733667-02-001-0027

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JANUARY 26, 1987 VOL. 27,NO.4 At Anchorage alrport Terauchi demonstrates how a giant object maneuvered to fly in formation with his plane. THROUGH THE ALASKAN DARKNESS i KENJU TERAUCHI, A 747 PILOT, IS | PURSUED BY A UFO—OR SO HE CLAIMS A, the Japan Air Lines 747 cargo jet winged through the night skies over northern Alaska last Nov. 17 there was 4no hint of anything out of the ordinary. For the three-man cockpit crew of flight 1628, the leg from Reykjavik to Anchorage was a routine milk run, though the hold was brimming with cases of Beaujolais for the Japanese market. Then around 6 p.m., with the plane cruising smoothly at 35,000 feet, . Capt. Kenju Terauchi, 47, sighted “two columns of light” piercing the darkness about a mile ahead and some 30 de- greés to his left. ‘'! thought it might be a military aircraft,” he recalls, “so | ra- dioed Anchorage flight control to ask, ‘Is there another plane near here?’ An- chorage replied, ‘The only traffic is you.’ " - As for the pilot’s account of the bi- Zarre events that followed, Steven Spielberg could hardly have scripted it better. “Suddenly the lights came to within 500 to 1,000 feet of the plane,” says Terauchi, who saw “two dark cyl- TA inders with row after row of spinning . amber lights, one row spinning in one direction, the next in the opposite.” These were no ordinary fights—"They were incredibly bright but cast no shadow,” he insists. ‘I was sure it wasn’t another plane; it moved so quickly that | realized it was not some- thing human but had to do with very high technology, very high intelligence. | thought it might be a UFO.” A JAL flier with 19 years experience, Terauchi was astonished at the spec- tacle, yet says he felt no fear. The twin cylinders “flew in formation, and! real-. \ ized they had better control of their craft than! did, so there was no fear of collision.” He watched mesmerized for three to five minutes as the UFO sped ahead and disappeared. In its place the pilot saw two white, fluorescent- like lights perhaps eight miles away. He flipped on his weather radar and got a faint blip on his screen. Gradually Terauchi's 747 overtook the apparition , and, against the glow of Fairbanks’ city lights far below, he glimpsed a star- tiing silhouette—a giant ball “the size of two aircraft carriers” with protrud- ing fights and a light band through the middle. Since Ancforage air controllers had registered a radar target near flight ° 1628, they called for a backup radar check from the regional military con- trol center. The U.S. Air Force control- lers reported seeing a blip similar to Terauchi’s, but called.back a minute later to say the signal was gone. Te- rauchi nevertheless received permis- sion to make any course changes “needed to avoid the traffic.” As the . 747 flew a 360-degree turn, says Te- rauchi, the UFO “followed along in the same beautiful formation.” Finally, at 6:53, all sightings ceased, and flight 1628 proceeded to land in Anchorage without further incident. Officiats from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Anchorage office and JAL promptly launched an investiga- tion. Far from providing a reassuring CONTINUED