Quoted By:
As soon as JAL 1628 straightened out of its turn, at 17:11, Captain Terauchi noticed two craft to his far left, and some 2,000 ft (610 m) below his altitude, which he assumed to be military aircraft. These were pacing his flight path and speed. At 17:18 or 17:19 the two objects abruptly veered to a position about 500 ft (150 m) or 1,000 ft (300 m) in front of the aircraft, assuming a stacked configuration.
In doing so they activated "a kind of reverse thrust, and [their] lights became dazzlingly bright". To match the speed of the aircraft from their sideways approach, the objects displayed what Terauchi described as a disregard for inertia: "The thing was flying as if there was no such thing as gravity. It sped up, then stopped, then flew at our speed, in our direction, so that to us it [appeared to be] standing still. The next instant it changed course. ... In other words, the flying object had overcome gravity." The "reverse thrust" caused a bright flare for three to seven seconds, to the extent that captain Terauchi could feel the warmth of their glows.
Air traffic control was notified at this point (at 17:19:15), who could not confirm any traffic in the indicated position. After three to five minutes the objects assumed a side-to-side configuration, which they maintained for another 10 minutes. They accompanied the aircraft with an undulating motion, and some back and forth rotation of the jet nozzles, which seemed to be under automatic control,[8] causing them to flare with brighter or duller luminosity.
Each object had a square shape, consisting of two rectangular arrays of what appeared to be glowing nozzles or thrusters, separated by a dark central section. Captain Terauchi speculated in his drawings, that the objects would appear cylindrical if viewed from another angle, and that the observed movement of the nozzles could be ascribed to the cylinders' rotation. The objects left abruptly at about 17:23:13, moving to a point below the horizon to the east.
