Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628 was a Japanese Boeing 747-200F cargo plane flying from Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport to Narita International Airport. On November 17, 1986, the flight was involved in an unidentified flying object (UFO) sighting. During the flight, Captain Kenji Terauchi reported seeing three objects he described as "two small ships and the mothership." The FAA in Anchorage only saw Flight 1628 on their radar. Two other nearby planes only saw Flight 1628 and no other objects. An FAA investigation of the incident described Terauchi as a "UFO repeater." Astronomers and investigators concluded that Terauchi likely mistook the planets Jupiter and Mars for UFOs. Differences in the stories told by the crew members of the three aircraft, as well as differences between the transcripts and later interviews with Terauchi, have made people question whether anything unusual actually happened.

Observation

On the flight from Reykjavík to Anchorage, at an altitude of 35,000 feet (11,000 meters), at 17:11 over eastern Alaska, the pilot, Captain Kenji Terauchi, reported seeing three unidentified objects flying side by side and then coming very close. News media at the time said Terauchi described the objects as "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), who told him to take "evasive action." Terauchi lowered the plane's altitude and turned the plane in a circle, but he reported that the lights 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 dismissed as clutter, and an object that appeared on the FAA's screens was thought to be a coincidental split image of the aircraft. Air controllers in Fairbanks saw only Flight 1628 on their radar screens.

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

Flight 1628 landed in Anchorage. The crew was debriefed, and FAA investigators concluded that they 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 on the night Terauchi claimed to see two lights, the planets Jupiter and Mars were in the same area. These planets would have been very visible, but Terauchi did not mention seeing them. Klass explained that it is common for experienced pilots to mistake bright stars or planets for UFOs. At the time, Jupiter was only 10 degrees above the horizon, which made it appear to the pilot as if it were at his own altitude of 35,000 feet. Klass also noted that when the crew members were interviewed separately in 1988, their memories of the event differed greatly.

According to Klass, the pilot later gave different accounts of what happened. When reviewing 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 stated that Terauchi said the object remained visible as he turned.

The FAA released a report describing 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 in the same area as Flight 1628, Terauchi said he saw "irregular pulsating lights" and "a large black chunk just in front of us." FAA radar did not detect an object, and the event was later explained as "lights from small villages spread out by thin ice clouds." Klass noted that Terauchi used the words "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 stated that despite Flight 1628 becoming a well-known case in UFO literature, there was little evidence to support the claims. Sheaffer said Terauchi was not an unbiased or objective observer. Science writer Brian Dunning wrote that "nothing extraordinary or unusual" happened that night and called Terauchi "a fine and competent pilot, but hardly unbiased when it came to alien spaceships." He also described Flight 1628 as "just another unevidenced aerial anecdote."