Japan Airlines 1628 UFO Encounter, 1986
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Although it's not uncommon for pilots to witness UFOs, the case of Japan Airlines flight 1628 is remarkable for involving a prolonged and dramatic close encounter corroborated by multiple radar systems. The witnesses’ story attracted both media and government interest, and the resulting investigation unearthed a wealth of supporting evidence, including extensive radar data and radio transcripts that document official handling of the situation. The case is a stand-out example of an airline UFO encounter, and it tells us a lot about the ways in which the FAA, the airlines, and even the US intelligence community, work behind the scenes to manage what we hear about UFOs.
The First UFOs
On November 17th, 1986, Japan Airlines Flight 1628, or JAL 1628 — a Boeing 747 cargo plane — was carrying French wine to Tokyo by flying westward over northern Canada, with a planned stop in Anchorage, Alaska. The pilot was Captain Kenju Terauchi, an ex-fighter-pilot with more than 10,000 hours of flying experience. With him were co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba.(1)
The crew entered Alaskan airspace shortly after 5 p.m. local time, and the Anchorage Air Traffic Control Center ordered them to fly in the direction of Talkeetna airport, north of the city. As the crew began their turn, they immediately noticed a light in the direction they were headed. Once they’d completed the turn, they saw multiple lights at 11 o'clock at an estimated altitude of 35,000 feet, or 10,600 meters: just below their plane. The lights were moving at about 660 mph, or 900 kmph, in the exact same direction as the plane, so that they appeared to be standing still from inside the cockpit.
Tamefuji, the co-pilot, radioed Anchorage Center to ask if there were any aircraft in the area, and the controllers confirmed that theirs was the only craft on radar. However, flight Engineer Yoshio Tsukuba saw an irregular return on his own radar screen that he described as a “stream.” The only clouds were some “thin and spotty” ones around a nearby mountain. Terauchi noticed that the two lights began maneuvers unlike any ordinary aircraft, which he likened to “two bear cubs playing with each other.” Terauchi grabbed his camera and tried to take a picture. With auto-focus on, the lens wouldn’t stop adjusting. On manual-focus, the shutter wouldn’t close.(2)
Roughly 7 to 10 minutes after first noticing the lights, two UFOs, or “spaceships,” as Terauchi called them, appeared in front of his aircraft: first, one above the other, then side-by-side. From the crew’s perspective, the UFOs were square, but Terauchi believed that they were actually cylindrical in shape, seen from the side. He could see that a wide, vertical stripe down the center of each craft was see-through, and sometimes ejected a “stream of lights,” that Terauchi likened to the sparks from a charcoal fire that spewed from side to side. Terauchi estimated each object’s size to be close to that of the fuselage of a DC-8 airliner.
Each of the objects had a rectangular array of what Te rauchi called “exhaust pipes” or “ports” around their circumference. All of the “ports” were lit up with white light, and rounded at the corners like the windows of a passenger plane. They all seemed to shift position as a group, or rotate around the cylinders. For the next three to seven seconds, these ports shot a fiery light that Terauchi compared to the exhaust from a jet engine.(3) The “exhaust” would flare up and down from different ports at different times, in a way that seemed to be controlled automatically. Tsukuba stated that the light of the exhaust was either white or amber-colored, though Terauchi thought that it had turned other colors, too. The light from the objects lit up the cockpit of JAL 1628 and Terauchi could feel the warmth on his face.
Terauchi described the two UFOs as moving as if they shared a common center of gravity, while oscillating slightly with a “random wavering motion.” Terauchi’s notes on his drawings suggest that each object rotated back and forth on its own axis while the lights moved around the cylinder. Tsukuba described the UFOs as “undulating.”
Tsukuba later stated that he saw the target appear on radar immediately after the visual sighting. Radar operators at Elmendorf Regional Operational Control Center also reported a target ahead of the plane. At this point, the UFOs were flying at the same speed as JAL 1628, although they were higher in altitude. The UFOs remained in formation for three to five minutes before they shifted into a line at 40 degrees to the plane’s left. During the 10 to 15 minutes that the UFOs were either in front of or to the left of the plane, the flight crew had a very hard time communicating with the ground below. The UFOs then flew away, and the equipment worked as normal. The crew found no abnormalities in the aircraft to account for the malfunctions.
The “Mothership”
Around 15 minutes after the first UFOs appeared, the crew spotted a pale, white, horizontally-elongated light at the same altitude, direction, and speed as their own plane, coming from the direction that the first two UFOs flew away. The crew asked Anchorage Center if there was a light at their 11 o'clock position, but there was nothing on ground radar. Terauchi set the aircraft’s digital weather radar distance to 20 miles, and a large round object appeared on the screen about 7 to 8 miles, or 11 - 13 km away, in the same place that he could see the light. At one point, Anchorage had a radar hit “about five to eight miles,” or 8 - 13 km away from 1628. Anchorage then radioed Elmendorf Air Force Base where their controller reported that for a minute to a minute-and-a-half, he, too, picked up a weak return about 8 miles, or 13 km from 1628.
While Terauchi was speaking with Anchorage, the light gradually repositioned to the left of their aircraft -- revealing that there were two of them — before disappearing off the radar scope. Terauchi said that he felt that this maneuver was performed as if the UFOs “understood” their conversation. The lights were now located just below the eastern horizon where it was most difficult to see them, at an estimated distance of 7 to 8 miles, or 11 - 13 km. Tamefuji said that he could not see them due to his position on the right side of the cockpit.
