"Traffic In Front Of Us"

It was about seven or so minutes since we began paying attention to the lights (when), most unexpectedly, two spaceships stopped in front of our face, shooting off lights. The inside cockpit shined brightly and I felt warm in the face. (Note these reported physical effects.)

What the captain saw suddenly appear ahead of him and to the left at about the 11:00 o'clock position is illustrated in Figure 2, which was drawn by the Captain only a few hours after the event (7). The vertical lines represent boundaries enclosing a dark center of each object. The horizontal lines represent flame colored or yellowish exhausts flaring outward, left and right, from the dark center. There are only four "sections" of flames shown here, but the captain's sketch shows several more sections which made up one craft. There were two totally separate sets of the "exhaust" flame groups, i.e., two totally separate "crafts." (This illustration is based on the sketch made by the captain about two hours after the event s1Notes made by Special Agents Jack Wright, James Derry and Ronald Mickle after the crew was interviewed just after the plane landed at Anchorage on November 17. and again a month and a half after the event s2Interview 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 10 minutes. Although this was not Terauchi's first UFO, it was the first sighing 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)). It was the captain's impression that the two "aircrafts" he had seen for the first time to the left only minutes before had suddenly jumped in front of his plane.

In his written testimony Terauchi speculated that the "spaceships" fired jets to kill the inertia (actually momentum!) of their high speed maneuver. After this maneuver from the left of the plane to the front, the ships appeared as if they were stopped in one place in front of us. At this time one "ship" was above the other. Then three to seven seconds later a fire like from jet engines stopped and became a small circle of lights as they began to fly level flight at the same speed as we were, showing numerous numbers of exhaust pipes. However the center area of the ship(s) where below an engine might be was invisible. [From] the middle of the body of a ship sparked an occasionally (sic) stream of lights, like a charcoal fire, from right to left and from left to right. Its shape was square, flying 500 feet to 1000 feet in front of us, very slightly higher in altitude than us. Its size was about the same size as the body of a DC-8 jet, and with numerous exhaust pipes.

The pilot speculated that the firing of the exhaust jets varied, perhaps to maintain balance. Some became stronger than others and some became weaker than others, but [they] seemed [to be] controlled automatically s3Written (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 the time of this startling appearance the pilot did not feel threatened or in danger because the spaceship moved so suddenly. We probably would have felt more in danger and would have been prepared to escape if the spaceships were shaking or unable to stop themselves. (Note that the plane was traveling nearly 10 miles every minute so there wouldn't be much time to react if he felt he were going to run into something a short distance in front of his plane.) It was at this time that the pilot concluded that he was looking at something REALLY unusual because, in his words, it is impossible for any man made machine to make a sudden appearance in front of a jumbo jet that is flying 910 km/hr and to move along in a formation paralleling our aircraft s4Written (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..

After this sudden appearance in front of the jet the lights moved in formation with the jet for three to five minutes. As they moved they rocked or swayed back and forth. Then they abruptly rearranged their orientation from one above the other to side-by-side. They were still both at about the 11 o'clock position. (See Figure 3, drawn several hours after the event.).

Continuing the description, the lights were like flames coming out of multiple rocket exhaust ports arranged in two rectangular arrays, according to the captain's drawings made shortly after the event and again two months later (Figures 2 and 3). He compared them to output exhaust like the Challenger (as it took off) s5Interview of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, 2 Friday. . He described the colors as amber and whitish. He stated that the numerous lights were exhausts on the engines which were lined up all the way (See Figures 2,3 and Figure 4 which was drawn in January, 1987). When they were blasting recoil [the] jets [were] so strong that I could not see [the individual lights and their arrangement] because it was so bright. However, once the recoil blasts stopped the speed was absolutely steady, not faster, not slower, and I could see them (the individual lights or exhaust ports) very clearly s6Interview of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, 2 Friday. . Besides the lights of the exhaust ports the captain also reported seeing sparks like a fire when using gasoline or carbon fuel. By this he may have meant brief bursts of yellowish color.

The copilot, Takanori Tamefuji, compared the numerous lights or flames to Christmas assorted lights with a salmon color. (9) He said, I remember red or orange, and white landing light, just like a landing light. And weak green, ah, blinking. The intensity wasn't constant but rather it pulsated: became stronger, became weaker, became stronger, became weaker, different from strobe lights (which have very quick flashes). The lights were swinging in unison as if there were very good formation flight...close (formation) of two aircraft side by side. He had no doubt that he was seeing some sort of aerial object or objects just ahead and to the left of the airplane. He compared the clarity of the lights to seeing night flight head-on traffic at which time it is only possible to see the lights on the approaching aircraft and we can not see the total shape.

