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Kofu Incident: A Creepy Alien Got off a UFO to a Vineyard and Tapped a Japanese Boy on the Shoulder in 1975 [Part 2]

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This is the true story of Japanese boys who encountered a creepy alien who got off a UFO to a vineyard in 1975.

In my previous article, I introduced the strange case of two eight-year-old Japanese boys who encountered creepy aliens who exited a UFO that suddenly landed in a vineyard in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.

The boys’ experience of encountering aliens armed with guns is so far-fetched that many people might assume that it was either the boys’ imagination or a fabrication.

However, there is more to the story, and in fact, the boys’ mothers also witnessed a strange light in the vineyard that the boys claimed was the site of the UFO landing.

So, in this article, I would like to introduce how two boys, Masato Kono and Katsuhiro Yamabatake, who ran away from the aliens, later turned back to the vineyard where the UFO landed and witnessed a mysterious light with their mothers.

Mysterious Light Sightings by the Boys’ Families on the Night of the Kofu Incident

The Boys’ Mothers Also Saw a Mysterious Light in the Vineyard

When Masato and Katsuhiro were encountering the aliens, Masato’s parents, Masato’s younger brother, Katsuhiro’s parents, Katsuhiro’s older brother, Michihiro (a third-grader at Yamashiro Elementary School), and Katsuhiro’s four-year-old sister were having dinner together at Masato’s house from around six o’clock.

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only.

Masato and Katsuhiro were classmates at the same elementary school, and Masato’s father, Toshiro Kono, is a brother-in-law to Katsuhiro’s father, Minoru Yamahata. Also, that day was Sunday, so Katsuhiro’s parents were visiting Masato’s parents.

However, Masato’s parents and Katsuhiro’s parents were beginning to worry as their children did not come home until after 18:30. Just then, Masato and Katsuhiro came running into the house, shouting,

Oh my goodness!
UFO! UFO!!!

The two boys gasped for breath as they tried to tell their parents about the extraordinary event they had just witnessed, but their excitement made it difficult for them to speak. Masato’s mother, Masako Kono scolded them.

Don’t be silly!
It’s late.
Hurry up and eat your dinner!

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only.

At that moment, Masako thought the boys cited a UFO as an excuse for being late getting home. However, unlike their usual behavior, Masato and Katsuhiro did not back down.

It’s true!
There really is a UFO out there!
Come outside and take a look!

Masato and Katsuhiro tugged on their mother’s hand and urged them to go outside. Masako was surprised by the seriousness of the boys’ attitude.

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only.

Masato and Katsuhiro were complaining so earnestly that their mothers decided to go outside, even though they were half in doubt. Then they led their mothers outside to the road on the west side of the Hinode Complex, where they could see the vineyard in question.

The route Masato and Katsuhiro took from the site of the first sighting of the two UFOs to the vineyard where one of the UFOs landed.  The following map was created from a 1975 aerial photograph of Kofu City by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, using Minamiyama’s information as a reference. Masato’s house was located in the Hinode Complex.
Source: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan

Look at that vineyard!

The mothers were stunned when they saw the direction their children were pointing. Their children were right. There was indeed an orange object the size of a basketball spinning around in the middle of the vineyard!

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only.

At first, the mothers stared at the object for several minutes, thinking that perhaps the lights of a distant house seemed to be nearby because of the night, as they watched cautiously from behind a telephone pole more than 50 meters (about 55 yards) away. However, the object appeared to be floating off the ground, and its orange light was periodically brightening and dimming*1.

Note*1:
When Hiroshi Minamiyama, a writer and researcher of bizarre phenomena, interviewed Masato and Katsuhiro, he asked them if the way the orange object’s light flickered was like a rotating light of a police car, but their answer was that it was completely different.

Eyewitness Account of Masato’s Mother, Masako Kono

According to Masato’s mother, Masako Kono, the mysterious object was a flickering light in a 5 to 10-second cycle. The mothers tried to get closer to the object to see what it was but were stopped by their children. Masako described the situation in an interview with Minamiyama as follows.

