Simulated radar data, colour photos

..
E"'7 time the
public affairs
guy doled out
information, the
story ballooned-
the believers are trying to keep
the possibility alive."
THE INQumIES KEPT COM-
ing - mostly from the media and
some from independent UFO in-
vestigators like Richard Haines, a
compect. precise, polite Califor-
nia scientist in wire-rimmed bifo-
cals who still pulls out chairs for
women. When people called
Steucke with scientific questions,
or Wllllting to know about other
pilot sightings, he sent them to
Haines.
_During the day, Haines works
at NASA's Ames Research Center
in Mountain View as chief of the
Space Human Factors Office -
they're helping design the inte-
rior of the space station as well as
new space suits. At night and on
weekends, at his own expense, he
tries to keep track of and explain
high-altitude sightings like Capt.
Terauchi's - his hobby for 20
years.
He thinks pilots make good
subjects: highly stable, highly
trained, highly motivated, scien-
tifically inclined, and unlikely to
make casual reports of strange
sightings, because of the potential
to be embarrassed among their
pee?S. Plus, an airplane comes
with instruments that can record
phenomena - "a flying laborato-
ry," says Haines.
Over the years he has looked
into 3,000 pilot-sightings and ex-
plained 2,500 of them as illusions
or misidentifications of atmos-
pheric phenomena. ''But none-
theless," he says, "I have quite a
few that are very unexplained, I
would say 500." The Alaska sight-
ing is ooe-of lliem - but he says
the only really unuaual thing
about it was the publicity. "Peo-
ple tend not to know about the
others." -
Like the dozen or so UFOs that
six Brazilian .jet fighters chased
for half an hour last May after the
object.a registered on radar in Sao
P-aulo. Or the young Australian
pilot Haines has just written a
book. about - who in. 1978 re-
ported a strange craft in his vicin-
ity, then disappeared,. while
flying in a Cessna to bey some
crayfish far a party.
Haines heard about the JAL
sighting and proceeded to edu-
cate himself about the relevant
radar syst.ems and the dynamks
of the Boeing 747. He got hold of
wind aloft charts and weather
phoiogmphy. He worked the
phones: Elmendorf, Steucke,
Derry, JAL; the .. pilot and first.
officer of the United jet. And he . '
interviewed Cilpt. TarauChi far
three boors by t.elephone with the
help of a Japanese friend who is a
pilot with a Plill. in engineering.
When Haines asked Teranchi
how the two object.s he first saw
had moved in space, the captain
said, "They move together as if
they have a common center of
gravity, and they oscillate slightly
with a random wavering motion."
The inst.ant he flashed his landing
lights at the United jet, whatever
was fallowing him disappeared.
"Whaddya mean, disap-
peared?" Haines aaked. And Ter-
auchi said:
"The lights went out."
I T WAS SOMETIME AFI'ER
Haines spoke with the cap-
tain that Philip Klass, an-
other noted independent UFO
investigator, advanced a widely
published theory that the captain
had actually been looking at Jupi-
ter, and maybe Mars.
It was late in January by then.
For many years, until his semi-
retirement last June, Klass had
been the senior avionics editor of
Aviation Week and Space Technol-
ogy Magazine. And for more than
20 years, his hobby has been to
investigate "seemingly mysteri-
ous or famous UFO cases," he
says.
"I have emerged - it sounds
immodest, but I think it's true -
as probably the leading skeptical
UFO investigator in the country,
if not the world," he says. "After
21 years, I have yet to find a case
that I did not believe could be
explained in prosaic or earthly
terms. Because of this.position, if
there is an important new UFO
case, I cannot afford to ignore it, if
you will It's sort of as if Sherlock
Hohnes were a real person living
today, he couldn't afford to ignore
Jimmy Hoffa's complete disap-
pearance or other such seemingly
mysterious crimes." -
Klass didn't interview the pi-
lot, beeam& after 1-ing him OD
Larry King's late-night radio
show, he says, ''it was evident
that he is not too skilled in Eng-
lish, and I don't speak Japanese."
But his FAA contacts enabled
him to "read and make erlensive
notes" of a transcript af the taped
conversation between the cockpit
and tlie ground Tl1en he approxi-
mated the southeasterly direction
in which the captain and crew
were looking, consulted "a profes-
sional astronomer," and worked
out a theory:
Jupiter was extremely bright
and visible in the direction af the
reported UFO, and Maza was just
below and to the right of Jupiter,
which could explain the pilot's
initial report af two lights.
"Jupiter was only 10 degrees
above the hori7.0ll, making it ap-
conttnued on next page
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