg^l't^i,-!f;^.!:.e/^^^ • BiH;:,whp;leav^jbfehmd.;a^ ••legaUy;*ftoHd^ifi-tendentioi^x^^^ le^^?.-im'i^finished!deffe^ iinghertwews-y^ pl^ti:;': vning;^;Kppjt'a]^^^ •endes^^ a^.4Caiifdnua'i;Cfii^sV prograratd^ educi^/"J ^rthe.piubUdTO/thedrapbrtan^^ .ofieon^tutional-Irigbts^ih^'J^. 'Jimmj^-Lee Sinifh^were,coh-f. -pluffihgj:.^of^couree;'utH<^^o^S -yicted; ih/ the l^^f^ihi^er;: .CfPoweft^^jbe^dn.th'ejst"^ cohvic^ cfnminfllk -^^^ 26 NEWSWEEK : JANUARY 12. 1987
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