Japan Air Lines flight 1628 incident
Encyclopedia
Japan Air Lines flight 1628 was a UFO incident that occurred on November 17, 1986 involving a Japan
ese cargo jumbo freighter
aircraft. The aircraft was en route from Paris
to Narita
, Tokyo with a cargo of Beaujolais
wine. On the Reykjavík
to Anchorage section of the flight, at 5:11 PM over eastern Alaska
, the crew first witnessed two unidentified objects to their left. These abruptly rose from below and closed in to escort their aircraft. Each had two rectangular arrays of what appeared to be glowing nozzles or thrusters, though their bodies remained obscured by darkness. When closest, the aircraft's cabin was lit up and the captain could feel their heat in his face. These two craft departed before a third, much larger disk-shaped object started trailing them, causing the pilots to request a change of course. Anchorage Air Traffic Control
obliged and requested an oncoming United Airlines
flight to confirm the unidentified traffic, but when it and a military craft sighted JAL 1628 at about 5:51 PM, no other craft could be distinguished. The sighting of 50 minutes ended in the vicinity of Mt. McKinley
.
Boeing 747
cargo freighter witnessed three unidentified objects after sunset, while flying over eastern Alaska
, USA. The objects seemed to prefer the cover of darkness to their left, and to avoid the brighter skies to their right. At least the first two of the objects were observed by all three crew members. They were captain Kenju Terauchi, an ex-fighter pilot with more than 10,000 hours flight experience, who was in the cockpit's left-hand seat, co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji in the right-hand seat and flight engineer
Yoshio Tsukuba.
The routine cargo flight entered Alaska on auto-pilot, cruising at 565 mph (909.3 km/h) at an altitude of 35000 ft (10,668 m). At 5:09 PM, the Anchorage ATC
advised a new heading towards Talkeetna
, Alaska.
In doing so they activated "a kind of reverse thrust, and [their] lights became dazzlingly bright". To match the speed of the aircraft from their sideways approach, the objects displayed what Terauchi described as a disregard for inertia
: "The thing was flying as if there was no such thing as gravity. It sped up, then stopped, then flew at our speed, in our direction, so that to us it [appeared to be] standing still. The next instant it changed course. ... In other words, the flying object had overcome gravity." The "reverse thrust" caused a bright flare for 3 to 7 seconds, to the extent that captain Terauchi could feel the warmth of their glows.
Air traffic control was notified at this point (i.e. 5:19:15 PM), who could not confirm any traffic in the indicated position. After 3 to 5 minutes the objects assumed a side-to-side configuration, which they maintained for another 10 minutes. They accompanied the aircraft with an undulating motion, and some back and forth rotation of the jet nozzles, which seemed to be under automatic control, causing them to flare with brighter or duller luminosity.
Each object had a square shape, consisting of two rectangular arrays of what appeared to be glowing nozzles or thrusters, separated by a dark central section. Captain Terauchi speculated in his drawings, that the objects would appear cylindrical if viewed from another angle, and that the observed movement of the nozzles could be ascribed to the cylinders' rotation. The objects left abruptly at about 5:23:13 PM, moving to a point below the horizon to the east.
ROCC, directly in his flight path, reported a "surge primary return" after some minutes.
As the city lights of Fairbanks
began to illuminate the object, captain Terauchi believed to perceive the outline of a gigantic spaceship on his port side that was "twice the size of an aircraft carrier". It was however outside first officer Tamefuji's field of view. Terauchi immediately requested a change of course to avoid it. The object however followed him "in formation", or in the same relative position throughout the 45 degree turn, a descent from 35,000 to 31,000 ft, and a 360 degree loop. The short-range radar at Fairbanks airport
however failed to register the object.
Anchorage ATC offered military intervention, which was declined by the pilot, due to his knowledge of the Mantell incident. The object was not noted by any of two planes which approached JAL 1628 to confirm its presence, by which time JAL 1628 had also lost sight of it. JAL 1628 arrived safely in Anchorage at 18:20.
journalists. JAL soon grounded him for talking to the press, and moved him to a desk job. He was only reinstated as a pilot years afterwards, and retired eventually in north Kanto
, Japan.