Upon seeing the lights he first thought he was seeing two small aircraft. But they were very strange because there were too many lights and it was so luminous. Subsequently he had the feeling that it was larger than normal aircraft. He thought that lights were a little bit lower than the altitude of the plane, while Capt. Terauchi recalled that the lights might have been a bit higher. Tamejfuji pointed out that it is very difficult to judge the altitude of head-on traffic. He summarized his impressions by saying, I'm sure I saw something. It was clear enough to make me believe that there was an oncoming aircraft s7Information found in the 5 Monday interview of Copilot Takanori Tamefuji. The difficulty in communicating through an interpreter is evident in the transcript of this interview. At one point the interviewer asked Tamefuji, referring to the arrays of lights ahead and to the left, And you could distinguish these lights as being different from the star...? Tamefuji's response is transcribed as NNNooo..., which some might interpret as meaning that Tamefuji couldn't distinguish the lights from stars. But the interviewer immediately continued ...from the stars? to which Tamefuji replied, Different is fine. Subsequently Tamefuji made it quite clear that the lights were very different from stars.. Of course, these "aircraft" were not oncoming. Instead, they were matching exactly the speed of the 747 jet.

According to the captain's drawing each of the two "aircrafts" had two rectangular arrays of lights or horizontal flame "exhausts" and these were separated by a narrow rectangular dark area. The copilot's drawing was similar s8Information found in the 5 Monday interview of Copilot Takanori Tamefuji.. The two arrays associated with a single craft were "swinging" or rocking to the left and right as if they were rigidly bound together and rotating back and forth about a central pivot point within the dark region s9Interview of Captain Kenjyu Terauchi by Dr. Richard Haines (private communication)..

The flight engineer who sat behind the copilot, Yoshio Tsukuba, had a poorer view of the lights. He recalled that when he first saw them he was looking through the L1 window at the 11 o'clock position (about 30 degrees to the left of straight ahead) and he saw clusters of lights undulating s10Information found in the 15 Thursday interview of the flight engineer, Yoshio Tsukuba.. The clusters were made of two parts...shaped like windows of an airplane (i.e., arranged in square or rectangular clusters). He emphasized that the lights in front of us were different from town lights. He described the colors as white or amber.

(Note: keep in mind the descriptions of these lights and the flight dynamics for comparison with explanations which were put forth months later that these were misidentified astronomical phenomena and reflections on clouds.)

Apparently having clusters of blinking, undulating and rotating (swinging) lights nearly in front of their plane and apparently only a few thousand or so feet away was too much for the crew. After discussing the situation over the next 60 secondes or so they decided to try to find out what was going on. Mr. Tamefuji, who was the "voice" of the aircraft, called the AARTCC. It was now about 9 minutes since Capt. Terauchi had first noticed lights on two aircrafts at the left of his plane and it was probably only about 1 minute or 2 minutes after the "spaceships" had abruptly appeared nearly in front of the jet where they could be seen by the whole crew. At the time of the call the two "ships" were still traveling one above the other.

Here follow statements transcribed from the AARTCC audio tape that recorded the whole sighting. The times listed below are minutes and seconds of Alaska Standard Time s11Interview with Capt. Terauchi published in PEOPLE magazine, January 12, 1987..

5:19:15 JAL1628 - Anchorage Center, Japan Air 1628, ah, do you have any traffic, ah, seven (eleven?) o'clock above?

5:19:24 AARTCC - JAL1628 heavy, say again...

5:19:28 JAL1628 - Do you have any traffic in front of us?

It appears that Tamefuji's reference to seven o'clock in the tape transcription is an error either by Mr. Tamefuji (who had to speak English to communicate with the AARTCC) or by the transcriber. The seven o'clock position is far to the left and nearly behind the airplane where Tamefuji couldn't have seen the lights. I assume that the correct direction was eleven o'clock.) It is interesting to note that Tamefuji asked for traffic .... above indicating that at that time he placed the lights at an altitude above the 747 jet, even though when he was interviewed a month and a half later he recalled the lights being below the jet. The suggestion that the lights were a bit above agrees with the captain's recollection.

5:19:32 AARTCC - JAL1628 heavy, roger.

5:19:36 JAL1628 - Ah, roger and, ah, we [have] in sight, ah, two traffic (sic), ah, in front of us 1 mile, about about.

At the time of the event Tamefuji estimated the distance to the lights as being 1 mile, about which is quite a bit greater than the 500 feet to 1000 feet that Capt. Terauchi recalled in his testimony written about a month and a half later.

5:19:49 AARTCC - JAL1628, roger, do you have.., ah, can you identify the aircraft?

5:19:58 JAL1628 - Ah, we are not sure, but we have traffic in sight now.

5:20:04 AARTCC - JAL1628 heavy, Roger. Maintain visual contact with your traffic and, ah, can you say the altitude of the traffic?

5:20:14 JAL1628 - Uh, almost [at] the same altitude.

5:20:21 AARTCC - JAL 1628 Roger. Would you like a higher or lower altitude?

5:20:27 JAL1628 - Ah, no, negative. JAL1628.

About 1 minute elapsed and then the AARTCC tried again to learn the identity of the "traffic."

5:21:19 AARTCC - JAL1628 heavy, see if you are able to identify the type of aircraft, ah, and see if you can tell whether it's military or civilian.

5:21:35 JAL1628 - JAL1628. We cannot identify the type, ah, but we can see, ah, navigation lights and ah, strobe lights.

5:21:48 AARTCC - Roger, sir. Say the color of the strobe and beacon lights.

