Documents / Hearing transcript

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.

Open the PDF at page 12 Original source ↗

“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…
F . Fujii
K. Terauchi
F. Fujii
R. Gordon
K. Terauchi
R. Gor don
Size, estimate, ah, size
(More Japanese) Two times, or ah, I guess ah . . .
(unintelligible) seven four seven
Okay
So ah, size is ah, carrier
Ah uh, in other words this being the jumbo jet was about as big
ss just the light •.• ?
K. Terauchi See this is the jumbo jet. 1.5, two times this light.
R. Gordon Okay, okay, I have •.• so the side light on this thing was
sbout, the jumbo is about two to two-and-a-half time the size of
this light, so when you stack 'em up, you •.•
K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah, yeah • • •
R. Gordon were saying about two times as big as an aircraft carrier.
K. Terauchi Yeah, yeah, yeah.
R. Gordon Okay
K. Terauchi It felt like this big - (he made a circle by using his fingers);
seven to eight miles away and it was this big. Normally, an air
carrier is seven - eight miles away, it looks like this.
F. Fujii Seven or eight miles away, usually the aircrafts are like
this •
R. Gordon Ah uh, okay
F. Fujii About this big so . . .
R. Gordon Okay
F. Fujii with his estimate.
R. Gordon So he's kinda comparing it to another jumbo jet?
F. Fujii Yeah, yeah . . .
R. Gordon Okay
s . Mimoto (More Japanese) Tremendous
R. Gordon Oh yeah (laughter) , boy, okay
F . Fujii Go for this size here, this one.
11

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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.