As they were flying over Fairbanks, the crew looked behind them and saw the silhouette of a walnut-shaped object with a lip around the middle and the two pale, flat lights on the outer tips. The top was lit by “silverish” lights that flashed in a sparse, irregular pattern. Terauchi later estimated it to be about 1.5 to 2 times the length of an aircraft carrier, and referred to it as a “gigantic spaceship,” or as “the mothership.” Tsukuba later said that this object appeared very “vague” to him, and was difficult to see from his position.
The crew requested a right-turn change of course from Anchorage. Once they realized that the “mothership” UFO had followed them on this turn, they requested a second change of course, but the controller ordered that they continue the turn through to a full 360 degrees. As Terauchi executed this maneuver, an Anchorage radar operator observed a primary target in the 6 o'clock position, about 5 miles, or 8 km, away from JAL 1628. Elmendorf Control Center’s radar also displayed a target behind the aircraft that followed it through the turn. When the crew completed the full 360 degrees, the gigantic UFO was still observed to their rear. Tamefuji later insisted that there was no possibility of weather interference on the radar screens.
The UFO followed the plane towards Talkeetna. A United Airlines passenger aircraft was entering the same air zone and Anchorage Center requested that they get visual confirmation on JAL 1628. When the planes were in sight of each other, they both flashed their landing lights, but by this time, Terauchi claimed that the UFO had suddenly disappeared. Terauchi places the end of the encounter about 75 miles, or 120 km North of Talkeetna. He landed the plane at Anchorage International Airport at 6:20 p.m., and estimated that the whole series of UFO sightings lasted about 50 minutes.(4)
Aftermath
Shortly after landing, the crew was interviewed by a security manager with the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, Jim Derry, who determined that they had seen something following their plane.(5) Derry specifically asked if there were any cockpit lights reflecting on the inside of the windshield; both Terauchi and Tsukuba confirmed that there were none because the cockpit lights were off.(6)
Terauchi began speaking to the press about his encounter in December 1986, and was shortly after grounded by Japan Airlines. He then spent several years at a desk job before being reinstated as a pilot. Some have speculated that this was punishment for going public, but Japan Airlines claimed that it was part of a routine rotation.(7) At some point, Terauchi stopped talking about the events, and directed the airline to respond to inquiries by stating that he stood by his account and didn’t want to repeat it again.(8)
Still, the case went public after a Japanese news correspondent questioned the FAA about the incident on December 24th, sparking interest from other media, and forcing a government response. FAA Public Affairs Officer Paul Steucke stated that only one of the three radars returned a “blip,” and only briefly. Steucke also claimed that a review of the radar tapes found no evidence of UFOs, and he denied that there was any agency investigation.(9) He also said that he called the Air Force and was told that their radar signal was only “clutter” and that there was no military investigation, either.(10) Steucke spoke to the media again on January 6 to claim that the FAA reviewed the radar data and found no recording of a giant object.(11)
By early January ‘87, the sighting was getting a lot of media attention, so the Anchorage FAA began making their documents, data, and recordings available to the public. The planning documents that they released revealed that around January 4th, the agency reinterviewed the flight crew, reviewed data tapes, and obtained specialists’ reviews.
Around this time in early January ‘87, John Callahan, 6-year division chief of the Accidents, Evaluations, and Investigations Division of the FAA in Washington received a call from the air traffic quality control branch in the FAA’s Alaskan regional office. The branch asked Callahan how they could respond to the flood of calls from reporters to make them go away. Callahan instructed his caller to tell reporters that the matter was “under investigation,” then requested all the available information and data be sent to the FAA Tech Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.(12)
Callahan went to the FAA Tech Center with his boss, where engineers used a computer program to synchronize all of the flight data, voice recordings, and radar together. Callahan then asked FAA specialists to plot the radar targets on a chart, then videotaped this chart along with the voice and radar playback. The video was shown to FAA administrator, Admiral Donald D. Engen, who set up a briefing for Reagan’s scientific staff, in an apparent attempt to offload responsibility for the case. At this briefing, Callahan presented the evidence to members of the CIA, Reagan's scientific team, and a few other unidentified individuals. Callahan claimed that someone from the CIA closed the meeting by saying, "this event never happened; we were never here.” The official then confiscated all of the data and swore everyone in the room to secrecy. Callahan suggested that they tell the public about the encounter, but said that the idea was rejected on the basis that it would cause “panic.” A few weeks later, the FAA delivered its report on the event, as well as the chart and voice tapes, to Callahan. Callahan said that he expected someone from the CIA to come pick them up, but no one ever did.(13)
The final FAA report was released on March 5th. It concluded only that the radar returns had been the result of an “uncorrelated primary and beacon target” that somehow coincided with the maneuvers reported by the flight crew. In an Inquirer article from May 1987, Alaska’s air traffic manager, Hank Elias, said that his “honest answer” to inquiries about the incident was that the FAA could “neither confirm nor deny" that the anomalous radar return was due to a split beacon, where two adjacent targets appear from the same aircraft. He said that the erratic behavior of the radar returns “wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't usual either.”(14)
On January 11th, 1987, less than two months after his first encounter, Terauchi was piloting another 747 north of Anchorage, Alaska, when he reported a group of unusual “irregular pulsating lights” in front of his aircraft that seemed to be anchored to a large, black object. The lights passed below the aircraft’s nose before disappearing behind the craft. A similar encounter occurred later in the flight. However, during a later interview with the FAA, Terauchi said that he felt that both sets of unusual lights that night were just village lights distorted by ice crystals in the atmosphere. The FAA agreed.(15)
Debate
All three of the controllers that engaged with the crew during the sightings filed statements that contradicted the findings of the FAA. Anchorage Control Center staff reports revealed that “several times” they had primary returns where the crew reported UFOs, but they did not specify exactly when and where. Another air traffic controller at Anchorage Center later wrote that he watched a signal on his radar that behaved in accordance with descriptions given by the pilot. He also claimed that other radars confirmed that they too saw returns in the same locations.
