Japan Airlines Flight 1628

On November 17, 1986, Japan Airlines cargo flight 1628 was en route from Paris to Tokyo via Reykjavik and Anchorage, Alaska, carrying a cargo of Beaujolais wine. At approximately 5:00 PM local time, over northeastern Alaska at 35,000 feet, Captain Kenjyu Terauchi, a veteran pilot with over 29 years of experience including jet fighter training, observed lights approaching from ahead that he initially assumed were military aircraft.

The lights — two groups of small glowing objects — flew in tight formation with the 747 for several minutes before separating. A third, massive object then appeared directly ahead. Terauchi described it as walnut-shaped, an enormous dark structure that he estimated at twice the diameter of an aircraft carrier. The object paced the 747 at identical speed for approximately 50 minutes, periodically obscuring stars when it moved across the sky. Terauchi attempted to observe it by banking; the object maintained its relative position.

Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center radar operator Carl Henley confirmed an unknown primary radar return in the vicinity of JAL 1628 for approximately five minutes during the encounter. NORAD radar at Elmendorf Air Force Base also detected anomalous returns. A United Airlines aircraft and a military aircraft were asked by ATC to attempt visual contact; both were too far away to confirm. The FAA logged the encounter as an unresolved radar contact.

The FAA's Division of Air Traffic Safety conducted a formal investigation and released their full case file. Chief of the FAA's Accidents and Investigations Division John Callahan later stated publicly that after briefing President Reagan's scientific advisor on the incident, he was told by CIA officers present at the briefing that the event 'never happened' and that all records of the briefing were classified. Callahan retained personal copies of the documentation. Captain Terauchi was subsequently removed from flight duty for speaking publicly about the encounter — the only JAL captain ever grounded for discussing a UAP incident — before being reinstated after public attention to the case.