Kyodo News contacted Paul Steucke, the FAA public information officer in Anchorage on December 24, and received confirmation of the incident, followed by UPI
on the 29th. The FAA's Alaskan Region consulted John Callahan,John J. Callahan was employed for over 30 years in the FAA, specializing in air traffic control and its software applications. He was Division Chief for Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations (1981-88), and pursued a consulting career after his FAA retirement. See Kean, 2010, p.297 the FAA Division Chief of the Accidents and Investigations branch, as they wanted to know what to tell the media about the UFO. John Calahan was unaware of any such incident, considering it a likely early flight of a stealth bomber, then in development. He asked the Alaskan Region to forward the relevant data to their technical center in Atlantic City
, New Jersey, where he and his superior played back the radar data and tied it in with the voice tapes by videotaping the concurrent playbacks.
A day later at FAA headquarters they briefed vice admiral Donald D. Engen, who watched the whole video of over half an hour, and asked them not to talk to anybody until they were given the OK, and to prepare an encompassing presentation
of the data for a group of government officials the next day. The meeting was attended by representatives of the FBI, CIA and President Reagan’s Scientific Study Team, among others. Upon completion of the presentation, all present were told that the incident was secret and that their meeting "never took place". According to Callahan, the officials considered the data to represent the first instance of recorded radar data on a UFO, and they took possession of all the presented data. John Callahan however managed to retain the original video, the pilot's report and the FAA's first report in his office. The forgotten target print-outs of the computer data were also rediscovered, from which all targets can be reproduced that were in the sky at the time.
After a three month investigation, the FAA formally released their results at a press conference held on March 5, 1987. Here Paul Steucke retracted earlier FAA suggestions that their controllers confirmed a UFO, and ascribed it to a "split radar image" which appeared with unfortunate timing. He clarified that "the FAA [did] not have enough material to confirm that something was there", and though they were "accepting the descriptions by the crew" they were "unable to support what they saw". The McGrath incident was revealed here amongst the ample set of documents supplied to the journalists.
The sighting received special attention from the media, as a supposed instance of the tracking of UFOs on both ground and airborne radar, while being observed by experienced airline pilots, with subsequent confirmation by an FAA Division Chief.
Flight 53 observed a fast moving object on their onboard weather radar. While at 35000 ft (10,668 m), some 60 miles west of McGrath
, on a flight from Nome
to Anchorage, the radar registered a strong target in their 12 o'clock position, at 25 miles range.
While they couldn't distinguish any object or light visually, they noticed that the radar object was increasing its distance at a very high rate. With every sweep of their radar, about 1 second apart, the object added five miles to its distance, translating to a speed of 18000 mph (28,968.2 km/h). The pilot however relayed a speed of 'a mile a second' to the control tower, or a speed of 3600 mph (5,793.6 km/h), but confirmed that the target exceeded both the 50 miles and 100 miles ranges of their radar scope in a matter of seconds. The object was outside the radar range of the Anchorage ARTCC, and additional radar data covering the specified time and location failed to substantiate the pilots' claim.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese cargo jumbo freighter
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
aircraft. The aircraft was en route from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to Narita
Narita, Chiba
is a city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is the site of Narita International Airport, the main international airport serving the Greater Tokyo Area....
, Tokyo with a cargo of Beaujolais
Beaujolais (wine)
Beaujolais is a French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée wine generally made of the Gamay grape which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Like most AOC wines they are not labeled varietally. Whites from the region, which make up only 1% of its production, are made mostly with Chardonnay grapes...
wine. On the Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
to Anchorage section of the flight, at 5:11 PM over eastern Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, the crew first witnessed two unidentified objects to their left. These abruptly rose from below and closed in to escort their aircraft. Each had two rectangular arrays of what appeared to be glowing nozzles or thrusters, though their bodies remained obscured by darkness. When closest, the aircraft's cabin was lit up and the captain could feel their heat in his face. These two craft departed before a third, much larger disk-shaped object started trailing them, causing the pilots to request a change of course. Anchorage Air Traffic Control
Air traffic control
Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other...
obliged and requested an oncoming United Airlines
United Airlines
United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees United Air Lines, Inc., is the world's largest airline with 86,852 employees (which includes the entire holding company United Continental...
flight to confirm the unidentified traffic, but when it and a military craft sighted JAL 1628 at about 5:51 PM, no other craft could be distinguished. The sighting of 50 minutes ended in the vicinity of Mt. McKinley
Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley or Denali in Alaska, United States is the highest mountain peak in North America and the United States, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.- Geology and features :Mount McKinley is a granitic pluton...
.
Observation
On November 17, 1986, the Japanese crew of a JALJAL
JAL or Jal can mean the following:* Japan Airlines, ICAO airline designator: JAL* El Lencero Airport in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico * JAL , a compiler for the PIC microcontroller* The state of Jalisco in México...
Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
cargo freighter witnessed three unidentified objects after sunset, while flying over eastern Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, USA. The objects seemed to prefer the cover of darkness to their left, and to avoid the brighter skies to their right. At least the first two of the objects were observed by all three crew members. They were captain Kenju Terauchi, an ex-fighter pilot with more than 10,000 hours flight experience, who was in the cockpit's left-hand seat, co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji in the right-hand seat and flight engineer
Flight engineer
Flight engineers work in three types of aircraft: fixed-wing , rotary wing , and space flight .As airplanes became even larger requiring more engines and complex systems to operate, the workload on the two pilots became excessive during certain critical parts of the flight regime, notably takeoffs...
Yoshio Tsukuba.
The routine cargo flight entered Alaska on auto-pilot, cruising at 565 mph (909.3 km/h) at an altitude of 35000 ft (10,668 m). At 5:09 PM, the Anchorage ATC
Air traffic controller
Air traffic controllers are the people who expedite and maintain a safe and orderly flow of air traffic in the global air traffic control system. The position of the air traffic controller is one that requires highly specialized skills...
advised a new heading towards Talkeetna
Talkeetna, Alaska
Talkeetna is a census-designated place in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Anchorage, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2000 census the population was 772.-Geography:...
, Alaska.
Two objects
As soon as JAL 1628 straightened out of the turn, at 17:11 PM, Captain Terauchi noticed two craft to his far left, and some 2000 ft (609.6 m) below his altitude, which he assumed to be military aircraft. These were however pacing his flight path and speed. At 5:18 or 5:19 PM the two objects abruptly veered to a position about 500 ft (152.4 m) or 1000 ft (304.8 m) in front of the aircraft, assuming a stacked configuration.In doing so they activated "a kind of reverse thrust, and [their] lights became dazzlingly bright". To match the speed of the aircraft from their sideways approach, the objects displayed what Terauchi described as a disregard for inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
: "The thing was flying as if there was no such thing as gravity. It sped up, then stopped, then flew at our speed, in our direction, so that to us it [appeared to be] standing still. The next instant it changed course. ... In other words, the flying object had overcome gravity." The "reverse thrust" caused a bright flare for 3 to 7 seconds, to the extent that captain Terauchi could feel the warmth of their glows.
Air traffic control was notified at this point (i.e. 5:19:15 PM), who could not confirm any traffic in the indicated position. After 3 to 5 minutes the objects assumed a side-to-side configuration, which they maintained for another 10 minutes. They accompanied the aircraft with an undulating motion, and some back and forth rotation of the jet nozzles, which seemed to be under automatic control, causing them to flare with brighter or duller luminosity.
Each object had a square shape, consisting of two rectangular arrays of what appeared to be glowing nozzles or thrusters, separated by a dark central section. Captain Terauchi speculated in his drawings, that the objects would appear cylindrical if viewed from another angle, and that the observed movement of the nozzles could be ascribed to the cylinders' rotation. The objects left abruptly at about 5:23:13 PM, moving to a point below the horizon to the east.
| Excerpt of communication with Anchorage ARTC Centre | ||
|---|---|---|
| Time | Speaker | Dialog |
| 5:18 or 19 PM AKST Alaska Time Zone The Alaska Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting nine hours from Coordinated Universal Time . During daylight saving time its time offset is only eight hours . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 135th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory.The zone... |
AARTCC Air traffic control Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other... AARTCC refers to the Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center audio tape |
[Two craft, first noticed at a distance at 5:11 PM, approach to within 500–1,000 ft from the cockpit.] |
| 5:19:15 | JAL-1628, First officer | Anchorage Center, Japan Air 1628, ah, do you have any traffic, ah, seven [i.e. eleven] o'clock above? |
| 5:19:24 | AARTCC, Carl Henley | JAL1628 heavy, say again... |
| 5:19:28 | JAL-1628 | Do you have any traffic in front of us? |
| 5:19:32 | AARTCC | JAL1628 heavy, roger. |
| 5:19:36 | JAL-1628 | Ah, roger and, ah, we in sight, ah, two traffic, ah, in front of us one mile about. |
| 5:19:49 | AARTCC | JAL1628, roger, do you have.., ah, can you identify the aircraft? |
| 5:19:58 | JAL-1628 | Ah, we are not sure, but we have traffic in sight now. |
| 5:20:04 | AARTCC | JAL1628 heavy, Roger. Maintain visual contact with your traffic and, ah, can you say the altitude of the traffic? |