As public interest in the Japan Airlines sightings peaked in January ‘87, the popular UFO debunker, Philip Klass, tried to dampen it. In a press release from January 22nd, Klass suggested that the crew had seen nothing but “an unusually bright image of the planet Jupiter and possibly Mars.” Klass also claimed that the radar “blip” was just a “spurious echo” from the mountains below. Klass's explanation got a lot of traction in the media, contributing to the public perception that the entire incident had been explained. With the release of all the supporting materials in March, Klass revised his explanation for the summer ‘87 issue of The Skeptical Inquirer, adding that the nearly-full moon could have caused moonlight to reflect off of “turbulent clouds of ice crystals” and appeared to Terauchi as afterburners.(16)
Naval scientist and amateur ufologist, Bruce Maccabee, produced a report on the JAL 1628 UFO which appeared in the March/April ‘87 issue of the International UFO Reporter. His report details that the large walnut UFO appeared nearly opposite to the planets (from the crew’s perspective), casting doubt on Klass’s explanation.(17) Terauchi said himself that he recognized Jupiter during the flight and insisted that whatever he witnessed was not a planet.(18)
Though Terauchi claimed that he was not afraid, he and the crew were unsettled by the fact that they did not know the “purpose” of the UFO, as he put it.(19) Terauchi did not venture a guess as to the origin or intentions of the UFOs, and has apparently not spoken publicly of the event since the immediate aftermath.
Callahan retired in August of 1988, and in response, the FAA branch manager sent him all the agency’s documents on the case. Though Callahan was asked not to talk about it, he felt that the public had the right to know. From 2001 onward, Callahan began to speak out about his involvement in the case, and to push the U.S. government to reveal what it knows about the UFO phenomenon. He spoke at a UFO Disclosure Press Conference in 2007 as well as the Citizen's Hearing on Disclosure in 2013, and has made several appearances in UFO documentaries. He also wrote a chapter on the case for Leslie Kean’s popular 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record.(20) Shortly after this, Callahan spoke to the Huffington Post admitting that in his final 10 years working for the US government, he lied to the public and helped disseminate disinformation on UFOs.(21)
John Greenewald runs The Black Vault, a website specialising in U.S. Freedom Of Information Act, or FOIA, requests for documents on UFOs. He first filed a FOIA request for the JAL case in 2001, and was alerted to the existence of 107 pages of documentation. However, he was informed that all of these documents would soon be destroyed. Upon making a second request in 2009, he was told that the records were already gone. However, in 2018, Greenewald found around 1500 pages of documents related to the case in the National Archives. Most were letters from the public, but there were also copies of news coverage, FAA communications, radar data printouts, and interviews with the crew.(22)
Summary
Japan Airlines Flight 1628 was not the first or only commercial flight to encounter a UFO, but crews rarely report their sightings for fear of professional consequences. The fact that Terauchi was put on desk duty for years after his report may help to explain why most pilots generally don’t talk about UFOs. Whatever the reason, Callahan's investigation with the FAA proved that flight crews, flight controllers, and radar operators do obtain evidence of UFO activity. The FAA paper trail, and the wealth of technical data, makes JAL 1628 one of the best-documented UFO cases on record, and the involvement of the CIA proves that the US government was more invested in the case than they were letting on. As Callahan put it: “Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the government?”(23)
Although it's not uncommon for pilots to witness UFOs, the case of Japan Airlines flight 1628 is remarkable for involving a prolonged and dramatic close encounter corroborated by multiple radar systems. The witnesses’ story attracted both media and government interest, and the resulting investigation unearthed a wealth of supporting evidence, including extensive radar data and radio transcripts that document official handling of the situation. The case is a stand-out example of an airline UFO encounter, and it tells us a lot about the ways in which the FAA, the airlines, and even the US intelligence community, work behind the scenes to manage what we hear about UFOs.
The First UFOs
On November 17th, 1986, Japan Airlines Flight 1628, or JAL 1628 — a Boeing 747 cargo plane — was carrying French wine to Tokyo by flying westward over northern Canada, with a planned stop in Anchorage, Alaska. The pilot was Captain Kenju Terauchi, an ex-fighter-pilot with more than 10,000 hours of flying experience. With him were co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba.(1)
The crew entered Alaskan airspace shortly after 5 p.m. local time, and the Anchorage Air Traffic Control Center ordered them to fly in the direction of Talkeetna airport, north of the city. As the crew began their turn, they immediately noticed a light in the direction they were headed. Once they’d completed the turn, they saw multiple lights at 11 o'clock at an estimated altitude of 35,000 feet, or 10,600 meters: just below their plane. The lights were moving at about 660 mph, or 900 kmph, in the exact same direction as the plane, so that they appeared to be standing still from inside the cockpit.
