ANCHORAGE (AP) - The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up efforts to determine t

ANCHORAGE (AP) -- The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up efforts to determine the source of wavering lights that dogged a Japan Air Lines cargo jet across Alaska's night sky for nearly an hour in November. "We're looking at it to ensure that somebody didn't violate airspace we control," FAA spokesman Paul Steucke said Sunday. "We looked at it about six weeks ago, but since then we've gotten a lot of public interest, so we went back and re-interviewed the pilot. He provided us with additional information." Veteran pilot Kenji Terauchi told investigators Friday through an interpreter that two of the lights were small, perhaps no larger than eight feet across. He said the third light was on an aircraft, a huge darkened globe with a diameter of perhaps two aircraft carriers placed end-to-end, Steucke said. The pilot said the large UFO showed up on his cockpit weather radar. But images on military radar screens at the time were dismissed as "clutter," and a blip that showed up on FAA screens was analyzed as a coincidental "split image" of the aircraft, Steucke said. Radar tapes, transcribed interviews and radio messages are to be sent to the FAA in Washington, D.C., later this week for review, Steucke said. A JAL spokeswoman Sunday said Terauchi was on a flight to Europe and was unavailable. Flight 1628, with a three-man crew, left Iceland on Nov. 17 with a load of wine bound for Tokyo from Paris. Terauchi and his crew picked up the Boeing 747 in Iceland for the Polar leg of the flight to Anchorage. The evening sky was clear as the jet, cruising at 525 knots, crossed into Alaska from Canada, just northeast of Fort Yukon. At 6:19 p.m. (AST), as the plane flew at 35,000 feet, Terauchi said he saw three lights eight miles in front of his aircraft. The pilot reported the lights were yellow, amber and green, Steucke said, but not red, the international color for aircraft beacons. "The two smaller ones moved a little bit, changed their angle. The smaller ones did not show up on the weather radar onboard," Steucke said. "The larger one did. "It appeared to him it might be possible that the lights might be exhaust pipes, they kind of wavered but did not blink. His main concern was trying to determine whether he was overtaking another aircraft." Steucke said the pilot reported he dimmed cockpit lights to ensure he was not seeing a reflection. "He flew for about six minutes before he decided to report anything," Steucke said. "I can't say I blame him for that." Terauchi radioed Anchorage FAA air controllers, who direct all aircraft traffic in the state, except for planes near airports, Steucke said. Fairbanks controllers checked their screens but saw only Flight 1628, Stuecke said. The pilot reported the object was staying with him and controllers told him to take any evasive action needed. Terauchi decreased altitude to 31,000 feet, but the lights went down with him "in formation," Steucke said. South of Fairbanks, Terauchi turned the plane in a complete circle to see if the lights would follow. "That was pretty clever," Steucke said. "It allowed him to eliminate any natural phenomenon which would have stayed stationary." The lights stayed with the cargo jet, and moved to its left side, the pilot told the FAA. Friday, he told investigators that there were no magnetic disturbances noted on the plane and no changes in its instruments or navigation systems, Stuecke said. The FAA in Anchorage and the military in Alaska use the same long-range radar in Fairbanks, Steucke said. The FAA also uses sophisticated computer systems to screen clutter before it reaches radar screens, he said. The military in Alaska does not use such computers, he said. "The military decided about a minute into this exercise that what it was seeing was clutter," he said. The Air Force did not send up an interceptor and is not investigating the matter, Steucke said. At the FAA center in Anchorage, controllers following the flight noted occasional second blips, or "split targets," on the screen near Flight 1628, Steucke said. "That happens when the transponder aboard the aircraft is not electronically in sync with radar bouncing off the plane," he said. "We get an intermittent blip every three sweeps of the radar screen. It's not unusual. It has happened and it does happen. "It was what I call coincidence that the split image