FAIRBANKS - In the realm of unexplained events in Alaska, the story about Japan Airlines Flight 1628 must be near the top.
On Nov. 17, 1986, the JAL 747 was headed across Interior Alaska toward a refueling stop in Anchorage when the captain and crew saw what they took to be unidentified flying objects in the darkness to the east.
They saw lights to the left and below the plane shortly after 5 p.m. and began a series of conversations and actions that have been replayed over and over again by those who think UFOs were involved.
The incident was among those mentioned in a two-hour show first broadcast Thursday on the History Channel. "Secret Access: UFOs on the Record," deals with several incidents, one of which is the Alaska incident.
The plane, carrying a cargo of French wine for Tokyo, was northeast of Fort Yukon when the captain first reported seeing the lights. As the co-pilot set a course toward Talkeetna, the lights stayed with the plane.
After six or seven minutes, Captain Kenju Terauchi said later, the lights suddenly appeared in front of the 747. The co-pilot and flight engineer also reported seeing the strange lights. Minutes later they saw a large object following them.
With permission from air traffic control in Anchorage, the plane descended to 31,000 feet and was just south of Fairbanks when it made a 360-degree turn to see if the strange lights would follow. There were no reports of military aircraft operating in the area.
"As the airplane passed over Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks, the captain said he noticed, looming behind his airplane, the dark silhouette of a gigantic 'mothership' larger than two aircraft carriers. He asked air traffic control for permission to take his airplane around in a complete circle and then descend to 31,000 feet. Terauchi said his shadower followed him through both maneuvers," a 1987 account in Air ">
The plane landed in Anchorage without incident.
While the late Philip Klass, a UFO debunker, contended the JAL crew saw the bright lights of Jupiter, that did not end the debate and others said Klass was incorrect.
Leslie Kean, author of "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record," provided commentary for the TV show on several cases she included in her 2010 book, one of which is the JAL close encounter.
One of the fascinating aspects of the tale comes from John Callahan, a former FAA executive who gave detailed remarks at a National Press Club presentation in 2007 on the incident.
He was the division chief of the Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations Division of the FAA in Washington, for six years during the 1980s.
Callahan said he first heard of the incident in January 1987, when the UFO story hit the news.
The voice tapes and other material were sent to an FAA technical center in Atlantic City. Callahan said at first he thought the JAL crew had seen a stealth military aircraft, but he later concluded the evidence was inconclusive.
"If this craft had been a Learjet or military aircraft at the wrong attitude, that would have been clear. The FAA has procedures that cover tracking unidentified aircraft violating another's airspace - but it has no procedures for UFOs," he told the press club in 2007.
He was asked to give a presentation to the White House scientific staff and did so, including the video and printouts.
"At the end, one of the three people from the CIA said, 'This event never happened; we were never here; we're confiscating all this data and you are all sworn to secrecy.'"
"What do you think it was?" Callahan said he asked the CIA person.
"A UFO and now they have over 30 minutes of radar to go over," he responded.
To this day the JAL story remains unresolved.
"I spoke to a doctor -- he said it was an illusion," the JAL pilot once told a reporter for a Japanese magazine.
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LOST FLIGHT: There was some news about another Alaska aviation puzzle last week, one that stands a better chance of being cleared up some day.
In August 1937, one of the most famous pilots in the world, a man sometimes called the "Russian Lindbergh," was on a nonstop flight from Moscow to Fairbanks when he disappeared over the Arctic Ocean.
Veteran Russian filmmaker Yuri Salnikov, who won awards this year for a documentary on the first man in space, was in Fairbanks last week gathering information about the last flight of Sigismund Levanevsky for a new documentary.
A massive search in 1937 failed to turn up the lost plane and there have been several efforts during the decades to find Levanevsky, who may have crashed just off the Alaska coast.
David Stone, a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, organized a teleconference with several of the most prominent pilots and historians interested in finding Levanevsky. There are areas on the northeast Alaska coast that should be searched, they agreed, the question is whether funding can be found to mount a search.
Salnikov encouraged them to put together a plan and he would try to secure Russian support for an expedition.
Source: http://newsminer.com/bookmark/15252262-Close-encounter-over-Interior-Alaska-draws-coverage-on-UFO-show
