UFO sightings should not be dismissed out of hand because they could in fact be surveillance drones or weapons, say Japanese lawmakers who launched a group to probe the matter.
The non-partisan group, which counts former defence ministers among its 80-plus members, will urge Japan to ramp up abilities to detect and analyse unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), more commonly known as UFOs.
Although the phenomenon is often associated with little green men in the popular imagination, it has become a hot political topic in the United States.
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 UAP 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 yesterday.
In an embarrassment for Japan’s defence ministry, unauthorised footage of a docked helicopter destroyer recently spread on Chinese social media after an apparent drone intrusion into a military facility.
And last year the ministry said it “strongly presumes” that flying objects sighted in Japanese skies in recent years were surveillance balloons sent by China.
In Japan, UFOs have long been seen as “an occult matter that has nothing to do with politics”, opposition lawmaker Yoshiharu Asakawa, a pivotal member of the group, has said.
But if they turn out to be “cutting-edge secret weapons or spying drones in disguise, they can pose a significant threat to our nation’s security”.
The Japanese lawmakers will also push for the country to create an equivalent to the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office and to further boost intelligence cooperation with the United States. — AFP
