Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard mccleinsmith here with a quick update before
Speaker 1: we dive into today's episode. Unexplained is very excited to
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Speaker 1: see you on board. Mid Ceo. CEO had nothing in
Speaker 1: particular on his mind as he walked home from school
Speaker 1: in Kerr, on the outskirts of Cossi City on Japan's
Speaker 1: southern island of sik Outside of its main cities, Sikoku
Speaker 1: is largely rural, with farm land, mountains and a picturesque
Speaker 1: coast line. It's known as a place people go to
Speaker 1: to get away from the bustle of city life, and
Speaker 1: it was a very quiet afternoon on August twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, as the thirteen year old Misio walked
Speaker 1: home down the street, surrounded by rice paddies, the stalks
Speaker 1: of the rice wavering languidly in the breeze, as dragonflies
Speaker 1: flitted about. Small clusters of houses and trees were dotted
Speaker 1: all around. Sitting under the watchful eye of the mountains
Speaker 1: to the north, just visible behind a dense summer haze,
Speaker 1: it seemed just like any other day in the teenager's
Speaker 1: daily routine. Just then, the boy, as he would later
Speaker 1: describe it, glimpse something strange out of the corner of
Speaker 1: his eye. It hovered low over the ground, then began
Speaker 1: rapidly zigzagging back and forth across the field. It reminded
Speaker 1: Midzio of a bat, with sudden, sharp, darting changes of direction,
Speaker 1: except that the movements seemed unnatural, al most robotic, and
Speaker 1: the object was most definitely not a bat or a bird.
Speaker 1: It was a small, dull, silver metallic object with a
Speaker 1: bell shaped dome, a flat base, and a narrow rim.
Speaker 1: It looked a little like a miniature metal brimmed hat. Mesmerized,
Speaker 1: Midzio stood frozen in place, not sure whether to feel
Speaker 1: excited or scared. With his curiosity getting the better of him,
Speaker 1: he began making his way into the rice paddy, cautiously
Speaker 1: walking towards the object, picking his way around the muddy
Speaker 1: patches and small puddles of standing water. But just as
Speaker 1: he began to approach it, the object stopped, suddenly hovered
Speaker 1: in mid air, then lit up with a faint blue glow.
Speaker 1: A beam of bright light shot out in Mitzio's direction. Terrified,
Speaker 1: the boy turned on his heels and ran frantically all
Speaker 1: the way home, without stopping for breath or once turning
Speaker 1: to look back. It was the beginning of one of
Speaker 1: the most unusual supposed UFO encounters of all time, because
Speaker 1: not only would the object be seen again and again
Speaker 1: by the schoolboy and his friends. According to them, they
Speaker 1: also captured it. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard
Speaker 1: McLean Smith, as the story goes. By the time Mitzio
Speaker 1: got home, all he wanted to do was tell someone
Speaker 1: else else about his extraordinary experience, but not his parents.
Speaker 1: He knew they wouldn't believe him, so he quickly called
Speaker 1: on his four closest friends, Hirosi, Maury, Katsuoko, Kojima, Yasuo, Fujimoto,
Speaker 1: and Yuji, and invited them all back to his house.
Speaker 1: In an excited huddle in Mitzio's bedroom, the boys leaned
Speaker 1: in expectantly, waiting for Mitzio to tell them his secret.
Speaker 1: From his glowing eyes and slightly disheveled appearance, they could
Speaker 1: tell that what he had to say was going to
Speaker 1: be something worth hearing and maybe a little bit frightening.
