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Terauchi interview transcript, Dick Gordon, 2 Jan 1987

FAA via National Archives / The Black Vault · 20 pages · text from the file's own layer

This FAA record of interview documents a January 2, 1987 session in Anchorage, Alaska, in which Inspector Richard O. Gordon of FSDO-63 questioned JAL Captain Kenju Terauchi about his crew's November 17, 1986 sighting. Terauchi describes two small craft with exhaust-like lights that flew near his aircraft and a much larger mothership, and says the target appeared green on his onboard radar. He also reports VHF interference and says the objects matched his 360-degree turn and his descent.

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“The Times”11 pages

  • p. 2 …Terauchi No, third time . R. Gordon This is the third time that ah that you've…
  • p. 3 …Terauchi Big Ship - yes and the second time ah, the, in my home I saw a…
  • p. 4 …Terauchi I think it was the first time. F . Fujii Who was the first person who…
  • p. 5 …Fujii From the forward you could see the flame and the exhaust and flame were surrounding…
  • p. 6 …This one and this one, the same logic, this point and this point are the same…
  • p. 8 …Fujii When did you pick it up, the radar? K. Terauchi Time? Time? F. Fujii Time…
  • p. 9 …Autopilot stayed on all the time. K. Terauchi Yeah • R. Gordon Okay K. Terauchi Working good…
  • p. 12 …Terauchi See this is the jumbo jet. 1.5, two times this light. R. Gordon Okay…
  • p. 13 …Gordon Yeah, let's see what would you estimate the size of the small ships to…
  • p. 18 …Gordon Yes, yes, you could probably explain that with the thing you have drawn here. Now…
  • p. 20 …See if they were stacked together at the beginning, one must have returned to the mothership…
R. Gordon Yeah, I'm familiar with it, yeah I've been on there.
F. Fujii So he turned the light off on that, because they were trying to
take a photo.
R. Gordon Okay, okay
F. Fujii So the (unintelligible) was dark.
R. Gordon Okay, that's good, I just wanted to make sure that everything in
the cockpit you know, you see something and then you turn the
light cause, me being a pilot, normally when I see something out
there I'll turn the lights off and get everything dark inside.
K. Terauchi Yes that's right.
F. Fujii When you changed you aircraft position, did they make any special
moves?
K. Terauchi No, they didn't. See here, I began to circle 360 degrees, they
stayed at the same position with us.
F. Fujii Uh uh, same position
K. Terauchi Same position, same position, same position all the way
(unintelligible)
R. Gordon Okay following you right around uh?
K. Terauchi Yes
R. Gordon And it was here, and then here, and here, and here, and then you
rolled out and it was right there, okay.
K. Terauchi So ah, ah, I tried next, ah, descent, 3, 5, o, 3, 1 ' o.
R. Gordon Ah ah, okay, 3, 1 ' O, when you descended to 3, 1 ' O, still
uh?
K. Terauchi Yeah, same formation, uh formation descent • • • formation
descent. It was impressive, the same formation, smooth!
R. Gordon Okay
K. Terauchi We, we used autopilot when descending, so (unintelligible).
R. Gordon Okay, yeah, yeah went right down with him, okay uh •••
F. Fujii Can we go to the next one?
R. Gordon Sure, yeah, I was just was ah •••
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Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 20 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.