Tamefuji, the co-pilot, radioed Anchorage Center to ask if there were any aircraft in the area, and the controllers confirmed that theirs was the only craft on radar. However, flight Engineer Yoshio Tsukuba saw an irregular return on his own radar screen that he described as a “stream.” The only clouds were some “thin and spotty” ones around a nearby mountain. Terauchi noticed that the two lights began maneuvers unlike any ordinary aircraft, which he likened to “two bear cubs playing with each other.” Terauchi grabbed his camera and tried to take a picture. With auto-focus on, the lens wouldn’t stop adjusting. On manual-focus, the shutter wouldn’t close.(2)
Roughly 7 to 10 minutes after first noticing the lights, two UFOs, or “spaceships,” as Terauchi called them, appeared in front of his aircraft: first, one above the other, then side-by-side. From the crew’s perspective, the UFOs were square, but Terauchi believed that they were actually cylindrical in shape, seen from the side. He could see that a wide, vertical stripe down the center of each craft was see-through, and sometimes ejected a “stream of lights,” that Terauchi likened to the sparks from a charcoal fire that spewed from side to side. Terauchi estimated each object’s size to be close to that of the fuselage of a DC-8 airliner.
Each of the objects had a rectangular array of what Te rauchi called “exhaust pipes” or “ports” around their circumference. All of the “ports” were lit up with white light, and rounded at the corners like the windows of a passenger plane. They all seemed to shift position as a group, or rotate around the cylinders. For the next three to seven seconds, these ports shot a fiery light that Terauchi compared to the exhaust from a jet engine.(3) The “exhaust” would flare up and down from different ports at different times, in a way that seemed to be controlled automatically. Tsukuba stated that the light of the exhaust was either white or amber-colored, though Terauchi thought that it had turned other colors, too. The light from the objects lit up the cockpit of JAL 1628 and Terauchi could feel the warmth on his face.
Terauchi described the two UFOs as moving as if they shared a common center of gravity, while oscillating slightly with a “random wavering motion.” Terauchi’s notes on his drawings suggest that each object rotated back and forth on its own axis while the lights moved around the cylinder. Tsukuba described the UFOs as “undulating.”
Tsukuba later stated that he saw the target appear on radar immediately after the visual sighting. Radar operators at Elmendorf Regional Operational Control Center also reported a target ahead of the plane. At this point, the UFOs were flying at the same speed as JAL 1628, although they were higher in altitude. The UFOs remained in formation for three to five minutes before they shifted into a line at 40 degrees to the plane’s left. During the 10 to 15 minutes that the UFOs were either in front of or to the left of the plane, the flight crew had a very hard time communicating with the ground below. The UFOs then flew away, and the equipment worked as normal. The crew found no abnormalities in the aircraft to account for the malfunctions.
The “Mothership”
Around 15 minutes after the first UFOs appeared, the crew spotted a pale, white, horizontally-elongated light at the same altitude, direction, and speed as their own plane, coming from the direction that the first two UFOs flew away. The crew asked Anchorage Center if there was a light at their 11 o'clock position, but there was nothing on ground radar. Terauchi set the aircraft’s digital weather radar distance to 20 miles, and a large round object appeared on the screen about 7 to 8 miles, or 11 - 13 km away, in the same place that he could see the light. At one point, Anchorage had a radar hit “about five to eight miles,” or 8 - 13 km away from 1628. Anchorage then radioed Elmendorf Air Force Base where their controller reported that for a minute to a minute-and-a-half, he, too, picked up a weak return about 8 miles, or 13 km from 1628.
While Terauchi was speaking with Anchorage, the light gradually repositioned to the left of their aircraft -- revealing that there were two of them — before disappearing off the radar scope. Terauchi said that he felt that this maneuver was performed as if the UFOs “understood” their conversation. The lights were now located just below the eastern horizon where it was most difficult to see them, at an estimated distance of 7 to 8 miles, or 11 - 13 km. Tamefuji said that he could not see them due to his position on the right side of the cockpit.
As they were flying over Fairbanks, the crew looked behind them and saw the silhouette of a walnut-shaped object with a lip around the middle and the two pale, flat lights on the outer tips. The top was lit by “silverish” lights that flashed in a sparse, irregular pattern. Terauchi later estimated it to be about 1.5 to 2 times the length of an aircraft carrier, and referred to it as a “gigantic spaceship,” or as “the mothership.” Tsukuba later said that this object appeared very “vague” to him, and was difficult to see from his position.
The crew requested a right-turn change of course from Anchorage. Once they realized that the “mothership” UFO had followed them on this turn, they requested a second change of course, but the controller ordered that they continue the turn through to a full 360 degrees. As Terauchi executed this maneuver, an Anchorage radar operator observed a primary target in the 6 o'clock position, about 5 miles, or 8 km, away from JAL 1628. Elmendorf Control Center’s radar also displayed a target behind the aircraft that followed it through the turn. When the crew completed the full 360 degrees, the gigantic UFO was still observed to their rear. Tamefuji later insisted that there was no possibility of weather interference on the radar screens.
