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"The size of two aircraft carriers": What did the captain of JAL 1628 see over Alaska?

8 min read

In November 1986, the captain of a Japanese Boeing 747 freighter reported that over Alaska two smaller objects and one enormous object, "the size of two aircraft carriers," accompanied his plane. Military radar seemed to confirm it, and the story went around the world press. The U.S. aviation authority ultimately could not support the account, but the full investigation file is public today, and it reveals a great deal.

When: November 17, 1986
Where: Eastern Alaska, between Fort Yukon and Fairbanks, United States
Witnesses: Captain Kenju Terauchi, First Officer Takanori Tamefuji and Flight Engineer Yoshio Tsukuda.
Official position: According to the U.S. aviation authority (FAA), the crew was honest, but it cannot support what they saw. The radar returns were probably caused by a technical error.

A cargo flight from Paris to Tokyo

On November 17, 1986, Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 was flying from Paris to Tokyo, with stops in Reykjavík and Anchorage. The aircraft was a Boeing 747-200F freighter with a three-person crew: Captain Kenju Terauchi, First Officer Takanori Tamefuji and Flight Engineer Yoshio Tsukuda.

Terauchi was an experienced pilot who had been flying for 29 years, with more than 10,000 flight hours. At 4:30 p.m. the plane passed over a Canadian navigation point called Single Point, then entered Alaskan airspace. Shortly after 5 p.m., Anchorage air traffic control instructed them to fly directly toward Talkeetna. Outside it was already getting dark; the Sun was 10 degrees below the horizon.

The route of JAL 1628 and the key times, in Alaska time. Sky Glitch chart

Lights on the left

At about 5:10 p.m., Terauchi noticed lights: according to his written statement, they were 30 degrees ahead to the left, about 600 meters below them. The lights were moving in the same direction and at the same speed as the plane. Seven or eight minutes later, according to the captain, two objects suddenly moved in front of them and stopped right in front of their faces.

According to Terauchi's description, the two objects approached the size of the fuselage of a DC-8 airliner and flew 150–300 meters ahead of the plane. He saw a great many exhaust pipes on them, and a string of lights ran along their bodies. The cockpit lit up brightly, and according to the captain he felt warmth on his face. He later wrote that they did not feel they were in danger.

At 5:19 p.m. the plane requested traffic information from control, but was told there was no other aircraft nearby. The captain spoke of white and yellow flashing lights moving one kilometer ahead of them.

Radar, turn, silence

At 5:25 p.m., JAL's own onboard radar showed something at the 11 o'clock position, about 13 kilometers away. A minute later, the military radar center (ROCC) also saw a return "in JL1628's 10 o'clock position at 8 miles." Another minute later, however, nothing.

At 5:31 p.m. the captain said the "plane" was quite big. Control approved any deviation, and JAL descended to 31,000 feet (about 9,400 m). Asked whether the other "traffic" was descending too, Terauchi replied: "in formation."

Near Fairbanks, around 5:35 p.m., the plane turned to a heading of 210 degrees, and it was then that the captain saw the largest object. Behind the plane, in front of the lights of Fairbanks and Eielson Air Force Base, he saw the silhouette of a gigantic spaceship, which he later described as "the size of two aircraft carriers." His drawing resembles a huge walnut. The Fairbanks control radar saw nothing.

At 5:36 p.m., control suggested a 360-degree turn to find out whether the object was following them. At 5:39 p.m., JAL reported that it no longer saw the traffic. The military radar still gave occasional returns for a few minutes, first at the 9 o'clock and then at the 7 o'clock position, then lost it.

At 5:45 p.m., control directed a northbound United plane toward them. At 5:50 p.m., the United pilots reported that they could see the JAL "against a light background," but no other aircraft. An Air Force C-130 transport plane did not see anything either. At 5:53 p.m., JAL reported that there was no more contact. The whole episode lasted about 40 minutes.

What did the others see?

The three pilots did not see the same thing. First Officer Tamefuji saw only lights, which he could not distinguish from the stars. Flight Engineer Tsukuda spoke of two kinds of lights which, in his view, were not the lights of settlements, but he did not see a body either. Only the captain described the large object and the exhaust pipes.