Speaker 1: But when Mitzio was done sharing his story, he was
Speaker 1: met only with confused and blank stairs. Was this some
Speaker 1: kind of a joke, his friends asked, No, said Mitzio,
Speaker 1: insisting it was all exactly as he described it, But
Speaker 1: the friends weren't convinced. Nonetheless, they were in read enough
Speaker 1: to take up Mitzio's offer to try and find the
Speaker 1: thing again. The five teens jumped onto their bikes and
Speaker 1: set off for the rice paddy in search of the
Speaker 1: supposed strange object. They arrived sometime around seven pm, during
Speaker 1: the magic hour, when all about was bathed in the warm,
Speaker 1: golden haze of dusk. Together they stood in the quiet
Speaker 1: of the countryside, staring out over the paddy fields as
Speaker 1: insects chirped and chirruped. The boys would later recount how
Speaker 1: they sat down to wait, patiently, passing the time with
Speaker 1: idle chitchat. Then, after almost an hour, they heard a
Speaker 1: faint clicking sound. Looking toward where it was coming from,
Speaker 1: the boys watched, open mouthed as one after another court
Speaker 1: sight of the weird object hovering over the rice field
Speaker 1: twenty yards away. They discos arribed it later as being
Speaker 1: like a little tin hat or a bell shaped dome
Speaker 1: that was flitting about to and fro, just like Mitsio
Speaker 1: had apparently seen earlier. As darkness began to fall, the
Speaker 1: boys continued to watch as the object began emitting a pulsating,
Speaker 1: multi colored array of lights. Wanting to get a closer look,
Speaker 1: the boys ventured out into the rice paddy together, but,
Speaker 1: just like it had apparently done with Mitsio, as they
Speaker 1: edged closer, the object suddenly let out a series of
Speaker 1: loud clicks and then a tremendous bang. Frightened out of
Speaker 1: their wits, the boys turned and ran for their lives. Later,
Speaker 1: when the boys had finally made it back home, like
Speaker 1: a new gang with a big secret, they all agreed
Speaker 1: to a pact of silence more than a bit nervous
Speaker 1: about what the object was or what it might do
Speaker 1: to them. The boys avoided the rice paddy for days,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't stop talking about it. What was it,
Speaker 1: where had it come from? Was it being controlled remotely?
Speaker 1: Or was there something inside it that was flying it?
Speaker 1: One thing was clear. If the boys could just get
Speaker 1: a photo of the weird device, then perhaps they could
Speaker 1: tell their parents what they'd seen, and then they'd be
Speaker 1: believed and so. Having built up their courage. A few
Speaker 1: days after their first encounter, the boys headed back into
Speaker 1: the paddy fields, this time with a camera. Around nine
Speaker 1: thirty pm on September fourth, they spotted the strange object again.
Speaker 1: This time, it was flying lower than before, about three
Speaker 1: feet above the ground. As soon as the boys saw it, unnervingly,
Speaker 1: the object began heading straight for them, glowing brightly. Once again,
Speaker 1: the teenagers got scared and ran off. The following evening
Speaker 1: of September fifth, the boys claimed they returned to the
Speaker 1: fields but saw nothing. Then on September sixth, everything changed.
Speaker 1: That night. The boys emerged from their homes shortly before
Speaker 1: sunset again. As they approached the usual spot, the boys
Speaker 1: were excited to find the object had returned. Hovering extremely
Speaker 1: low to the ground. One of the boys took hold
Speaker 1: of his camera and hurriedly snapped a picture. In a
Speaker 1: seeming response to the flash, the strange object instantly burst
Speaker 1: into motion, spinning rapidly as it ascended straight up several
Speaker 1: feet into the air. Then it flashed brightly too, before
Speaker 1: sinking back onto the ground, where it spun around it place,
Speaker 1: and then it stopped. The boys looked nervously to each other.
Speaker 1: After a few tense minutes, as the others hung back
Speaker 1: to watch, a fourteen year old Hirossi Maury plucked up
Speaker 1: his courage to approach the motionless object. He reached out
Speaker 1: and picked it up. Hirossi would later claim that he
Speaker 1: could feel or see something moving inside it, although he
Speaker 1: could never describe exactly what that was. One of the
Speaker 1: other boys snapped an iconic photograph of Hirosi holding the
Speaker 1: object out at harm's length. Another took some shaky, sinny
Speaker 1: footage of the scene. The boys were ecstatic they had
Speaker 1: captured the object, with the bizarre device seemingly still. The
Speaker 1: boys first wrapped it in a plastic bag before putting
Speaker 1: it in a backpack. Then together they took it to
Speaker 1: one of the boys's homes. Safely inside one of the
Speaker 1: boy's bedrooms, the five teams huddled around the backpack, nervous
Speaker 1: and excited at what they'd found. Cautiously, they removed it
Speaker 1: from the bag. Measuring around eight inches wide and four
Speaker 1: inches high, it weighed just over a kilo. Turning it
Speaker 1: over on the base, they found a series of concentric
Speaker 1: circular ridges and grooves, almost like a vinyl record. In
Speaker 1: the center was a square plate punctured with thirty one
Speaker 1: small circular holes in a grid pattern. In between this
Speaker 1: grid and the ridges were three engraved designs which appeared
Speaker 1: to represent waves, clouds, and two birds or flying craft
Speaker 1: of some kind, one of which was crossed by an
Speaker 1: elongated design the boys took to be a flower in bloom.
