Over 200 Years of Japanese UFO Sightings

A while ago, Hashi wrote a post about Utsuro Bune: Japan’s First Modern UFO Encounter. Since then, there have been many UFO sightings in Japan, with most of them having a lot in common and appearing in the same areas. So what it is with Japan and UFO sightings? Let’s find out.

Utsuro Bune

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTUzWZwo3K8']

Hashi covered most of this one so I won’t rehash it too much here, but the video above does a pretty good job of covering it. Utsuro bune was one of the first modern UFO sightings, and it happened way back in the Edo period in Japan. A lot of people believe that utsuro bune is definitive proof that we aren’t alone in the universe, but who can say for sure?

UFO enthusiasts might tell you that this particular story is plausible. The Bermuda Triangle’s sister, the Dragon’s Triangle is a danger zone in the sea off the Southern coast of Japan. A large amount of boats have gone missing there along with 800+ people, never to be seen again. Boats that make their way into alien territory aren’t guaranteed to make it through. Some would say that the utsuro bune came from Dragon’s Triangle. Who really knows, though?

Japanese UFOs, Natural Disasters, and More

Apparently UFO sightings seem to increase drastically in the weeks leading up to Japan’s natural disasters including the earthquakes and tsunamis. Many of the UFO sightings are also of cigar shaped crafts/formations. Just check out the videos below. What do you think?

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uezT2o2IL1I']

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGh4fzTkBzU']

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh5IKmWDmHk']

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg69haxpLUQ']

If you do a YouTube search for Japanese UFO sightings, you’ll find a ton of results. After going through them, I discovered that many aren’t really worth watching as they’re either obviously fake, or the camerawork is too shoddy to really discern the validity of the content. Either way, I think the above cases are definitely the most interesting ones out of the bunch, but feel free to check out the other results on YouTube and draw your own conclusions.

Do I believe in aliens? I’d say probably, but I think I believe that any other intelligent life out in the universe is probably way too far away from earth (the universe is huge!) to ever make contact with us – at least in my lifetime. I figure if there was intelligent life visiting our blue marble, they’d have made it more obvious.

But then how do I explain the occurrences in the above videos? I can’t really. I guess I’m just not sure. When it comes right down to it, I feel the same way about aliens as I do about ghosts and spirits and stuff. I’m open to the idea, but don’t really have any strong opinions on it one way or another. It is interesting to listen and learn about though.

Japanese ghosts are definitely some of the most interesting spirits out there. As for aliens visiting Japan as compared to the rest of the world? Who knows. I’d imagine that if aliens visited earth they’d try to make contact with who they saw as the dominant power of the planet. Japan definitely has a lot of cool technology, so maybe the supposed aliens are drawn to that. What do you think?


So tell me, do you think aliens are out there? Ever had a sighting of your own? If aliens did come to earth, what country do you think they’d be most likely to visit first? Let us know in the comments!

  • Kristine

    I’m a believer! I feel like there is so much that I or we don’t know and to discount life anywhere else is the foolish stance. I though I saw one this summer, but I was given that same ol’ weather balloon excuse. I think the visiting ships will go where they find interesting human activity, perhaps any country with a nuclear agenda (I hear they don’t want to see us kill our planet).

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I’m not saying it was aliens but…

  • DAVIDPD

    In a period of seclusion, where people were looking everywhere for various forms of entertainment and intrigue, I would not be surprised if this was someone’s fantastical dream. That being said, UFO sightings are one of the universal commonalities of the world. I do not know one ancient civilization that had some type of “encounter” with beings that were not of this Earth. But the same goes for “Bigfoot”, so take it with a major pinch of salt.

  • HatsuHazama

    And, of course, the reason they are drawn to Japan is because the’ve had a secret war with each other for years, with Japan using its secret Gundams.

  • Guin Oyaji

    I was noticing that the craft in the Utsuro Bune sort resembles modern day life rafts. I say this because i’ve been on ship before. And seen other modern day life rafts . I was wondering if anyone has ever compared the Utsuro Bune to any of todays life rafts? Also it also resembles the pod that the Astronauts used when they came back from the moon? Has there ever been a female astronaut that has gone missing???

  • 古戸ヱリカ

    Not aliens, just time travel. Well, that’s just boring.

