It was about 11 minutes past 5 local time, the late afternoon of November 17, while JAL1628 (the designation for this
particular flight) was high over the frozen northeastern part of Alaska that Capt. Terauchi first realized that he had
company: there were lights of some crafts to the left and below. After watching them for a short time he decided they
were the lights of special missioned aircrafts or two fighters
on some mission. (Note: Alaska air space, being
close to the then Soviet Union, was patrolled by USAF jets.) He decided to ignore them. But the position of the
lights had not changed even after a few minutes and that called our attention.
In other words, the lights
appeared to be traveling along with his plane s1Interview of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, Friday, January 2, 1987. During the interview Capt. Terauchi reported two
previous UFO sightings. About five years before the present sighting he saw a "mothership" shortly after taking off
from Taipai, south of Formosa, but it was so weird I ignored it
. Then he saw, from his home during the
daytime, bright lights that continued for about . Although this was not Terauchi's first UFO, it
was the first sighting of unidentified phenomena by the other two crew members. In 2 Friday Capt.
Terauchi had another sighting of a strange phenomenon which he reported. He subsequently offered a satisfactory
explanation for it. (From the FAA file on the JAL sighting) s2Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on 2 Friday.
A comparison of the transcript of the conversation with the air traffic controller (ref. 4 below) with Terauchi's
testimony shows that, a month and a half after the sighting, he recalled the individual events quite but not
perfectly accurately and that he confused the order of some of the events. The order of events in Terauchi's
testimony has been modified somewhat in this presentation to place them in the order that is found on the AARTCC
audio tape..
At that time the Boeing 747 freighter was operating on autopilot and heading southwestward (a heading of about 215 degrees) at an altitude of 35000 feet s3Flight path as constructed from the radar data package supplied by the FAA.. The sky to the right had an afterglow of sunset, but ahead and to the left it was very dark.
The AARTCC had called the plane just about
before this time, i.e., at 5:09:20 s4Information obtained from the tape recording and transcript of the tape recording of conversations between the
plane and the AARTCC. s5Writing somewhat more than a month after the event the pilot recalled s11Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on 2 Friday.
A comparison of the transcript of the conversation with the air traffic controller (ref. 4 below) with Terauchi's
testimony shows that, a month and a half after the sighting, he recalled the individual events quite but not
perfectly accurately and that he confused the order of some of the events. The order of events in Terauchi's
testimony has been modified somewhat in this presentation to place them in the order that is found on the AARTCC
audio tape. that the plane first communicated with
Anchorage at 5:05 PM. He correctly recalled that the plane was asked to fly directly to Talkeetna and then take air
route J-125 to Anchorage. (or 20 sec. past 5:09 PM; exact times are based on the AARTCC tape recorded record
of the events) to report the initial radar contact with the plane, which at that time was about 90
nautical miles northeast of Fort Yukon (Referring to a
map, the plane at this time was at the "upper right hand corner" of Alaska.) The flight controller had asked the plane
to head directly toward an air route reporting point called Talkeetna, named after the small Alaska town nearby (north
of Anchorage and not far from Mt. McKinley) s7Information obtained from the tape recording and transcript of the tape recording of conversations between the
plane and the AARTCC.. (In doing so the plane would pass south of Fort Yukon and Fairbanks. The copilot, who
handled the aircraft communications, acknowledged the AARTCC request and then turned the plane to the left (left
rotation
) about 15 degrees to a heading of 215 degrees. It was during this turn that Capt. Terauchi, sitting on
the left side of the cockpit, first saw the unidentifiable lights out his side window s8Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on 2 Friday...
After the plane levelled out he observed lights that looked like aircraft lights, 30 degrees left front, 2000
feet below us, moving exactly in the same direction and
with the same speed we were
. At that time the airplane was flying at about 525
knots ground speed according to the tracking data
s9Flight path as constructed from the radar data package supplied by the FAA.. Subsequently
the speed decreased to about 500
knots.
It is important to note the pilot's statement of his belief that the lights were 2000 feet below him. He could not know how far below the lights were just from his visual sighting. (To determine the distance below he would have to know the exact depression angle and the distance to the lights.) Nevertheless, his statement indicates that his sighting line to the lights had a noticeable depression angle (the angle below horizontal). At 35000 feet the horizon distance is about 214 nautical miles so the depression angle of the horizon is about 1.5 degrees which is hardly noticeable. The pilot's statement therefore implies that the lights were below, probably considerably below, his horizon, i.e., between himself and the ground, thus ruling out any astronomical source for the lights n1CSICOP published its initial "solution" of the sighting as Jupiter and Mars. This will be described later.
The captain's initial reaction to the lights was to ignore them as US air fighters, probably military aircraft from
one of the nearby Air Force Bases (Eielson or Elmendorf). But the position of the lights had not changed even after
a few minutes and that called our attention
s10Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on 2 Friday.
A comparison of the transcript of the conversation with the air traffic controller (ref. 4 below) with Terauchi's
testimony shows that, a month and a half after the sighting, he recalled the individual events quite but not
perfectly accurately and that he confused the order of some of the events. The order of events in Terauchi's
testimony has been modified somewhat in this presentation to place them in the order that is found on the AARTCC
audio tape.. The lights of these two "aircraft" stayed at the left for a while and then the unbelievable
happened n2The order of events as presented here follows the order in the AARTCC tape [ref. 11]. The order of events in the
captain's testimony is somewhat different. It appears that he accurately recalled most of the events which make up
the total sighting, but he did not always present them in the proper order. His presentation seems to jump forward
and back in time occasionally. The order of events as presented here seems, to this author, to be the most
consistent with the testimony of the copilot and the flight engineer and the ARTCC tape. It should be noted that the
lights were first seen by the captain in a location to the left and below the plane where neither the copilot nor
the flight engineer would be likely to look. Whether or not the captain mentioned them at that time is not known.
But all three witnesses recalled seeing the lights remaining in front and somewhat to the left of the aircraft for a
number of minutes and then seeing the light return to the left side as far back as the 9 o'clock position. After the
lights dropped back farther than that, only the pilot was easily able to see them because of his position on the
left side of the cockpit. Thus the total event consisted of a single witness sighting at the beginning, a multiple
witness sighting in the middle and a single witness sighting at the end..