Ancient Aliens s21e17 Episode Script
Secrets Of Japan
1
NARRATOR: Japan is a land rich
with ancient mysteries.
WILLIAM HENRY: In Japanese
history there's been hundreds
of sightings of mysterious lights
that fly in the air and
then also enter into the oceans.
DAVID CHILDRESS: We have these
underwater cities there
that have strange
energy associated with them.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS:
You have these statues that look
eerily similar to modern-day astronauts.
NARRATOR: And recently,
Japan has also become known
as a hot spot for
unidentified aerial phenomena.
The Japanese government actually
issued a policy to shoot down UFOs.
NARRATOR: Could it be that the
entire history of this island nation
has been directed by
extraterrestrial visitors?
Ancient aliens brought Japan
into the modern world.
♪
♪
NARRATOR: At 2:46
p.m., the region is rocked
by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake
the most powerful
to ever hit the island nation.
A little over 30 minutes later
a tsunami with 130-foot-tall
waves smashes into the area.
Among the hardest hit
locations is the nearby
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
The power was cut out.
The cooling system went down,
and just this enormous
amount of radiation
went into the atmosphere.
NARRATOR: Authorities evacuate
the region and order a small team to stay
behind to prevent a larger
catastrophe from occurring.
But days later,
videos posted on social media
show these workers
were not alone.
TSOUKALOS: The video
that we have of Fukushima,
you see these bright golden orbs,
many of them flying in formation.
And of course,
with all these orbs that we see,
we know it's something technological.
NARRATOR: Curiously,
almost exactly ten years later,
on February 13, 2021,
the region is rocked
by another powerful earthquake.
Over the next two months,
mysterious yellow orbs are observed
hovering above the Fukushima
nuclear power plant.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: Recently, Japanese people
have reported seeing UAPs in the region
near the Fukushima reactor meltdown.
It radiated a major part of Japan,
but for some reason people are seeing
UFO activity in the area.
NARRATOR: What are the mysterious lights
that have been seen flying
over the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant?
It's a question that prompted
the Japanese government to take action.
On May 28, 2024, the Japanese parliament
announced the formation
of an investigation
unprecedented in modern Japan.
In 2024 the Japanese government
issued a mandate for
a bipartisan 80-member panel
to investigate the UAP situation.
Now, why did they do that?
I think mainly, the Japanese people were
getting concerned
with the things flying over
their infrastructure and
wanted to take precautions.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): I have been deeply involved
and I participated in the first
general meeting
and the second one as well.
I believe that the government
is taking the UAP issue
more seriously from the viewpoint
of national defense or national security.
NARRATOR: Government officials
have refrained
from commenting on
the events at Fukushima
and other UAP sightings in Japan.
But Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada
recently issued radical new protocols
for Japan's Air Self-Defense
Force in the event
of encountering UFOs in highly
restricted areas like Fukushima.
The Japanese government actually
issued a policy, a guideline,
to actually shoot down
UAPs if they don't leave the areas
over sensitive infrastructure
like a nuclear reactor facility.
So this shows
that the government of Japan,
and the military of Japan,
take UFOs and UAPs very seriously.
And that this is something
that, you know,
they are intensely interested in.
NARRATOR: But while
the Japanese government
has only recently begun
its first official UFO investigation,
the people of Japan
have shown a strong interest
in unidentified
flying objects for decades.
Aviation journalist Yusuke Matsumura
is leaving his house early in the morning
when he spots a metallic disc
hovering in the sky.
Fortunately,
Matsumura is carrying a camera,
and takes the first ever
photograph of a UFO in Japan.
Inspired by his sighting,
Matsumura created a group called
the Cosmic Brotherhood.
When the UFO craze
really began in the 1950s,
in Japan it was quite sedated.
Reports were filed
and basically forgotten
as something a bit strange
there was a weather balloon
in the vicinity at that time,
maybe it was a Korean spy plane.
There was one exception, which was
the Cosmic Brotherhood Association.
And that was founded by Yusuke Matsumura.
And he said, "No, no, no.
All these UFOs are alien craft."
In '64, the Cosmic Brotherhood
Association started to build
an altar in Biratori in Hokkaido,
which is an absolutely massive
thing as their place of contact.
NARRATOR: The Cosmic Brotherhood
built this altar as a place
to communicate with extraterrestrials,
and they selected the mountain
because it was believed
to be the landing spot of a god
who traveled to Japan
thousands of years ago.
They chose Biratori because
that was where the god Okikurumi
had either come down to Earth
or left Earth again.
Which sounds like an ancient people
trying to describe a first contact.
So it seemed like, you know, a good spot.
HENRY: The Cosmic
Brotherhood organization
emerged in Japan
with a fascinating theory.
They maintained that the very spot where
Okikurumi is believed to
have landed was considered to be
a meeting place to meet
extraterrestrial visitors.
NARRATOR: 15 years
after the Cosmic Brotherhood
was formed, Japan was electrified by
a series of extraordinary
incidents that, to this day,
remain the country's
most famous UFO events.
13-year-old junior high
student Michio Seo
observes a very small
and peculiar object flying
above a rice field,
zigzagging back and forth.
Later that night, he and several
friends find the object again,
only now it's emitting
a pulsating silver light.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated):
It's about this big, just about.
A small object shaped like a doorknob.
And this thing was flying.
Finally, it fell into a rice paddy.
So they caught it and then they went home
and the people at home saw it.
NARRATOR: The boys reported
that the mysterious
silver object was less than
eight inches in diameter
and weighed only three pounds.
The bottom surface was
perforated with an array
of tiny holes and
imprinted with curious designs.
But before it could be further examined,
the object disappeared again.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated):
There was more than one witness.
A number of junior high school
students saw the incident,
and it definitely happened.
NARRATOR: Another sensational incident
involving schoolchildren
occurred in Japan just three years later,
and this time it included
a face-to-face encounter
with an alien entity.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): In this incident,
a UFO landed and an alien
appeared from inside.
Two elementary school children
encountered the alien,
and one of them was tapped
on the shoulder by the alien.
Later, when a scientist analyzed
the soil where it landed,
they found a radioactive
substance, phosphorus-32,
which cannot be found in nature.
The fact that phosphorus-32 was produced
is evidence that there was
an object that emits radiation.
So, there was definitely an incident.
NARRATOR: While reports of UFO
sightings throughout the 20th century
received little attention
from the Japanese government,
recent encounters with
unidentified aerial phenomena
have sparked a call to action.
And Japan is now at the forefront
of investigating UFO activity.
But why does Japan
seem to be experiencing such
an increase in unusual sightings?
Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining ancient figurines
that are believed to
depict otherworldly beings.
NARRATOR: American
archaeologist Edward Sylvester Morse
is excavating an ancient shell mound
when he unearths
unique cord-marked pottery.
