UFO fans increasingly active in Japan

Photo from Jiji Press
Tokyo, Feb. 3 — UFO fans are increasingly active in Japan, where lawmakers have called for official investigations and UFO events have attracted many visitors.
The trend, which followed US developments including the establishment of a special organization to analyze eyewitness information and other data, “may reflect a sense of social anxiety,” an expert says.
Some Japanese municipalities trying to take advantage of the mysteries of UFOs for regional revitalization are hoping for a return of the UFO boom.
The US government refers to UFOs as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs. In an interview on a popular podcast during the US presidential election campaign last year, Donald Trump, who took office last month, emphasized the need to disclose information about UAPs.
READ: Pentagon UFO report says most sightings ‘ordinary objects’ and phenomena
Article continues after this advertisementIn Japan, parliamentary members launched a nonpartisan group to study UAPs from the perspective of national security in June last year. The founders include Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Article continues after this advertisementThe so-called UFO parliamentary group is urging the government to establish a special agency to handle UAP affairs that will work with the United States.
Junya Terazono, a 57-year-old planetary scientist and former public relations official of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), said that these developments seem to be “a manifestation of anxiety in society.”
A UFO boom happened in the 1950s, when the Cold War was raging. Recent years have seen Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, military clashes in the Middle East and suspicious balloons flying from China.
“There may be a sense of tension that something might come flying,” Terazono said.
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Cosmo Isle Hakui, a space science museum in Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, known as a “town of UFOs,”sustained damage from last year’s big earthquake in the Noto Peninsula. The number of visitors fell as much as about 50 pct.
Even so, about 2,000 people attended an event at the museum in August 2024 that featured UFOs and agriculture.
“If interest in space increases, more people will learn about the facility,” said Jomei Takano, a 35-year-old senior sales official of the museum. “I hope there will be bright news in Noto this year.”
In 2021, a UFO research institute was established in the town of Iino in the northeastern city of Fukushima, where a UFO-themed facility called UFO Fureai-kan opened in 1992 following many sightings there.
In November last year, the town had its third UFO festival. About 4,000 people in alien costumes showed up in the town with a population of 5,000.
The institute has received far more than 1,000 pieces of UFO information, including photographs. UFO Fureai-kan leader Toshio Kanno, 74, said, “We’re waiting to find out what UFOs actually are.”