Japan's Diet on UAP, 2014–2024

From 2014 to 2024 Japan's House of Representatives questioned the Defense Ministry about UFOs and UAP again and again, almost none of it covered in English. In 2014 Defense Minister Onodera acknowledged the Naha lights; in 2015 Minister Nakatani said scrambles on unknown tracks had found only birds. After a September 2020 directive by Minister Kono to report unidentifiable airborne objects, Rep. Asakawa Yoshiharu pressed the ministry from 2023: it would neither confirm nor deny pre-2020 records, said none had been filed since, and in June 2024 heard that ASDF crews log lost UAP as 'bird flocks'. That month a cross-party UAP caucus was founded with former Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu as chair, Koizumi Shinjiro as secretary-general and Christopher Mellon as keynote speaker.

Cases (6)

• 1975The Nakatsugawa sightings
• 1984Kaiyo Maru: a wandering light off the Falklands
• 1986Japan Air Lines Flight 1628
• 1986Kaiyo Maru: six hours of radar contacts north of Wake
• 2014The Naha lights
• 2025Genkai nuclear plant: three lights and Japan's first UAP policy push

Connected

Sources

• Diet record: Defense Minister Onodera's answer (19 Feb 2014)
• Diet record: Defense Minister Nakatani on scrambles (1 Apr 2015)
• Diet record: Joint Staff's Yamato on pre-2020 records (14 Apr 2023)
• Diet record: Defense Minister Kihara on western Japan (9 Nov 2023)
• Diet record: Joint Staff's Tanaka: no reports since 2020 (7 Dec 2023)
• Diet record: Asakawa on the new UAP caucus (13 Jun 2024)
• Diet record: Fisheries Agency: no UAP records (13 Jun 2024)
• Diet record: Asakawa on Kaiyo Maru, JAL 1628 and ASDF 'bird flocks' (13 Jun 2024)
• Diet record: Defense Minister Kihara: no new office yet (13 Jun 2024)
• Detective research program (Claude Doc, 2026-10-21)