FAA investigators questioned the crew immediately after landing. They concluded that they were "normal, professional, rational" people who were not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The FAA investigation

The case reached the press on December 29 and became world news within days. The FAA then began a detailed investigation: it interviewed all three pilots and analyzed the radar recordings.

In March 1987, a press conference was held in Anchorage. According to regional spokesman Paul Steucke, the crew was honest, but the FAA could not support what they saw. The Anchorage radar recordings "failed to confirm any targets" near the plane. FAA experts considered the occasional military radar returns to be a so-called split beacon: a delayed copy of the plane's own transponder reply appears on the screen as a separate target. The FAA also emphasized that it has no mandate to investigate UFOs.

The FAA's records also contain a lesser-known detail. Terauchi had previously reported UFOs twice, once years earlier during a takeoff in Taiwan. Eight weeks after the Alaska incident, in January 1987, he reported two more sightings on the same route. One of them turned out to be the lights of Alaskan villages scattered by ice-crystal clouds. The FAA's internal documents called the captain a "UFO repeater".

The FAA investigation file is now held at the U.S. National Archives. The archives has also published in its own catalog, among other things, the simulation of the radar images and the notes of the interviews with the crew.

The sober take

Philip J. Klass, the best-known UFO skeptic of the era, suggested as early as January 1987 that Jupiter and Mars might have been behind the lights. Using our own calculations, we checked where these bodies were that evening along the plane's route.

What does the calculation show? Between 5:10 and 5:50 p.m., Jupiter stood in the southeastern sky at an altitude of 10–14 degrees, and with a brightness of magnitude −2.6 it was by far the brightest point in that part of the sky. To its right, slightly lower, Mars was visible (magnitude −0.1). The plane was flying southwest, so both were on the left side: Mars about 60 degrees, Jupiter about 80 degrees to the left. The nearly full Moon stood low behind them, in the northeast.

As seen from the cockpit around 5:10 p.m. In gray, the directions given in the reports: Terauchi's first sighting 30 degrees to the left, the military radar return at the 10 o'clock position. Sky Glitch chart

What fits the planets:

The lights were on the left side of the plane, and the military radar's "10 o'clock" return (about 60 degrees to the left) falls right in the direction of Mars.
A distant celestial body always stays in the same place relative to an airplane, so it looks as if it were accompanying the plane. Even after the descent, JAL saw the lights "in formation."
According to First Officer Tamefuji, the lights did not differ from the stars.
The brightest points were exactly where the lights were seen.

What doesn't fit them:

Terauchi saw the first lights 30 degrees ahead to the left and below the plane. Jupiter was much farther to the side than that, 80 degrees to the left and above the horizon.
According to the captain, the two objects suddenly moved in front of them, stopped, and lit up the cockpit. This does not fit planets.
If they had been planets, they would have appeared in the same place after the 360-degree turn, but the crew lost contact.

The "mothership." Only the captain saw the largest object, behind the plane, in front of the lights of Fairbanks. According to optical physicist Bruce Maccabee, one of the most dedicated researchers of the case, this is also the weakest part of the account, and he may have seen clouds lit by the city lights. Terauchi's January "UFO" was also resolved this way: it was village lights scattered by ice-crystal clouds.

The radar. The radar returns do not confirm the objects. The military radar saw only an occasional return without a transponder, the civilian radars saw nothing, and neither did the two other planes sent nearby. The FAA's explanation, the split transponder beacon, is a known phenomenon and explains why the "target" moved together with the JAL.

The other side. According to Maccabee, all three pilots saw the two smaller lights, and the captain's description (the sudden stop, the lighting of the cockpit) cannot be explained by an astronomical phenomenon. In his view, the plane was accompanied by at least two real, unidentified objects. This opinion must be fairly mentioned in the article as well, because the direction of the light and the captain's description really do not fully match.

In summary: for the two smaller lights, Jupiter and Mars are the most likely explanation, but the captain's detailed description does not fit them in every respect. The "mothership" was seen by only a single witness, and for that an illuminated cloud is the more likely explanation. The radar proves nothing. The case is one of this section's most interesting examples of how what an experienced, honest pilot believes he sees can color his experience, and also of how even a good investigation cannot explain everything.

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