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Did a Close Encounter of the Third Kind Occur on a Japanese Beach in 1803?
Skeptical Inquirer, July, 2000 by Kazuo Tanaka
Intriguing UFO-like stories written in the Japanese books Toen Shousetsu and Ume no Chiri, which were published in 1825 and 1844 respectively, are apparently fictions based on Japanese folklore. Illustrations of the UFO-like boats in these books are results of a combination of folklore and imagination.
Two Japanese books allegedly describe occurrences of an interesting incident in 1803, similar to a "close encounter of the third kind" (as designated by UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek and popularized by the 1977 film of the same name) of the modern UFO era (Mori 1987; Natsis and Potter 1995). In fact, illustrations in these texts (see figures 2 and 3) are very similar to depictions of modern UFOs (Shibusawa 1991; Mitsuse 1976; Takahashi 1996; Furukawa 1996; Matsuura 1998).
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One book is Toen Shousetsu, published in 1825 (Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei Henshu-bu 1994). This book was written by many authors including Bakin Takizawa, who was a very famous novelist during the Tokugawa period in Japan. One original copy of this book exists in Tenri University Library, Tenri City of Nara Prefecture. The other book is Ume no Chiri, published in 1844 (Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei Henshu-bu 1994) and written by Nagahashi Matajirou, about whom little is known in detail. One original copy of this book exists in Mukyuu-Kai Library, Machida City of Tokyo Prefecture.
These books collected documents of intriguing events that supposedly occurred during the Tokugawa period. Stories in the books are considered to be based on old tabloid-like newspapers called kawara-ban. Their credibility is not high. Since it is possible to confirm that these books are very old and really exist in the above libraries, there is no doubt that the stories in the books were written before 1844, long before the modern UFO era.
Toen Shousetsu and Ume no Chiri
It is apparent that stories in the two different books describe the same incident, because the dates are similar and the incident occurred in the same year and in the same state in Japan. I have translated the stories into English as accurately as possible within my ability. Dates are lunar calendar.
Toen Shousetsu
Book title: Utsuro-fune no Banjyo (A Foreign Woman in the Hollow Boat)
The story takes place on February 22 in the spring of 1803. Offshore from a beach called Hara-yadori in the territory of Ogasawara Etchuu-no-kami (4000 koku'), who occupied a position named "Yoriai-seki" of Tokagawa shogunate at that time, a kind of boat was observed from the beach. People approached this boat using their small boats and eventually caught it. They towed it to the beach.
The boat was round and resembled a kind of kou-hako (a box used to burn incense). Its diameter was more than 3 ken (5.45 in). On the upper part of the boat, there were glass-fitted shoji (windows with lattice) and they were shielded by chan (a kind of waterproofed putty made from pine-tree gum). The bottom of this ship was reinforced by separated iron plates. This structure may protect the boat from destruction by sunken rocks. Since the glass-fitted shoji was transparent, the people could see the inside the boat, where they found a woman with strange features. Her appearance is shown in figure 2. Her hair and eyebrows were red, and her face was pink. It seemed that long white hair was added to her original hair.
The following head note was included by the author of Toen Shousetsu:
In a book named Rosia Bunken Roku (a book of travelers in Russia), we find the following sentence: "The slaves of the female dress is cylindrical and dress-radius becomes gradually smaller above the waist. The color of her dressed-up hair is changed to white using white powder." Judging from this sentence, this white hair of the foreign woman may be colored by the powder and she may be a woman who lives in a Russian dependency. More study in detail is required.
Her long hair may be made from fur or twisted strain. This kind of hairstyle could not be found in any literature. Furthermore, since her language could not be understood by anyone, none could ask her where she came from. This foreign woman held one square box whose size was about two shaku (60 cm) in her hands. It seemed that this box was very important to her because she held this box constantly, and she prohibited anyone from approaching it.
The objects found in this boat were investigated by the people. There was about two shou (3.6 liters) of water in the small bottle. (In a different book, the word "two tou [36 liters]" was used instead of "two shou" and that of "small boat" was used instead of "small bottle.") There were two pieces of carpet, cake-like food, and kneaded meat. While people discussed what to do about this boat, the woman observed them peacefully.
An old villager said, "This woman may be a daughter of a king in a foreign country and might have been married in her home country. However, she loved another man after marriage and her lover was put to death. Since she was a princess previously, she could get sympathy and avoid the death penalty. She had been forced to be put in this boat and was left to the sea to be trusted to fate. If this conjecture is correct, her lover's severed head is inside the square box. In the past, a similar boat with a woman inside drifted ashore in a beach not far from here. In that incident, a severed head placed on a kind of chopping board was found inside the boat. Judging from this kind of secondhand information, the contents of the box may be similar. This may explain why the box is so important to her and she is always holding it in her hands. We may be ordered to use much money to investigate this woman and boat. Since there is a precedent for casting this kind of boat back out to sea, we had better put her inside the boat and send it away. From a humanitarian viewpoint, this treatment is too cruel for her. However, this treatment would be her destiny."
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