733667-002-002-0008

PHENOMENA RESEARCH REPORT Vol. 3 Now © Robert Jd. Gribble, Hditor Issue No. 30 A NIGHT FLIGHT TO REMEMBER=-A full moon shown in the Arctic sky as Captain Kenju Terauchi took off from Iceland November 17, 1986, in a Japan Air Lines cargo jet loaded with French Beaujolais wine. He was bound for Anchorage, Alaska on a route across Greenland to Hismere Island, Canada, over the Beaufort Sea, then into Alaska air space above Fort Yukon. For the first two and a half hours, the flight--crewed by Terauchi, co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji and engineer Yoshio Tsukuda--was uneventful. The sky was clear and the winds--except for some light gusts over Greenland--were calm. Then Terauchi's jet cruised into Alaska, and he first saw the two belts of light. They were an estimated three miles ahead of the plane, slightly to the left of the pilots cockpit seat, and 2000 feet lower than the plane. They emitted a steady amber glow. They hovered almost stationary, shifted from Side-to-side, then pulsed across the sky in abrupt bursts of speed. The objects, Terauchi believes "were not made by human kind. They were of a very high technology and intelligence.” The events recounted by Terauchi in the 50 minutes after that first sighting of lights are some of the most bizarre in Alaska aviation history. Since first becoming public in late December, 1986, the reports have transformed this softespoken, lh7-year-old, Anchorage-based pilot into an international celebrity, interviewed by People magazine, Tokyo television and more than a dozen other national and international publications. Terauchi has an impressive list of professional credentials to lend weight to his rather incredible tale. He has 29 years flying experience. Until November, Terauchi says, he never believed in UFOs. Now he does. He is convinced that the lights he saw in November were spaceships of some unknown, extra- terrestrial origin. In interview after interview, he methodically makes his case, charting the events of the sighting on flight maps of the Arctic sky. Tereauchi's encounter began with his sighting of the two belts of amber Lights. To check them out, he radioed Anchorage air traffic controllers. The controllers replied that no military or civilian flights were in the Vicinity. The two belts of light continued to dance in front of the plane. Terauchi grabbed for his camera, but realized that taking a picture would be futile because there was not enough light to expose the film properly. Five minutes later after the lights first appeared in front of the plane, they suddenly moved farther out ahead of the plane, he said. He could then make out the shapes of the crafts--cylinders wrapped in lateral lines of light that extended from a darker center. The lines appeared to be exhaust outlets, and they alternately pulsated light from the two sides of the cylinder. They appeared to be controlled by computers, he said. As the two objects reversed direction, the exhaust lights appeared to flare brighter. Co-pilot Tamefuji, in a separate interview, also reported seeing the two strange lights. "I saw several lights in front of us, and then I couldn't see them, and the captain told me they were on the left-hand side,“ he said. After about 15 minutes, the first two lights disappeared, Terauchi said. Then, on his left, he saw a big band of glowing white light, similar to the light emitted by fluorescent bulb. He turned on his weather radar and tuned it to a 20-mile radius. At eight miles, on the left side of the screen, the radar showed a tiny ball. Terauchi radioed the FAA flight control center in Anchorage. Three controllers monitoring radar saw what they thought was an object at about the same reference point on their monitor, according to Sam Rich, an air traffic controller, and Paul Steucke, an FAA spokesman. Steucke, however, said subsequent examination of the radar tape showed the object to be a split-image of the JAL plane. Rich said none of the controllers, at the time, thought that was the case. As the plane flew over Fairbanks, the lights of the city gave Terauchi a better view of the new object. He says the band of light circled a huge walnut-shaped object that appeared to be twice the size of an aircraft carrier. As the lighta of the city faded, Terauchi again could see only the white band of light. To try to lose the object, he got permission from a controller to descend from 35,000 to 31,500 feet. The object descended “in formation,” he said. Then Terauchi, after consulting with the controllers, made two S-degree turns to the right. The object remained in view. As the JAL plane flew past Mount McKinley, controllers asked a Fairbanks-bound United Airlines flight to try to confirm the sighting. The United plane