This Incredible Story Raises the Question of an Alien Visit to Japan in 1803

The story of the hollow ship, or the Utsuro-Bune in Japanese, quickly spread around the country. And it was eventually written down in three separate accounts that survive to this day. Even at the time, people around the country wondered where the ship had come from. But in 1844, one man thought he had found the answer. Kyokutei Bakin, a well-respected Japanese writer, wrote about a trip to Russia he had recently taken. And he reported that many of the things he saw there were similar to the story of the hollow ship.

For instance, many of the women in Russia had red hair, just as the woman in the hollow ship did. And many of the women in Eastern Russia used powder to color their hair white, which might explain why the woman in the hollow ship had white streaks in her hair. He also mentioned that the mysterious symbols that were supposed to have been on the inside of the ship were similar to symbols he had seen on the side of British whaling ships in Russia. But he also suggested that the symbols might not have actually existed.

To Bakin, the best explanation was that the ship had come from Russia, and the woman inside was a Russian woman who had been exiled for some reason. And he believed that some of the more fantastic details might have been exaggerated, or that popular illustrations of the ship didn’t match the eyewitness accounts. But not everyone accepted Bakin’s explanation, even at the time. And as time went on, other people began to suggest their own explanations for the enduring mystery of the hollow ship. And some were certainly a bit more believable than others.

In the mid 20th-century, Japanese historian Yanagida Kunio began his own study of the hollow ship legend. And he decided that the ship was probably from Japan if it existed at all. He pointed out that round ships were fairly common in Japan, although obviously not with some of the more exotic details of the Utsuro-Bune. But there have also been legends for centuries in Japan of people finding mysterious ships, usually with someone inside. According to Kunio, the Utsuro-Bune story probably reflected these earlier stories, with the extra details about metal plates and glass windows added to make it more believable that the ship could survive out in the ocean.

For instance, there’s a story dating back all the way to the 7th century that has a lot of similarities to the Utsoru Bune. In this story, a fisherman finds a Chinese princess adrift at sea inside a hollow ship. The girl was raised in Japan and eventually married a Japanese prince to become the mythical founder of an imperial dynasty. In fact, she’s still venerated at a shrine in the country. But many people see the story of the Utsuro-Bune differently. To them, the explanation is much more other-worldly, even extra-terrestrial.

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.