733667-02-001-0029

Was an FAA-confirmed sighting really a UFO? to fly, according to an experienced pilot who watched it from as little as eight miles off. It was fast—fast enough to keep pace with a 747 jet for halfan houras it flew over the empty Alaska wilderness. It was flanked by two smaller objects that maneu- vered with it; together the three objects flashed a brilliant pattern of yellow, amber and green lights. And—if this sounds aw- fully familiar to connoisseurs of UFO tales—there is one thing that set this par- ticular apparition apart: it may have shown up on radar. Although the Federal Aviation Adminis- tration confirmed last week that some sort of sighting did take place aboard Japan Air remains a mystery. The incident began on the evening of Nov. 17, with veteran pilot Kenjyu Terauchi, 47, at the controls of the JAL cargo plane, which was en route to Anchorage from Reykjavik, Iceland, the middle leg of a Europe-to-Tokyo flight. The weather was clear as the jet crossed the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast. Sud- denly Terauchi and his two fellow crew- [-: was big—bigger than anything known Lines Flight 1628, much of what happened: men spotted flashing lights moving along- side them—about eight miles off, at the plane’s altitude. of 35,000 feet. Terauchi . radioed FAA controllers and received per- mission to descend to 31,000 feet. After a minute the controllers asked if the lights were still there. “It is descending in forma- tion,” the pilot replied: Terauchi said he glimpsed the full craft only once, in profile. “It was a very big one—two times bigger than an aircraft car- rier,” he reported. He sketched it as wal- nut-shaped, with a wide flat rim and bulges above and below. According to FAA spokes-~ man Paul Steucke of the Anchorage re- gional office, Terauchi located the object ' trollersaw what hesaw.. . with his own on-board weather radar. Both: Air Force and civilian flight controllers "| reported brieffy seeing echoes of what might have been another craft nearby the JAL flight. But when radar tapes covering the period were replayed by FAA investiga- tors, Steucke says, the reported echoes could not be found. The Air Force, he add- ed, is now attributing the supposed radar sightings to “clutter.” ‘A mystery’: Approaching Fairbanks, Ter- auchi steered his plane in a 360-degree cir- cle, but the object stayed with him, finally disappearing as the 747 approached An- chorage. FAA officials interviewed the crew on the ground and found them, in Steucke’s words, “professional, rational, well-trained people.” The FAA confirmed the incident after inquiries from Japanese reporters, who heard about it from a rela- tive ofone of the crewmen. But it has closed its inquiry into the sighting. “It’s a mys- tery,”’ Steucke concedes, “but, really, we- have nothing here to investigate. The con- . As far as what it could be, on the extreme side it could have been the. proverbial unknown object, or possibly military aircraft from the United States, Canada or some foreign country.” As for Terauchi, he told a UPI reporter that he believes the object he saw over the Alas- ka sky that night must have come from another planet with a civilization far more advanced than ours. Only that can explain, he says lightly, their interest in his cargo: . cases of French Beaujolais wine: alifornians-n may’ _ voted. fed to unseat Rose Bird; but: "the controversial chief justice: of the state's ‘Supreme. Court. Last wand? Thi chief justice paren nant for Eee