On the evening of 17 November 1986, the crew of Japan Air Lines cargo flight 1628 reported unfamiliar lights over Alaska. Anchorage air traffic controllers discussed possible traffic, authorised manoeuvres and asked another aircraft to look. Captain Kenju Terauchi subsequently described an encounter with extraordinary machines. The Federal Aviation Administration investigated an air-traffic safety question and released a substantial documentary record, while declining to confirm the reported event.
The case is often compressed into a claim that three pilots and radar all confirmed the same enormous craft. The surviving records are more specific. The crew members described different views; the aircraft’s weather radar and ground surveillance radar were different instruments; and a controller’s real-time response was not the same thing as the later technical assessment.
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Map location — approximate area. Approximate area: rounded U.S. Census Gazetteer representative point for Fairbanks city, Alaska. The airborne JAL 1628 reports covered a wider route; this city-area reference is not an aircraft position, flight path or landing site. U.S. Census Gazetteer reference.
The flight and the first calls
The Boeing 747 freighter was travelling from Iceland to Anchorage on a route continuing to Japan. The incident belongs geographically to Alaska, rather than the airline’s home country. An Anchorage centre chronology dated 18 December places the first traffic inquiry at approximately 02:19 UTC on 18 November, corresponding to the previous evening in Alaska. The distinction between local and UTC dates accounts for the two dates appearing in the file.
According to that chronology, JAL reported same-direction traffic ahead, then a return on its own radar. The centre consulted the military Regional Operations Control Center and later Fairbanks Approach. The military reported an intermittent primary return; Fairbanks did not report nearby traffic. The sequence preserves uncertainty and changing information, rather than a single continuous, independently established radar track accompanying the aircraft.
Terauchi’s later written account
Terauchi’s written statement, received by the FAA on 2 January 1987 in an English translation by Sayoko Mimoto, gave a much richer narrative. He described two bright objects moving close ahead, illumination inside the cockpit and warmth on his face. Later he described a gigantic silhouette behind the aircraft near the Fairbanks area. He interpreted these as spaceships, but that interpretation remains his claim rather than an FAA identification.
The captain also explained that he tried unsuccessfully to photograph the lights, encountering difficulty with focus and camera operation. He described a green return on the aircraft’s weather radar at an estimated seven or eight miles. His guesses about propulsion or unusual construction went beyond the observations themselves. There is no reason to turn a witness’s explanatory speculation into an established property of a recovered object, because no such object was recovered in this case.
The first officer’s narrower view
FAA inspector Peter Beckner interviewed first officer Takanori Tamefuji on 5 January, with Mimoto interpreting. Tamefuji repeatedly emphasised lights rather than a complete outline. His right-hand seat limited his later view to the left, and he estimated his own observation at about five to ten minutes. That is a different evidential claim from endorsing everything the captain described over a much longer period.
The transcript records hesitations, clarification and changes between English and Japanese. When discussing what he saw, Tamefuji compared it to approaching aircraft lights and said he could not reliably specify its direction of movement. He was certain he had seen something, but that certainty should not be enlarged into certainty about an extraordinary machine’s shape. The interview’s questions and translated answers need to remain visible in any interpretation of his testimony.
The flight engineer’s distinction
In his 15 January interview, flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba described clusters of white or amber lights and distinguished an initial forward display from later lights to the side. Asked about the object’s shape, he said he did not know: he had seen lights. He also explained that, during an altitude change, he could not see the object himself and relied on the captain saying it remained present.
This does not erase the engineer’s observation. It defines its scope. A statement about what somebody else reported cannot be counted as another direct sighting of the same feature at the same moment. The interviews provide corroboration of unusual lights while leaving significant differences in duration, visibility and interpretation. Preserving those differences makes the record more informative than a unanimous-crew summary.
Manoeuvres and the other aircraft
The centre chronology records a descent from flight level 350 to 310, heading changes and a 360-degree turn. Controllers then asked a northbound United Airlines flight to look. At approximately 02:50 UTC, United reported the JAL aircraft in sight against a lighter background but no other traffic. The chronology ends with JAL reporting loss of contact and a subsequent review failing to confirm nearby targets in the centre’s recorded data.
United’s observation concerns its particular viewing opportunity near the end of the episode. It cannot determine everything that might have been visible earlier. Conversely, the fact that controllers arranged a visual check is evidence that they were responding to a report, not proof that they had already established an unknown aircraft. Operational caution and a final identification are different stages of an investigation.
What the radar analysis actually said
Dennis R. Simantel’s analysis dated 25 February examined approximately 61 minutes of recorded data. It reported normal returns and explained apparent separation between a primary reflection from an aircraft’s surface and its transponder beacon reply. When the returns fell in different range cells, a single aircraft could appear as uncorrelated targets. A 27 February memorandum transmitted the analysis, and the FAA’s March explanation adopted that interpretation.
The explanation addresses the ground-system data reviewed by the agency. It should not silently be substituted for a separate analysis of the cockpit weather-radar display or every visual impression. Those are distinct claims requiring their own evidence. Equally, quoting a controller’s earlier uncertainty without mentioning the technical review leaves out a central part of the official investigation.
The FAA’s conclusion and its boundary
On 5 March 1987, the FAA said it could not confirm the event and considered air-traffic safety uncompromised. It explained that its purpose had been to determine whether unreported aircraft posed a hazard. A separate statement expressly said it had not undertaken a scientific identification of what the crew saw using astronomy, viewing angles and related methods. The radar conclusion therefore should not be advertised as a comprehensive explanation of the lights.
The released packet also discusses Terauchi’s separate January 1987 observation, for which village lights and atmospheric ice crystals were considered an explanation. That later incident is not the November flight. JAL 1628 remains a documented visual report with an operational response and a critical radar assessment; neither its official preservation nor its unresolved visual elements establish extraterrestrial visitors.
Primary records and location
Records checked: Terauchi’s translated statement; Tamefuji’s interview; Tsukuba’s interview; Anchorage centre chronology; split-target analysis and explanation; and FAA public-affairs statements. These original scans belong to the FAA collection catalogued as National Archives 733667. Selected relevant interview and statement passages were read; no independent audio listening is claimed. Checked 5 November 2026.
The airborne report spans several positions; the map uses a broad Fairbanks-area reference. The Fairbanks photograph provides regional context. Compare Kenneth Arnold’s mountain sighting, explore UFO & UAP cases, or return to the Historical Cases directory.