Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628 was a Japanese Boeing 747-200F cargo plane traveling from Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport to Narita International Airport. On November 17, 1986, the flight was involved in a sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO). The captain, Kenji Terauchi, reported seeing three objects, which he described as "two small ships and the mothership." The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Anchorage only detected Flight 1628 on their radar. Two other planes flying nearby only saw Flight 1628 and did not observe any other objects. An FAA investigation described Terauchi as a "UFO repeater." Scientists and investigators later concluded that Terauchi likely confused the planets Jupiter and Mars with UFOs. Differences in the crew members' accounts from the three planes, as well as differences between the transcripts and later interviews with Terauchi, have led to questions about whether anything unusual actually occurred.

Observation

On the flight from Reykjavík to Anchorage, the pilot, Captain Kenji Terauchi, saw three unidentified objects at 35,000 feet (11,000 meters) over eastern Alaska at 17:11. He described the objects as flying side by side and then very close. News media reported that Terauchi called the objects "two small ships and the mother ship" and "two small ones and one twice the size of an aircraft carrier." After six minutes, Terauchi contacted the Anchorage Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA told him to take evasive action. Terauchi lowered the plane’s altitude and turned the plane in a circle, but he said the lights from the objects remained near the plane after the turns.

At the time, news media said the FAA reported seeing objects near the plane even after the evasive maneuvers. However, later reviews of military radar images showed the objects were likely clutter, and a radar image that appeared to show an object was actually a mistake on the radar screen. Air controllers in Fairbanks only saw Flight 1628 on their radar screens.

Terauchi said the objects followed the plane for 640 kilometers (400 miles). Two other planes near Flight 1628—a United Airlines airliner and a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane—reported they did not see any objects visually or on radar.

Flight 1628 landed in Anchorage. The crew was interviewed, and FAA investigators concluded the crew members were "normal, professional, rational, and had no drug or alcohol involvement."

Explanation

Phillip J. Klass, the editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine and a UFO investigator, reported that Jupiter and Mars were in the sky area where pilot Terauchi claimed to see two lights. These planets would have been clearly visible, but Terauchi did not mention seeing them. Klass explained that it is common for experienced pilots to mistake bright objects in the sky for UFOs. At the time of the sighting, Jupiter was 10 degrees above the horizon, which made it appear to the pilot to be at about the same height as his airplane, which flew at 35,000 feet. Klass noted that when the crew members were interviewed separately in 1988, their memories of the event were very different.

Klass said that the pilot later gave a different account of what happened than what he told flight controllers during the incident. According to transcripts of radio communications, an FAA spokesperson said the pilot told ground controllers he lost sight of the object after completing a turn. However, in a later interview, the spokesperson said Terauchi claimed the object remained visible as he turned.

The FAA released a report about the incident that described Terauchi as a "UFO repeater," meaning he had reported two other UFO sightings before November 17th and two more in January. In a January 11, 1987 sighting, Terauchi reported seeing "irregular pulsating lights" and "a large black chunk" near his plane. FAA radar did not find any object, and the event was later explained as "lights from small villages spread out by thin clouds of ice crystals." Klass noted that Terauchi used the terms "spaceship" or "mothership" in his reports and claimed the "mothership … did not want to be seen." Terauchi also said, "we humans will meet them in the near future."

Astronomer and UFO investigator Robert Sheaffer said that although Flight 1628 became one of the most famous UFO cases, there was not much real evidence to support it. Sheaffer stated that Terauchi was not an unbiased or objective observer. Science writer Brian Dunning wrote that there was "nothing extraordinary or unusual" on the night of the event and called Terauchi "a fine and competent pilot, but not unbiased when it came to alien spaceships." Dunning described Flight 1628 as "just another story without clear evidence."