Japan sets up parliamentary group to probe UFO sightings, move research into mainstream
A new Japanese parliamentary group, featuring a number of senior politicians including a potential future prime minister, has been formed to probe UFO sightings with the aim of moving research into the mysterious phenomenon more towards the mainstream.
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Clarification League for Security-Oriented National Security will be officially founded at a meeting in the Diet on June 6. The group will be chaired by Yasukazu Hamada, head of parliamentary affairs for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, while Shinjiro Koizumi, a former environment minister who has been tipped to be a future prime minister, will serve as the secretary general.
Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba will be an adviser to the panel, which will also include Kei Endo, chair of the Japan Restoration Party in the House of Representatives, and Diet member Yoshiharu Asakawa.
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At a press conference to announce the creation of the group, both Endo and Asakawa claimed to have seen UFOs - or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) - themselves.
The group said it would push for the government to track and investigate UAP data, as well as share their information with the United States. The group's founding statement said UAPs could be weapons or spy drones that used unknown cutting-edge technologies, making them major potential threats to national security.
The creation of a cross-party group has been welcomed by the Japan Centre of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (JCETI), which has offered to share more than a decade of research with the politicians and even invite them on a future contact event.
"We would be very willing to share our knowledge and experience from all across Japan, and I am very encouraged that politicians are becoming involved in this research," said Greg Sullivan, director of JCETI, which is affiliated with the California-based Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute.
Sullivan hopes that research into extraterrestrial visitations to the Earth can be shifted away from Japan's military, which has traditionally overseen the issue, and be centred on scientists and citizen researchers.
"If we can combine astronomy research with field studies in the open, as was pioneered in France some years ago, then I can see very positive developments," Sullivan told This Week in Asia.
"Scientists have been affected by the 'little green man allergy', but if the scientific community is now being unmuzzled, we can make progress," he said. "We need to be able to share data and compare notes openly."
Questions about UFOs over Japan emerged in April 2020, when then defence minister Taro Kono denied that Japanese military pilots had reported encountering alien spacecraft. Kono was responding to questions in the wake of the US Department of Defence releasing footage, taken by US Navy pilots, that allegedly showed a series of such encounters.
"I don't really believe in UFOs," Kono said at a press conference in Tokyo, but added, "We would like to establish procedures in the event an encounter takes place with a UFO."
Sullivan has rejected that claim, saying he had interviewed a commander in the Japan Air Self-Defence Force who had collated testimony from a number of military pilots who had "interacted" with UFOs.
Among the incidents that have been reported was a sighting of a "flying saucer" at close range before the craft disappeared at high speed, and an entire squadron of pilots on the ground at an airbase witnessing a series of highly reflective craft that were also moving at a speed beyond the capabilities of a conventional aircraft.
In another case, a squadron was scrambled to intercept an unidentified object, but it immediately vanished.
Japan has a reputation of being a hotbed of UFO sightings, with a "flashing green orb" reported in the skies above Niigata in November 2016, "10 white globes" floating over Osaka in July 2015 and "mystery lights" witnessed by dozens of people over Okinawa in January 2014.
In September 2009, Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of then prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, attracted headlines over a book in which she claimed to have had an extraterrestrial experience 20 years previously.
"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," she wrote. "It was a very beautiful place, and it was really green." Her husband reportedly told her that it was probably just a dream.
Not all the Japanese public appeared to be so supportive of the initiative, with many online commenting that politicians should be more concerned with terrestrial issues.
A social media post linking to a Nippon News Television story about the new cross-party panel declared, "These politicians have nothing better to do, so they turn to UFOs. This is not in the public's interest at all."
Another commented, "Koizumi is completely incompetent when it comes to dealing with the real world - national security, the massive military expansion by Communist China and the threats of North Korea and Russia. He has escaped into a world of fantasy and delusion."
Yet another message, on the Kanagawa Shimbun website, said, "It is pathetic to see them having fun while ignoring the urgent issue of money in politics and trying to find a solution."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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