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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.
“Weekly World News”3 pages
UFO: FAA releases reams of data from investigation, but comes to no conclusion about pilot's sighting I • Continued from Paga A>1 | except on radar. The FAA did not have ground radar coverage in the McGrath area, so there was no way to confirm the plane's, sighting. Agency officiais in terviewed crew members af ter they landed, but formed no opinion about the Alaska Airlines sighting. FAA officials Thursday had more to say about the Nov. 17 reported sighting of two small UFOs and an enor mous "mothership." The JAL pilot's initial report appeared to be partially confirmed by thrM ground controllers, who saA in statements released at the press conference they thought they picked up one of the UFOs on FAA rada r. But also on Thursdi ay, the FAA released a formal review of the controller rada' r tapes by New Jersey-based agency technicians that conclu d^ the controllers mlstakenlj t inter preted a split-image of the JAL plane as a second object. "It is unfortv mate," Steucke said, that t! he split image appear^ "just when a pilot was reporting; seeing something outside his air craft." Steucke said, tl le FAA launched its thrbe-nuonth ex amination of the h'iovember sighting to malxe sure some strange alrcraffc waisn't men- ^aclng the safeity o;( the air traffic control S^st/un.' Since the radar didin't pdck up a second aircraft, the FAA now' considers the air. traffic sys tem safe and the case closed. "We are not in the UFO business and don't intend to be," Steucke said. Does that mean the FAA doesn't believe the reports of the sightings from the JAL crew?. Not at all. "As far as we know, the whole crew are people of integrity and did report what they saw accu rately," Steucke said. Kenju Terauchi, the pilot of the JAL plane, describes the sightings in almost mysti cal terms In a December re port titled "Meeting the Fu ture" to JAL management. "Once upon a time If a hunter saw a TV, how did be describe it to other people? My experience was similar to this," he began his tale. "... There was no danger, but it created many questions that a human being cannot answer." Terauchi said he first saw two spaceships that hovered almost stationary, then rapid ly pulsed across the sky. "Most unexpectedly, two spaceships stopped in front of our face, shooting off lights. The inside cockpit sbined brightly and I felt Warm in the face," Terauchi wrote in his report to JAL officials. Later, as the JAL plane flew over Fairbanks, Terau chi reported a third UFO, a huge spaceship the size of two battleships. He said the space ship followed the JAL plane south of Fairbanh», then abruptly disappeared as con trollers directed a United Air lines plane to check out the sigbtl^. In an interview with FAA officials, Terauchi said the Nov. 17 Incident wzis the third UFO sighting of his 29-year career as a pilot. A fourth sighting Terauchi reported In January be later dismissed as the lights of a town reflected in the clouds by an air inver sion. Co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji and engineer Yoshlo Tsukuba said the November sighting was their first. Both, in inter views with FAA officials, confirmed parts of Terauchi's account. Tsukuba, the flight engi neer. said he saw'^trange white and amber-colored lights that glowed with a strange Inl'ensity that "1 can not describe ... not even in Japanese." But in t wo interviews with FAA officials, he said he didn't know whether the ob- •jects were UFOs. "When I was lnter\'iewed here the first time by FifVApersonnel," Tsu kuba said in his second inter view, "I was not sure whether the object was a UFO or not. My mind has not changed since then." Tamefuji said he spotted the first series of-lights about the same time as the captain, and that they followed the plane. 'But he said he could ' not make out the large object spotted ovei(t'Fairbanks be cause it followed on Terau chi's side of the plane.
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