During 1986, Francisco Valdes and Robert Freitas report negative results in a search for emissions at 1.516701 GHz due to tritium leaking from orbital fusion reactors or propulsion systems.

 

 

 

On 19 May 1986, there was a radar/visual incident in south-eastern Brazil, allegedly involving Ozires Silva and jets being scrambled.

 

 

 

On 28 January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger explodes on launch.

 

 

 

The Japanese Airlines (“JAL”) Boeing 747 cargo plane (JAL Flight Number 1628) sighting occurred on 17 November 1986 over Alaska, in the vicinity of Fort Yukon, involving Captain Kenju Terauchi.

This incident is Case 89 in Isaac Koi's "Top 100" article,  since it was referred to in 32 of the books covered by that article.

This incident featured in a document (“the Rockefeller Briefing Document”) endorsed by Dr Mark Rodeghier (President of CUFOS), Richard Hall (Chairman of FUFOR) and Walter Andrus (President of MUFON) as containing “the best available evidence for the existence of UFOs”.

This incident has featured in a list of twenty UFO cases produced by Bruce Maccabee in 1999 in response to a challenge to produce “the best evidence for an extraterrestrial origin for the UFO phenomenon”.

This incident has featured in a list by Paul Kimball of his nominations for the top 10 cases.

This incident featured in a list by James Carrion, the International Director of the Mutual UFO Network, of the “top 10 cases” in an interview in 2006.

This incident has also featured in a list of cases produced by British ufologist Gary Heseltine for the Fortean Times in 2007 as part of a survey of various researchers of the ten cases from 1947 onwards that interested them the most.