The artifacts are among
the oldest ever discovered
in Japan and Morse uses the term "Jomon,"
meaning "cord-marked"
to identify the mysterious
ancient culture that made them.
The Jomon are one of
the main Indigenous peoples
of Japan, historically.
They dominated the archipelago
from about 15,000 BCE to 300 BCE.
And not much is known about them.
It's a fairly mysterious
or poorly understood culture.
What we know about Jomon culture is
restricted to material culture.
It's the stuff
that we dig up from the ground.
The striking thing about the Jomon people
and Jomon culture is that it is unusually
advanced for what we would expect
for a hunter-gatherer group.
Jomon pottery is
very elaborate and the idea
that a "hunter-gatherer" group of people
would even develop pottery
is itself kind of flies in the face of
traditional anthropological distinctions
between hunter-gatherer
and agriculturalist people.
NARRATOR: The Jomon's
most mysterious artifacts
are small statues depicting
strange-looking figures
that are referred to as the Dogu.
The Dogu statues are
one of the smoking guns
of the ancient astronaut theory.
You have these statues that look
like some type of beings inside
of a pressurized suit
completely hermetically sealed.
You have these helmet-type
enclosures on top of their heads
with giant goggle eyes.
And an engineer by the name
of Vaughn Greene
wrote a book and proposed
that what we're looking at here
is a modern-type space suit.
He compared and contrasted modern-day
space and diving suits
with these Dogu statues.
And for 30 points they matched exactly.
And what's so interesting too
is that the correlation
between the Dogu figures
and their mythology is
that these beings descended from the sky.
NARRATOR: Although the Jomon
people left no written records,
it is believed
that they developed Shinto,
Japan's Indigenous religion.
Shinto beliefs
hold that thousands of gods
descended on Japan from the sky.
STEAVU: The Shinto religion
is the only Indigenous
Japanese religious tradition.
Shinto translates as
"the way of the gods"
or "the way of the Kami,"
the Kami being these
divine beings or gods.
Kami in the Japanese
native religion of Shinto
can take on a variety of forms.
This included the heavenly Kami who are
the ones who live in heaven,
and earthly Kami who live
in the Japanese archipelago.
STEAVU: These heavenly
Kamis intermingled and
procreated with the earthly ones
and eventually this formed
the human race as well.
So, from the moment
in which humans appear,
this is a different era
in this Shinto cosmology,
which is known as the era of humans.
And this is when we have
a kind of hybrid race,
a mixture of human and divine Kami stock.
The idea that a divine race
is breeding with humans
is fundamentally
the basis of Japanese religion.
It's the basis of Shinto.
NARRATOR: According
to the Shinto tradition,
before the establishment
of the Japanese emperor,
the island nation was ruled by gods.
GRAHAM PHILLIPS: The first emperor was
thought to have reigned around 700 BC.
The period before that
was known in Japanese mythology
as the Age of the Gods.
The reason is because it was said
that the gods walked amongst humans,
which is very similar to
the ancient Egyptian mythology
where the Pyramid Texts
describe the early period of
Egyptian history as
the golden age of the gods.
NARRATOR: As told in the ancient
Japanese texts, the Kojiki,
a man named Jimmu, a divine
descendant of the Sun goddess
Amaterasu is chosen by the gods
to be Japan's first emperor.
But in order to take the throne,
Jimmu must journey from
the southern island of Kyushu
to the Yamato Province,
roughly 500 miles to the northeast,
navigating mountainous terrain
and battling warlords along the way.
What's so fascinating
about the ascent of Jimmu
to the throne around 600 BC is the fact
that this is, in my opinion,
one of those legends
that perfectly fits into
the ancient astronaut theory
because it involves
misunderstood technology
and a celestial visitor.
It is said that Jimmu was guided by
a three-legged crow called Yatagarasu.
And this so-called crow
was given to Jimmu by Amaterasu
the first goddess
that descended from the sky.
PHILLIPS: The stories are that this
three-legged crow was huge
and it was surrounded
by a white globe of light.
(crow cawing)
TSOUKALOS: The ancient astronaut theory
tries to understand
what it is our ancestors tried to
explain to us because
one thing is crystal clear:
There is no three-legged crow,
so the question then is,
well, why, how did that come about?
This to me sounds
like some type of an aerial
drone technology with which
to survey the ground
that our ancestors witnessed
without knowing
anything about technology.
NARRATOR: Does the story of Jimmu reveal
extraterrestrial
intervention in ancient Japan?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining mysterious
relics of immense power
that the imperial family
has hidden from the public for centuries.
NARRATOR: Japan celebrates
the ascension of its new emperor
Naruhito, who takes the throne at age 59.
He is the latest emperor
in the longest running
royal family on earth.
Japan's imperial family known
as the Chrysanthemum Throne
dates back an incredible 2,700 years.
Most dynasties, if they
last several hundred years,
that's a good run.
Monarchies do not last 2,700 years,
so it's extraordinary
that Japan's imperial family
has lasted this long.
NARRATOR: The elaborate ceremony
involved a series of sacred rituals,
but the most important of these events
is also the most mysterious.
In the state room of the Imperial Palace,
the new emperor was presented
with several boxes that are filled
with treasures so secret,
they've never been seen in public.
They contain Japan's imperial regalia.
STEAVU: The imperial regalia are
a set of three divine treasures.
The first one is a sacred sword.
The second is a sacred mirror,
or divine mirror.
And the third is a curved jewel,
which is also divine in nature.
TSOUKALOS: They're being kept
under lock and key because
not only are they sacred,
but some people have proposed
that they are of otherworldly origin.
And it's accepted as fact.
HENRY: These sacred items
are the ultimate treasures of Japan.
In fact, at the end of World War II,
Emperor Hirohito was
deathly afraid that should
Japan be invaded, these sacred treasures
could ultimately be possessed by
the United States Army
or some other invading power.
And this was said to be one of
the reasons why he surrendered
to General MacArthur, was to
actually protect these relics.
NARRATOR: According to legend,
the imperial regalia
are gifts from the Sun goddess Amaterasu
that were passed down
to Japan's first emperor, Jimmu,
who was her direct descendant.
Legend has it that each
of the three objects
possess supernatural powers.
The most mysterious is the curved jewel.
The jewel is a big question mark.
We don't really see it referred
to in-in other myths.
It's not clear what
its purpose or provenance is.
CHILDRESS: These three objects
are held in boxes.
And ancient records in Japan
say that there was an emperor
who decided to open one of these
boxes with the jewel in it.
And that a white smoke
started coming out of it.
And so he ordered it closed again.
So you just have to wonder,
what's in this box?
Could it be some extraterrestrial device
that has an energy coming out of it?
NARRATOR: While very little
is known about the jewel,
much more has been written
about the mirror,
which is said to provide
a direct connection
to otherworldly beings.