happened to fall at the right distance and the same side of the aircraft that the object was reported by the pilot." The lights vanished, heading east, when the JAL jet was about 80 miles north of Anchorage, Steucke said. The FAA has ruled out alcohol or drugs as a factor in the sightings, Steucke said. "They were rational, professional pilots. I'd describe them as very sincere, very intense," Steucke said. "I've been here 12 years, I've been with the FAA three, and I've talked to people who've been here seven or eight years and they don't recall anything like this," he said. The FAA started investigating the report after the sighting, he said, but not as a top priority. "Basically, the public interest heightened the interest level. I wasn't hiding it, but I wasn't standing on a rooftop announcing it," he said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CUFON Computer UFO Network Report #: 210 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 12-10-1986 Location: TALLADEGA, AL CASE TYPE: LRS DATE: 10 NOVEMBER 1986 TIME: UNKNOWN CFN#: 0324 DURATION: UNKNOWN WITNESSES: MANY SOURCE: DAILY HOME, TALLADEGA, AL ------------------------------------- A red glowing light with a tail that flared across the sky in the southeast prompted searches in several states for traces of a possible meteor or other space object, but no remnants have been found, authorities said Tuesday. The flashing light was spotted about sunset Monday over parts of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi as it streaked westward, and aviation officials said it was probably a meteor. Maj. Walter Chipchase, a spokesman for the North American Air Defense Command, said the light was not believe to be a disintegrating rocket or satellite. "NORAD did not detect any rocket body or space debris re-entering the atmosphere," he said. Sgt. Ray Williams, a spokesman for Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton, Beach, Fla., also said no weather balloons or flights were launched from the base at the time the light was seen. Although authorities said the object likely burned in the atmosphere hundreds of miles from Earth, some local officials looked for fragments in fields and other areas where residents reported sightings. Joe Keltch, a deputy with the Rhea County Sheriff's Department in East Tennessee, said he scoured an area near Graysville where a caller told authorities something had fallen out of the sky. "We got a report that it might have been a piece of a plane," he said. "We looked around and didn't find anything." >> Comments: S1 - Meteor Report #: 211 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 12-31-1986 Location: ANCHORAGE, AK CASE TYPE: RV * DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 1986 TIME: 18:19 HOURS CFN#: 0325 DURATION: 20:MINUTES WITNESSES: THREE SOURCE: UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL ------------------------------------------- ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A mysterious unidentified flying object with flashing white and yellow strobe lights followed a Japan Air Lines cargo jet across the Arctic Circle, the crew says. The three-man crew radioed air traffic controllers in Anchorage that a huge UFO was flying "in formation" with them and the Air Force briefly confirmed and object near the plane, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Paul Steucke. He said the FAA in Anchorage and Fairbanks did not pick up the object. The incident occurred Nov.17 but was not made public earlier. Flight 1628 had left Reykjavik, Iceland, flying over the North Pole to Tokyo with a stop in Anchorage. When it landed at Anchorage, FAA security manager Jim Derry interviewed the pilot, Co-pilot and flight engineer. When the report was made to the Air Route Traffic Control Center at 6:19 p.m., Steucke said controllers tried to find the object on radar but "were unable to comfirm a second target with our equipment." At 6:26 p.m. Steucke said the Air Force told the FAA it "saw a second target (object) 8 miles away (from the JAL jet) but they contacted us a mimute later and said they were no longer receiving any radar return (of a second object)." Steucke added, "At 6:32 the JAL pilot requested and received permission for a descent from 35,000 feet to 31,000." Air controllers asked if the lights were still there, and were told, "It is descending in formation." At 6:39 p.m.,20 minutes after the lights first reported, the JAL crew said it no longer