Pilot Report
Unclassified Complete
733667-001-007-0008
National Archives and Records Administration
Confidence
85%
Credibility
90%
View original document ↗ hosted at the official government source
Intelligence summary
This document details the personal account of Captain Kenju Terauchi regarding a sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO) during Japan Airlines Flight 1628 on November 17, 1986. The captain describes visual and radar observations of a large, round object that was not detected by ground radar.
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Jun 15, 1986
Document Date (year hint)
Document Date (year hint) for 733667-001-007-0008
Jun 16, 2026
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Ingestion Date for 733667-001-007-0008
Jun 16, 2026
Document Record Date
Document Record Date for 733667-001-007-0008
Jun 16, 2026
Update Date
Update Date for 733667-001-007-0008
Entities mentioned
Full document text
1,597 characters, transcribed via OCR. Errors reflect the source scan. Compare with the original ↗
“Page 11°
Again, we began communicating with the Anchorage Center. We said
that we could see a light in the 10 o’clock position at the same
altitude and wondered if they could see anything in their radar.
The Anchorage Center replied that they see nothing in their
radar. I thought it would be impossible to find anything on an
aircraft radar if a large ground radar did not show anything but
I judged the distance of the object visually and it was not very
far. I set the digital weather radar distance in 20 miles, radar
angle to horizon. There it was, on the screen, a large, green,
and a round object had appeared in seven or eight miles (13
kilometers to 15 kilometers) away, where the direction of the
object was. We reported to the Anchorage Center that our aircraft.
radar caught the object within seven or eight miles in 10 o’clock
position. We asked if they could catch it on the ground radar
but did not seem they could at all. Normally it appears in red
when an aircraft radar catches another aircraft. I wonder if the
metal used in the spaceship is different from ours. While we
were communicating with the Anchorage Center, the two pale white
lights gradually moved to the left side and to left diagonally
back 30 degrees as if they understood our conversation and then
when they were beside our aircraft they totally disappeared from
our radar.
[Personal statement concerning JAL Flight 1628 sighting of
unidentified air traffic, Nov. 17, 1986. Written by Capt.
Kenju Terauchi; translated by Sayoko Mimoto, FAA Alaskan
Region, Airway Facilities Division. Received by FAA 1/2/87]