| 5:20:14 | JAL-1628 | Uh, almost the same altitude. |
| 5:20:21 | AARTCC | JAL 1628 Roger. Would you like a higher or lower altitude? |
| 5:20:27 | JAL-1628 | Ah, no, negative. JAL1628. |
| 5:21:19 | AARTCC | JAL1628 heavy, see if you are able to identify the type of aircraft, ah, and see if you can tell whether it's military or civilian. |
| 5:21:35 | JAL-1628 | JAL1628. We cannot identify the type, ah, but we can see, ah, navigation lights and ah, strobe lights. |
| 5:21:48 | AARTCC | Roger, sir. Say the color of the strobe and beacon lights. |
| 5:21:56 | JAL-1628 | The color is, ah, white and yellow, I think. |
| 5:22:03 | AARTCC | White and yellow. Thank you. |
| 5:21 | AARTCC, Watch supervisor’s entry | Daily Record of Facility Operation 5:21 PM. JL1628, HB747 Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced... , BIKF Keflavík International Airport -Cargo airlines:-Ground transport:Transport between the airport and Reykjavik city is by road only. The distance is 50 km. A new fast freeway was opened 2008. The buses have a timetable adapted to the flight schedule. They go to and from the Reykjavik bus terminal, taking around 45 minutes... -ANC Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport -Top destinations:-Scheduled cargo airlines:-Top destinations:-Scheduled cargo airlines:-Top destinations:-Scheduled cargo airlines:-Inter-terminal:... reported traffic at his altitude (FL350) one mile with a white and yellow strobe. AAL ROCAAL refers to the Alaska Regional Operations Center, cf. FAA personnel statement by Erland D. Stephens and EDF Elmendorf Air Force Base Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is a United States military facility adjacent to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. It is an amalgamation of the former United States Air Force Elmendorf Air Force Base and the United States Army Fort Richardson, which were merged in 2010.-Overview:The... ROCC notified.Notifications due to military implications, actual contact at 5:23 PM No known traffic identified. |
| After 3 to 5 minutes the two craft change their relative position, which is not reported to AARTCC, and the captain unsuccessfully attempts photographing them. | ||
| 5:22:11 | AARTCC | [Requests information about weather and clouds] |
| 5:22:41 | AARTCC | [Informs JAL-1628 that transmissions are garbled and asks them to change transmitting frequencies.] |
| 5:23:05 | JAL-1628 | [Reports clouds below them]. |
| 5:23:13 | JAL-1628 | And now the target, ah, traffic is extinguished [i.e. disappeared]. We cannot see it now. |
| VHF Very high frequency Very high frequency is the radio frequency range from 30 MHz to 300 MHz. Frequencies immediately below VHF are denoted High frequency , and the next higher frequencies are known as Ultra high frequency... transmissions have returned to normal after 10 to 15 minutes of heavy interference. |
||
| 5:23:19 | AARTCC | JAL1628 Roger. And I'm not receiving any radar replies. |
Mothership
Where the first objects disappeared, Captain Terauchi now noticed a pale band of light which mirrored their altitude, speed and direction. Setting their onboard radar scope to a 25 nautical miles (46.3 km) range, he confirmed an object in the expected 10 o'clock direction at about 7.5 nmi (13.9 km) distance, and informed ATC of its presence. Anchorage found nothing on their radar, but ElmendorfElmendorf Air Force Base
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is a United States military facility adjacent to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. It is an amalgamation of the former United States Air Force Elmendorf Air Force Base and the United States Army Fort Richardson, which were merged in 2010.-Overview:The...
ROCC, directly in his flight path, reported a "surge primary return" after some minutes.
As the city lights of Fairbanks
Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage...
began to illuminate the object, captain Terauchi believed to perceive the outline of a gigantic spaceship on his port side that was "twice the size of an aircraft carrier". It was however outside first officer Tamefuji's field of view. Terauchi immediately requested a change of course to avoid it. The object however followed him "in formation", or in the same relative position throughout the 45 degree turn, a descent from 35,000 to 31,000 ft, and a 360 degree loop. The short-range radar at Fairbanks airport
Fairbanks International Airport
Fairbanks International Airport is a state-owned public-use airport located three miles southwest of the central business district of Fairbanks, a city in the Fairbanks North Star Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska....
however failed to register the object.
Anchorage ATC offered military intervention, which was declined by the pilot, due to his knowledge of the Mantell incident. The object was not noted by any of two planes which approached JAL 1628 to confirm its presence, by which time JAL 1628 had also lost sight of it. JAL 1628 arrived safely in Anchorage at 18:20.
