Do you remember the “Ufo robot” of the Eighties? Japan in those cartoons seemed to be the favorite destination of UFOs and aliens of all kinds. But not everyone knows that there is a historical precedent, that of Utsuro-Bune.

A document entitled Hyouryuukishuu (literally “Diary and tales of castaways”), still preserved in the Iwase Bunko Depository library, which goes back to the period of the Tokugawa shogunate, lasted from 1603 to 1868 with Edo as the capital, narrates the stories of Japanese sailors in foreign lands and foreign castaways landed on the shores of Japan.

The discovery of Utsuro-Bune

One of these stories describes a very peculiar-looking ship that would emerge from the depths of the Pacific Ocean on its way near Harashagahama in Hitachi-no-kuni (now Ibaraki prefecture), in 1803. 3.3 meters high and 5.4 meters wide, the ship seemed to be made of red sandal wood-like material and iron and it was equipped with glass or crystal windows.

Inside were found inscriptions in an unknown language and a young woman, of 18 - 20 years old, elegantly dressed, with a pale face and red eyebrows and hair, in the document identified as Utsuro-Bune.

Utsuro-Bune was an alien?

The young woman spoke an unknown language with metallic tone and she clutched in her arms a wooden box that appeared to have a great value for her and which she did not want anyone came near.

The inscriptions, reproduced in the document as the ship, whose shape resembles that of UFOs and flying saucers we are used to thinking nowadays, seem singularly similar to etched characters on some alleged UFO artifacts.

Possible extraterrestrial UFO

According to Dr. Kazuo Tanaka of Gifu University, in Tokyo, both the woman both the vessel could be of extraterrestrial origin. We’ll never know, because Utsuro-Bune and the mysterious ship that housed her after some discussion were thrown back into the sea, vanishing on the horizon.

Is perhaps this the reason why the Japanese cartoonists often used UFOs and extraterrestrial charming young women as the main characters of their television series?