Amaterasu's mirror was
supposedly given to the daughter
of the 11th emperor of Japan,
Yamato Hime.
And she wandered Japan
for 20 years looking
for the right place to
build the shrine that
the mirror would be held in.
MATSUURA: She came to a spot
in what is now Mie Prefecture.
And there was some kind of
communication through the mirror where,
this is where the Amaterasu
wanted her shrine to be built.
And it was built.
To this day it's still there,
the Grand Shrine of Ise.
NARRATOR: In addition to
communicating with Amaterasu,
the mirror could also
be used to see what was
happening worldwide in real time.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): I think this
is probably a tablet.
Using something like FaceTime
communicating with the gods.
But it only works for people
who have been chosen to use it.
(speaking Japanese)
NARRATOR: Could it be
that Amaterasu's mirror
was an extraterrestrial device
similar to what
we know today as a tablet?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest further evidence
that the imperial regalia
contains advanced alien
technology can be found by
examining the third object,
the sacred sword.
STEAVU: Yamato Takeru,
the 12th emperor of Japan,
famously discovered that
the sword had a magical power.
He was trapped by a treacherous warlord,
who intended to
eliminate him by burning him
alive in a field of grass.
And when Yamato Takeru started
hacking away at the grass to
remove the fuel from the fire,
he noticed that the swings
of his swords were
actually producing wind
and pushing the flames
in the opposite direction.
So he used this
magical power that he discovered
to actually fan
the flames in the direction
of the warlord and
his troops and burn them.
The last time this sword
was viewed publicly
was in the 1600s.
A priest named Masanou
had gathered some other priests
and they went to the shrine
where the sword was located,
intent on doing repairs.
STEAVU: They happen to open the
box in which the sword is contained
in order to better
clean it and maintain it.
And he describes this sword as being made
of a very brilliant white metal,
almost supernatural type of metal.
And it didn't show any signs of age,
or rust, or any decay on it.
Everybody around the sword
developed some kind of
affliction and died soon after
opening it and then looking at it.
But one priest survived
to report what happened.
TSOUKALOS: This is interesting
to me, because there is a connection
between celestial objects
and people dying.
For example, the Ark of
the Covenant comes to mind.
Whoever did not know
how to operate the Ark died
of unknown conditions
and the unknown conditions are
boils on the skin, the falling
out of fingernails and hair.
Well, what unknown disease is that?
It's radioactive fallout.
That's the only way
that this really can happen.
So, is it possible
that there are potentially
radioactive extraterrestrial
artifacts here on Earth?
The answer is a resounding yes.
NARRATOR: Could the closely
guarded ancient relics
that have been hidden from the public
for thousands of years
be extraterrestrial in origin?
And if so, have they been
used over the centuries
to keep the Japanese
royal family in power?
The true nature of the imperial regalia
may only ever be known to the emperor,
but ancient astronaut theorists
suggest other artifacts
that point to Japan's
extraterrestrial past
are hiding in plain sight.
NARRATOR: One of the greatest
mysteries of the ancient world
is why enormous stone structures
appear on nearly every continent.
And at one time, megalithic monuments
could be found
throughout the islands of Japan.
Not many people know this,
but ancient Japan was strewn
with megaliths and henges.
The ancient peoples of Japan
had these stone monuments
all over the place.
During the samurai era,
which was war all the time,
most of them were ripped up
and used to make castle walls
and castle foundations.
Some survived because they're so weird.
NARRATOR: Perhaps the most curious,
and awe-inspiring, of Japan's megaliths
is Ishi-no-Hoden,
a giant stone monument near
Osaka carved out of the bedrock
and believed to date back 16,000 years.
The Ishi-no-Hoden megalith is
sometimes called
the heavenly floating rock.
It's huge, probably around 500 tons.
It's about a 20-foot
square cube that has been
built in such a strange way
that underneath it,
there's a base that
holds it up above the ground,
so it appears for all the world
to be hovering in the air.
It is said to commemorate
a god that once came to Earth in a huge
cubic-shaped object and
landed somewhere in that area.
TSOUKALOS: In Japanese
mythologies and legends,
it says that long ago
physical gods were amongst our ancestors
that had the capability
of flying or of flight.
So, the fact that they used
this water mirror underneath
this stone to show as if
it is hovering and floating
in the air, to me, is to signify flight.
NARRATOR: Curiously, Ishi-no-Hoden
is not the only Japanese megalith
that appears to document
an ancient extraterrestrial visitation.
STEAVU: The Masuda-no-Iwafune,
which translates to
"the stone ship of Masuda,"
is another megalithic structure.
This is an even larger granite megalith
30 feet across and about 20 feet in width
and 15 or so in height that has
a central depression or trough.
PHILLIPS: This monolith is said
to have marked the Earth side
of a so-called floating bridge
that connected Earth to the heavens.
Now, what is a floating bridge?
It's described as something
that the gods descend in.
STEAVU: There is a story in Shinto annals
about the bridge that unites
the earthly realm with the heavenly realm
collapsing and falling onto the Earth.
So, these megaliths, according to some,
are the remnants or
the building blocks of this
celestial bridge
that has since collapsed.
This floating bridge
sounds exactly like the bridge
Bifrost of the Nordic tradition
upon which the gods would come
and go from the Earth into
the heavenly realms, or Asgard.
This suggests that the same people
are descending to these various cultures.
NARRATOR: Might the Ishi-no-Hoden
and Masuda-no-Iwafune megaliths
have an extraterrestrial connection?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest
the most intriguing of Japan's
megalithic structures can be found
beneath the sea.
On the western tip of
the Japanese archipelago
lies the tiny island of Yonaguni.
In 1986, scuba divers exploring
just off the coast
make a shocking discovery.
60 feet beneath the ocean surface,
they find a massive rectangular
structure roughly 328 feet long
and 196 feet wide.
It has since become
known as the Yonaguni Monument.
PHILLIPS: The Yonaguni Monument is huge,
and it looks for all the world
like an artificial construction.
There are steps.
There are what appear to be columns
and all sorts of geometric formations
that seem to have been
artificial constructions.
Professor Masaki Kimura spent ten years
examining the structure with divers
and the most sophisticated
equipment at the time,
and he was convinced beyond any doubt
that it was an artificial formation.
TSOUKALOS: Yonaguni boggles the mind
because at some point that was
a land bridge that existed
when the water levels
were lower and that means
we're talking around the last ice age,
which was 10,000 or so BC.
Now, that means that back then
a culture must have existed
to carve Yonaguni
the way it appears today.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut
theorists, the possibility
that the Japanese were building
sophisticated megalithic monuments
as much as 12,000 years ago
is highly significant
because in numerous
cultures around the world,
there are ancient stories
about advanced civilizations
that inhabited the Earth
right around that time.
