UFOs - Leslie Kean [117]
Despite the reaction of individual FAA officials directly involved with the Alaska case, the stated FAA conclusion was that the radar readings were false targets, malfunctions in the system. Even though it had radar to support the witness accounts, the FAA dismissed this data as erroneous, and declared that it “was unable to confirm the event.”22 It praised the three “normal, rational, professional pilots,” yet the final report completely ignored the visual sightings reported in detail during the FAA’s interviews with these witnesses.23
John Callahan vigorously disputes these claims about the radar. He makes the important point that radar is not configured to detect objects that behave the way UFOs do, and that we need to revamp and upgrade its technology. This former head of the Accidents and Investigations Division was not at all surprised by the FAA’s response to the O’Hare incident a few years ago. “It was predictable,” he told me. “When pilots report seeing such an object, the FAA will offer a host of other explanations. It’s like wearing a blindfold. It’s always something else so it can’t be what it is.”
CHAPTER 22
The FAA Investigates a UFO Event “That Never Happened”
by John J. Callahan
You are about to read about an event that never happened.
I was division chief of the Accidents, Evaluations, and Investigations Division of the FAA in Washington from 1981 to 1988. During this time, I was involved in an investigation of an extraordinary event but was asked not to talk about it. Since retiring, I decided that the public had a right to this information, and that they could handle it. Nothing dire has occurred as a result of my discussing this incident publicly, yet nothing useful has resulted from it either, although it’s never too late. I have come to realize the serious need we have to improve our radar systems so they can capture unusual objects in the sky, such as the one I dealt with when I was at the FAA in 1987.
It was early January 1987 when I received a call from the air traffic quality control branch in the FAA’s Alaskan regional office, requesting guidance on what to tell the media personnel who were overflowing the office. The media wanted information about the UFO that chased a Japanese 747 across the Alaskan sky for some thirty minutes on November 7, 1986. Somehow, the word had got out.
“What UFO? When did this take place? Why wasn’t Washington headquarters informed?” I asked.
“Hey,” the controller replied, “who believes in UFOs? I just need to know what to tell the media to get them out of here.”
The answer to that question was easy: “Tell them it’s under investigation. Then, collect all the data—the voice tapes and computer data discs from both the air traffic facility and the military facility responsible for protecting the West Coast area. Send the data overnight to the FAA Tech Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.” I wanted the data on the midnight redeye flight, no matter how much hassle it was for them to get it to me.
Captain Terauchi’s drawing of two “spaceships” with light arrays or horizontal “exhaust” flames around a central object as seen through the cockpit window, provided to the FAA. Courtesy of Dr. Bruce Maccabee
Japan Air Lines flight 1628, a cargo jet with a pilot, copilot, and flight engineer, was north of Anchorage, and it was