The UFO followed the plane towards Talkeetna. A United Airlines passenger aircraft was entering the same air zone and Anchorage Center requested that they get visual confirmation on JAL 1628. When the planes were in sight of each other, they both flashed their landing lights, but by this time, Terauchi claimed that the UFO had suddenly disappeared. Terauchi places the end of the encounter about 75 miles, or 120 km North of Talkeetna. He landed the plane at Anchorage International Airport at 6:20 p.m., and estimated that the whole series of UFO sightings lasted about 50 minutes.(4)
Aftermath
Shortly after landing, the crew was interviewed by a security manager with the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, Jim Derry, who determined that they had seen something following their plane.(5) Derry specifically asked if there were any cockpit lights reflecting on the inside of the windshield; both Terauchi and Tsukuba confirmed that there were none because the cockpit lights were off.(6)
Terauchi began speaking to the press about his encounter in December 1986, and was shortly after grounded by Japan Airlines. He then spent several years at a desk job before being reinstated as a pilot. Some have speculated that this was punishment for going public, but Japan Airlines claimed that it was part of a routine rotation.(7) At some point, Terauchi stopped talking about the events, and directed the airline to respond to inquiries by stating that he stood by his account and didn’t want to repeat it again.(8)
Still, the case went public after a Japanese news correspondent questioned the FAA about the incident on December 24th, sparking interest from other media, and forcing a government response. FAA Public Affairs Officer Paul Steucke stated that only one of the three radars returned a “blip,” and only briefly. Steucke also claimed that a review of the radar tapes found no evidence of UFOs, and he denied that there was any agency investigation.(9) He also said that he called the Air Force and was told that their radar signal was only “clutter” and that there was no military investigation, either.(10) Steucke spoke to the media again on January 6 to claim that the FAA reviewed the radar data and found no recording of a giant object.(11)
By early January ‘87, the sighting was getting a lot of media attention, so the Anchorage FAA began making their documents, data, and recordings available to the public. The planning documents that they released revealed that around January 4th, the agency reinterviewed the flight crew, reviewed data tapes, and obtained specialists’ reviews.
Around this time in early January ‘87, John Callahan, 6-year division chief of the Accidents, Evaluations, and Investigations Division of the FAA in Washington received a call from the air traffic quality control branch in the FAA’s Alaskan regional office. The branch asked Callahan how they could respond to the flood of calls from reporters to make them go away. Callahan instructed his caller to tell reporters that the matter was “under investigation,” then requested all the available information and data be sent to the FAA Tech Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.(12)
Callahan went to the FAA Tech Center with his boss, where engineers used a computer program to synchronize all of the flight data, voice recordings, and radar together. Callahan then asked FAA specialists to plot the radar targets on a chart, then videotaped this chart along with the voice and radar playback. The video was shown to FAA administrator, Admiral Donald D. Engen, who set up a briefing for Reagan’s scientific staff, in an apparent attempt to offload responsibility for the case. At this briefing, Callahan presented the evidence to members of the CIA, Reagan's scientific team, and a few other unidentified individuals. Callahan claimed that someone from the CIA closed the meeting by saying, "this event never happened; we were never here.” The official then confiscated all of the data and swore everyone in the room to secrecy. Callahan suggested that they tell the public about the encounter, but said that the idea was rejected on the basis that it would cause “panic.” A few weeks later, the FAA delivered its report on the event, as well as the chart and voice tapes, to Callahan. Callahan said that he expected someone from the CIA to come pick them up, but no one ever did.(13)
The final FAA report was released on March 5th. It concluded only that the radar returns had been the result of an “uncorrelated primary and beacon target” that somehow coincided with the maneuvers reported by the flight crew. In an Inquirer article from May 1987, Alaska’s air traffic manager, Hank Elias, said that his “honest answer” to inquiries about the incident was that the FAA could “neither confirm nor deny" that the anomalous radar return was due to a split beacon, where two adjacent targets appear from the same aircraft. He said that the erratic behavior of the radar returns “wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't usual either.”(14)
On January 11th, 1987, less than two months after his first encounter, Terauchi was piloting another 747 north of Anchorage, Alaska, when he reported a group of unusual “irregular pulsating lights” in front of his aircraft that seemed to be anchored to a large, black object. The lights passed below the aircraft’s nose before disappearing behind the craft. A similar encounter occurred later in the flight. However, during a later interview with the FAA, Terauchi said that he felt that both sets of unusual lights that night were just village lights distorted by ice crystals in the atmosphere. The FAA agreed.(15)
Debate
All three of the controllers that engaged with the crew during the sightings filed statements that contradicted the findings of the FAA. Anchorage Control Center staff reports revealed that “several times” they had primary returns where the crew reported UFOs, but they did not specify exactly when and where. Another air traffic controller at Anchorage Center later wrote that he watched a signal on his radar that behaved in accordance with descriptions given by the pilot. He also claimed that other radars confirmed that they too saw returns in the same locations.
As public interest in the Japan Airlines sightings peaked in January ‘87, the popular UFO debunker, Philip Klass, tried to dampen it. In a press release from January 22nd, Klass suggested that the crew had seen nothing but “an unusually bright image of the planet Jupiter and possibly Mars.” Klass also claimed that the radar “blip” was just a “spurious echo” from the mountains below. Klass's explanation got a lot of traction in the media, contributing to the public perception that the entire incident had been explained. With the release of all the supporting materials in March, Klass revised his explanation for the summer ‘87 issue of The Skeptical Inquirer, adding that the nearly-full moon could have caused moonlight to reflect off of “turbulent clouds of ice crystals” and appeared to Terauchi as afterburners.(16)
Naval scientist and amateur ufologist, Bruce Maccabee, produced a report on the JAL 1628 UFO which appeared in the March/April ‘87 issue of the International UFO Reporter. His report details that the large walnut UFO appeared nearly opposite to the planets (from the crew’s perspective), casting doubt on Klass’s explanation.(17) Terauchi said himself that he recognized Jupiter during the flight and insisted that whatever he witnessed was not a planet.(18)
Though Terauchi claimed that he was not afraid, he and the crew were unsettled by the fact that they did not know the “purpose” of the UFO, as he put it.(19) Terauchi did not venture a guess as to the origin or intentions of the UFOs, and has apparently not spoken publicly of the event since the immediate aftermath.
