The day the monsters take off into space

On September 19, CNN in the United StatesUnidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)Regarding the video of a flying object that was considered to be a possibleGenuineThe report said the airline acknowledged that it was classifying the incident as an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) and investigating it.

According to CNN, the three videos of the flying object were taken in 2004 and 2015 during pilot training, and were declassified by the military and released between 2017 and 2018. An infrared sensor reportedly captured a rectangular object moving at high speed.

In May of this year, a video was released of a "hypersonic object" captured by a Navy fighter jet during a training flight off the coast of southern Florida. According to US media, the US Department of Defense has been secretly investigating UFO sightings since 2007 by forming a specialized team. By 2012, it is said that about 22 million dollars (about 2.37 billion yen) had been spent on the investigation.

Also, on September 20th, a military air strike was carried out at Groom Lake Air Force Base, commonly known as "Area 51An event called "Storm Area 51," in which participants would run like Naruto into the area, was called for on Facebook, and more than 2 million people expressed interest in participating. However, only about 70 people actually showed up, and several people were arrested.

Area 51 is famous as a facility where Earth-made UFOs are secretly developed based on crashed UFOs and test flights are conducted at night, and there have long been rumors that there are even living aliens in the underground base.

Japan's Encounter with Space

Meanwhile, in Japan, on September 12th, it was reported that Yahoo had acquired ZOZO (formerly Start Today), and the company's founder and former president and CEO, Yusaku Maezawa, stepped down from his position and tearfully stated, "I really want to go to space."

Specifically, they plan to travel to the moon in 2023, and it was announced that they will go into space once before traveling to the moon, and will fly into space twice. From now on, they will start training for the trip.

The private lunar trip will be operated by the American rocket company SpaceX, and Yusaku Maezawa is scheduled to be the first passenger.

This year has been a year full of space-related topics, with Interstellar Technologies (IST), a company in Taiki Town, Hokkaido, which is also funded by Takafumi Horie, also known as Horiemon, conducting a test launch of the observation rocket "MOMO," becoming the first private company to reach outer space, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announcing that its asteroid probe "Hayabusa 2" touched down to collect material from under the asteroid Ryugu and released the small robot "Minerva 2."

Space business startups and venture companies are also booming, including Astroscale, which removes space debris, HAKUTO (ispace), which is taking on the lunar exploration race, and ALE, which creates artificial shooting stars.

There are rumors that the establishment of an Air and Space Self-Defense Force in Japan and the rebuilding of the U.S. Space Command are no longer a distant entity; it is now a business subject, and the sphere of activity for many humans may soon extend to space.

An envoy from outer space? "Utsurobune"

So, this time I would like to introduce some monsters that may be closely related to the universe. (Strictly speaking, they are more like folklore and legends than monsters.)

"Utsurobune (Empty Ship)" is a fictional boat that appears in folklore throughout Japan.

Due to its strange shape,UFOs and time machinesThere is speculation that this is the case.

The most famous of the "Utsuro-bune" isBakin Takizawa (Bakin Takizawa)In "Toen Shosetsu" (published in 1825),Barbarian Woman of the VoidThis is a case of a shipwreck that washed ashore in Hitachi Province (Ibaraki Prefecture) in 1803, and is included with illustrations under the title ``.''

In 1803, a Utsuro-bune appeared on the beach of a hatamoto (thought to be Ogasawara Etchu-no-kami, Ogasawara Izumi-no-kami, etc.) fief in Kashima County, Hitachi Province. The Utsuro-bune was made of iron, had a window (lined with something like glass), was round, and had something like letters (cosmic letters?) written on the outside.

From within emerged a foreign woman (a barbarian woman), a beautiful red-haired girl of about 18 years old. She was holding a mysterious box.

According to the village elders, she had been a woman of noble birth, perhaps the daughter of a foreign king, but had been involved in an affair and the man she had been involved with had been disposed of. His head was put in a box, and as they could not bear to execute the woman, they put her in a boat and set her adrift.

The Utsuro-bune washed up on the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture, but since the Edo Shogunate was still in the midst of its maritime ban policy (national isolation) at the time, the villagers, fearing punishment, pushed it out to sea again.

The whereabouts of the Utsuro-fune after that are unknown.

What is the true identity of the "Utsuro-bune"?

If you look at pictures of the Utsuro-bune from that time, it does not look like a ship at all, but rather looks more like the UFOs and time machines that people imagine today.

Furthermore, the Utsuro-bune only has a single young woman on board, and there are many mysteries surrounding its source of power, and it is an unusual ship that would be unthinkable in Japan during the Edo period, so many people believe that it may be a UFO, aliens, or a time machine.

However, in reality, it is more likely that the ship was washed ashore from overseas.

During the Edo period, there were cases of people drifting from Japan overseas, such as Daikokuya Kodayu, who drifted from Ise (Mie Prefecture) to the Russian Aleutian Islands, and John Manjiro, who was washed ashore from Tosa (Kochi Prefecture) to the Izu Islands and rescued by an American whaling ship, so it would not have been uncommon for ships to drift ashore off the coast of Japan from overseas at the time.

The fact that there are legends of "Utsukushi-bune" and similar stories all over Japan probably indicates that there were many ships that had drifted ashore.

Professor Kazuo Tanaka, Emeritus Professor at Gifu University, is an expert in computational electromagnetism, plasmonics, and image engineering. He is also conducting research into the "Utsuro-bune," and has stated that the Utsuro-bune of Hitachi Province is highly specific.

It is also said that the legend of the "Golden Princess" from the Kanekage Shrine in Ibaraki Prefecture may have influenced the image of the barbarian woman in "Utsuro-fune."

However, this does not affirm the existence of UFOs or time machines, and is believed to be a type of urban legend that has been expanded as the rumor of castaways was spread.

Space monster X

So, although it is unlikely that the "Utsuro-bune" is a messenger from outer space, since we don't know exactly what it is, we can't completely rule that out.

When the time comes when space becomes more familiar to humanity, perhaps the mystery of the Utsuro-bune will one day be solved.

By the way, the Super Famicom software "Gegege no Kitaro: Resurrection of the Great Demon King", and the enemy character is a future "Space Monsters" It was in this form.

When humanity advances into space, perhaps yokai will advance into space as well.

Image = "Plum dust (The story of the empty ship)" by Nagahashi Matajiro, "Uen Shosetsu (The barbarian woman in the empty ship)" by Kyokutei Bakin

Text by Keijiro Watanabe

References: "Japanese Essay Collection 'Utsubo-en Shosetsu' (The Barbarian Woman in the Utsubo-bune)" (Kyokutei Bakin, Yoshikawa Kobunkan), "The Definitive Collection of Yanagita Kunio, Volume 9" "The Story of the Utsubo-bune" (Yanagita Kunio, Chikuma Shobo)

■ Keichan Watanabe

Born in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. Graduated from the School of Human Sciences at Waseda University. An independent researcher of monsters.

He currently splits his time between Sapporo, Hokkaido, and Tokyo, and works as a management and IT consultant, but he studied folklore and cultural anthropology at university, and continues to study yokai as his life's work.

I am currently writing articles about monsters associated with Hokkaido, where I currently live, as well as current news about business and economics.

Twitter:https://twitter.com/keishiro_w

Blog:http://blog.livedoor.jp/meda3594/