Japanese lawmakers who formed a committee on Thursday to look into the issue said that UFO sightings shouldn’t be written off out of hand because they might actually be weaponry or surveillance drones.
The nonpartisan organization, which has more than 80 members, including previous ministers of defense, will push Japan to strengthen its capacity to identify and examine unidentified abnormal phenomena, or UFOs.
Despite the fact that the phenomenon is frequently connected in popular culture to tiny green men, it has gained significant political attention in the US.
Washington said last year it was examining 510 UFO reports — more than triple the number in its 2021 file and NASA in September said it wants to shift the conversation “from sensationalism to science”.
The Japanese parliamentarians hope to bring the domestic perception of UAPs in line with its ally’s following several scares related to suspected surveillance operations.
“It is extremely irresponsible of us to be resigned to the fact that something is unknowable, and to keep turning a blind eye to the unidentified,” group member and former defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said before the launch.
Unauthorized video of a helicopter destroyer that was docked lately went viral on Chinese social media following an alleged drone incursion into a military base, embarrassing Japan’s defense government.
Furthermore, the ministry stated last year that it “strongly presumes” that Chinese surveillance balloons were the reason behind flying objects that have been observed in Japanese sky recently.
Key opposition politician Yoshiharu Asakawa has stated that UFOs are considered “an occult matter that has nothing to do with politics” in Japan.
However, if they are actually “cutting-edge secret weapons or spying drones in disguise, they can pose a significant threat to our nation’s security” .
In order to look into UAPs, the US Defense Department established the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2022.
Based on trends from 1996 to 2023, an AARO research from last year identified the area spanning from western Japan to China as a “hotspot” for UAP sightings.
Later, it came to the conclusion in a 60-page assessment mandated by Congress that there was no proof of extraterrestrial technology or attempts by the US government to conceal it from the public.
Legislators in Japan will advocate for the establishment of a national agency similar to the Pentagon’s AARO as well as more intelligence sharing with the US.
On Thursday, the group will receive an online talk from UAP expert and former US intelligence official Christopher Mellon.