Both Hanae (Katsuhiro’s mother) and I were really surprised. It looked more like it was floating low in the air rather than it was on the ground. As you can see, this area is empty fields, with no lights of houses or neon lights. Besides, there was no way we could have mistaken it for something else since we had seen it from such a close distance.

But I was too scared to go any closer to it. Masato and Katsuhiro also pulled on my hand and tried hard to stop me from going over there.

According to Masako, the mysterious object pulsated in a “beautiful color like fireworks” for about five minutes, becoming weaker and weaker each time, and finally disappeared in a flash in the same position.

Eyewitness Account of Katsuhiro’s Mother, Hanae Yamahata

Katsuhiro’s mother, Hanae Yamahata described the situation as follows.

They (Masato and Katsuhiro) were really serious when they came running into the house. So, trusting them, I said,

‘We should go! We should go!’

And I ran with Kono’s mother (Masako).

Then they said to us,

‘Look in the vineyard!’

And we looked in the direction they were pointing.

It was amazing! It was spinning and glowing!
It appeared to be floating off the ground, the light brightening, and darkening.

It was cyclical, about five to ten seconds.

Hanae Yamabatake drew a picture of the mysterious object (UFO?) she witnessed in the vineyard.
A drawing of a mysterious object by Hanae.

But I couldn’t tell what it was just by seeing it glow. So, I said to them (Masato and Katsuhiro),

‘I’m going to go closer and see what’s going on.’

But, when I tried to go over there, they said to me,

‘Don’t go! They’ll take you! Don’t go!!!’

They both tugged on my hand to keep me from going.


The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only.

At that time, I wondered why they were saying something so strange. But they stopped me with serious faces.

So I stopped approaching the object.

The mothers understood that their children’s story was true. So, Hanae hurried back to Masato’s house and informed her husband, Minoru Yamahata, and Masato’s father, Toshiro Kono, about the mysterious object.

Then, three or four minutes later, the fathers came rushing to the vineyard with stick pieces and log sticks in their hands. But the light, which had already begun to fade, was quickly sucked into the darkness*2.

Note*2:
About a minute before that, the mysterious light suddenly became brighter and brighter, and then the glow suddenly weakened, and it was quickly sucked into the darkness.
Therefore, the fathers were unable to witness the light, and the only people who witnessed the moment of the object’s disappearance all the way to the end were Masato, Katsuhiro, Masato’s mother, Masako, Katsuhiro’s one-year-old brother, Michihiro, and Katsuhiro’s four-year-old sister.

Just to be sure, three adults including Masato’s father, Toshiro took sticks and went with the boys to the place where the UFO had landed. But it was already dark to make out anything, and they could not find any trace of the UFO. Therefore, the fathers were skeptical about the UFO landing*3.

Note*3:
Some of you may be wondering about the fact that no one saw the UFO take off.
According to Masato and Katsuhiro, when they were running away from the vineyard, they looked back and saw the alien outside was about to board the UFO.
If the story of the boys is true, the UFO flew away while the boys went to inform their parents at home and their mothers may have seen some kind of light trail left by the UFO.

Are the Boys’ Alien Encounter Experiences True?

By the way, some of you may ask whether the Kofu Incident was the result of a prank or fabrication by the boys. According to Masato’s mother, Masako Kono, on the night of the incident, Masato cried at night for unknown reasons, which annoyed her.

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only. 

According to Katsuhiro’s mother, Hanae Yamahata, Katsuhiro also had a very frightening experience that day, and after the incident, he could no longer walk alone outside at night after dark.

Furthermore, according to Katsuhiro’s father, Minoru, Katsuhiro would attend a private abacus school at that time.

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only. 

But after this UFO experience, Katsuhiro annoyed his parents by saying that he didn’t want to attend the 5 o’clock session because it was getting dark and he was afraid that aliens would appear again.

The above image is simulated for illustrative purposes only. 

From these facts, it would seem that the “Kofu Incident” was not a mere prank by the boys.

Masato and Katsuhiro undoubtedly witnessed a horrific event that scarred their hearts!

Interview with the Boys’ Teacher at the Elementary School

The day after the incident, Monday, February 24, 1975, Masato and Katsuhiro went to their classroom at Yamashiro Elementary School in Kofu City and told their classmates about the incident last night.