Callahan retired in August of 1988, and in response, the FAA branch manager sent him all the agency’s documents on the case. Though Callahan was asked not to talk about it, he felt that the public had the right to know. From 2001 onward, Callahan began to speak out about his involvement in the case, and to push the U.S. government to reveal what it knows about the UFO phenomenon. He spoke at a UFO Disclosure Press Conference in 2007 as well as the Citizen's Hearing on Disclosure in 2013, and has made several appearances in UFO documentaries. He also wrote a chapter on the case for Leslie Kean’s popular 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record.(20) Shortly after this, Callahan spoke to the Huffington Post admitting that in his final 10 years working for the US government, he lied to the public and helped disseminate disinformation on UFOs.(21)
John Greenewald runs The Black Vault, a website specialising in U.S. Freedom Of Information Act, or FOIA, requests for documents on UFOs. He first filed a FOIA request for the JAL case in 2001, and was alerted to the existence of 107 pages of documentation. However, he was informed that all of these documents would soon be destroyed. Upon making a second request in 2009, he was told that the records were already gone. However, in 2018, Greenewald found around 1500 pages of documents related to the case in the National Archives. Most were letters from the public, but there were also copies of news coverage, FAA communications, radar data printouts, and interviews with the crew.(22)
Summary
Japan Airlines Flight 1628 was not the first or only commercial flight to encounter a UFO, but crews rarely report their sightings for fear of professional consequences. The fact that Terauchi was put on desk duty for years after his report may help to explain why most pilots generally don’t talk about UFOs. Whatever the reason, Callahan's investigation with the FAA proved that flight crews, flight controllers, and radar operators do obtain evidence of UFO activity. The FAA paper trail, and the wealth of technical data, makes JAL 1628 one of the best-documented UFO cases on record, and the involvement of the CIA proves that the US government was more invested in the case than they were letting on. As Callahan put it: “Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the government?”(23)
Notes:
1) Note that John Callahan provides an incorrect date of Nov 7 in “The FAA Investigates a UFO Event ‘That Never Happened’” in Leslie Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record (Three Rivers Press: New York, USA, 2010), 222; “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi [English translation by Sakoyo Mimoto],” The Black Vault, 2,4; “News media contacts to FAA,” The Black Vault, 11, 31; Shukan Shincho, "Terauchi's London interview of December 1986. JAL Pilot's UFO Story Surfaces after 20 Years,” JapanToday, December 8, 2006; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 8.
2) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 1 - 8; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault, 1, 3; “Transcript of interview with First Officer Tamefugi by Peter Beckner 1/5/87,” The Black Vault, 2.
3) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 9 - 11; “Transcript: Interview with Capt. Terauchi by Dick Gordon, 1/2/87,” The Black Vault, 12; “Transcript of interview with First Officer Tamefugi by Peter Beckner 1/5/87,” The Black Vault, 6; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault, 2; "FAA form 1600-32-1 Notes of interviews with 3 crew members by Ron Mickle and James Derry," The Black Vault, 3, notes “no apparent problems” with the radio; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 10.
4) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 12 - 16; “Modified Package for FAA Managers,” The Black Vault, 79 - 82; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault; “Transcript: Interview with Capt. Terauchi by Dick Gordon, 1/2/87,” The Black Vault, 4,11, 12, 15; “Transcript of interview with First Officer Tamefugi by Peter Beckner 1/5/87,” The Black Vault, 1, 13 - 14, 22 - 23; “Chronology of Events,” The Black Vault; Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 224.
5) “News media contacts to FAA,” The Black Vault, 13 - 4, 31; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 48.
6) “Transcript: Interview with Capt. Terauchi by Dick Gordon, 1/2/87,” The Black Vault, 9 - 10; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault, 4.
7) Shincho, "Terauchi's London interview," JapanToday; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 14.
8) Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 14.
9) “News media contacts to FAA,” The Black Vault, 13; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 13, 48; “Miscellaneous,” The Black Vault, 3.
10) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 228 - 29; “Explanation of split beacon target,” The Black Vault; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 14; “Modified Package for FAA Managers,” The Black Vault, 79 - 82.
11) “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 48, news article “Radar check fails to back UFO sighting,” January 7, 1987; “Miscellaneous,” The Black Vault, 3.
12) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 222.
13) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 225 - 27; Full quote of CIA member according to Callahan: “This event never happened; we were never here. We’re confiscating all this data, and you are all sworn to secrecy;” David Stout, “Donald Engen Dies at 75; Led Space Museum,” The New York Times, July 15, 1999, https://nytimes.com/1999/07/15/us/donald-engen-dies-at-75-led-space-museum.html.
14) “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 2 - 5, 13.
15) “Modified Package for FAA Managers,” The Black Vault, 99 - 100; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 43; “ATC transcripts; flight path chart; personnel statements,” The Black Vault.
