Japan’s military pilots have never encountered UFOs, defence minister says

Defence Minister Taro Kono says he’s seeking advice from the US Defence Department over its videos purportedly showing a UFO encounter

But one research group in Japan says sightings of unidentified objects, including a ‘flying saucer’, are not alien to the government

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While sceptical on the existence of extraterrestrial life, Japan’s defence ministry will advise its air force on what to do in the event of a UFO encounter. Photo: AP

Published: 4:45pm, 29 Apr 2020Updated: 5:09pm, 29 Apr 2020

A UFO researcher in Japan has expressed surprise at the announcement by Defence Minister Taro Kono that military pilots have not previously encountered an unidentified flying object (UFO), but that a plan will be drawn up on how best to respond in such a scenario.

Kono was on Tuesday responding to a question in a press conference about the release of videos taken by US Navy pilots that allegedly show a series of encounters with UFOs. The Japanese Ministry of Defence will ask its counterparts at the Pentagon for additional details about the clips, Kono said, including analysis of just what the footage shows.

“No SDF [Self-Defence Force] pilot has encountered a UFO. The videos have come from the US Defence Department so I would like to hear their analysis,” Kato said. “I don’t really believe in UFOs. We would like to establish procedures in the event an encounter takes place with a UFO.”

According to Greg Sullivan, director of the Japan Centre for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Kono should be aware of at least half a dozen prior run-ins between Japanese aircrew and visitors from outer space, all of which have been reported to the government, as well as a number of civilian sightings of interplanetary craft the length and breadth of Japan.

The researcher has been cataloguing unexplained sightings and close encounters with visitors from outer space for more than a decade and says the Japanese government is “absolutely aware” of the group’s work and its findings.

“One of the people I have interviewed is Mamoru Sato, who was a wing commander in the Air Self-Defence Force, and who collected testimony from a number of military pilots who had interacted with UFOs,” he said. “Those reports were met with ridicule and the authorities refused to take him seriously.”

A still from an unclassified video taken by US Navy pilots shows an encounter with ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’. Photo: Handout / AFP

Among the incidents that Sato documented was a sighting of a “flying saucer” at close range before the craft disappeared at a rapid 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.

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