5:21:56 JAL1628 - The color is, ah, white and yellow, I think.

5:22:03 AARTCC - White and yellow. Thank you.

The reference to navigation and strobe lights conflicts somewhat with the description given subsequently of multiple pulsating lights. It is unfortunate that the crew was not fluent in English (many of the words on the AARTCC tape are barely distinguishible) because, no doubt, the crew could have provided much more accurate descriptions during the sighting. I suspect that the poor description of the colors (white and yellow) was a result of the copilot not knowing the English words for the actual colors he was seeing and thereby being forced to use the closest word he knew. In the subsequent interviews with a translator the colors mentioned were yellow, amber and green. The colors yellow and amber are not conventional colors for aircraft (red, white, green are conventional) but they might be consistent with rocket exhaust which is what the captain compared them to in his interview and written testimony s12Interview of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, 2 Friday. s13Written (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..

By this time the personnel of the AARTCC were aware of the JAL report of traffic and the watch supervisor entered the following into the Daily Record of Facility Operation:

5:21 PM. JL1628, HB747, BIKF-ANC reported traffic at his altitude (FL350) one mile with a white and yellow strobe. AAL ROC and EDF ROCC notified. No known traffic identified.

It should be noted that in the above statement the reference to Alaskan Airlines Regional Operation Center should probably have been Japan Air Lines ROC. Also, the Elmendorf (EDF) ROCC was not actually contacted until 5:23 PM. Note also that "back in those days" the radar operators were alert to any intrusions by Russian aircraft which might be testing our defenses. Hence the contact with the Air Force at Elmendorf.

After flying in a one-above the other orientation for several minutes the "two ships" changed their relative positions. The captain recalls the ships moved in formation for about three to five minutes [and] then the ships moved forward in a line, again slightly higher in altitude as (sic) we were, 40 degrees to our left. We did not report this action to the Anchorage Center. Honestly, we were simply breathtaken. (Here the captain refers to the "ships" arranging themselves side by side in a horizontal "line," as is clearly indicated by his sketches.)

At some time while the arrays of lights were ahead and to the left, Capt. Terauchi decided to take a picture of them. He asked Tsukuba to get the camera. This incident helped Tsukuba later to remember how long the lights had been in front of the plane. He recalled during the interview s14Information found in the 15 Thursday interview of the flight engineer, Yoshio Tsukuba., I think I saw it for about 10 minutes after I sighted it the first time. The reason is because the captain wanted to take pictures. His camera bag was placed behind his seat, beside mine, and I handed it to him. But he could not take pictures, so I placed his camera bag beside my seat again. So I think about 10 minutes.

When asked why the captain couldn't take pictures Tsukuba responded, Well, his camera is Alpha 7,000 with film ASA 100. He could not operate it well. I mean the operating procedure of the camera was not well understood. The captain recalled the attempt at photographing the lights as follows: s15Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on 2 Friday. I thought perhaps it is one of those things called UFO and taking a photo might help to identify the object later. I asked to bring forward my camera bag that was placed in the rear of the cockpit and began to take a picture. The area in which the plane was flying was unchanged but the lights were still moving strangely. I had ASA 100 film in my camera but the lens kept adjusting and never could set a focus. I changed auto-focus to manual-focus and pressed the shutter but this time the shutter would not close. Then our aircraft began to vibrate and I gave up taking a photo. I placed the camera back in the camera bag and concentrated on observing the lights.

After learning the color of the strobe lights, the AARTCC began to ask about the flying conditions (normal) and the clouds (below us). It took from about 5:22:11 to 5:23:05, or about a minute, for the AARTCC to get an answer about the clouds because of interference with the radio transmissions. At 5:22:41 the AARTCC told the plane the transmissions were garbled and asked it to change transmitting frequencies. In his testimony the pilot recalled the several requests for cloud altitude: They asked us several times if there were clouds near our altitude. We saw thin and spotty clouds near the mountain below us, no clouds in mid-to-upper air, and the air current was steady s16Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on 2 Friday. . The repeated questions about the clouds caused Terauchi to wonder why the controller was so interested in clouds. He speculated, Perhaps the controllers were concerned that an increased use of improved lazer (sic) beams using (sic) clouds was creating moving images. (Here Terauchi refers to laser beams illuminating the clouds. Of course, there were no such laser beams in the "wilds" of Alaska at that time.... nor are there now.)

The pilot also remembered the communication problem: The VHF communications, both in transmitting and receiving, were extremely difficult for October 1987 à March 1988 while the little ships came close to us and often interefered with communication and Anchorage Center. However, communication conditions became good as soon as the ships left us. There were no abnormalities in the equipment of the aircraft s17Written (in Japanese, with translation) testimony of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi as received by the FAA on Friday, January 2, 1987. . When he was interviewed the captain was asked to describe the type of interference he heard. He described the interference as some kind of, like, ah, jamming... it was just a noise, sounded like zaa, zaa s18Interview of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, 2 Friday.. The communications capability was, he said, two out of five possible levels (5,4,3,2,1) with five being perfectly clear s19Interview of Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, 2 Friday. . Normally communications with a plane in that area would be good.