Speaker 1: They later said they could hear a faint buzzing sound,
Speaker 1: as if something was running inside, though they couldn't get
Speaker 1: inside it. They could see what looked like electronics behind
Speaker 1: the holes. Then the device went silent. When they shook it,
Speaker 1: something inside rattled. They studied it closely, turning it over
Speaker 1: and over, but it was as if their capturing it
Speaker 1: had somehow deactivated the object. One of the boys is
Speaker 1: said to have tried to scratch the metal to no avail,
Speaker 1: while another, emboldened by the object's apparent deactivation, used a
Speaker 1: hammer to hit it repeatedly, but no matter how hard
Speaker 1: he struck it, the object remained weirdly undamaged. Next, they
Speaker 1: are said to have filled a jug of water and
Speaker 1: poured it through the holes, But after pouring in farm
Speaker 1: more than the device could hold, it never seemed to overflow.
Speaker 1: With no way to open it and no obvious engine
Speaker 1: or propulsion system, they decided it was time to speak
Speaker 1: to someone with real scientific knowledge who could inspect it.
Speaker 1: What about Yasayu Fushimoto, one of the boys suggested. Yasayu's
Speaker 1: father was the director of the Center for Scientific Education
Speaker 1: in Koshi. The boys stood about eagerly as mister Fushimoto
Speaker 1: unwrapped their find and gave it the once over. He
Speaker 1: couldn't be sure what it was made of exactly, saying
Speaker 1: only that it looked like cast iron, but was far
Speaker 1: too light to be made from that. Peering through at
Speaker 1: the electrical looking components inside, he said it looked a
Speaker 1: lot like what you might expect to find in any
Speaker 1: everyday radio. All in all, he was decidedly nonplussed about it,
Speaker 1: telling the boys it was probably nothing stranger than a
Speaker 1: fancy ashtray. Deflated, the boys put the object back into
Speaker 1: Hiroshi's backpack and dejectedly returned home. The following day, the
Speaker 1: young Hiroshi looked into his backpack to inspect the object again,
Speaker 1: only to find it had completely vanished. The boys couldn't
Speaker 1: locate the device anywhere. Devastated to have lost it, the
Speaker 1: boys arranged to meet again in the fields that evening,
Speaker 1: hoping it might have somehow found its way back there.
Speaker 1: When it didn't appear, they returned the following day and
Speaker 1: then the next. After two weeks of hopeful observing, it
Speaker 1: appeared again. As they apparently continued to observe it over
Speaker 1: the next few nights, the boys began to notice a
Speaker 1: curious pattern. They never saw the object on a rainy day.
Speaker 1: It gave them an idea how to catch it for
Speaker 1: a second time. On September nineteenth, they arrived at the
Speaker 1: fields carrying buckets of water and some damp rags. When
Speaker 1: the object appeared again, the boys watched patiently as it
Speaker 1: zipped about until finally it came to a stop on
Speaker 1: the ground. Breaking cover, they rushed forward and quickly threw
Speaker 1: their wet rags at it, then poured water over it.
Speaker 1: Grabbing the thing, they turned it over and poured water
Speaker 1: into the holes on the underside for good measure. Almost instantly,
Speaker 1: the object began to glow. It emitted an ear splitting
Speaker 1: buzz like an amped up cicada. Suddenly nervous again, the
Speaker 1: boys backed away and threw rocks at the object until
Speaker 1: finally it went silent. They returned with the recaptured object
Speaker 1: to Kat's Awoker's home. This time they apparently managed to
Speaker 1: prize the top and bottom apart ever so slightly to
Speaker 1: see what looked like several levers and other items of
Speaker 1: miniaturized mechanical equipment, as well as what they described as
Speaker 1: a strange, mushy substance in what they took to be
Speaker 1: the cockpit area. Again, they hit the object several times
Speaker 1: with a large hammer, but failed to leave as much
Speaker 1: as a scuff. That night, the boys wrapped up the
Speaker 1: strange device in wet rags in the hope that that
Speaker 1: would keep it from disappearing again. They all agreed to
Speaker 1: take it to their school the following morning. Two of
Speaker 1: the boys stayed together to watch over it while the
Speaker 1: others headed to their respective homes for the night. The
Speaker 1: boys would later say that by this day they had
Speaker 1: decided that the object was some kind of surveillance device,
Speaker 1: probably remote controlled, but with no idea where it came from,
Speaker 1: who had made it, and who controlled it. The following morning,
Speaker 1: despite being under the watchful eye of two of the boys,
Speaker 1: the object mysteriously disappeared again. Thankfully, this time, it had
Speaker 1: apparently only made it as far as the neighbour's garden
Speaker 1: before the boys found it again. A few days later,
Speaker 1: the boys decided to cycle it over to mister Fushimoto's
Speaker 1: house again to update him on everything that had happened
Speaker 1: since he last inspected it. This time, they sealed it
Speaker 1: meticulously inside a plastic bag full of water and tied
Speaker 1: a rope from the corner of the bag to the
Speaker 1: wrist of the boy who was carrying it. They then
Speaker 1: put the plastic bag into a canvas bag, which was
Speaker 1: passed from boy to boy as they cycled to share
Speaker 1: the load. As they approached the rice paddy where the
Speaker 1: object had repeatedly appeared, the boy who was carrying it
Speaker 1: at the time said that he felt the rope pulling
Speaker 1: on him with great force, He pulled up the bike
Speaker 1: and hurriedly looked inside the back. The bizarre object was gone.