If the Yonaguni monument
is as old as we think it is,
then this aligns this
Japanese site with other sites
in the Pacific,
most notably Lemuria and Mu,
which are thought to
be pre-flood civilizations
that had achieved an advanced
state of civilization
but were destroyed by cataclysm.
NARRATOR: Could Yonaguni have
been part of an advanced, prehistoric
civilization that was submerged
at the end of the last ice age?
And did some of the survivors
populate Japan?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by looking at the ocean region
where Yonaguni lies,
which is a hot spot
of mysterious activity called
the Dragon's Triangle.
NARRATOR: The Japanese
freighter Kaiyo Maru
is en route to California when suddenly,
the ship's instruments begin
to fluctuate wildly.
Just after 8:30 p.m.,
the crew watches in astonishment
as a huge elliptical-shaped object
suddenly appears on their radar.
The mysterious craft,
which is larger than a supertanker,
circles them for several minutes,
before it makes a sharp turn
and heads straight for them.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): A large object
on radar approached the ship
and passed overhead when they thought
it was going to hit them.
This was reported
in newspapers at the time,
especially in a scientific
magazine called Nikkei Science,
so it is known as a very famous incident.
NARRATOR: This is just one of
thousands of encounters reported
in a part of the Pacific Ocean
that stretches
south of Japan down to Guam
and the area of the Yonaguni Monument.
It is known as "the Dragon's Triangle."
1,500 vessels have disappeared
in the Dragon's Triangle.
Planes have disappeared in the triangle.
What happened? But more important, why?
Beginning in 1950, the Japanese
government was so concerned
about this area
that they sent a research ship out
and it too vanished with 22 crew
and nine scientists aboard.
TSOUKALOS: Is it possible
that some ships have disappeared
because of calamities
and, you know, accidents?
Sure.
But is it also possible
that perhaps some of
these boats disappeared
due to extraterrestrial interference?
The answer to that is
a resounding yes as well,
because there are stories
of other ships witnessing
things happening with lights
and objects hovering over
the ocean and things like that.
NARRATOR: Disappearances
and strange sightings
have not only been reported
in this area in modern times
but going back centuries.
HENRY: Adding to the intrigue
of the Devil's Triangle
is the fact that in
Japanese history there's been
hundreds of sightings
of mysterious lights
that reach out from within the sea
and absorb or sink these ships.
Today we think of these as submersibles
or transmedium craft
that have the ability to
fly in the air and then
also enter into the ocean.
CHILDRESS: You have to wonder if
there's some underwater UFO base.
And there's some hyperspace
portal going on, or vortex.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
hidden beneath the Pacific Ocean,
somewhere within the Dragon's Triangle,
there is an extraterrestrial base?
Curiously, there have also been reports
of sea monsters in this area
dating back centuries.
And the Dragon's Triangle
was the location
of Japan's most famous
historical UFO encounter,
known as the Utsuro Bune sighting.
CLEMENTS: There's a really
odd story from 1803 in Hitachi
where a woman washes up
on shore on the beach
in a very strangely shaped boat.
And when she comes out of the boat,
she has white or pink skin.
She has red hair with white tips,
and she doesn't speak Japanese.
And during this time, Japan
is closed to the outside world,
and it's a capital offense
to interact with foreigners.
So the people on the shore
were absolutely terrified of this woman.
They didn't know what to do.
They put her back in the boat
and they pushed it out again.
And they reported it to the local lord,
and they referred to her ship
as the "utsoro bune,"
"the hollow ship."
There are at least 11 different
people who came forward
and documented it.
They drew pictures of it.
There's paintings of what
the ship looks like and what happened.
HENRY: Her craft looks
exactly like a flying saucer,
a contemporary flying saucer.
But this is in 1803,
suggesting that this is one
of the most extraordinary
UFO sightings, perhaps not only
in Japanese history
but in all human history.
NARRATOR: Does the Dragon's
Triangle provide compelling evidence
that an alien presence
has existed on Earth
in this area of Japan
for thousands of years?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest further evidence can be found
by examining a sensational
event that happened
in Tokyo Bay,
involving the U.S. military.
NARRATOR: U.S. Naval officer,
Commodore Matthew C. Perry,
arrives with his American fleet
to force Japan to end
its policy of isolation.
American ships were sent
to Japan to try and get Japan to
open up to the world
because it had been pretty much
closed off for centuries
during the time of the Shogunate,
the military rule in Japan.
The emperor had continued to rule
but only really as a puppet ruler.
NARRATOR: The night
Perry's fleet arrived in the bay,
both the Americans and the Japanese
were awed by a spectacular sight.
PHILLIPS: Perry, he wrote a log,
and he said that while
they were in Tokyo Bay
a strange, glowing blue object
was seen in the skies
that hovered over the ships.
So bright was it at night,
that it literally lit up all the ships.
Underneath it was
what he wrote and described
as like the sparks from a rocket.
And it hovered around
the skies and eventually
descended into the water.
What we have
in the case of Commodore Perry
in Tokyo Bay in 1853
is a sighting that lasted
four hours of a gigantic blue sphere
up in the sky with a red wedge tail.
What the heck is that?
And it just stood there
illuminating the entire Tokyo Bay.
NARRATOR: Perry's mission
not only led to the opening up
and modernization of Japan,
but also to the overthrow of the shoguns
and the restoration of
the imperial family to power.
STEAVU: This re-initiated imperial rule
that has lasted up until nowadays
and brought it, if you will,
back to Emperor Jimmu,
establishing essentially an imperial rule
of over 2,600 years.
NARRATOR: According to some
researchers, the remarkable UFO
seen by Commodore Perry's fleet
may have been a sign of approval
from otherworldly beings
who have been protecting
the imperial family since its foundation.
Ancient aliens established
the Japanese imperial family,
ancient aliens protected
the Japanese imperial family
and brought Japan into the modern world.
HENRY: This is taken by some
as an affirmation that perhaps
while Commodore Perry
is practicing gunboat diplomacy,
maybe so too are
the extraterrestrials who had
a hand in the founding
of the Imperial Dynasty.
CHILDRESS: When we look at
Japan and all of this ancient activity,
the gods coming down,
interacting and creating
semi-god, semi-human hybrids and things.
We have these underwater cities there.
We have these special artifacts
that have strange energy
associated with them.
All this really seems to add up that,
you know, ancient astronaut theory
is very much validated
by the history of Japan.
NARRATOR: From an imperial
dynasty that traces its lineage
to the gods,
to a sensational mass UFO sighting
occurring at a critical
moment in history
to new government investigations
into unexplained phenomena,
has alien intervention
been taking place in Japan
for thousands of years?
Perhaps the mysterious ancient megaliths
that still stand on
the island serve as a testament
to an enduring connection
with otherworldly beings
who continue to watch
over Japan even today.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS
NARRATOR: Japan is a land rich
with ancient mysteries.
