ACUFO:

ACUFO is my comprehensive catalog of cases of encounters between aircraft and UFOs, whether they are “explained” or “unexplained”.

The ACUFO catalog is made of case files with a case number, summary, quantitative information (date, location, number of witnesses...), classifications, all sources mentioning the case with their references, a discussion of the case in order to evaluate its causes, and a history of the changes made to the file.

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The Pacific, about 1942:

Case number:

ACUFO-1942-00-00-PACIFIC-1

Summary:

A Japanese citizen named Rei Hani, introducing himself as the “founder member of ASIOS”, member of an “Institute for Potential Science”, published on the Japanese Tocana Website on August 15, 2015, four summaries of sightings by Japanese airmen in World War II.

One of them was that around 1942, a fighter pilot flying a Mitsubishi “Zero” witnessed a mysterious object flying near the wing of his plane. Although he tried to get rid of it using his plane's maneuverability, which was the best in the world at the time, the object remained next to his wing and did not leave.

Rei Hani indicated that the source is the February - March 1964 issue of Flying Saucer News - which was a “contactees” magazine published by the “Cosmic Brotherhood Association”.

Data:

Temporal data:

Date:	About 1942
Time:	?
Duration:	?
First known report date:	February 1964
Reporting delay:	2 decades.

Geographical data:

Country:	Japan?
State/Department:
City or place:	In the Pacific.

Witnesses data:

Number of alleged witnesses:	1
Number of known witnesses:	?
Number of named witnesses:	0

Ufology data:

Reporting channel:	Japanese "contactees" bulletin.
Visibility conditions:	?
UFO observed:	Yes.
UFO arrival observed:	?
UFO departure observed:	?
UFO action:	Followed despite evasive maneuvers.
Witnesses action:	Evasive maneuvers in vain.
Photographs:	No.
Sketch(s) by witness(es):	No.
Sketch(es) approved by witness(es):	No.
Witness(es) feelings:	?
Witnesses interpretation:	?

Classifications:

Sensors:	[X] Visual: 1. [ ] Airborne radar: [ ] Directional ground radar: [ ] Height finder ground radar: [ ] Photo: [ ] Film/video: [ ] EM Effects: [ ] Failures: [ ] Damages:
Hynek:	?
Armed / unarmed:	Armed, 2 Type 99 20 mm canons and 2 Type 97 7,62 mm machine guns.
Reliability 1-3:	1
Strangeness 1-3:	2
ACUFO:	Very dubious credibility.

Sources:

[Ref. rhi1:] REI HANI:

- Zero fighter pilot.

Now, according to the February/March 1964 issue of “Flying Saucer News,” mysterious flying objects resembling Foo Fighters have often been seen in the First Air Fleet (Nagumo Fleet) since the early days of the war of the Pacific. It it said they followed them. It is estimated that it was around 1942, when a Zero fighter pilot witnessed mysterious flying object flying near the wing of his plane. Even though he tried to get rid of it using the maneuverability of the Zero fighter, which was the best in the world at the time, the object remained near the side of the wing and did not leave.

Aircraft information:

The Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” (photo below) (Allied codename “Zeke”) was a Japanese light carrier-based fighter-bomber used by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945.

It is entirely true that the “Zero” had an exceptional maneuverability.

Discussion:

There is a big question mark, to say the least, about the credibility of the report, said to come from the bulletin of the “Cosmic Brotherhood Association”.

This source was much commented on by Italian ufologist Giuseppe Stilo in his Decmber 1997 article “Il ritorno di foo fighters” in the ufology magazine Rivista UFO. Stilo explained that the Japanese “contactee” group “Cosmic Brotherhood Association” was created by Yusuke J. Matsumura in Yokohama, Japan, in 1958. He created the group with the administrator in Japan of the American contactee George Adamski, Hachiro Kubota, and launched the small magazine Flying Saucer News. Matsumura then claimed to have met the “Space Brothers” himself, who took him into their spaceship (etc.). From 1957 on, Matsumura had released dozens of photos of unusual clouds, claiming that they were spaceships that he had photographed himself. He ended up setting up a real apocalyptic sect and practicing fraud, having money paid to him by his disciples whom his extraterrestrial friends were supposed to save from the soon to come end of the world. He continued later to publish alleged photos of UFOs, faked by him.

In other words, he could have invented this story from scratch, a story for which I found no corroboration elsewhere.

Evaluation:

Very dubious credibility.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

[fsn1] ? Flying Saucer News Magazine, of the "Cosmic Brotherhood Association" (CBA), Japan, February - March 1964.
[rhi1] * "UFOs encountered by Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War", article by Rei Hani, "Institute for Potential Science, founder member of ASIOS", Japan, on the Tocana Website, Japan, August 15, 2015, at https://tocana.jp/2015/08/post_7079_entry_2.html

File history:

Authoring:

Main author:	Patrick Gross
Contributors:	None
Reviewers:	None
Editor:	Patrick Gross

Changes history:

Version:	Create/changed by:	Date:	Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	July 25, 2024	Creation, [rhi1].
1.0	Patrick Gross	July 25, 2024	First published.

This page was last updated on July 25, 2024.