Unforgettable Cases

JAL Flight 1628: A Boeing 747 Followed by a UFO for Fifty Minutes Over Alaska

November 17, 1986. A Japan Airlines cargo 747 en route from Paris to Tokyo encounters two small craft over Alaska, followed by an enormous object described as twice the size of an aircraft carrier. FAA radar confirms unknown returns. A military reconnaissance aircraft is diverted to investigate. Then the CIA confiscates the evidence and tells investigators it never happened.

The Japan Airlines Flight 1628 incident stands as one of the most thoroughly documented UFO encounters in aviation history — not because of what the witnesses claimed, but because of what the instruments confirmed. On the night of November 17, 1986, a JAL Boeing 747F cargo freighter was descending from the polar route into Anchorage, Alaska, when its crew of three encountered a series of unidentified objects that would shadow their aircraft for the better part of an hour. The event was recorded by FAA ground radar, tracked by military radar, and independently investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration. The case files remain in the National Archives. And yet, within days of the incident, a CIA representative attended an FAA briefing and told those present that what had happened — all of it, the radar data, the crew reports, the investigation — had not happened at all.

Captain Kenju Terauchi was a veteran pilot with twenty-nine years of experience. His co-pilot was Takanori Tamefuji and his flight engineer was Yoshio Tsukuba. At 5:09 PM Alaska time, at cruising altitude over the Alaskan interior near Fort Yukon, the crew noticed two small craft flying in formation ahead of them at the same altitude. The objects were characterised by an unusual light display — they emitted rhythmic, pulsing illumination from a forward-facing bank of lights, described by Terauchi as resembling the exhaust of afterburner thrust but without any aircraft silhouette or fuselage. The lights were amber and white, and they maintained an exact distance from the 747 as it flew. When Terauchi adjusted speed, they adjusted accordingly. When he changed heading, they compensated. Whatever they were, they were aware of his aircraft and tracking it with precision.

After approximately seven minutes, the two smaller craft moved off. Then the main encounter began. Terauchi turned and saw, to the left and slightly below his aircraft, an enormous object — vast enough that he would later describe its silhouette as occupying the same apparent size in his field of view as an aircraft carrier would on the ocean surface. He estimated its dimensions at several hundred metres across. It was described as a double-hulled or walnut-shaped structure: two large disc-like masses linked by a shorter connecting section, both spinning or rotating independently. It emitted no light itself but was backlit by the ambient glow of the Alaskan night sky and the aurora borealis, creating a dark silhouette against the lighter horizon. Unlike the two smaller craft, this object produced no pulsing lights and made no adjustment for the 747’s movements — it simply maintained position. Terauchi reported that the interior of the cockpit became warm and that he could feel heat radiating from the direction of the object.

FAA Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Centre had the aircraft on radar throughout the encounter. When Terauchi radioed Anchorage to report the contacts, controllers checked their own screens and confirmed returns in the positions the crew described. They requested a United Airlines flight passing through the same sector to divert briefly and attempt a visual identification — the United crew saw nothing, suggesting the object was either no longer visible from their angle or had repositioned. Military radar at Elmendorf Air Force Base also tracked anomalous returns in the vicinity. A USAF reconnaissance aircraft on a routine Alaska patrol was vectored toward the area. The aircraft arrived, but the object — or objects — were no longer present on instruments or visually. The encounter concluded when the JAL crew made its final approach to Anchorage and the objects departed.

Captain Terauchi submitted a detailed written report to JAL and to the FAA, including a diagram of the objects as he observed them. The FAA conducted a formal investigation, the only instance in American aviation history of a federal agency officially investigating a UFO encounter reported by a commercial flight crew. The investigation was led by John Callahan, Division Chief of Accidents and Investigations at FAA headquarters in Washington. Callahan assembled all the evidence — radar tapes, crew testimony, audio recordings from ATC — and prepared a full briefing package. In January 1987, he presented that briefing to a room that included representatives from several intelligence agencies. At the conclusion of the presentation, a CIA officer addressed the room. He stated that the meeting was classified, that the participants were not to discuss what they had seen or heard, and that, in his words, “this never happened.” Callahan retained a private copy of the evidence. He testified about the CIA’s intervention publicly, including before a symposium convened by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.

Terauchi faced severe professional consequences for speaking publicly about the encounter. Despite his twenty-nine-year service record, he was temporarily removed from flight duty by JAL following his public statements — a reassignment widely interpreted as a warning to other pilots who might consider making similar reports. The message was unambiguous: credible witnesses could be silenced not through direct threat but through professional sanction. He was eventually reinstated and continued flying, but the damage to his reputation had been intentional. In the years that followed, as the case became one of the most studied in ufological literature, Terauchi gave further interviews and maintained every detail of his account. He died in 2019, consistent to the end.

The JAL Flight 1628 incident matters for several reasons that go beyond the encounter itself. It demonstrated that a major government agency — the FAA — was capable of conducting a serious, evidence-based investigation of a UFO report and arriving at no conventional explanation. It showed that a senior federal official, John Callahan, was willing to testify publicly about intelligence agency suppression of that investigation. It documented, in a way rarely seen, the professional cost imposed on civilian witnesses who spoke candidly. And it produced a radar and testimony record that has never been credibly refuted. Leslie Kean devoted significant analysis to the case in her landmark 2010 book, describing it as among the most evidentially compelling encounters she had researched. The FAA case files are publicly available through the National Archives. The CIA’s involvement is a matter of sworn testimony. The full truth of what followed JAL 1628 for fifty minutes over the Alaskan interior remains officially unresolved.