WILLIAM HENRY: In Japanese
history there's been hundreds
of sightings of mysterious lights
that fly in the air and
then also enter into the oceans.
DAVID CHILDRESS: We have these
underwater cities there
that have strange
energy associated with them.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS:
You have these statues that look
eerily similar to modern-day astronauts.
NARRATOR: And recently,
Japan has also become known
as a hot spot for
unidentified aerial phenomena.
The Japanese government actually
issued a policy to shoot down UFOs.
NARRATOR: Could it be that the
entire history of this island nation
has been directed by
extraterrestrial visitors?
Ancient aliens brought Japan
into the modern world.
♪
♪
NARRATOR: At 2:46
p.m., the region is rocked
by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake
the most powerful
to ever hit the island nation.
A little over 30 minutes later
a tsunami with 130-foot-tall
waves smashes into the area.
Among the hardest hit
locations is the nearby
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
The power was cut out.
The cooling system went down,
and just this enormous
amount of radiation
went into the atmosphere.
NARRATOR: Authorities evacuate
the region and order a small team to stay
behind to prevent a larger
catastrophe from occurring.
But days later,
videos posted on social media
show these workers
were not alone.
TSOUKALOS: The video
that we have of Fukushima,
you see these bright golden orbs,
many of them flying in formation.
And of course,
with all these orbs that we see,
we know it's something technological.
NARRATOR: Curiously,
almost exactly ten years later,
on February 13, 2021,
the region is rocked
by another powerful earthquake.
Over the next two months,
mysterious yellow orbs are observed
hovering above the Fukushima
nuclear power plant.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: Recently, Japanese people
have reported seeing UAPs in the region
near the Fukushima reactor meltdown.
It radiated a major part of Japan,
but for some reason people are seeing
UFO activity in the area.
NARRATOR: What are the mysterious lights
that have been seen flying
over the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant?
It's a question that prompted
the Japanese government to take action.
On May 28, 2024, the Japanese parliament
announced the formation
of an investigation
unprecedented in modern Japan.
In 2024 the Japanese government
issued a mandate for
a bipartisan 80-member panel
to investigate the UAP situation.
Now, why did they do that?
I think mainly, the Japanese people were
getting concerned
with the things flying over
their infrastructure and
wanted to take precautions.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): I have been deeply involved
and I participated in the first
general meeting
and the second one as well.
I believe that the government
is taking the UAP issue
more seriously from the viewpoint
of national defense or national security.
NARRATOR: Government officials
have refrained
from commenting on
the events at Fukushima
and other UAP sightings in Japan.
But Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada
recently issued radical new protocols
for Japan's Air Self-Defense
Force in the event
of encountering UFOs in highly
restricted areas like Fukushima.
The Japanese government actually
issued a policy, a guideline,
to actually shoot down
UAPs if they don't leave the areas
over sensitive infrastructure
like a nuclear reactor facility.
So this shows
that the government of Japan,
and the military of Japan,
take UFOs and UAPs very seriously.
And that this is something
that, you know,
they are intensely interested in.
NARRATOR: But while
the Japanese government
has only recently begun
its first official UFO investigation,
the people of Japan
have shown a strong interest
in unidentified
flying objects for decades.
Aviation journalist Yusuke Matsumura
is leaving his house early in the morning
when he spots a metallic disc
hovering in the sky.
Fortunately,
Matsumura is carrying a camera,
and takes the first ever
photograph of a UFO in Japan.
Inspired by his sighting,
Matsumura created a group called
the Cosmic Brotherhood.
When the UFO craze
really began in the 1950s,
in Japan it was quite sedated.
Reports were filed
and basically forgotten
as something a bit strange
there was a weather balloon
in the vicinity at that time,
maybe it was a Korean spy plane.
There was one exception, which was
the Cosmic Brotherhood Association.
And that was founded by Yusuke Matsumura.
And he said, "No, no, no.
All these UFOs are alien craft."
In '64, the Cosmic Brotherhood
Association started to build
an altar in Biratori in Hokkaido,
which is an absolutely massive
thing as their place of contact.
NARRATOR: The Cosmic Brotherhood
built this altar as a place
to communicate with extraterrestrials,
and they selected the mountain
because it was believed
to be the landing spot of a god
who traveled to Japan
thousands of years ago.
They chose Biratori because
that was where the god Okikurumi
had either come down to Earth
or left Earth again.
Which sounds like an ancient people
trying to describe a first contact.
So it seemed like, you know, a good spot.
HENRY: The Cosmic
Brotherhood organization
emerged in Japan
with a fascinating theory.
They maintained that the very spot where
Okikurumi is believed to
have landed was considered to be
a meeting place to meet
extraterrestrial visitors.
NARRATOR: 15 years
after the Cosmic Brotherhood
was formed, Japan was electrified by
a series of extraordinary
incidents that, to this day,
remain the country's
most famous UFO events.
13-year-old junior high
student Michio Seo
observes a very small
and peculiar object flying
above a rice field,
zigzagging back and forth.
Later that night, he and several
friends find the object again,
only now it's emitting
a pulsating silver light.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated):
It's about this big, just about.
A small object shaped like a doorknob.
And this thing was flying.
Finally, it fell into a rice paddy.
So they caught it and then they went home
and the people at home saw it.
NARRATOR: The boys reported
that the mysterious
silver object was less than
eight inches in diameter
and weighed only three pounds.
The bottom surface was
perforated with an array
of tiny holes and
imprinted with curious designs.
But before it could be further examined,
the object disappeared again.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated):
There was more than one witness.
A number of junior high school
students saw the incident,
and it definitely happened.
NARRATOR: Another sensational incident
involving schoolchildren
occurred in Japan just three years later,
and this time it included
a face-to-face encounter
with an alien entity.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): In this incident,
a UFO landed and an alien
appeared from inside.
Two elementary school children
encountered the alien,
and one of them was tapped
on the shoulder by the alien.
Later, when a scientist analyzed
the soil where it landed,
they found a radioactive
substance, phosphorus-32,
which cannot be found in nature.
The fact that phosphorus-32 was produced
is evidence that there was
an object that emits radiation.
So, there was definitely an incident.
NARRATOR: While reports of UFO
sightings throughout the 20th century
received little attention
from the Japanese government,
recent encounters with
unidentified aerial phenomena
have sparked a call to action.
And Japan is now at the forefront
of investigating UFO activity.
But why does Japan
seem to be experiencing such
an increase in unusual sightings?
Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining ancient figurines
that are believed to
depict otherworldly beings.
NARRATOR: American
archaeologist Edward Sylvester Morse
is excavating an ancient shell mound
when he unearths
unique cord-marked pottery.
