NARRATOR: Alaska, November 17, 1986.
Japan Airlines flight 1628 is carrying
cargo from Paris, France to Narita International
Airport near Tokyo.
The three-person crew is led by Captain Kenju
Terauchi, an ax-fighter pilot with over 10,000
hours of flight time.
As the 747 approaches Anchorage, captain
Terauchi notices two strange lights
out of his cockpit window.
It's dark, it's very early morning before sunrise.
[suspenseful music]
These lights are clearly maneuvering.
They are in relationship to each other.
One is on top of the other, and they move directly
in front of his aircraft.
He's flying at about 500 miles per hour.
These things are pacing him.
NARRATOR: Captain Terauchi realizes the lights are
strange oval-shaped flying objects,
and they're getting dangerously close to his aircraft.
As bright lights fill the cockpit,
Captain Terauchi radios the Anchorage air traffic control
center and asks if they can identify
the objects near his plane.
As Terauchi attempts a series of evasive maneuvers
to avoid a potential collision, the two UFOs
suddenly disappear.
In their place is another object,
one so large it dwarfs the 747.
RICHARD DOLAN: His words for describing it
were "gigantic spaceship."
The size of maybe two aircraft carriers.
It's immense.
Terauchi sees this massive thing in the sky and he's scared.
NARRATOR: Concerned by Captain Terauchi's report,
the air traffic controller calls NORAD, the North American
Aerospace Defense Command based at Elmendorf
Air Force Base in Anchorage.
Communication specialists at the air base
confirm that there is a very large unidentified object
on their radar screens.
Traffic control told them that they could actually
take whatever evasive actions they
needed to, to avoid collision.
And they even dropped down to 4,000 feet above sea level.
And the thing continued to follow them.
RYAN SPRAGUE: Air traffic control
diverted another commercial flight
to come look at this UFO.
And by the time they got there, UFO was completely gone.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: One of the reasons
why the JAL report is such a big deal
is because the corroborating evidence is overwhelming.
Not only are there eyewitness reports
but there is the records of the communication systems
that Terauchi was in touch with.
Actual dialogue that happened, hey, we are up here,
we see this.
Are you guys seeing this on your radar?
All this stuff is recorded.
NARRATOR: Once safely grounded, Captain Terauchi, his co-pilot,
and flight engineer were immediately interviewed
by Alaska Federal Aviation Administration officials
and other special agents.
NICK POPE: There's an FAA investigation into this.
There's lots of documentation.
There's no real hard and fast conclusion about this.
And so the pilot, perhaps out of frustration,
talks to the media.
NARRATOR: In December 1986, one month after the encounter,
Captain Terauchi contacted Kyoto News
and said he believed the mysterious crafts were
of extraterrestrial origin.
The unauthorized statements prompted Japan Airlines
officials to remove Captain Terauchi from pilot duty
and assign him to a desk job.
Around the same time, John Callahan,
the FAA's division chief of the accidents and investigations
branch learned of the incident and deemed
it worthy of investigation.
RICHARD DOLAN: John Callahan went to DC about this,
and there was a meeting that was chaired by one
of the top people of the FAA.
This meeting was also attended by representatives of the FBI,
representatives of the CIA, and representatives of President
Reagan's White House.
They had audio tapes that were played between the pilot
and the air traffic control describing everything that was
happening, and written reports.
And at the end of the meeting, one of the CIA agents
stood up and said, this meeting never happened,
and we're confiscating all of the data
that has been shared here.
Now, Callahan, he's a little sly but he was within his rights.
They never asked me, he said, if I
had a copy of any of this myself, he said, which I did.
He had a copy of the audio recordings, if nothing else,
and a little over a decade later shared that with the public.
MICAH HANKS: John Callahan came away with the feeling
that there was essentially a kind of cover-up.
The FAA didn't want the fact that this incident
had occurred to get out.
NICK POPE: I've spoken to pilots who have seen amazing things
out there, but never reported because
of the fear of being disbelieved, being ridiculed,
and perhaps being grounded.
You won't be flying anymore.
So what did they say most times?
Nothing.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: You have countless commercial
and private airline pilots who spend an exorbitant amount
of time up in the sky.
And in my opinion, I think they're
the best people to discern what is natural and what is not.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists
are concerned, UFO encounters reported by civilian pilots
provide some of the most compelling evidence
that there is an extraterrestrial presence
in the skies above Earth.
And according to some pilots, what they've witnessed
presents a serious danger.