Watching the Skies in Japan: Mishima Yukio and Other UFO Enthusiasts

nippon.com

34 points·Thevet··5 comments

Mishima Yukio is considered by many to be Japan's finest post WWII writer. This is certainly an interesting article that brings up one of his lesser known interests but that glosses over some of his other actions for which he gained some notoriety, including mounting a failed governmental coup and committing seppuku (ritual suicide). [0]. Fascinating individual.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima

If this story interests you, here is an engrossing article that ties together modern sumo, Mishima's attempted coup, and a surprising bit of investigative journalism: https://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-ha...

Watch “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” ... great biopic of his life and includes some scenes from some of his noh productions

"Mishima's personal life was controversial, which makes him still a contested figure today. Ideologically a right-wing nationalist who opposed the westernisation of Japan, Mishima formed the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia, for the avowed purpose of restoring power to the Japanese Emperor."

The far right-wing Japanese military killed 3 Prime Ministers in a row just before WW2. The US diplomatic corps actually gave up on peace talks, in part because they didn't know who to talk to.

The Emperor(!) was also targeted for wanting peace in 1945, and ended up recording his national address speech on tape in case he was killed before reading it on radio. He was a scientist (marine biologist), so knew what an atomic bomb was in general terms.

“Cigar shaped” is a very common claim. Must be a common form of visual illusion when looking at the sky.

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