The artifacts are among
the oldest ever discovered
in Japan and Morse uses the term "Jomon,"
meaning "cord-marked"
to identify the mysterious
ancient culture that made them.
The Jomon are one of
the main Indigenous peoples
of Japan, historically.
They dominated the archipelago
from about 15,000 BCE to 300 BCE.
And not much is known about them.
It's a fairly mysterious
or poorly understood culture.
What we know about Jomon culture is
restricted to material culture.
It's the stuff
that we dig up from the ground.
The striking thing about the Jomon people
and Jomon culture is that it is unusually
advanced for what we would expect
for a hunter-gatherer group.
Jomon pottery is
very elaborate and the idea
that a "hunter-gatherer" group of people
would even develop pottery
is itself kind of flies in the face of
traditional anthropological distinctions
between hunter-gatherer
and agriculturalist people.
NARRATOR: The Jomon's
most mysterious artifacts
are small statues depicting
strange-looking figures
that are referred to as the Dogu.
The Dogu statues are
one of the smoking guns
of the ancient astronaut theory.
You have these statues that look
like some type of beings inside
of a pressurized suit
completely hermetically sealed.
You have these helmet-type
enclosures on top of their heads
with giant goggle eyes.
And an engineer by the name
of Vaughn Greene
wrote a book and proposed
that what we're looking at here
is a modern-type space suit.
He compared and contrasted modern-day
space and diving suits
with these Dogu statues.
And for 30 points they matched exactly.
And what's so interesting too
is that the correlation
between the Dogu figures
and their mythology is
that these beings descended from the sky.
NARRATOR: Although the Jomon
people left no written records,
it is believed
that they developed Shinto,
Japan's Indigenous religion.
Shinto beliefs
hold that thousands of gods
descended on Japan from the sky.
STEAVU: The Shinto religion
is the only Indigenous
Japanese religious tradition.
Shinto translates as
"the way of the gods"
or "the way of the Kami,"
the Kami being these
divine beings or gods.
Kami in the Japanese
native religion of Shinto
can take on a variety of forms.
This included the heavenly Kami who are
the ones who live in heaven,
and earthly Kami who live
in the Japanese archipelago.
STEAVU: These heavenly
Kamis intermingled and
procreated with the earthly ones
and eventually this formed
the human race as well.
So, from the moment
in which humans appear,
this is a different era
in this Shinto cosmology,
which is known as the era of humans.
And this is when we have
a kind of hybrid race,
a mixture of human and divine Kami stock.
The idea that a divine race
is breeding with humans
is fundamentally
the basis of Japanese religion.
It's the basis of Shinto.
NARRATOR: According
to the Shinto tradition,
before the establishment
of the Japanese emperor,
the island nation was ruled by gods.
GRAHAM PHILLIPS: The first emperor was
thought to have reigned around 700 BC.
The period before that
was known in Japanese mythology
as the Age of the Gods.
The reason is because it was said
that the gods walked amongst humans,
which is very similar to
the ancient Egyptian mythology
where the Pyramid Texts
describe the early period of
Egyptian history as
the golden age of the gods.
NARRATOR: As told in the ancient
Japanese texts, the Kojiki,
a man named Jimmu, a divine
descendant of the Sun goddess
Amaterasu is chosen by the gods
to be Japan's first emperor.
But in order to take the throne,
Jimmu must journey from
the southern island of Kyushu
to the Yamato Province,
roughly 500 miles to the northeast,
navigating mountainous terrain
and battling warlords along the way.
What's so fascinating
about the ascent of Jimmu
to the throne around 600 BC is the fact
that this is, in my opinion,
one of those legends
that perfectly fits into
the ancient astronaut theory
because it involves
misunderstood technology
and a celestial visitor.
It is said that Jimmu was guided by
a three-legged crow called Yatagarasu.
And this so-called crow
was given to Jimmu by Amaterasu
the first goddess
that descended from the sky.
PHILLIPS: The stories are that this
three-legged crow was huge
and it was surrounded
by a white globe of light.
(crow cawing)
TSOUKALOS: The ancient astronaut theory
tries to understand
what it is our ancestors tried to
explain to us because
one thing is crystal clear:
There is no three-legged crow,
so the question then is,
well, why, how did that come about?
This to me sounds
like some type of an aerial
drone technology with which
to survey the ground
that our ancestors witnessed
without knowing
anything about technology.
NARRATOR: Does the story of Jimmu reveal
extraterrestrial
intervention in ancient Japan?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining mysterious
relics of immense power
that the imperial family
has hidden from the public for centuries.
NARRATOR: Japan celebrates
the ascension of its new emperor
Naruhito, who takes the throne at age 59.
He is the latest emperor
in the longest running
royal family on earth.
Japan's imperial family known
as the Chrysanthemum Throne
dates back an incredible 2,700 years.
Most dynasties, if they
last several hundred years,
that's a good run.
Monarchies do not last 2,700 years,
so it's extraordinary
that Japan's imperial family
has lasted this long.
NARRATOR: The elaborate ceremony
involved a series of sacred rituals,
but the most important of these events
is also the most mysterious.
In the state room of the Imperial Palace,
the new emperor was presented
with several boxes that are filled
with treasures so secret,
they've never been seen in public.
They contain Japan's imperial regalia.
STEAVU: The imperial regalia are
a set of three divine treasures.
The first one is a sacred sword.
The second is a sacred mirror,
or divine mirror.
And the third is a curved jewel,
which is also divine in nature.
TSOUKALOS: They're being kept
under lock and key because
not only are they sacred,
but some people have proposed
that they are of otherworldly origin.
And it's accepted as fact.
HENRY: These sacred items
are the ultimate treasures of Japan.
In fact, at the end of World War II,
Emperor Hirohito was
deathly afraid that should
Japan be invaded, these sacred treasures
could ultimately be possessed by
the United States Army
or some other invading power.
And this was said to be one of
the reasons why he surrendered
to General MacArthur, was to
actually protect these relics.
NARRATOR: According to legend,
the imperial regalia
are gifts from the Sun goddess Amaterasu
that were passed down
to Japan's first emperor, Jimmu,
who was her direct descendant.
Legend has it that each
of the three objects
possess supernatural powers.
The most mysterious is the curved jewel.
The jewel is a big question mark.
We don't really see it referred
to in-in other myths.
It's not clear what
its purpose or provenance is.
CHILDRESS: These three objects
are held in boxes.
And ancient records in Japan
say that there was an emperor
who decided to open one of these
boxes with the jewel in it.
And that a white smoke
started coming out of it.
And so he ordered it closed again.
So you just have to wonder,
what's in this box?
Could it be some extraterrestrial device
that has an energy coming out of it?
NARRATOR: While very little
is known about the jewel,
much more has been written
about the mirror,
which is said to provide
a direct connection
to otherworldly beings.
