Japan's Defence Minister Taro Kono has issued instructions to the country’s armed forces, the Japan Self-Defence Forces (SDF), on how to act during an encounter with a UFO that could potentially pose a threat to national security. Kono told SDF members in charge of protecting Japan’s airspace to record on camera any unexplained aerial phenomenon and to analyse it as much as possible. The instructions also call for analysis of information about UFOs received from the public. According to the Defence Ministry, there are so far no known cases of SDF officers encountering UFOs.
In August, Japan’s defence minister had a meeting with his US counterpart Mark Esper and the two reportedly discussed investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena as a new area of cooperation between their countries.
The Pentagon recently created a taskforce to detect and analyse UFOs, a move that sparked wide interest among hunters for extraterrestrial life and conspiracy theorists. The move came after the US Department of Defence (DoD) in April released three declassified videos showing US pilots chasing what the DoD described as "unexplained aerial phenomena". The Pentagon’s decision back then prompted Japan’s Defence Ministry to draw up procedures in the event that Japan’s armed forces encounter a UFO.
Defence Minister Taro Kono admitted, however, that he doesn’t believe in extraterrestrial life, but said he would like to know why the Pentagon released the videos and their analyses of them.