Documents / Hearing transcript
This FAA record of interview documents a January 2, 1987 session in Anchorage, Alaska, in which Inspector Richard O. Gordon of FSDO-63 questioned JAL Captain Kenju Terauchi about his crew's November 17, 1986 sighting. Terauchi describes two small craft with exhaust-like lights that flew near his aircraft and a much larger mothership, and says the target appeared green on his onboard radar. He also reports VHF interference and says the objects matched his 360-degree turn and his descent.
R. Gordon Okay, yes K. Terauchi But this one is nozzle direction (Japanese)(garbled) we couldn't see this light this direction we could see big flame R. Gordon Maybe we're saying then if you're looking at the back of it and then when it turns sideways this doesn't show. Okay I understand. F. Fujii From the forward you could see the flame and the exhaust and flame were surrounding it. R. Gordon Okay F. Fujii So maybe ah, I - I think ah, um exhaust started (garbled) R. Gordon Being okay these things here, maybe being each one of these things here, so these were maybe stacked, in otherwards if you were looking at the top view down, you would just see one if you come around here you would see all of those lights. Okay yeah K. Terauchi So if they moved up or I guess this ah exhaust moved to ah, this way down so finally five years ago I saw the rocket. R. Gordon Maybe that would account for that bright light he saw five years ago. In otherwords if these turned down you couldn't see them and then when it looked like it moved over here some over here turned up and then you could see them where it looked like it moved over there? So you're saying • K. Terauchi Anyway a h (Japanese) right (Japanese) ••• Talk to me •.• Could not see but only here and here ••• and this, here, dark area, I saw sparks, like fire. When using gasoline or carbon fuel. You can see a great big flame, but I could not see (flame) a t all in this angle, although there was a big blast. F. Fujii Seems like it's really high technology because you can't see anything over here unless it's spinning rotation. R. Gordon Yeah, okay, yeah, somebody said sometimes the sparks kick over into that and you could see the exhaust, now with ah that in mind this other picture you have here, where would this be on this thing captain? F. Fujii Wha t you're asking hi m where this (garbled) ••• K. Terauchi Quite different, this is just small space ship, this one size of carrier, two times carrier so mothership, so ah after they flew with us three ah five minutes like home mission, then move to a mothership. So t hen I found mothership light, but this is not llght, al l engine, because ah we have contact seven or e ight mile here, so we saw this first lights, s o um after light contact a h they move behind so we saw this pairs of light, so we saw this light same size, this one, same size. 4
Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 20 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.