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The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, between 1942 and 1945:

Case number:

ACUFO-1942-00-00-SOLOMONISLANDS-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 a “Type 1 ground attack aircraft” encountered more than a dozen mysterious spheres above the region of the Solomon Sea, seen by the gunner. The spheres, we are told, were “silvery white, about 80 to 90 cm in diameter, and flew horizontally 200 to 300 meters above the rear of the Type 1 ground attack plane, but then rose quickly and disappeared.”

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. rhi1:] REI HANI:

There are source references at the bottom of the article but we cannot know which reference(s) concerned which case(s) of the four that were reported.

These references were “UFO and Space”, May 1970 issue; “Spacecraft”, issue 2, “Flying Saucer News” February - March 1963, and August 1964; “Illustrated UFO” by Shintaro Sakurai, Shinkigensha.

Notes: “Flying Saucer News” was a “Contactees” bulletin published by the quasi-ufo-cult “Cosmic Brotherhood Association” (CBA) in Japan. “Illustrated UFO” by Shintaro Sakurai does exist and had at least 14 issues; issue 14 was published in April 2008.

Aircraft information:

The report said it was a “Type 1” “ground attack aircraft”.

The only “Type 1” in Japanese WWII aviation was the the Nakajima Ki-43 “Hayabusa”, formal Japanese designation Army Type 1, Allied reporting name “Oscar” (photo below).

It was not really a “ground attack” plane, but a single-engine land-based tactical fighter, introduced in the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in 1941. It had 2 12.7 Ho-103 machine guns in the forward fuselage.

Of course, fighters were sometimes used for ground attacks; the “Hayabusa” could carry 2 30 kg bombs or 2 250 kg bombs.

Discussion:

The Solomon Islands are about 1200 km East of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean.

The Japanese forces occupied the Solomon Islands between 1942 and 1945.

Japanese sighting reports of unexplained phenomena during World War II are extremely rare; the language barrier is perhaps an important factor.

There are “qualified” ufologists in Japan, but also a large number of people calling themselves ufologist who more belonged to the “Contactee” movement and of course did not care much for truthfulness.

One problem is that the report says: “A gunner of a Type 1 ground attack aircraft.” The “Type 1” being a fighter plane, with only a pilot, there is no “gunner” in the plane.

For now, it is impossible to me to determine whether this report is genuine of invented, there is even a reason to suspect it was made up. I found only one source, no corroboration, no exact date, no date of first reporting, no witness name, etc.

Evaluation:

Insufficient information, unknown credibility.

Sources references:

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

• [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:

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This page was last updated on July 22, 2024.