Are the reports really about aliens or could a national security threat be at play?

Japan is no stranger to reports of unidentified flying objects. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the country’s most famous UFO sighting out of Kofu, the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture, in which two boys claimed to have met a grounded alien following reports of flying saucers. A mini UFO that was supposedly captured in Kochi Prefecture in 1972 and multiple 1974 sightings in Hokkaido Prefecture round out what enthusiasts see as Japan’s classic “big three” incidents.

Throughout the 1970s, residents in and around the town of Iino, near Senganmori Mountain, began reporting frequent sightings that they credit to the region’s spiritual and magnetic forces. The town’s location in Fukushima Prefecture has continued to draw more UFO attention, especially over the last decade. In fact, a rash of recent UFO sightings in Japan have occurred around nuclear facilities. Online forums and YouTube accounts are stacked with descriptions and videos of moving lights and clustered Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (the modern-day term for a UFO) in the skies over Fukushima following the nuclear disaster there in 2011.

When strange UAP reports begin to pour in from a country’s nuclear or defense facilities, it seems governments start to take the threat more seriously.

Japanese officials met on May 28, 2024 to announce the formation of an 80-plus-member, bipartisan look into increased UAP sightings within the country, especially in the Fukushima region.