saw the lights. At 6:45 p.m. Fairbanks controllers authrized a United Airlines northbound jet to make a 10 degree turn to better view the JAL plane and asked the United crew if it saw anything besides the Boeing 747. It did not. Nor did the JAL crew see the lights again. >> Comments: S5/P5. Report #: 212 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-11-1987 Location: HARRISBURG, PA CASE TYPE: CE I DATE: 1ST WEEK OCTOBER, 1985 TIME: 0515 HOURS CFN#: 0326 DURATION: UNKNOWN WITNESSES: TWO SOURCE: UFO INFORMATION SERVICE -------------------------------------- Witness got up around 4:15 - 5:15 a.m. to go to restroom and saw an object over her home that covered five other homes as well. The object was huge, pure white and had no lights. The object was the shape of a saucer and rotating. Even though the object was bright (brighter than any object she had ever seen) it did not hurt her eyes to look at it. She had no fear and wanted to run out of her home and stand underneath the object but felt paralyzed. The object did return and her 12 year old son was able to see it. Since the incident she has had visions which she did not experience prior to the sighting of the object. >> Comments: S5/P3 Report #: 213 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-11-1987 Location: ANCHORAGE, AK CASE TYPE: RV - RADAR VISUAL DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 1986 TIME: 1819 HOURS CFN#: 0327 DURATION: 20: MINUTES WITNESSES: THREE SOURCE: UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL -------------------------------------- FAA says UFO on radar screen was just a double image of jet United Press International ANCHORAGE - Federal investigators say a review of radar tapes failed to show a UFO shadowing a Japan Air Lines cargo jet, contradicting reports made by the crew and the air-traffic controller who handled the plane. The Federal Aviation Administration's examination of the tapes shows what appears to be a second object near JAL Flight 1628 on Nov. 17, but invesitgators now think it is a double image from the Boeing 747, FAA spokes- man Paul Steucke said yesterday. On Dec. 29 the FAA releaed details of the UFO sighting, revealing the flight controller handling the jet saw an object on radar five miles from the plane. The Anchorage Air Route Traffice Control Center directed the crew to take evasive maneuvers, including a 4,000-foot drop and a 360 degree turn. Co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji, 39, said yesterday he did not know why the FAA first confirmed a nearby object and now dismisses it as an image of the 747. In his second interview with the FAA Tuesday, Tamefuji reiterated that he saw lights, and Steucke said, "The co-pilot's testimony supported the pilot's." Although the FAA is satisfied with the double-image explanation, the inquiry is continuing with interviews of the crew and a review of data, Steucke said. Steucke said the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer have told the same story: Blinking yellow, amber and green lights appeared too close to their plane for comfort. The FAA says the controller apparently misinterpreted what he saw on his screen. But Steucke defended the controller's response, saying, "He had a pilot tell him he was seeing something right there. This is not something where he can take a risk even if it is a double image." The radar image seen in the JAL cockpit and by the controller also appeared intermittently on Air Force radar. Air Force spokesmen dismissed it as "random clutter." Report #: 214 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-12-1987 Location: WASHINGTON, PA CASE TYPE: CE I DATE: 6 JANUARY 1987 TIME: 20:10 HOURS CFN#: 0328 DURATION: 12:MINUTES WITNESSES: TWO SOURCE: PASU - STAN GORDON, DIR. -------------------------------------------- Two witnesses reported observing a bright triangular object in the night sky. They said the object was gold in color, with three bright red lights non-blinking, one in each carner. The witnesses stated, that the object hovered for approximately ten minutes before moving off to the north. ( PASU ) is still working on this case and more information will be posted soon. For more info call 412-838-7768. >> Comments: S5/P4 Report #: 215 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-12-1987 Location: ANCHORAGE, AK CASE TYPE: LRS DATE: 11 JANUARY 1987 TIME: 07:35 HOURS CFN#: 0329 DURATION: 30:MINUTES WITNESSES: THREE SOURCE: PARANET ------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL RELEASE: 2nd Alaska UFO Sighting ParaNet ALPHA and CUFON 01/12 Another Japanese Airlines crew has reported seeing an Unidentified Flying Object ( UFO ) over Alaska, according to the FAA. In a recorded announcement, Paul Steucke, Senior Federal Aviation Administrator for the Alaska District, said that on January 11th at approximately 7:35 AM, Capt. Kinju Teryaki, piloting a JAL 747 cargo plane from Europe to Anchorage, reported to the FAA Air Route Traffic Control Certer (ARTCC) that he saw irregular lights that "looked like a spaceship". The lights were, he said, "amber and white, and travelled from in front of him to below him, and disappeared behind him." The sighting was in two segments, the first for about 20 minutes, and the second occured a little later for approximately 10 minutes. Unlike the November 17th sighting reported by another JAL cargo jet, there was no radar contact by either ground or air-based facilities, "Steucke said". The FAA began interviewing both the captain and co-pilot upon their landing at Anchorage, he said. Steucke made the recording as an alternative to answering an unmanageable volume of phone calls,which have been pouring into the Alaska FAA district since the November 17th sighting was made public on January 1st. According to Steucke,the data from that sighting , voice recorder transcripts, radar tapes and interviews, are being sent to the FAA headquarters in Washington DC as are the data from the January 11th sighting. "The Federal Aviation Administration is not in the business of looking for or identifying UFO's", he said. "We are involved in investigating these reports because the lights violated our federal regulations, as humorous as that may sound." >> Comments: S2/P2. Gut reaction: Witness over-excited from first sighting. Report #: 216 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-18-1987 Location: CALIFORNIA-OREGON CASE TYPE: LRS - NL DATE: 25 NOVEMBER 1986 TIME: 2022 HOURS CFN#: 0330 DURATION: UNKNOWN WITNESSES: MANY SOURCE: ARKANSAS GAZETTE, LITTLE ROCK, AR --------------------------------------------- ARKANSAS GAZETTE, Little Rock, AR - Nov. 26, 1986 Fireball not man-made, experts say Defense experts Tuesday eliminated "space junk or any man-made object" as an explan- ation for a mysterious meteoric fireball that streaked across the Pacific Coast. The object, sighted at 8:22 p.m. (CST) Monday, dazzled stargazers from the California-Oregon border to the Los Angeles area. "It looked like a long, green meteor but it lasted way too long, arcing across the sky toward the ocean, then it just blew up," Roy Jackson of Mountain View, Cal., said. "It wasn't space junk or any man-made object re-entering the atmosphere, and we don't track meteors," Del Kindschi of the North American Aerospace Defense Command at Denver said. "We heard about it but there weren't any satellites or man-made space objects entering the atmosphere at that time." (UPI) >> Comments: S1 - Bolide Report #: 217 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-18-1987 Location: CLEVELAND, OH. CASE TYPE: LRS - NL DATE: 26 OCTOBER 1986 TIME: 1800 HOURS CFN#: 0331 DURATION: UNKNOWN WITNESSES: TWO SOURCE: PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND, OH. ---------------------------------------- PLAIN DEALER, Cleveland, OH - Oct. 27, 1986 CR: B. Robbins/COUD-I Explosion over lake reported; search on Two Coast Guard boats searched last night for debris after two people said they saw an explosion over Lake Erie, off Euclid. About 6 p.m. a resident of Euclid high-rise near E. 260th St. reported seeing an explosion in the air over the lake. The woman said she saw smoke and debris falling into the lake. Coast Guard officials called Federal Aviation Administration controllers and airports last night to see whether any planes had been reported missing. None were. An official at the Cuyahoga County Airport in Richmond Heights also reported seeing a bright light descending from the sky about the same time, the Coast Guard said. >> Comments: S2/P3 Report #: 218 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-18-1987 Location: SARATOGA, CA. CASE TYPE: LRS - NL DATE: 14 OCTOBER 1986 TIME: 2015 - 2030 HOURS CFN#: 0332 DURATION: UNKNOWN WITNESSES: FIFTEEN SOURCE: MERCURY NEWS, SAN JOSE, CA -------------------------------------- MERCURY NEWS, San Jose, CA - Oct. 23, 1986 Mystery lights return to Saratoga By Kathy Holub Mercury News Staff Writer