Silent Visitors: UFO Sightings in the Heart of Tokyo

When most people think of UFO sightings, they picture quiet rural skies or remote forest clearings' not one of the busiest, brightest cities on Earth. But Tokyo, for all its light and noise, has quietly amassed its own collection of strange aerial encounters. They don’t always make the news, and they rarely stick around long enough to be explained, but the city’s relationship with unidentified flying objects is real, and, in many cases, overlooked.

Tokyo’s interest in the phenomenon goes back further than most realise. In fact, one of the earliest known reports tied to a well-known figure occurred in 1960.

On May 23 of that year, celebrated author and playwright Mishima Yukio and his wife reported witnessing a cigar-shaped object hovering in the sky above their home in Ōta Ward, Tokyo. The object appeared to remain motionless for several moments before disappearing without sound. Mishima later reflected on the incident in an article for Fujin Kurabumagazine. Though he didn’t claim it was extraterrestrial in origin, the experience had a clear impact. His 1962 novel Utsukushii Hoshi (A Beautiful Star) tells the story of a family who believes they are aliens sent to protect Earth, blending existential philosophy with science fiction. The book is now seen as a cultural landmark, and a literary response to the UFO mystery.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, just after World War II, Tokyo residents began reporting what they described as “fast-flying lights” or “silver discs” moving silently across the sky. These sightings were especially concentrated around areas like Shibuya, Yotsuya, and Kanda. In some cases, military personnel stationed in Tokyo allegedly reported strange radar returns, prompting momentary alerts, though none were officially recorded in the public domain. Some of these reports were preserved in the archives of early Japanese UFO researchers and occasionally reprinted in UFO newsletters and zines during the 1970s.

One of those early investigators was Arai Kin’ichi, a Tokyo native and founder of the Japan Flying Saucer Research Association. Based in Shinagawa, Arai dedicated his life to collecting and cataloguing Japanese UFO sightings. From the 1950s through the early 2000s, he gathered hundreds of witness accounts, many from Tokyo. These included descriptions of disc-shaped craft over Chiyoda, silent glowing spheres above Setagaya, and triangular formations seen near Tokyo Bay. Though many of these reports remain unverified, Arai’s work represents one of the earliest grassroots efforts to document the phenomenon seriously in Japan. His now-defunct UFO library in Shinagawa once held one of the largest collections of UFO-related documents in the country. These older reports create a strange continuity with more recent sightings.

In 2007, a short video aired on Japanese television showing a glowing orb-like object above the skyline in Shinjuku. The footage was shaky, as these things often are, but it matched a small cluster of witness reports from the same period, all describing a reflective, spherical object that appeared at dusk, hovered for several minutes, then shot upward and disappeared. No official explanation was offered.

On December 25, 2013, a journalist in Tokyo captured footage of five white disc-shaped objects hovering over the city in a tight formation. The objects maintained a consistent orientation in the sky and remained visible for around 40 minutes before vanishing. The footage was shared online and sparked debate among UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike. While no official comment was made, the sighting stood out due to the clarity of the video and the extended duration of the event.

More recently, on January 31, 2021, a glowing disc was spotted hovering near the Tokyo Skytree just as the sun was setting. Witnesses described it as a bright, hovering object that seemed to observe the area before suddenly ascending and disappearing without a sound. The location, one of Tokyo's tallest and most recognizable landmarks, added a layer of intrigue, drawing comparisons to other urban UFO encounters around the world.

Then, on April 13, 2022, an even more unusual sighting was reported: a large, humanoid figure appeared to be flying near Tokyo Tower. Video footage, later shared on UFO forums and video sites, showed what looked like a human-like shape, possibly 3 metres tall, moving slowly and steadily through the air without visible means of propulsion. Though the footage was grainy, it triggered considerable online discussion, with some suggesting it was a drone or balloon, while others saw it as something far stranger.

Not all sightings come from above. A small number of stories link UFOs to Tokyo’s extensive underground, a place already rich with rumour and paranoia. While most of those tales focus on tunnels beneath government buildings, a few reference strange lights or electrical disturbances in maintenance areas closed to the public. In one story shared on a now-defunct Japanese forum, a metro employee described a brief power surge and a “soundless burst of light” deep below Kokkai-gijidō-mae Station, the same area we spoke about in a previous article, long rumoured to contain restricted tunnels and sealed doors.

Today, Tokyo sits at the centre of Japan’s growing official interest in unidentified aerial phenomena. In 2024, lawmakers formed a bipartisan group to investigate UAP sightings across the country, citing American data that flagged Japanese airspace, especially near military or government facilities, as a region of interest. While the group’s focus is national, many expect Tokyo’s skies and its political zones to feature heavily in their future investigations.

For now, there’s no known “Roswell moment” in Tokyo. No crashed saucers or mass sightings. What exists instead is something quieter, a pattern of brief, unexplained moments, scattered across decades, almost always seen by a few, rarely discussed for long. And maybe that’s exactly why it’s worth paying attention.

I’m in Tokyo right now and, if the skies are clear, I’ll be looking up, just in case something’s still out there, moving silently between the buildings.