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UFO: FAA releases reams of data from investigation, but_ comes to no conclusion about pilot's sighting ia Continued from Page A-1 | except on radar. The FAA did not have ground radar coverage in the McGrath area, so there was no way to confirm the plane's, sighting. Agency officials in- terviewed crew members af- ter they landed, but formed no opinion about the Alaska Airlines sighting. FAA officials Thursday had more to say about the Nov. 17 reported sighting of two small UFOs and an enor- mous “mothership.” The JAL pilot’s initial report appeared to be partially confirmed by three ground controllers, who saffl in statements released at the press conference they thought they picked up one of the UFOs on FAA rada r. But also on Thursdi ay, the FAA released a formal review of the controller radar tapes by New Jersey-based agency technicians that conclu ded the controllers mistakenly, inter- preted a split-image of the JAL plane as a second object. “It is unfortv inate," Steucke said, that tihe split image appeared “just when a pilot was reporting: seeing something outside his air- eraft.” Steucke said, trie FAA launched its thrée-mionth ex- amination of thie Nfovember sighting to male sture some strange aircraft; watsn’t men- ,fcing the safety o'f the air Yraffic control {stdom. Since the radar did't prick up a_ second aircraft, the FAA now considers the air, traffic sys- tem safe and the case closed. “We are not in the UFO business and don't intend to be,” Steucke said. Does that mean the FAA doesn’t believe the reports of the sightings from the JAL crew?. Not at all. “As far as we know, the whole crew are people of integrity and did report what they saw accu- rately,” Steucke said. Kenju Terauchi, the pilot of the JAL plane, describes the sightings in almost mysti- cal terms in a December re- port titled “Meeting the Fu- ture” to JAL management. “Once upon a time if a hunter saw a TV, how did he describe it to other people? My experience was similar to this,” he began his tale. “... There was no danger, but it created many questions that a human being cannot answer.” Terauchi said he first saw two spaceships that hovered almost stationary, then rapid- ly pulsed across the sky. “Most unexpectedly, two spaceships stopped in front of our face, shooting off lights. The inside cockpit shined brightly and I felt warm in the face,” Terauchi wrote in his report to JAL officials. Later, as the JAL plane ‘flew over Fairbanks, Terau- chi reported a third UFO, a huge spaceship the size of two battleships. He sald the space- ship followed the JAL plane south of Fairbanks, then abruptly disappeared as con- trollers directed a United Air- Sn rer lines plane to check out the sighting. a an interview with FAA officlals, Terauchi said the Nov. 17 Incident was the third UFO sighting of his 29-year career as a pilot. A fourth sighting Terauchi reported in January he later dismissed as the lights of a town reflected in the clouds by an air inver- sion. ' Co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji and engineer Yoshio Tsukuba said the November sighting was thelr first. Both, in Inter- views with FAA officials, confirmed parts of Terauchi’s account. Tsukuba, the flight engi- neer, sald he saw’ Strange white and amber-colored lights that glowed with a strange intiensity that “I can- not describe ... not even in Japanese.”" . But in two interviews with FAA officials, he said he didn't know whether the ob- jects were UFOs. “When I was Interwiewed here the first time by F.4A personnel," Tsu- kuba said in his second inter- view, “I was not sure whether ithe object was a UFO or not. My mind has not changed since then. “* Tamefujl said he spotted the first series of lights about the same time as the captain, and that they followed the plane. ‘But he said he could’ not make out the large object spotted overf%Fairbanks be cause it followed on Terau- chi's side of the plane.