The idea that aliens have contacted our distant ancestors isn’t a new one. You’ve no doubt heard theories that the Pyramids in Egypt were built by extra-terrestrials, but some people have seen evidence that aliens were spotted everywhere from ancient India to South America. And people who are inclined to believe that theory often see the story of the Utsuro-Bune as another possible alien encounter. And there are some obvious reasons for that. The ship itself is described as other-worldly. It was supposed to be covered in strange symbols and was built from strange materials. And of course, there is the mysterious woman who emerged from it.
The visitor’s features were obviously not common in Japan. But while many have suggested that she was from another place on Earth, people who believe that the ship was a UFO often think that she might have been an alien. A possible clue to that theory could be the strange materials her clothes were supposed to be made from, which no one had apparently seen before. And the mysterious box she carried with her is often seen as a possible piece of alien technology, which would explain why she was reluctant to let people touch it.
But that’s where the connection between the Utsuro-Bune and alien visitors seems to stop. And there are a lot more reasons to think that the ship was probably from this planet. None of the stories from the time make it seem like the woman in the ship didn’t look human. And while that doesn’t rule out the possibility that she was an alien, it’s much more likely that she was from somewhere like Russia than space. And of course, few of the other details are completely unexplainable by more conventional theories.
For instance, the strange symbols on the ship could easily have been a language like Russian or English. Rural fisherman in 19th-century Japan would have been unlikely to recognize either alphabet. And the fact that the ship had food inside that the villagers could recognize makes it seem unlikely that it belonged to an alien, who would probably have no need of bread and meat. The ship itself didn’t show any signs of advanced technology. According to the stories, it didn’t fly or make any strange movements. Instead, it simply drifted through the water. And of course, that’s assuming that the stories are describing something that actually happened.
Japan has a long history of rich folklore. And tales of mysterious people emerging from unlikely things are common. It’s hard to say how true the story of the Utsuro-Bune is, but in any case, the answer to the mystery probably isn’t aliens. It’s more likely to be an adaptation of classic stories to a time when Japan was beginning to grapple with the presence of foreigners in a traditionally closed society. While it would be another 50 years before Japan was really opened to the West, foreigners had been visiting Japan for centuries as missionaries and traders. And the story of the Utsuro-Bune was probably a subconscious reaction to the increasing presence of this, more mundane sort of alien.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Did a close encounter of the Third Kind occur on a Japanese beach in 1803?”. Kazuo Tanaka, Skeptical Enquirer. July 2000.
“Foreign Relations in Early Modern Japan: Exploding the Myth of National Seclusion”. Arano Yasunori, Nippon. January 2013.
“The Yanagita Kunio guide to the Japanese folktale”. Kunio Yanagita, Fanny Hagin Mayer, Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai, Indiana University Press. 1986.