Amaterasu's mirror was
supposedly given to the daughter
of the 11th emperor of Japan,
Yamato Hime.
And she wandered Japan
for 20 years looking
for the right place to
build the shrine that
the mirror would be held in.
MATSUURA: She came to a spot
in what is now Mie Prefecture.
And there was some kind of
communication through the mirror where,
this is where the Amaterasu
wanted her shrine to be built.
And it was built.
To this day it's still there,
the Grand Shrine of Ise.
NARRATOR: In addition to
communicating with Amaterasu,
the mirror could also
be used to see what was
happening worldwide in real time.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): I think this
is probably a tablet.
Using something like FaceTime
communicating with the gods.
But it only works for people
who have been chosen to use it.
(speaking Japanese)
NARRATOR: Could it be
that Amaterasu's mirror
was an extraterrestrial device
similar to what
we know today as a tablet?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest further evidence
that the imperial regalia
contains advanced alien
technology can be found by
examining the third object,
the sacred sword.
STEAVU: Yamato Takeru,
the 12th emperor of Japan,
famously discovered that
the sword had a magical power.
He was trapped by a treacherous warlord,
who intended to
eliminate him by burning him
alive in a field of grass.
And when Yamato Takeru started
hacking away at the grass to
remove the fuel from the fire,
he noticed that the swings
of his swords were
actually producing wind
and pushing the flames
in the opposite direction.
So he used this
magical power that he discovered
to actually fan
the flames in the direction
of the warlord and
his troops and burn them.
The last time this sword
was viewed publicly
was in the 1600s.
A priest named Masanou
had gathered some other priests
and they went to the shrine
where the sword was located,
intent on doing repairs.
STEAVU: They happen to open the
box in which the sword is contained
in order to better
clean it and maintain it.
And he describes this sword as being made
of a very brilliant white metal,
almost supernatural type of metal.
And it didn't show any signs of age,
or rust, or any decay on it.
Everybody around the sword
developed some kind of
affliction and died soon after
opening it and then looking at it.
But one priest survived
to report what happened.
TSOUKALOS: This is interesting
to me, because there is a connection
between celestial objects
and people dying.
For example, the Ark of
the Covenant comes to mind.
Whoever did not know
how to operate the Ark died
of unknown conditions
and the unknown conditions are
boils on the skin, the falling
out of fingernails and hair.
Well, what unknown disease is that?
It's radioactive fallout.
That's the only way
that this really can happen.
So, is it possible
that there are potentially
radioactive extraterrestrial
artifacts here on Earth?
The answer is a resounding yes.
NARRATOR: Could the closely
guarded ancient relics
that have been hidden from the public
for thousands of years
be extraterrestrial in origin?
And if so, have they been
used over the centuries
to keep the Japanese
royal family in power?
The true nature of the imperial regalia
may only ever be known to the emperor,
but ancient astronaut theorists
suggest other artifacts
that point to Japan's
extraterrestrial past
are hiding in plain sight.
NARRATOR: One of the greatest
mysteries of the ancient world
is why enormous stone structures
appear on nearly every continent.
And at one time, megalithic monuments
could be found
throughout the islands of Japan.
Not many people know this,
but ancient Japan was strewn
with megaliths and henges.
The ancient peoples of Japan
had these stone monuments
all over the place.
During the samurai era,
which was war all the time,
most of them were ripped up
and used to make castle walls
and castle foundations.
Some survived because they're so weird.
NARRATOR: Perhaps the most curious,
and awe-inspiring, of Japan's megaliths
is Ishi-no-Hoden,
a giant stone monument near
Osaka carved out of the bedrock
and believed to date back 16,000 years.
The Ishi-no-Hoden megalith is
sometimes called
the heavenly floating rock.
It's huge, probably around 500 tons.
It's about a 20-foot
square cube that has been
built in such a strange way
that underneath it,
there's a base that
holds it up above the ground,
so it appears for all the world
to be hovering in the air.
It is said to commemorate
a god that once came to Earth in a huge
cubic-shaped object and
landed somewhere in that area.
TSOUKALOS: In Japanese
mythologies and legends,
it says that long ago
physical gods were amongst our ancestors
that had the capability
of flying or of flight.
So, the fact that they used
this water mirror underneath
this stone to show as if
it is hovering and floating
in the air, to me, is to signify flight.
NARRATOR: Curiously, Ishi-no-Hoden
is not the only Japanese megalith
that appears to document
an ancient extraterrestrial visitation.
STEAVU: The Masuda-no-Iwafune,
which translates to
"the stone ship of Masuda,"
is another megalithic structure.
This is an even larger granite megalith
30 feet across and about 20 feet in width
and 15 or so in height that has
a central depression or trough.
PHILLIPS: This monolith is said
to have marked the Earth side
of a so-called floating bridge
that connected Earth to the heavens.
Now, what is a floating bridge?
It's described as something
that the gods descend in.
STEAVU: There is a story in Shinto annals
about the bridge that unites
the earthly realm with the heavenly realm
collapsing and falling onto the Earth.
So, these megaliths, according to some,
are the remnants or
the building blocks of this
celestial bridge
that has since collapsed.
This floating bridge
sounds exactly like the bridge
Bifrost of the Nordic tradition
upon which the gods would come
and go from the Earth into
the heavenly realms, or Asgard.
This suggests that the same people
are descending to these various cultures.
NARRATOR: Might the Ishi-no-Hoden
and Masuda-no-Iwafune megaliths
have an extraterrestrial connection?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest
the most intriguing of Japan's
megalithic structures can be found
beneath the sea.
On the western tip of
the Japanese archipelago
lies the tiny island of Yonaguni.
In 1986, scuba divers exploring
just off the coast
make a shocking discovery.
60 feet beneath the ocean surface,
they find a massive rectangular
structure roughly 328 feet long
and 196 feet wide.
It has since become
known as the Yonaguni Monument.
PHILLIPS: The Yonaguni Monument is huge,
and it looks for all the world
like an artificial construction.
There are steps.
There are what appear to be columns
and all sorts of geometric formations
that seem to have been
artificial constructions.
Professor Masaki Kimura spent ten years
examining the structure with divers
and the most sophisticated
equipment at the time,
and he was convinced beyond any doubt
that it was an artificial formation.
TSOUKALOS: Yonaguni boggles the mind
because at some point that was
a land bridge that existed
when the water levels
were lower and that means
we're talking around the last ice age,
which was 10,000 or so BC.
Now, that means that back then
a culture must have existed
to carve Yonaguni
the way it appears today.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut
theorists, the possibility
that the Japanese were building
sophisticated megalithic monuments
as much as 12,000 years ago
is highly significant
because in numerous
cultures around the world,
there are ancient stories
about advanced civilizations
that inhabited the Earth
right around that time.