Aftermath
Captain Terauchi cited in the official FAA report that the object was a UFO. In December 1986, Terauchi gave an interview to two Kyodo NewsKyodo News
is a nonprofit cooperative news agency based in Minato, Tokyo. It was established in November 1945 and it distributes news to almost all newspapers, and radio and television networks in Japan. The newspapers using its news have about 50 million subscribers. K. K. Kyodo News is Kyodo News' business...
journalists. JAL soon grounded him for talking to the press, and moved him to a desk job. He was only reinstated as a pilot years afterwards, and retired eventually in north Kanto
Kanto region
The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 40 percent of the land area is the Kantō Plain....
, Japan.
Kyodo News contacted Paul Steucke, the FAA public information officer in Anchorage on December 24, and received confirmation of the incident, followed by UPI
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
on the 29th. The FAA's Alaskan Region consulted John Callahan,John J. Callahan was employed for over 30 years in the FAA, specializing in air traffic control and its software applications. He was Division Chief for Accidents, Evaluations and Investigations (1981-88), and pursued a consulting career after his FAA retirement. See Kean, 2010, p.297 the FAA Division Chief of the Accidents and Investigations branch, as they wanted to know what to tell the media about the UFO. John Calahan was unaware of any such incident, considering it a likely early flight of a stealth bomber, then in development. He asked the Alaskan Region to forward the relevant data to their technical center in Atlantic City
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
, New Jersey, where he and his superior played back the radar data and tied it in with the voice tapes by videotaping the concurrent playbacks.
A day later at FAA headquarters they briefed vice admiral Donald D. Engen, who watched the whole video of over half an hour, and asked them not to talk to anybody until they were given the OK, and to prepare an encompassing presentation
Dog and pony show
Dog and pony show is a colloquial term previously used in the United States in the late-19th and early-20th centuries to refer to small traveling circuses that toured through small towns and rural areas...
of the data for a group of government officials the next day. The meeting was attended by representatives of the FBI, CIA and President Reagan’s Scientific Study Team, among others. Upon completion of the presentation, all present were told that the incident was secret and that their meeting "never took place". According to Callahan, the officials considered the data to represent the first instance of recorded radar data on a UFO, and they took possession of all the presented data. John Callahan however managed to retain the original video, the pilot's report and the FAA's first report in his office. The forgotten target print-outs of the computer data were also rediscovered, from which all targets can be reproduced that were in the sky at the time.
After a three month investigation, the FAA formally released their results at a press conference held on March 5, 1987. Here Paul Steucke retracted earlier FAA suggestions that their controllers confirmed a UFO, and ascribed it to a "split radar image" which appeared with unfortunate timing. He clarified that "the FAA [did] not have enough material to confirm that something was there", and though they were "accepting the descriptions by the crew" they were "unable to support what they saw". The McGrath incident was revealed here amongst the ample set of documents supplied to the journalists.
The sighting received special attention from the media, as a supposed instance of the tracking of UFOs on both ground and airborne radar, while being observed by experienced airline pilots, with subsequent confirmation by an FAA Division Chief.
Flight AS-53 UFO
On 29 January 1987 at 18:40 PM, Alaska AirlinesAlaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines is an airline based in the Seattle suburb of SeaTac, Washington in the United States. The airline originated in 1932 as McGee Airways. After many mergers with and acquisitions of other airlines, including Star Air Service, it became known as Alaska Airlines in 1944...
Flight 53 observed a fast moving object on their onboard weather radar. While at 35000 ft (10,668 m), some 60 miles west of McGrath
McGrath, Alaska
As of the census of 2000, there were 401 people, 145 households, and 99 families residing in the city. The population density was 8.2 people per square mile . There were 213 housing units at an average density of 4.4 per square mile...
, on a flight from Nome
Nome, Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the...
to Anchorage, the radar registered a strong target in their 12 o'clock position, at 25 miles range.