  • Kiriain

    「宇宙人だ」って言わないけど。。。

  • ジョサイア

    Welcome to the world of overused
    Ancient Aliens jokes… ;)

  • ジョサイア

    An alien one maybe…*Does thoughtful look*

  • ジョサイア

    Hmm…I’m just open minded. C:

  • Drew

    I think its probable that aliens are out there somewhere. The vastness of the universe makes it VERY likely. I just don’t think any are anywhere near us, and therefor I am not CONVINCED they are out there. And I’m very sure that we haven’t seen any.

  • Guin Oyaji

    i’m not saying it’s overused…but…

  • http://twitter.com/ayabuns Aya
  • ジョサイア

    Aliens!

  • ジョサイア

    xD Oh, so funny!

  • http://www.facebook.com/S.J.F.Nicola Samantha Nicola

    I actually think NOT believing in extraterrestrial life is rather selfish and geocentric. The entire vast universe isn’t creating just for us to look at to be pretty. It’s enormous. There must be some other goldilock planets out there. Them visiting us? Well, can’t really see the point in that.

    What bugs me is that people say ‘THAT’S NOT A UFO, IT MUST BE LIGHT OR LIGHTNING OR SOMETHING!’
    Yeah, we don’t know, that’s what U.F.O. stands for =’)

    And we all know they go for major landmarks in Amerika, sometimes Paris, Egypt and Tokyo. I’m safe here.

  • http://www.facebook.com/S.J.F.Nicola Samantha Nicola

    Wibbly wobbly timey wimey?

  • FoxiBiri

    that japan airlines ufo video was pretty freaky @_@
    I saw a real crop circle once! I wonder if they happen in Japan too…

  • ジョサイア

    …What…

  • ジョサイア

    Lights ore not unidentified plying objects…How about E.T.!!! xD (Extra terrestrial)

  • http://mistersanity.blogspot.com Jonadab

    > NOT believing in extraterrestrial life is rather selfish and geocentric

    Intuitively, that seems to make sense on the superficies, and it appeals to the natural human desire to be more broad-minded than average. Nonetheless, it’s a view that doesn’t hold water under scrutiny.

    We’ve explored the Solar system well enough to be pretty sure there isn’t any macroscopic life that we can recognize in the system, except right here on Earth. There are no green Martians with antennae, no hidden civilization just below the cloud layer on Venus, no great trading cities on the moons of Jupiter, etc. — certainly nothing capable of interplanetary flight. Multiple independent nations have sent probes to all the major planets and most of the larger asteroids and turned up no evidence of anything large enough to see without an electron microscope. *Thousands* of independent amateur astronomers are constantly looking at the various planets and asteroids, to the extent that, when some obviously natural phenomenon occurs on one of them (like, the recent meteor impact on Jupiter), there are always several different amateur videos of it that you can find on YouTube. If they were launching interplanetary spacecraft, that would be spotted too.

    That leaves the rest of the universe, but even if there were life in other star systems, indeed, even if we assume that *most* other star systems have intelligent life (a rather dubious proposition), there’s no reason to suppose any of it would find its way here. Interstellar flight is inherently a more difficult problem than most people realize. It’s possible there’s something very fundamental we’ve misunderstood about the physics of space-time, but it would have to be quite major to allow for practical travel to other star systems on a timeframe shorter than decades per trip to the very closest systems, MUCH longer for anything distant. Scientifically speaking, unless somebody figures out how Einstein’s cosmology is WAY OFF (much further off than Newton’s, more on the order of how wrong Aristotle was about everything), the most reasonable conclusion at this time is that nobody, at any technological level, can transport matter across space at more than a fraction of the speed of light.

    At available speeds, then, every system you travel to is an extremely major undertaking, even for a society overwhelmingly more technologically advanced than ours. There couldn’t possibly be ships coming and going often enough to add up to multiple UFO sightings per generation. One alien ship sighting every few centuries is vaguely imaginable, but it would have to be a ship large enough to support the crew for years at a time without resupply, so there’s absolutely no way it could be kept secret if it actually entered Earth orbit, much less landed. Dozens of interstellar ships in our atmosphere per decade is flatly impossible even if you assume they could stay secret because they’re invisible, inaudible, and undetectable on radar.

    I suppose pure-energy beings with no physical body could maybe zip around at faster speeds, and thus could visit more often, but if so they wouldn’t be using spacecraft to do it, so rather than UFO sightings you’d be looking for ghost stories or something.

  • Wendy

    My brother is convinced the warmer in my toilet seat in Japan is to prevent chills from all the ghosts of Japan past. I kinda think it’s because a warm toilet seat feels good on the tush in the winter, but maybe I’m superficial.

  • John

    I want to believe ..