If the Yonaguni monument
is as old as we think it is,
then this aligns this
Japanese site with other sites
in the Pacific,
most notably Lemuria and Mu,
which are thought to
be pre-flood civilizations
that had achieved an advanced
state of civilization
but were destroyed by cataclysm.
NARRATOR: Could Yonaguni have
been part of an advanced, prehistoric
civilization that was submerged
at the end of the last ice age?
And did some of the survivors
populate Japan?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by looking at the ocean region
where Yonaguni lies,
which is a hot spot
of mysterious activity called
the Dragon's Triangle.
NARRATOR: The Japanese
freighter Kaiyo Maru
is en route to California when suddenly,
the ship's instruments begin
to fluctuate wildly.
Just after 8:30 p.m.,
the crew watches in astonishment
as a huge elliptical-shaped object
suddenly appears on their radar.
The mysterious craft,
which is larger than a supertanker,
circles them for several minutes,
before it makes a sharp turn
and heads straight for them.
(speaking Japanese)
(translated): A large object
on radar approached the ship
and passed overhead when they thought
it was going to hit them.
This was reported
in newspapers at the time,
especially in a scientific
magazine called Nikkei Science,
so it is known as a very famous incident.
NARRATOR: This is just one of
thousands of encounters reported
in a part of the Pacific Ocean
that stretches
south of Japan down to Guam
and the area of the Yonaguni Monument.
It is known as "the Dragon's Triangle."
1,500 vessels have disappeared
in the Dragon's Triangle.
Planes have disappeared in the triangle.
What happened? But more important, why?
Beginning in 1950, the Japanese
government was so concerned
about this area
that they sent a research ship out
and it too vanished with 22 crew
and nine scientists aboard.
TSOUKALOS: Is it possible
that some ships have disappeared
because of calamities
and, you know, accidents?
Sure.
But is it also possible
that perhaps some of
these boats disappeared
due to extraterrestrial interference?
The answer to that is
a resounding yes as well,
because there are stories
of other ships witnessing
things happening with lights
and objects hovering over
the ocean and things like that.
NARRATOR: Disappearances
and strange sightings
have not only been reported
in this area in modern times
but going back centuries.
HENRY: Adding to the intrigue
of the Devil's Triangle
is the fact that in
Japanese history there's been
hundreds of sightings
of mysterious lights
that reach out from within the sea
and absorb or sink these ships.
Today we think of these as submersibles
or transmedium craft
that have the ability to
fly in the air and then
also enter into the ocean.
CHILDRESS: You have to wonder if
there's some underwater UFO base.
And there's some hyperspace
portal going on, or vortex.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
hidden beneath the Pacific Ocean,
somewhere within the Dragon's Triangle,
there is an extraterrestrial base?
Curiously, there have also been reports
of sea monsters in this area
dating back centuries.
And the Dragon's Triangle
was the location
of Japan's most famous
historical UFO encounter,
known as the Utsuro Bune sighting.
CLEMENTS: There's a really
odd story from 1803 in Hitachi
where a woman washes up
on shore on the beach
in a very strangely shaped boat.
And when she comes out of the boat,
she has white or pink skin.
She has red hair with white tips,
and she doesn't speak Japanese.
And during this time, Japan
is closed to the outside world,
and it's a capital offense
to interact with foreigners.
So the people on the shore
were absolutely terrified of this woman.
They didn't know what to do.
They put her back in the boat
and they pushed it out again.
And they reported it to the local lord,
and they referred to her ship
as the "utsoro bune,"
"the hollow ship."
There are at least 11 different
people who came forward
and documented it.
They drew pictures of it.
There's paintings of what
the ship looks like and what happened.
HENRY: Her craft looks
exactly like a flying saucer,
a contemporary flying saucer.
But this is in 1803,
suggesting that this is one
of the most extraordinary
UFO sightings, perhaps not only
in Japanese history
but in all human history.
NARRATOR: Does the Dragon's
Triangle provide compelling evidence
that an alien presence
has existed on Earth
in this area of Japan
for thousands of years?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest further evidence can be found
by examining a sensational
event that happened
in Tokyo Bay,
involving the U.S. military.
NARRATOR: U.S. Naval officer,
Commodore Matthew C. Perry,
arrives with his American fleet
to force Japan to end
its policy of isolation.
American ships were sent
to Japan to try and get Japan to
open up to the world
because it had been pretty much
closed off for centuries
during the time of the Shogunate,
the military rule in Japan.
The emperor had continued to rule
but only really as a puppet ruler.
NARRATOR: The night
Perry's fleet arrived in the bay,
both the Americans and the Japanese
were awed by a spectacular sight.
PHILLIPS: Perry, he wrote a log,
and he said that while
they were in Tokyo Bay
a strange, glowing blue object
was seen in the skies
that hovered over the ships.
So bright was it at night,
that it literally lit up all the ships.
Underneath it was
what he wrote and described
as like the sparks from a rocket.
And it hovered around
the skies and eventually
descended into the water.
What we have
in the case of Commodore Perry
in Tokyo Bay in 1853
is a sighting that lasted
four hours of a gigantic blue sphere
up in the sky with a red wedge tail.
What the heck is that?
And it just stood there
illuminating the entire Tokyo Bay.
NARRATOR: Perry's mission
not only led to the opening up
and modernization of Japan,
but also to the overthrow of the shoguns
and the restoration of
the imperial family to power.
STEAVU: This re-initiated imperial rule
that has lasted up until nowadays
and brought it, if you will,
back to Emperor Jimmu,
establishing essentially an imperial rule
of over 2,600 years.
NARRATOR: According to some
researchers, the remarkable UFO
seen by Commodore Perry's fleet
may have been a sign of approval
from otherworldly beings
who have been protecting
the imperial family since its foundation.
Ancient aliens established
the Japanese imperial family,
ancient aliens protected
the Japanese imperial family
and brought Japan into the modern world.
HENRY: This is taken by some
as an affirmation that perhaps
while Commodore Perry
is practicing gunboat diplomacy,
maybe so too are
the extraterrestrials who had
a hand in the founding
of the Imperial Dynasty.
CHILDRESS: When we look at
Japan and all of this ancient activity,
the gods coming down,
interacting and creating
semi-god, semi-human hybrids and things.
We have these underwater cities there.
We have these special artifacts
that have strange energy
associated with them.
All this really seems to add up that,
you know, ancient astronaut theory
is very much validated
by the history of Japan.
NARRATOR: From an imperial
dynasty that traces its lineage
to the gods,
to a sensational mass UFO sighting
occurring at a critical
moment in history
to new government investigations
into unexplained phenomena,
has alien intervention
been taking place in Japan
for thousands of years?
Perhaps the mysterious ancient megaliths
that still stand on
the island serve as a testament
to an enduring connection
with otherworldly beings
who continue to watch
over Japan even today.
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