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with ease. by Captain Inaba. During an inquiry about the event, Inaba testified: "| was flying at about 6,000, feet. The object followed for a while and then stopped for about three minutes, then followed along my left wing for about 55 miles until we reached Matsuyama in Shikoku. After this it disappeared." Co-pilot Umashima tried several times to break the radio silence, but he could not contact any ground stations. On one of his calls, he did pick up the frantic voice of another pilot, Joji Negishi, who was himself flying a Tokyo lines small Cherokee 140. Negishi was also being followed by a strange luminous object as he flew along the northern edge of Matsuyama City. This was of no help to the airliner, and the two men in the cockpit were concerned that the object might collide with them. Inaba made a 60-degree turn to the right, but the object, which was following closely on the right wing, did not fall back at all but stayed hovering close to the wing. Though the object did the airliner no harm, it followed astonishingly close to the plane and duplicated the maneuvers of the plane After carefully considering the situation, officials investigating the case established that it was unlikely that the pilots were fooled by any meteorological phenomena. The sky was clear at the time of the sightings and the moon was full. An instantaneous illusion, perhaps one that had reflected off another plane was possible, but not one that hovered near a moving airline for more than fifty-five minutes. To further establish this fact, TOA Airline offiicals tested the pilots and the planes involved under almost identical conditions, and the results showed that neither the planes nor the pilots were in the proximity of any recurring natural phenomenon. The object that Joji Negishi sighted followed his Piper Cherokee 140 very closely for a while before it vanished instantly. After it had disappeared, Negishi was able to make contact with the airliner piloted Four days after the incident, the New York Times Tokyo office reported that aviation, astronomical, and defense experts were arriving in Japan from the United States. These men were supposedly concerned with the mysterious air disasters that had been occurring over the Indian Sea between Japan and the mainland of the Asian continent. The possibility that such flying objects had been involved in the mishap was strongly considered.