PAGE 35
THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1987
‘THE WALL STRER
© 1987 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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By KEN WeLLs
Staff Reporter of THE Watt STREET JOURNAL
Publishers who selt paperback myster-
ies for $2.98 may be envious of the Federal
Aviation Administration's regional office in
Anchorage, Alaska. The office is offering a
pricey mystery that’s drawing a Jot of at-
tention —a $194.30 unbound collection of re-
ports dealing with the celebrated sighting
of a UFO by a Japan Air Lines pilot over
the Arctic Ocean last Nov. 17.
. “We've sold 30 complete packages sa
far," and received about 300 orders for
portions, says Paul Steucke, an FAA
spokesman in Anchorage.
Glossy Color Photos
In consideration of UFO-watchers
whose resources aren't astronomical, the
agency will sell separately any of the 20-
items in the collection. These include a $50
cassette recording of the conversation be-
tween flight controllers and the JAL crew
during the 50-minute encounter, and a $56
set of glossy color photos of radar read-
outs, The prices are based on the cost of
reproducing the materials,
Otders continue to roil in despite the
FAA's conclusion—in a separate report
that costs nothing—that it couldn't substan-
late the sighting. [ts technical experts in
Allantic City, NuJ.. said blips on a radar
Screen that appeared to confirm an object
Were Going to Ruin the Ending:
The Split-Radar Returns Did It -
in the vicinity of the JAL jet were actually
“split-radar returns’—shadows. of the
plane's primary echo.
The conclusion was bolstered, says Mr.
Steucke, by a report of a United Airlines
pilot who, at the request of Anchorage
tlight controllers, flew near the path of the
JAL jet at the time of the mysterious ra-
dar readings. He saw no other aircraft.
The FAA normaily doesn’t get into ei-
ther the UFO or the publishing business.
But it investigated this incident because an
aircraft might have ventured unreported
into the airspace of the JAL cargo carrier,
which was en route from Iceland to An-
chorage, Mr. Steucke says.
A Pilot's View
And though the agency routinely makes
certain reports available, it has been as as
mystified by the demand for its costly doc-
uments as some people are by the sighting
itself. But the graphic testimony of Kenju
Terauchi, the JAL pilot who reported the
sighting, probably hasn't hurt sales.
He told the FAA immediately after the
incident that he had been followed by two
Strands of lights, pulsating with amber
glows, and a huge craft that appeared to
be a “mother ship.’ He later said the large
UFO was the “size of two battleships” and
appeared to be made by ‘‘a very high tech-
nology and intelligence.”
l JOURNAL,
used against nematodes have been bantied.
because of environmental problems.
New Healing Salve
A healing salve prepared from blood is
being developed.
A University of Minnesota surgeon, Da-
vid R. Knighton, explains that after a
burn, cut or other wound the body pro-
duces substances that trigger tissue re-
growth and healing. Some of these healing
factors have been tracked to the platelets,
tiny plate-shaped particles that help blood
to clot. Dr. Knighton, working with Cura-
Tech Inc., a small company in which the
University of Minnesota holds a stake, has
developed a “platelet-derived wound-heal-
ing formula” using platelets from a
wounded patient's own blood. The formuia
is made into a salve applied with gauze.
Inittal tests on burns, chronic ulcers
and other wounds that are slow to heal are
promising, although definitive controlled
tests on burn patients are still to be com-
pleted. “It's not a miracle potion, ‘’ Dr.
Knighton ‘says. But, he notes, “this is the
way nature heals wounds; all we're doing
is mtmicking it.’ One theoretical attribute
of the salve is that blood contains factors
that turn off tissue regrowth the moment a
wound is sealed. Thus, the salve should
help reduce scarring.
The researcher ts now working on ways
to extend the shelf life of the salve and to
see if the healing factors can be extracted
from donated blood rather than just the
wounded patient's own blood.
~Jerry E.BisHoe
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