A beautiful apparition has been glowing in the night sky over Saratoga, leaving viewers baffled and entranced. About 15 people, all agog, called Santa Clara County dispatchers on Tuesday night to report a mysterious bright red light that hovered in the sky from 8:15 to 8:30 and then dis- appeared. Dozens of callers described a similar phenomenon on Oct. 16, same time, same place. "It was very exciting," said Maureen Denton of Los Gatos, who watched last week's display during a break in her real estate class at West Valley College. "It was very bright, much larger than the lights you see on airplanes. At one point, something burning or flickering dropped from it. It was just a tiny little flicker that came down. We all went: `Oooh, what was that?'" No one seems to know. That includes Vicki Yauger of Sara- toga, who spied the object Tuesday night while lounging with her husband in thier backyard spa. Yauger said the light appeared high in the northwestern sky, first moving toward them, then away. Through her binoculars, the appari- tion became a cluster of lights. "It was scary. When it started get- ting larger, it seemed to be coming down," she said. Yauger didn't see the object fade from view because she had just gone into the house. Her husband told her the light turned green and slowly disappeared. Spokesmen at Moffett Field Naval Air Station said nothing flew out of their airfield Tuesday that looked like that. And officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc said they didn't launch a thing Tuesday night. Ditto for Oct. 15. Other watchers of the night sky - air traffic controllers and astronomers at Lick Observatory - said they saw nothing unusual. >> Comments: S4/P5 Report #: 219 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-24-1987 Location: ARNOLD CITY, PA CASE TYPE: LRS DATE: 21 JANUARY 1987 TIME: 22:00 HOURS CFN#: 0333 DURATION: 3:MINUTES WITNESSES: UNKNOWN SOURCE: PASU - STAN GORDON 412-838-7768 --------------------------------------------- UFO Sighting report from PASU. AREA of report Arnold City, Fayette County,PA Witnesses reported observing a flying object. They described the object as very bright and said that the object was shaped like an oval. the witnesses said that the object had a red and blue glow to it. They also stated that the UFO or object had a tap-pered down tail another words a structure towards the back of the object. This case is being investigated by PASU. >> Comments: S4/P4 Report #: 220 From: UFO INFO SERVICE Date Sent: 01-24-1987 Location: GIGHARBOR, WA CASE TYPE: CE I DATE: 23 JANUARY 1987 TIME: 21:30 HOURS CFN#: 0334 DURATION: 3:MINUTES WITNESSES: THREE SOURCE: UFO INFORMATION SERVICE ---------------------------------------- At 9:45 P.M. the UFO Information Service in Seattle Washington received a report of a UFO sighting that took place at Gighorbor, which is in the State of Wash. Three Witnesses reported observing a UFO Unidentified Flying Object. They Stated that they first noticed the object hovering over some houses. The witnesses said the ufo or object was oval shaped and said the color of the object was blue. They stated when the ufo letf the area it went straight up and out of sight from them. They also stated that there was "no sequel to any movement that the object made". This could be the same object that was reported in Arnold, city,PA case number CFN#:0333 because the object in both cases was oval shaped and in both cases the object was blue. Interesting also is the duration in both cases of 3 minutes. >> Comments: S4/P4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28-Jan-87 17:04 MST Sb: AP 01/28 UFO Explained By PAUL RAEBURN AP Science Editor NEW YORK (AP) -- Astronomical calculations show that a Japan Air Lines pilot who claimed to see an unidentified flying object over Alaska last November was actually looking at Jupiter and possibly Mars, says a new report. "This is not the first time that an experienced pilot has mistaken a bright celestial body for a UFO, nor will it be the last," said the report by Philip J. Klass, a longtime investigator of claimed UFO sightings. "Jupiter was only 10 degrees above the horizon, making it appear to the pilot to be roughly at his own 35,000-foot altitude," the report said. The planet also was unusually bright, and located exactly where the pilot said he saw the UFO. The pilot, Capt. Kenjyu Terauchi, never mentioned seeing Jupiter or Mars. Mars was just below and to the right of