Former Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, the man who in 2022 carried out one of the country's largest national security reforms in recent decades, now heads a cross-party parliamentary group studying unidentified aerial phenomena. And he openly names visitation by non-human intelligence as one of the strong working hypotheses explaining the numerous sightings over Japanese nuclear facilities.
Today, former Japanese Defense minister Yasukazu Hamada breaks his silence on UFOs. In fact, he now chairs the UAP caucus in Japan’s Parliament. So much of his post-cabinet life is dedicated to the topic. Former Congressman Yoshiharu Asakawa (@asakawayosiharu) also goes on record
In an interview with journalist Jesse Michels that has become available to a wide audience, Hamada speaks calmly and to the point. Japan cannot afford to leave unidentified objects appearing in critically important zones unidentified. "We approach this as a matter of national security. We do not believe that UAP automatically equal aliens. But while the US government discusses this topic without ruling out the possibility of non-human intelligence, we too must seriously consider this hypothesis," he emphasizes.
One episode that particularly worries the lawmakers occurred on 26 July 2025 over the Genkai nuclear power plant on the island of Kyushu. Guards and an arriving police officer watched as three inexplicable lights made wide loops and approached to roughly 45–50 meters of two reactors. The event lasted about two hours. At first officials spoke of drones, then simply of "lights," and later leaned toward the version of ordinary aircraft. Many members of parliament who studied the materials remained extremely dissatisfied with this explanation. Hamada warns plainly: critical infrastructure may be under observation by a technology that Japan is not yet able to identify.
Back in 2023, the Pentagon noted Japanese airspace as a UAP "hot spot." In an assessment drawing on reports from 1996, the corridor from western Japan toward China is singled out in particular. Sitting lawmaker Teruo Minobe, who now heads the parliamentary group, says that pilots often prefer to stay silent: reporting an unexplained object can damage one's career. He insists on creating an official system for collecting and analyzing such reports.
A key role in the emergence of this group was played by former lawmaker Yoshiharu Asakawa, who in Japan is already called the "UFO lawmaker." It was he who organized the meetings and interviews. Asakawa believes that Washington still largely determines what information about UAP Tokyo may disclose to its own citizens. Asked whether Japan can speak about what it knows without US approval, he answers directly: "Japan is independent only nominally. I feel that the country is under American control and to a significant extent acts in American interests." According to him, the defense ministries of the two countries exchange information, agreeing in advance on the limits of possible disclosure.
After Donald Trump's public statements about the possible declassification of UFO materials, Hamada immediately called Asakawa and proposed urgently holding a new meeting of the group. Asakawa himself is convinced: the former minister knows more than he can say officially.
There are also personal testimonies. Former parliamentarian Atsushi Hayasaka describes an occasion when he saw a silvery light leap across the sky and then woke up paralyzed in a parked car, hearing approaching footsteps. Later a wound appeared behind his ear, and an X-ray showed a small square shadow. His wife Chiaki recalls her own sighting in childhood.
All of this adds up to a picture in which Japan's top-level politicians no longer hide the topic behind general phrases. They record the facts, demand access to data, including classified recordings from nuclear facilities, and openly leave on the table the hypothesis of a non-human presence. What once remained on the periphery of discussion now sounds in the offices of the people who were responsible for the country's defense.