Yamashiro Elementary School in Kofu City, where Masato and Katsuhiro attended school at the time.

Masato and Katsuhiro even drew portraits of aliens and the UFO, and the whole school was in an uproar.

Miyoshi Ueda was Masato and Katsuhiro’s homeroom teacher at the time. According to Miyoshi, on the morning of the 24th, the students in her classroom were in an uproar, and she wondered what had happened. Then her students came running in and told her that Masato and Katsuhiro had seen aliens.

Miyoshi thought that it was impossible for such a thing as aliens to exist, so she said to Masato and Katsuhiro.

Did you really see aliens?
I don’t believe that.

Then, to her surprise, Masato and Katsuhiro made a serious appeal to Miyoshi.

You don’t have to believe us.
But we never lie to you.
Because we really saw them!

Since Masato and Katsuhiro were so serious, Miyoshi decided to have them present the incident that happened last night in front of their classmates. Then, for about twenty minutes, Masato and Katsuhiro explained on the blackboard, drawing pictures of the UFOs, strange characters written on the body of the UFO, and the creepy aliens they had encountered.

Photo from a February 25, 1975 article in the Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun. The Boys drew a picture of UFOs and aliens on the blackboard and explained them to their teachers.

When Miyoshi saw how quickly and smoothly the two boys drew the pictures of the UFOs and aliens, she thought that they might have been influenced by the recent UFO specials on TV programs and in manga magazines*4.

Note*4:
In 1975, Japan was in the midst of a UFO boom, and UFOs and aliens were routinely featured in TV programs and manga magazines, attracting a great deal of interest from Japanese boys and girls.
The Japanese anime UFO robot Grendizer (Force Five Grendizer in the U.S., Goldorak in France) was produced and broadcast in 1975, taking advantage of the UFO boom in Japan at that time, and was greatly influenced by the UFO boom of that time.

However, as Miyoshi was listening to the boys’ stories, Miyoshi somehow felt that their strange experiences were neither false nor made up.

According to Miyoshi’s experience as an elementary school teacher who observed children for many years, there is always a limit to their stories, whether they are fiction or illusions, that children as young as second grade can create. This is because children’s stories are usually inconsistent, and as they tell their stories, there will be discrepancies somewhere, and the whole story structure will unintentionally start to falter. However, Masato and Katsuhiro’s stories did not show any flaws peculiar to children’s fictional stories.

So, during recess, in the staff room, Miyoshi told the other teachers about Masato and Katsuhiro’s strange experience. The other teachers who heard the story said that it didn’t sound like a lie, so they called Masato and Katsuhiro into the staff room and asked them to talk again. Then, to Miyoshi’s surprise, Masato and Katsuhiro explained the incident exactly as they had presented it in the classroom earlier.

If the boys had made up the story, even the slightest inconsistency would have been seen through by the teachers, but nothing like that happened. On the contrary, Masato and Katsuhiro were talking so earnestly about their strange experience that the teachers thought something had really happened. So, the teachers reported this matter to the principal of Yamashiro Elementary School, Nobuyoshi Kaneko.

Later, in an interview with Minamiyama, Miyoshi said the following about Masato and Katsuhiro.

After my own research, I can say with certainty that they are not lying. After many years of experience, I can tell if a child is lying or not by looking at their facial expressions. As a teacher, I knew that if they were making things up, it would not be good for their future. So, I thought I would try to get them to confess their lies.

‘If you’re caught in a lie later, you won’t be able to take it back.
If you tell me the truth now, I’ll apologize on your behalf. So be honest with me.’

But they said to me,

‘We’re not lying at all.
We really saw them.’

At that time, Miyoshi was a 31-year veteran elementary school teacher. Miyoshi continued.

Even if a child can deceive an adult for a while, he or she will not be able to do so for a long time. This is because when a child tells a story based on lies or fantasies, he or she will usually expand and exaggerate the story over time.

So, to those kids (Masato and Katsuhiro), I told them to repeat the story of the incident over and over again, pausing every few days. I also tried to keep them separated as much as possible (if they were going to talk about the case). Nevertheless, their stories always remained the same from beginning to end.
I think it’s because their shock was so great that the incident is so strongly burned into their memories.