While they couldn't distinguish any object or light visually, they noticed that the radar object was increasing its distance at a very high rate. With every sweep of their radar, about 1 second apart, the object added five miles to its distance, translating to a speed of 18000 mph (28,968.2 km/h). The pilot however relayed a speed of 'a mile a second' to the control tower, or a speed of 3600 mph (5,793.6 km/h), but confirmed that the target exceeded both the 50 miles and 100 miles ranges of their radar scope in a matter of seconds. The object was outside the radar range of the Anchorage ARTCC, and additional radar data covering the specified time and location failed to substantiate the pilots' claim.
| Excerpt from communication with Anchorage ATC (ZAN) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Time | Speaker | Dialog |
| 18:39:29 | AS-53 | Center, fifty-three. |
| 18:39:30 | ZAN | Alaska fifty-three, go ahead. |
| 18:39:33 | AS-53 | Any traffic in this, ah, area do you? Headed towards Anchorage. |
| 18:39:36 | ZAN | Ah, I have one coming outbound from Anchorage towards McGrath at this time. It's a Piper Navajo Piper PA-31 Navajo The Piper PA-31 Navajo is a family of cabin-class, twin-engine aircraft designed and built by Piper Aircraft for the general aviation market, most using Lycoming engines. It was also licence-built in a number of Latin American countries. Targeted at small-scale cargo and feeder liner operations and... at twelve thousand and, ah, I have a same direction Ryan Air Beech zero two estimating over McGrath zero four zero eight at two five zero. Other than that I don't have any other airplanes. |
| 18:39:52 | AS-53 | Okay we're just curious up at about our altitude, ah, headed that direction, thanks. You haven't had any UFO reports lately, huh? |
| 18:40:10 | ZAN | Well, I was just getting ready to ask you about that, ah, could you tell me, ah, the position of that aircraft? |
| 18:40:15 | AS-53 | Yea, it's just underneath our radar. Picked up a blip. Moving about a mile a second. Just pulled out straight ahead of us, and disappeared. (garbled) shot at him but ah ... Then he was there, then he was gone. |
| 18:40:26 | ZAN | Alaska fifty-three, Roger. And, ah, ah, did you have any visual sighting with that aircraft or anything like that? |
| 18:40:32 | AS-53 | Negative. We just picked up on radar the, ah, traffic and, ah, just watched it, just pulled out straight ahead of us and just disappeared in a matter of seconds. |
| 18:40:41 | ZAN | Alaska fifty-three, Roger. Standby please. |
| 18:44:31 | AS-53 | Anchorage. Alaska fifty-three, McGrath. |
| 18:44:34 | ZAN | Alaska fifty-three go ahead. |
| 18:44:36 | AS-53 | Fifty-three McGrath at zero three four four level three five zero. Anchorage zero four one four landing. |
| 18:44:45 | ZAN | Alaska fifty-three, Roger. Contact Anchorage Center one one eight point two six zero DME Distance Measuring Equipment Distance measuring equipment is a transponder-based radio navigation technology that measures distance by timing the propagation delay of VHF or UHF radio signals.... southeast of McGrath. And I just checked on this, we don't have military as active. There shouldn't be any military aircraft. Over, we're, ah, not talking too at this time operating in your vicinity. Ah, have you shown any else on radar since that last, ah, contact? |
| 18:45:03 | AS-53 | Ah, no sir. |
| 18:45:06 | ZAN | Alaska fifty-three. Will see you next time. Good day. |
| 18:45:08 | AS-53 | (garbled transmission) |
KC-135 observation
A US Air Force KC-135 jet flying from Anchorage to Fairbanks once again observed a very large, disk-shaped object on January 30, 1987. The pilot reported that the object was (40 ft) from the aircraft. The object then disappeared out of sight.| Excerpts of communication with Anchorage ATC Centre | |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Dialog |
| KC-135 | Do you have traffic for us around one o'clock? Can't really tell the distance. Seems to be about low altitude. |
| AATCC Air traffic control Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other... |
Actor two nine. Negative. I have no traffic in your one o'clock. |
| ... | |
| KC-135 | We're from California. Just visiting up here. People see this sort of thing a lot? Apart from the Japan Airline types? |
| AATCC | Actor two nine. Very rare seeing the lights up there. |
| ... | |
| AATCC | Actor two nine. The quality assurance staff Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S... at Anchorage Centre Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport -Top destinations:-Scheduled cargo airlines:-Top destinations:-Scheduled cargo airlines:-Top destinations:-Scheduled cargo airlines:-Inter-terminal:... here request that you give them a call after you land at Eielson Eielson Air Force Base Eielson Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska and just southeast of Moose Creek, Alaska.... . |
| KC-135 | That is concerning the object we were looking at? |
| AATCC | Affirmative sir. |
External links
- Pilot certain of UFO sightings Mohave Daily Miner
- UFO dwarfed jet, pilot says Ellensburg Daily Record
Further reading
- Leslie Kean, 2010, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record