UFO sightings amongst airline pilots are relatively common, but the sightings of Japan Airlines flight 1628 on November 17, 1986 are notable for the wealth of supporting evidence. An official FAA investigation revealed cockpit recordings, radar data, and eyewitness interviews that all attest to a truly remarkable encounter, and an official government cover-up.
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Research by Clark Murphy.
Music by Josh Chamberland.
Animation by Brendan Barr.
Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
Sources: [Updates soon]
Callahan, John J. “The FAA Investigates a UFO Event ‘That Never Happened’” in Kean, Leslie. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record. New York, USA: Three Rivers Press, 2010, 222 – 229.
Fox, James, dir. I Know What I Saw. USA: A&E Home Video, 2009.
Greenewald, John. “Japanese Airlines JAL 1628 UFO Encounter, November 17, 1986.” The Black Vault. September 21, 2018; Updated: June 17, 2020.
[note that, like Greenewald, references to page numbers ignores the initial banner page in the pdfs: e.g. page 5 in our notes will be page 6 in the file.]
Klass, Philip J. “FAA Data Sheds New Light on JAL Pilot’s UFO Report” in The UFO invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell. New York, NY, USA: Prometheus Books, 1997, 171 – 176. [originally appeared in Skeptical Inquirer, 11, Summer 1987, 322 – 26.
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