Speaker 1: Over the next few months, the boys claimed to see
Speaker 1: the device several or more times. They said they made
Speaker 1: further attempts to capture it, but all failed miserably. Then
Speaker 1: the bizarre hat like object supposedly vanished altogether, and the
Speaker 1: boys never saw it again. Four years later, in the
Speaker 1: village of Agawa, not far from where the boys lived,
Speaker 1: a nine year old girl named Sassiki Oyama was out
Speaker 1: on the street looking for her cat. Looking up into
Speaker 1: the sky, she suddenly noticed what she said was a small, yellow,
Speaker 1: luminous object floating in an easterly direction. She walked into
Speaker 1: the middle of the road to get a better view
Speaker 1: and watched as the object hovered over a nearby wood.
Speaker 1: Overcome by curiosity, she followed it. Satsiko claims that when
Speaker 1: she reached the woods, she saw the object hit a
Speaker 1: tree and then fall to the ground. She described how
Speaker 1: it landed silently near her feet, then emitted a hissing sound.
Speaker 1: When questioned years later, Sasiko described the small object as
Speaker 1: resembling a silver dome or hat that was roughly seven
Speaker 1: inches in diameter, remarkably similar to the flying object the
Speaker 1: boys in Terror had apparently encountered. Sashiko or Yama said
Speaker 1: that she touched the object with her finger. She described
Speaker 1: it as being constructed of solid material, but covered in
Speaker 1: a slimy, viscous substance. Suddenly gripped by fear, the girl
Speaker 1: turned and ran, and when she looked back over her shoulder,
Speaker 1: the device had started to glow yellow again. Stopping in
Speaker 1: her tracks, she watched incredulously as the objects spun counterclockwise
Speaker 1: three times, then climbed into the air and shot skyward
Speaker 1: out of sight. Thirty years later, when questioned about the incident,
Speaker 1: Sasseko still maintained all the details of her story were correct.
Speaker 1: Both the events in Kra and the sighting in Agawa
Speaker 1: made surprisingly little news in Japan at the time, and
Speaker 1: the whole episode sank into obscurity three decades later. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, a Japanese magazine called UFO Comics
Speaker 1: published and ill illustrated account of the events from back
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, igniting the interest of a whole
Speaker 1: new generation of UFO enthusiasts, so much so that in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, the director of the Japan Phenomena Society,
Speaker 1: Shinikira and Amaki, opened an investigation into the case. He
Speaker 1: sent the head of the organizations Osaka chapter, Katsu Hayashi,
Speaker 1: to speak with the Kera witnesses. Even after all that time,
Speaker 1: or five confirmed the details given in their original accounts.
Speaker 1: Other reporters have been more skeptical, pointing out that the
Speaker 1: object does look remarkably similar to a type of cast
Speaker 1: iron ashtray that was common in Japan in the nineteen seventies. Today,
Speaker 1: we might recognize the description of a small autonomous object
Speaker 1: flying in sometimes erratic darting movements as a drone, and
Speaker 1: drones have around longer than you might think. In eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, genius engineer and inventor Nicola Tesla, perhaps best
Speaker 1: known for developing the alternating current electricity supply system, presented
Speaker 1: a new invention at the Electrical Exposition in New York's
Speaker 1: Madison Square Gardens. Known as the Tell Automaton, it was
Speaker 1: a boat about three feet long, propelled by a small
Speaker 1: motor and rudder. What made it groundbreaking was that it
Speaker 1: was controlled by radio waves, demonstrating for the first time
Speaker 1: the possibility of controlling machines remotely. In many ways, The
Speaker 1: tell automaton was well ahead of its time, and it
Speaker 1: sparked the idea of using remote controlled machines for various purposes,
Speaker 1: including military applications. Because of it, many consider Tesla to
Speaker 1: be the father of the drone. These papers of the time,
Speaker 1: Errold did the dawn of a new age with the
Speaker 1: invention of the device which could be controlled from a
Speaker 1: physical distance, as if by magic. The very first flying
Speaker 1: drone is thought to be the Dhavland DH eight two
Speaker 1: B queen Bee. Launched in nineteen thirty five. It was
Speaker 1: used by the British Royal Air Force for aerial target practice.
