UFO sightings, both of the flying kind and the crashing kind, have always been filled with cases of wild goose chases, dubious evidence, and hoaxes. This latest one, which supposedly happened on Japanese waters and supported by the government, might very well be yet another case of that.
Reported by an online blog-slash-news site and picked up by other media, the crash, or rather, the sinking, was witnessed by several news crews, police officers, and emergency personnel as it happened off the coast of southern Japan near Okinawa last December 4. And while many UFO sightings usually involve government and military conspiracies, this one strangely reports a very cooperative military. A supposed navy spokesperson named Yoshido Hari has been quoted saying that the navy released photographs to confirm the reports and that they will attempt to salvage the aircraft in one piece. Sounds almost too good to be true. And like it most cases, it is indeed (not true).
First of all, the picture supposedly released by the navy looks very similar to some Google Earth pictures which the Huffington Post has debunked as nothing more than camera lens flare. Secondly, many of the sources point to Nippon TV as the source of the news, and yet a thorough search of the Nippon TV website yields nothing related to the event. Lastly, the photos supposedly released by the Japanese navy is conspicuously nowhere to be found. This is yet another case of a (very poor) attempt at a UFO hoax. But maybe it was a much-needed light-hearted entertainment break from the tension of the upcoming elections.
[ via Huffington Post ]