Jupiter, and may explain Terauchi's initial report that he saw two lights, Klass said. Klass said Tuesday he has found, in hundreds of UFO investigations, that "they've all turned out to have prosaic explanations." He spoke in a telephone interview from Colorado, where he is vacationing. The Buffalo-based Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which issued Klass' report, is an organization of scientists who investigate claims of UFO sightings, ESP occurrences and other so-called paranormal phenomena. Klass, who heads the organization's UFO subcommittee, is an editor with the magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology, and author of "UFOs: The Public Deceived." He has been investigating UFO sightings for more than 20 years. In his report, he said Terauchi's claims that the object followed him as he made a 360-degree turn are contradicted by what he told flight controllers at the time. John Leyden, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C., quoted from a summary of conversations between Terauchi and ground controllers in which the pilot reported losing sight of the object after completing his turn. The object reappeared a few moments later, according to the FAA summary quoted by Leyden. Paul Steucke, a spokesman for the FAA in Anchorage, said that Terauchi told FAA officials in an interview that the object stayed with him as he turned. Terauchi was over Alaska enroute from Europe, via Iceland, to Tokyo when he saw the mysterious light. According to Klass, who reviewed a complete copy of the transcript, the pilot never reported seeing Jupiter or Mars, even though they were clearly visible. Morris Simoncelli, a spokesman for Japan Air Lines in New York, said, "We have no position on this as the airline. The captain said he saw something; he reported it. He followed procedures." A United Airlines flight and an Air Force C-130 cargo plane that were in Terauchi's vicinity at the time of the claimed sighting were asked to look for the object, and neither reported seeing it. "I think that the Japanese pilot should have been a little more skeptical when the United airliner and the Air Force plane reported seeing nothing," Klass said. A reported radar "blip" near the Japan Air Lines plane was a spurious echo from the mountainous terrain underneath the aircraft, Klas said. Terauchi reported a second UFO sighting in approximately the same area on January 11. That sighting was explained by FDA officials as village lights bouncing off ice crystals in the atmosphere. Terauchi later conceded that that was a reasonable explanation, said Steucke. Steucke said the FAA would be releasing the results of its own investigation in mid-February. <<>> THE HYNEK RATING SYSTEM ----------------------- . S: Strangeness The "Strangeness" factor of a case description shall be rated from 1 to 5 as follows: . 1 - Explained or Explainable 2 - Probably Explainable, with more data 3 - Possibly Explainable, but with elements of strangeness 4 - Strange; Does not conform with known principles 5 - Highly Strange; Definitely indicative of intelligent guidance . Examples: S1 - Aircraft, meteor, etc. S2 - Experimental aircraft; planet or star S3 - Slow, low flying objects in formation S4 - BOL (Ball of Light Phenomena); physical traces S5 - Close Encounters, Abductions, etc. . P: Probability The "Probability" factor of a case relates to the credibility, number and separation of witnesses and/or the soundness of evidence gathered. It shall be rated from 1 to 5 as follows: . 1 - Not Credible or Sound 2 - Unreliable; Smacks of Hoax 3 - Somewhat credible or indeterminate 4 - Credible; Sound 5 - Highly Credible, leaving almost no doubt . Examples: P1 - Known Hoaxer or UFO "Flake"; Hoax Photo P2 - Repeat Witness; Conflicting Testimony P3 - Standard, first-time witness; slight radiation reading P4 - Multiple witnesses; pilot; clear photo P5 - National Figure; Multiple independent witnesses; videotape . The composite Hynek Rating of a case shall consist of the combined S & P factors, stated as Sn/Pn, e.g. S3/P5; except that cases with an S factor of 1 shall simply be stated as S1. . Examples using recent or famous cases: S1 - Wickenburg, AZ, July 10 (explanation:Mars) S5/P1 - Billy Meier S2/P5 - X-shaped UFO, Petaluma, CA May 28 S4/P5 - Brazilian "Ping Pong Balls" S5/P4 - Betty & Barney Hill S4/P4 - Lubbock Lights S5/P5 - MedEvac Helicopter ("Coyne" Case) S3/P2 - Delphos S4/P2 - Anything published in SAUCER SMEAR