IncidentJapan Airlines Flight 1628 (17 November 1986)

aka Japan Airlines Flight 1628 (17 November 1986)

Captain Kenju Terauchi and the crew of JAL Flight 1628 — a Boeing 747 cargo flight from Paris to Tokyo via Anchorage — reported and tracked on onboard radar a large unidentified object over eastern Alaska; the encounter was simultaneously tracked on FAA ground radar at Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center.

phenomenologically-open A named captain, FAA-preserved voice and radar data, and the FAA division chief's account of the CIA debrief; the Jupiter-and-Mars hypothesis covers the initial lights poorly and the radar returns not at all.

status history (1)

2026-06-09 · unannotated → phenomenologically-open — initial annotation sweep (Epic J.F4)

FAA chart of JAL 1628's path over Alaska annotated with the crew's radio calls, from the 1987 FOIA release (National Archives) Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · Federal Aviation Administration, Alaskan Region · 1987

Illustration of the giant 'mothership' Capt. Terauchi reported alongside his JAL Cargo 747, after his sketches (CC BY-SA, JMK) Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · User:JMK · 2018

Illustration of the two lighted craft Terauchi described pacing the aircraft, after his sketches (CC BY-SA, JMK) Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · User:JMK · 2018

On 17 November 1986 at 17:11 local Alaska time, JAL Flight 1628, a Boeing 747-200F cargo aircraft on a Paris–Reykjavík–Anchorage–Tokyo routing carrying a payload of French wine, was flying at FL350 (35,000 ft) over eastern Alaska, ~150 nautical miles east of Fort Yukon. Captain Kenju Terauchi (a 10,000-hour senior captain), First Officer Takanori Tamefuji, and Flight Engineer Yoshio Tsukuba reported two small luminous objects pacing the aircraft, then a third much larger object — described by Terauchi as the size of “two aircraft carriers.” The crew’s onboard weather radar painted the large object at 7.5 nautical miles. Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) controller Carl Henley simultaneously tracked an unidentified target on FAA primary radar near the aircraft’s position. The encounter lasted approximately 50 minutes. The FAA’s Alaska Region opened a formal investigation; division chief John Callahan briefed FAA Administrator Donald Engen, the CIA, and the FBI in a 5 January 1987 closed-door meeting in Washington, DC. The FAA’s final position, announced by spokesman Paul Steucke on 5 March 1987, was that the radar returns might have been a “split image” caused by precipitation; Callahan, after his retirement, publicly stated the explanation was insufficient and that the radar recordings he had retained showed clear separation between the JAL transponder return and the unidentified target.

Notable & intriguing

Captain Kenju Terauchi was a 10,000-hour senior captain of JAL with prior fighter-pilot experience in the Japan Air Self-Defense Force; First Officer Takanori Tamefuji and Flight Engineer Yoshio Tsukuba corroborated his account on the FAA’s recorded ATC tape with Anchorage ARTCC controller Carl Henley.

FAA ATC tape, Anchorage ARTCC sector R-15, 17 November 1986; FAA accident/incident report 87-A-0044
FAA Division Chief John Callahan, Quality Assurance and Investigations, briefed FAA Administrator Donald Engen on the case in a 5 January 1987 closed-door meeting attended by representatives of the CIA and FBI; Callahan retained copies of the FAA radar tapes and pilot interview transcripts after his retirement and publicly released them in 2001 to the Disclosure Project.

John Callahan testimony, National Press Club Disclosure Project briefing, 9 May 2001; FAA case file 87-A-0044
FAA Administrator-level spokesman Paul Steucke announced on 5 March 1987 that the FAA had concluded the secondary radar returns were ‘split images’ caused by precipitation; the same report acknowledged the primary radar returns were ‘uncorrelated’ but did not resolve them. Callahan disputed the precipitation explanation, noting the radar tapes showed clear separation between JAL 1628’s transponder and the unknown target.

FAA press release, 5 March 1987; Callahan statement, MUFON Journal No. 408, April 2002

Public-record items already documented about this subject. Folklore is labelled. Sources cited where the specificity warrants it.

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