733667-02-001-0016

FOIA RELEASE

OCR Text

on quem wae WEF ware, - 'ublic interest spurs on FAA’s U Associated Press he Federal Aviation Ad- _ istration has stepped up rts to determine the cee Of wavering lights that ged a Japan Air Lines zo jet across Alaska’s it sky for nearly an hour lovember. We're looking at it to en- : that somebody didn’t vi- e airspace we control,” \ spokesman Paul Steucke . Sunday. “We looked at it ut six weeks ago, but e then we've gotten a lot ublic interest, so we went « and reinterviewed the. . He provided us with itional information.” ‘eteran pilot Kenji Terau- told investigators Friday ugh an interpreter that ' of the lights were small, aiptofere. , 8 perhaps no larger than eight feet across. He sald the third light was on an aircraft, a huge darkened globe with a diameter of perhaps two air- craft carriers placed end-to- end, Steucke said. The pilot said the large UFO showed up on his cock- pit weather radar. But images on military radar screens at the time were dismissed as “clutter,” and a blip that showed up on FAA screens ‘was analyzed as a coinciden- tal “split image” of the air- craft, Steucke said... _ Radar tapes, transcribed interviews and radio mes- sages are to be sent to the FAA in Washington, D.C., lat- —er this week for review, Steucke said. A JAL spokeswoman Sun- day said Terauchi was on a’ or for aircraft beacons. flight to Europe and was un- available. En, Flight 1628, with a three man crew, left Iceland on Nov. 17 with a load of wine bouhd for Tokyo from Paris. Terauchi and his crew picked up the Boeing 747 in Iceland for the Polar leg of the flight to Anchorage. The evening sky was clear as the jet, cruising at 525 knots, crossed into Alaska from Canada, just northeast ‘of Fort Yukon. At 6:19 p.m. (AST), as the plane flew at 35,000 feet, Terauchi said he saw three lights eight miles in _ front of his aircraft. The pilot reported the lights were yellow, amber and green, Steucke said, but not red, the international col- “The two smaller ones moved a little bit, changed their angle. The smaller ones did not show up on the weath- er radar on board,” Steucke said. “The larger one did. ‘It appeared to him it . might be possible that the lights might be exhaust pipes, they kind of wavered but did . not blink. His main concern ‘ was trying to determine whether he was. overtaking another aircraft.” Steucke said the pilot re- ported he dimmed cockpit lights to ensure he was not seeing a reflection. “He flew for about six min- utes before he decided to re- port anything,’ Steucke said. es can’t say I blame him for a ue FO investigation: ANCH, News Terauchi radioed of. age FAA air controllers, whd direct all aircraft traffic, . The pilot reported the ob- ject was staying with him anf controllers told him to take any evasive action needed. Terauchi decreased altitude to "91,000 feet, hut the lights went down with him “in for- mation,” Steucke said. South of Fairbanks, Terau- chi turned the plane in & complete circle to see if the lights would follow. ‘That was pretty clever,” Steucke said “It allowed him to eliri- inate any natural phenome non which would have stayed stationary." : The lights vanished, head- ing east, when the JAL fet was about 80 miles north of Anchorage, Steucke said.

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Agency
Classification
UNKNOWN
Department
National Archives and Records Administration
Confidence1
Credibility1

NARA Source

NAID
733667
File
733667-02-001-0016.jpg
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image/jpeg

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733667-02-001-0016 · UFOIntel