by Charles Lear
In 1975, two seven-year-old boys in Kofu, Japan, reported an encounter with a flying saucer and its occupants. They were taken seriously, and an investigation revealed not only other witnesses, but also physical evidence to back up their story. The case was re-examined almost 40 years later by investigators from the Space Phenomena Observatory Center, and in their opinion, still holds up. A report was given to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and the Center for UFO Studies by Matsushito Hayashi of the Japan Space Phenomena Association. Both organizations provided summaries (APRO here on page 5; and CUFOS here on page 13) in their publications. A two-part article using extensive Japanese sources was written by Otakupapa. It is titled Kofu Incident: A Creepy Alien Got Off a UFO and Tapped a Japanese Boy on the Shoulder and is posted on otakupapa.net.
According to the article, on Sunday, February 23, 1975, Masato Kono and Katushiro Yamahata were roller-skating on a concrete slab in a vacant lot at around 6:30 p.m. Looking up, they saw two lights moving towards them from the east. According to the version of events in one of Otakupapa’s sources (Kubota, Hachiro UFO to Uchu (UFOs & Space) June 1975, NO.12, 8-17, Universe Publishing Co.), the lights were seen by the boys to be orange objects as they got closer. At this point the boys could see that the objects were circular with three spinning structures on the bottom. The boys’ descriptions of the objects are very much like the “classic” Adamski-type saucer. According to writer Hiroshi Minamiyama (Otakupapa’s other source for this moment in the story) only one object came over to the boys while the other one flew off.
On November 26, 1979, police in the French 

We’ve written
With UFO reports, there are common elements that give one a sense of the nature of the phenomenon. However, there are some reports that contain elements that are unique to the point that a researcher might be inclined to dismiss them. The case of Herbirito Garza is one of these.
In the 1950s, the first reports of cars shutting down in the proximity of UFOs started hitting the news, most memorably those from
When a nine-year-old boy in Harrah, Washington, approximately 12 miles west of the city of Toppenish, told his mother a story about seeing strange creatures and their vehicles on the morning of a school day, she heard him out, and then sent him to school. His story would likely have gone no further, had it not been for a teacher’s aide who went with him back to his house during recess after hearing his story and believing him. This lead to the discovery of physical traces that backed up his story and an investigation by members of the Center for UFO Studies and a reporter from a local paper.
In mid December of last year, we wrote about a woman, Irma Rick, in the province of La Pampa in Argentina, who, after seeing a bright light outside her house, suddenly found herself the next morning almost 65 km (40 miles) away sitting on the side of the road in the town of Guatraché with no memory of how she got there. Most of us here in the United States got the news from
The sources are listed as Luis Burgos and the online La Pampa news publication InfoHuella. InfoHuella posted an
As mentioned last week, in
In last week’s
For researchers, UFO trace cases make up a welcome, science-friendly aspect of a phenomenon that often eludes scientific study. Researcher Ted Phillips specialized in trace cases starting in the mid-1960s on the advice of Project Blue Book scientific consultant J. Allen Hynek. In the course of his investigations, Phillips was able to note commonalities, one of those being that soil samples taken from alleged UFO landing sites were unable to absorb water. While UFOs have been reported to leave physical traces on the environment, they’ve also been reported to leave physical traces on witnesses. A common report of this sort is what is medically known as “actinic conjunctivitis” or “klieg conjunctivitis.” This is a painful condition where the eyes become red and intensely irritated due to exposure to ultraviolet light.