16) “Klass and Haines inquiries and responses,” The Black Vault; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 8, 41 - 2, 45 - 6. Klass, "FAA Data Sheds New Light on JAL Pilot's UFO Report," The Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1987, reprinted in the book, The UFO Invasion (Prometheus Books, 1997); Maccabee mentions the "UFO Mystery Solved," press release by the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), January 22, 1987 (Buffalo, NY).
17) Bruce Maccabee, “The Fantastic Flight Of JAL 1628.”
18) Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 13.
19) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 16.
20) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 222 - 229; 2001 conference, https://youtu.be/VrRwTAEvkX0?t=867; 2007 conference, http://ufoevidence.org/news/article363.htm; 2013 conference, https://youtu.be/azrpH5YxO9w; Appearances in documentaries: https://imdb.com/name/nm4673915.
21) Callahan in Lee Speigel, "UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena," Huffington Post, August 26, 2011, updated December 6, 2017, https://huffpost.com/entry/ufos-pilots-history-channel_n_935847.
22) John Greenewald, “Japanese Airlines JAL 1628 UFO Encounter, November 17, 1986,” The Black Vault, September 21, 2018, Updated: June 17, 2020, https://theblackvault.com/documentarchive/ufo-case-japanese-airlines-jal1628-november-17-1986; https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/ufos/JL1628.pdf.
23) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 226, 229; Callahan appears in Director James Fox, I Know What I Saw, 2009, at 49:34.
Sources:
Callahan, John J. “The FAA Investigates a UFO Event ‘That Never Happened’” in Kean, Leslie. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record. New York, USA: Three Rivers Press, 2010, 222 - 229.
Fox, James, dir. I Know What I Saw. USA: A&E Home Video, 2009. https://imdb.com/title/tt1579236. https://youtu.be/tGMGOdKOPKk.
The Black Vault. Collected documents at “Japanese Airlines JAL 1628 UFO Encounter, November 17, 1986.” September 21, 2018; Updated: June 17, 2020.
https://theblackvault.com/documentarchive/ufo-case-japanese-airlines-jal1628-november-17-1986.
[note that, like Greenewald, references to page numbers ignores the initial banner page in the PDFs: e.g. page 5 in our notes will be page 6 in the file.]
Klass, Philip J. “FAA Data Sheds New Light on JAL Pilot’s UFO Report” in The UFO invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell. New York, NY, USA: Prometheus Books, 1997, 171 - 176. https://archive.org/details/ufoinvasionroswe0000unse/mode/2up.
[originally appeared in Skeptical Inquirer, 11, Summer 1987, 322 - 26. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1987/07/22165315/p04.pdf.]
Maccabee, Bruce. “The Fantastic Flight Of JAL 1628.”
http://brumac.mysite.com/JAL1628/JL1628.html,
http://ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1316.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20160604010624/http://brumac.8k.com/JAL1628/JL1628.html.
Shincho, Shukan. "Terauchi's London interview of December 1986. JAL Pilot's UFO Story Surfaces after 20 Years.” JapanToday, December 8, 2006. https://www.ufocasebook.com/jal1628surfaces.html, originally on https://web.archive.org/web/20081123052116/http://www.japantoday.com/jp/kuchikomi/443.
Stout, David. “Donald Engen Dies at 75; Led Space Museum.” The New York Times. July 15, 1999. https://nytimes.com/1999/07/15/us/donald-engen-dies-at-75-led-space-museum.html.
Speigel, Lee. "UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena." Huffington Post. August 26, 2011, updated December 6, 2017. https://huffpost.com/entry/ufos-pilots-history-channel_n_935847.
This video uses sound effects downloaded from StockMusic.com.
UFO Case Review contains sound design with elements downloaded from FreeSound.org. Typewriter_2rows.wav, Uploaded by Fatson under the Attribution License.
Support new videos on Patreon: https://patreon.com/user?u=3375417
Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
1) Note that John Callahan provides an incorrect date of Nov 7 in “The FAA Investigates a UFO Event ‘That Never Happened’” in Leslie Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record (Three Rivers Press: New York, USA, 2010), 222; “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi [English translation by Sakoyo Mimoto],” The Black Vault, 2,4; “News media contacts to FAA,” The Black Vault, 11, 31; Shukan Shincho, "Terauchi's London interview of December 1986. JAL Pilot's UFO Story Surfaces after 20 Years,” JapanToday, December 8, 2006; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 8.
2) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 1 - 8; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault, 1, 3; “Transcript of interview with First Officer Tamefugi by Peter Beckner 1/5/87,” The Black Vault, 2.
3) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 9 - 11; “Transcript: Interview with Capt. Terauchi by Dick Gordon, 1/2/87,” The Black Vault, 12; “Transcript of interview with First Officer Tamefugi by Peter Beckner 1/5/87,” The Black Vault, 6; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault, 2; "FAA form 1600-32-1 Notes of interviews with 3 crew members by Ron Mickle and James Derry," The Black Vault, 3, notes “no apparent problems” with the radio; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 10.
4) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 12 - 16; “Modified Package for FAA Managers,” The Black Vault, 79 - 82; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault; “Transcript: Interview with Capt. Terauchi by Dick Gordon, 1/2/87,” The Black Vault, 4,11, 12, 15; “Transcript of interview with First Officer Tamefugi by Peter Beckner 1/5/87,” The Black Vault, 1, 13 - 14, 22 - 23; “Chronology of Events,” The Black Vault; Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 224.
5) “News media contacts to FAA,” The Black Vault, 13 - 4, 31; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 48.