Speaker 1: The United States began its own drone development program in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, but these early flying drones looked like
Speaker 1: model planes, nothing like the hat shaped object the Keraboys photographed.
Speaker 1: The Japanese military is known to have begun developing drone
Speaker 1: technology in the mid nineteen nineties, when their Technical Research
Speaker 1: and Development Institute is known to have developed an unmanned
Speaker 1: aerial vehicle for Japan's Air Self Defense Force. Is it
Speaker 1: possible that the Japanese government had been experimenting with drone
Speaker 1: technology largely in secret as far back as the early
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. In recent years, the phenomenon of unidentified aerial
Speaker 1: phenomena or UAPs has apparently begun to be taken more
Speaker 1: seriously by governments in the United States. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: officials at the Pentagon created the All Domain Anomaly Resolution
Speaker 1: Office or ARRO to track and identify UAP sightings with
Speaker 1: a focus on their potential threat to national security and
Speaker 1: air safety, and in November twenty twenty four, they released
Speaker 1: a report revealing the scale of the phenomenon, with seven
Speaker 1: hundred fifty seven cases of UAP sightings in a recent
Speaker 1: twelve month period. On subsequent investment litigation, many of these
Speaker 1: reports have found the objects to be variously misidentified balloons, birds,
Speaker 1: or satellites, but there are still UAPs which continue to
Speaker 1: defy easy explanation, including an incidence of a near miss
Speaker 1: between a commercial airliner and a strange cylindrical object over
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of New York
Speaker 1: sometime between May twenty twenty three and June twenty four.
Speaker 1: The specific date of the incident has not been released,
Speaker 1: and to date ro's official position is that there's no
Speaker 1: indication that any of the cases they have investigated have
Speaker 1: an unearthly origin. Their official position is that there is
Speaker 1: no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology. With its
Speaker 1: small size, consistent eyewitness reports, and photographic ag evidence that
Speaker 1: it was captured and handled, the Kera incident is in
Speaker 1: a class all of its own. Was the object a
Speaker 1: UFO in the classic sense of an interstellar vehicle, or
Speaker 1: rather some sort of early prototype drone developed as part
Speaker 1: of a secret program by the Japanese government, its military,
Speaker 1: or an electronics corporation two decades before drone research in
Speaker 1: the country is thought to have started. Or is the
Speaker 1: whole affair simply the fevered imaginings of a group of teenagers,
Speaker 1: a product of youthful imaginations and wish fulfillment, embellished with
Speaker 1: hoaxed photos and primitive, sinny camera footage. But if that
Speaker 1: were the case, why was the incident corroborated by science
Speaker 1: educator mister Fushimoto? And how did a girl in a
Speaker 1: different part of the region, who'd seemingly never met the
Speaker 1: boys from Terror or heard their accounts, apparently describe an
Speaker 1: almost most identical object four years after the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two sightings. Several journalists who have interviewed the five Carer
Speaker 1: participants have been impressed by the consistency of the details
Speaker 1: in the story they tell decades after the events. There's
Speaker 1: even been speculation that the incident didn't become more well
Speaker 1: known at the time because local government officials instructed the
Speaker 1: boys to keep quiet about it. The most fanciful speculations
Speaker 1: proposed that the device was an alien drone, either sent
Speaker 1: to Earth on a reconnaissance mission, or one that had
Speaker 1: lost its way temporarily. Some believe it slipped through a
Speaker 1: rift in space time from another dimension, which is how
Speaker 1: the object seemed to vanish on three separate occasions. Either way,
Speaker 1: it seems strange that, despite the five boys from Kerr
Speaker 1: having supposedly captured and examined this alleged UFO, from those
Speaker 1: extraordinary reports are the eyewitness accounts, a few grainy photographs,
Speaker 1: some shaky, sinny footage, and a lot of unanswered questions,
Speaker 1: and so to this day, the kr UFO incident remains unexplained.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Diane Hope and produced by
Speaker 1: Richard McLain Smith. Diane is an audio producer and sound
Speaker 1: recorded in her own right. You can find out more
Speaker 1: about her work at Dianehope dot com and on Instagram
Speaker 1: at in the sound Field. Thank you as ever for
Speaker 1: listening Unexplained as an Avy Club production. The podcast created
Speaker 1: by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
Speaker 1: including the music, are also produced by me Richard mclin smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
Speaker 1: a story of your own you'd like to share. You
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