Pilot again spots UFO over Alaska

Times-Colonist
Tuesday, Jan 13, 1987
Page B12


The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - For the second time in two months, a Japan Air Lines pilot has reported spotting an unidentified object that seemed to be flying near his cargo jet over central Alaska.

Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi reported his second sighting Sunday on a cargo flight from London to a refuelling stop in Anchorage, said Paul Steucke, a spokesman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Terauchi's co-pilot reported seeing the lights, Steucke said, but the flight engineer, who sits farther back in the Boeing 747 cockpit, "indicated he was uncertain whether he saw any lights at all."

Steucke said FAA officials and experienced pilots speculated Sunday's sighting could have been caused by light bouncing off ice crystals in the atmosphere.

On Nov. 17, Terauchi reported two bright objects and third object as wide as two aircraft carriers placed end-to-end followed his JAL plane for more than 500 kilometres as it flew to Anchorage from Iceland.

"We asked him point-blank if this was like the Nov. 17 sighting, and he said, 'No, no, there's no similarity between the two,'" Steucke said.

Terauchi said he saw the lights twice Sunday, once for about 20 minutes and again for about 10 minutes as his plane flew at 37,000 feet. He notified an air-traffic controller in Anchorage of the sighting.

"His statement to the controller was 'irregular lights, looks like a spaceship,"' Steucke said.

Unlike the lights he reported in November, which seemed to stay with him even when he took evasive action, the lights seen Sunday appeared to approach from the front of the plane, went beneath it and reappeared to the rear.

Controllers and the supervisors immediately checked their radar screens for objects in the vicinity of the JAL flight Sunday. "There were none, and that was confirmed" by military radar, Steucke said.

HOMEPAGE COLLISON COLLECTION

Hit Counter