This is what Miyoshi stated in the interview.

Thus, the elementary school teachers as well as the boys’ mothers insist that the boys’ stories are not mere lies or fabrications, but may be based on some truth.

Nevertheless, some of you may still find the boys’ experience of encountering aliens to be quite unbelievable. However, according to the investigation conducted immediately after the incident, some physical evidence indicating that a UFO landed in the vineyard where the incident took place has been confirmed. In addition, mysterious lights and aliens have been seen by several other people at the same time on the same day as the incident occurred.

In the following article, I would like to introduce some of the evidence that supposedly supports the boys’ UFO and alien encounter experiences.

Published on September 23, 2021
Updated on March 20, 2023
Written by OTAKUPAPA

References

1. Tsutomu Seki (May 1973). Kera-murani Ochita Enban (The Flying Saucer That Fell on Kera Village),Michi no Hoshi wo Motomete (Searching for Unknown Stars), 187-194, Sankei Shobo.

2. Shinichiro Namiki, Kazuo Hayashi (Field Investigator) (April 1973).– JSPS Special Report –Soratobu Enban Ikedori Misui!! Kochishi Keramura de Okotta Kisou Tengaina Enban Soudou …… ??? (Attempted Live Capture of Flying Saucer! A Bizarre Flying Saucer Incident in Kera Village, Kochi City …… ???) Unidentified Flying Objects – Information and Research – Vol.1, No. 1, 48-50, Japan Space Phenomena Society (JSPS).

3. Mokuyou Special Gendai no Kaiki Tuikyu Daisandan Utyujinwa Tikyuni Kite Iru!! (Thursday Special: Modern Weirdness, Pursuit #3: Aliens are Coming to Earth!!), Nippon Television Network Corporation, broadcast on October 10, 1974.

4. Shusaku Endo (1976). Kera-cho no Soratobu Enban (Flying Saucer in Kera Town), Boku ha Koukishin no Katamari (I Am a Curious Man), 36-44, Shinchosha.

5. Junichi Yaoi (July 1978). Zenkoku UFO Mokugeki Tahatsu Chitai (UFO Sighting Zones in Japan), 272-277. FutamiShobo

6. Shinichiro Namiki, Tanbo de Chugakuseiga Kogata Enban wo Hokaku Nazo no ‘Kera UFO Jikenno Ima wo Ou!!(Junior High School Students Captured a Small Flying Saucer in Rice Fields: Now Tracing the Mysterious ‘Kera UFO Incident!!’), MU Magazine, April 2014 issue, 172-177, Gakken.

7. Hiroshi Yamamoto, Kazuo Shimizu, and Ryutaro Minakami (July 2005). Tondemo UFO Nyumon (Introduction to Ridiculous UFO Cases and Researchers), Yosensha.

8. Junichi Yaoi (June 2006). Yaoi Junichi no UFO Taizen (Junichi Yaoi’s Complete UFO Collection), 254-256, Lyonsha.

9. Kenichi Nishimoto (May 2009). Kochi-ken Kera-cho “UFO Hokaku Jiken” no Shogeki (The Impact of the “UFO Capture Incident” in Kera Town, Kochi Prefecture), Nihon “Kaiki” Taizen (The Complete Book of Japanese “Weirdness”), 239-253, Million Shuppan

10. Shinichiro Namiki (Feburary 2010). Mikakunin Hikou Buttai UFO Taizen (The Complete Guide to Unidentified Flying Objects UFOs), 227-233, Gakken Plus.

11. Miyabi (November 8, 2015), Kera Incident, UFO Jikenbo (UFO Case Files), http://ufojikenbo.blogspot.com/2015/11/kera.html

12. MYSTERY PHOTONICLE (May 2016), 40-41, Digital Ultra Project

13. Tatsuya Honjo, ASIOS (August 2017). UFO Jiken Chronicle (Chronicle of UFO Incidents), 138-145, Saizusha.

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A dad blogger who loves manga, anime, games. In this blog, I will introduce amazing Japanese spirituality and philosophy.

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