6) “Transcript: Interview with Capt. Terauchi by Dick Gordon, 1/2/87,” The Black Vault, 9 - 10; “Transcript of interview with Flight Engineer Tsukuba by Pete Beckner 1/15/87,” The Black Vault, 4.
7) Shincho, "Terauchi's London interview," JapanToday; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 14.
8) Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 14.
9) “News media contacts to FAA,” The Black Vault, 13; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 13, 48; “Miscellaneous,” The Black Vault, 3.
10) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 228 - 29; “Explanation of split beacon target,” The Black Vault; Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 14; “Modified Package for FAA Managers,” The Black Vault, 79 - 82.
11) “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 48, news article “Radar check fails to back UFO sighting,” January 7, 1987; “Miscellaneous,” The Black Vault, 3.
12) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 222.
13) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 225 - 27; Full quote of CIA member according to Callahan: “This event never happened; we were never here. We’re confiscating all this data, and you are all sworn to secrecy;” David Stout, “Donald Engen Dies at 75; Led Space Museum,” The New York Times, July 15, 1999, https://nytimes.com/1999/07/15/us/donald-engen-dies-at-75-led-space-museum.html.
14) “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 2 - 5, 13.
15) “Modified Package for FAA Managers,” The Black Vault, 99 - 100; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 43; “ATC transcripts; flight path chart; personnel statements,” The Black Vault.
16) “Klass and Haines inquiries and responses,” The Black Vault; “News clippings,” The Black Vault, 8, 41 - 2, 45 - 6. Klass, "FAA Data Sheds New Light on JAL Pilot's UFO Report," The Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1987, reprinted in the book, The UFO Invasion (Prometheus Books, 1997); Maccabee mentions the "UFO Mystery Solved," press release by the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), January 22, 1987 (Buffalo, NY).
17) Bruce Maccabee, “The Fantastic Flight Of JAL 1628.”
18) Inquirer article in “Color photos of simulated radar data,” The Black Vault, 13.
19) “Written Statement by Capt. Terauchi,” The Black Vault, 16.
20) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 222 - 229; 2001 conference, https://youtu.be/VrRwTAEvkX0?t=867; 2007 conference, http://ufoevidence.org/news/article363.htm; 2013 conference, https://youtu.be/azrpH5YxO9w; Appearances in documentaries: https://imdb.com/name/nm4673915.
21) Callahan in Lee Speigel, "UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena," Huffington Post, August 26, 2011, updated December 6, 2017, https://huffpost.com/entry/ufos-pilots-history-channel_n_935847.
22) John Greenewald, “Japanese Airlines JAL 1628 UFO Encounter, November 17, 1986,” The Black Vault, September 21, 2018, Updated: June 17, 2020, https://theblackvault.com/documentarchive/ufo-case-japanese-airlines-jal1628-november-17-1986; https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/ufos/JL1628.pdf.
23) Callahan in Kean, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, 226, 229; Callahan appears in Director James Fox, I Know What I Saw, 2009, at 49:34.
Sources:
Callahan, John J. “The FAA Investigates a UFO Event ‘That Never Happened’” in Kean, Leslie. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record. New York, USA: Three Rivers Press, 2010, 222 - 229.
Fox, James, dir. I Know What I Saw. USA: A&E Home Video, 2009. https://imdb.com/title/tt1579236. https://youtu.be/tGMGOdKOPKk.
The Black Vault. Collected documents at “Japanese Airlines JAL 1628 UFO Encounter, November 17, 1986.” September 21, 2018; Updated: June 17, 2020.
https://theblackvault.com/documentarchive/ufo-case-japanese-airlines-jal1628-november-17-1986.
[note that, like Greenewald, references to page numbers ignores the initial banner page in the PDFs: e.g. page 5 in our notes will be page 6 in the file.]
Klass, Philip J. “FAA Data Sheds New Light on JAL Pilot’s UFO Report” in The UFO invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell. New York, NY, USA: Prometheus Books, 1997, 171 - 176. https://archive.org/details/ufoinvasionroswe0000unse/mode/2up.
[originally appeared in Skeptical Inquirer, 11, Summer 1987, 322 - 26. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1987/07/22165315/p04.pdf.]
Maccabee, Bruce. “The Fantastic Flight Of JAL 1628.”
http://brumac.mysite.com/JAL1628/JL1628.html,
http://ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1316.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20160604010624/http://brumac.8k.com/JAL1628/JL1628.html.
Shincho, Shukan. "Terauchi's London interview of December 1986. JAL Pilot's UFO Story Surfaces after 20 Years.” JapanToday, December 8, 2006. https://www.ufocasebook.com/jal1628surfaces.html, originally on https://web.archive.org/web/20081123052116/http://www.japantoday.com/jp/kuchikomi/443.
Stout, David. “Donald Engen Dies at 75; Led Space Museum.” The New York Times. July 15, 1999. https://nytimes.com/1999/07/15/us/donald-engen-dies-at-75-led-space-museum.html.
Speigel, Lee. "UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena." Huffington Post. August 26, 2011, updated December 6, 2017. https://huffpost.com/entry/ufos-pilots-history-channel_n_935847.
This video uses sound effects downloaded from StockMusic.com.
UFO Case Review contains sound design with elements downloaded from FreeSound.org. Typewriter_2rows.wav, Uploaded by Fatson under the Attribution License.
Support new videos on Patreon: https://patreon.com/user?u=3375417
Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
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