Japan sets up parliamentary group to probe UFO sightings, move research into mainstream

A new Japanese parliamentary group, featuring a number of senior politicians including a potential future prime minister, has been formed to probe UFO sightings with the aim of moving research into the mysterious phenomenon more towards the mainstream.

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Clarification League for Security-Oriented National Security will be officially founded at a meeting in the Diet on June 6. The group will be chaired by Yasukazu Hamada, head of parliamentary affairs for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, while Shinjiro Koizumi, a former environment minister who has been tipped to be a future prime minister, will serve as the secretary general.

Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba will be an adviser to the panel, which will also include Kei Endo, chair of the Japan Restoration Party in the House of Representatives, and Diet member Yoshiharu Asakawa.

The group said it would push for the government to track and investigate UAP data, as well as share their information with the United States. The group’s founding statement said UAPs could be weapons or spy drones that used unknown cutting-edge technologies, making them major potential threats to national security.

The creation of a cross-party group has been welcomed by the Japan Centre of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (JCETI), which has offered to share more than a decade of research with the politicians and even invite them on a future contact event.

Sullivan hopes that research into extraterrestrial visitations to the Earth can be shifted away from Japan’s military, which has traditionally overseen the issue, and be centred on scientists and citizen researchers.

“Scientists have been affected by the ‘little green man allergy’, but if the scientific community