TOKYO, June 6, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - UFO sightings should not be dismissed out
of hand because they could in fact be surveillance drones or weapons, say
Japanese lawmakers who launched a group on Thursday to probe the matter.

The non-partisan group, which counts former defence ministers among its 80-
plus members, will urge Japan to ramp up abilities to detect and analyse
unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs.

Although the phenomenon is often associated with little green men in the
popular imagination, it has become a hot political topic in the United
States.

Washington said last year it was examining 510 UFO reports -- more than
triple the number in its 2021 file -- and NASA in September said it wants to
shift the conversation "from sensationalism to science".

The Japanese parliamentarians hope to bring the domestic perception of UAPs
in line with its ally's following several scares related to suspected
surveillance operations.

"It is extremely irresponsible of us to be resigned to the fact that
something is unknowable, and to keep turning a blind eye to the
unidentified," group member and former defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said
before the launch.

In an embarrassment for Japan's defence ministry, unauthorised footage of a
docked helicopter destroyer recently proliferated on Chinese social media
after an apparent drone intrusion into a military facility.

And last year the ministry said it "strongly presumes" that flying objects
sighted in Japanese skies in recent years were surveillance balloons sent by
China.

In Japan, UFOs have long been seen as "an occult matter that has nothing to
do with politics", opposition lawmaker Yoshiharu Asakawa, a pivotal member of
the group, has said.

But if they turn out to be "cutting-edge secret weapons or spying drones in
disguise, they can pose a significant threat to our nation's security".

The US Defence Department in 2022 established the All-Domain Anomaly
Resolution Office (AARO) to investigate UAPs.

An AARO report last year designated the region stretching from western Japan
to China as a "hotspot" for UAP sightings, based on trends between 1996 and
2023.

It later concluded in a congressionally ordered 60-page review that there was
no evidence of alien technology, or attempts by the US government to hide it
from the public.

The Japanese lawmakers will push for the country to create an equivalent to
the Pentagon's AARO and to further boost intelligence cooperation with the
United States.

Christopher Mellon, a UAP expert and former US intelligence official, will
give an online talk to the group on Thursday.