In the mid-1970s a Japanese farmer was awoken from a deep sleep by a pounding on his front door. Little could he have anticipated that this unwelcome visitor would be an inexplicable entity hell bent on taking him off world… nor could he have imagined that his alarming experience would permanently alter his brain chemistry.
28 year-old Vegetable farmer Yoshihiro Fujiwara was a hardworking man of the land. By all accounts, his only concerns regarding what came from the sky involved the sun, rain or whatever else might affect his crops and therefore his livelihood.
He had neither the time nor the desire to entertain thoughts of monsters, ghosts or beings from another world, but in the wee hours of April 6, 1974, this practical minded farmer would have all of his carefully nurtured notions of reality turned upside-down.
The event in question began at approximately 3:00 am. when Yoshihiro was torn from a deep slumber by the sounds of his wildly barking guard dog followed by a rapid series of knocks emanating from his front door.
Exhausted, and more than likely irritated by this unsolicited interruption, the 28 year-old from Kitami City, Hokkaido, pulled himself up and trudged over the neatly stacked shoes in his genkan — the traditional Japanese entryway — and placed his hand on the doorknob.
As the annoyed Fujiwara flung open the door one can only assume that he fully intended to give this uninvited caller a piece of his mind, but whatever ire might have been in him was instantly replaced by stark terror as he laid eyes on the unearthly apparition before him.
Standing on the farmer’s doorstep, illuminated only by the moonlight, was a bizarre creature that stood about 3-feet tall and seemed to be clad in a clear vinyl outfit — perhaps an extraterrestrial environmental suit — that was wrapped around its quasi-humanoid figure which, according to the eyewitness, resembled a curious combination of a starfish and an octopus.
According to an illustration made by Fujiwara, the entity had a large, bulbous, octopoidal head with a pair of menacing looking, downward slanting eyes and what seemed to be a single, V-shaped nostril. The creature’s mouth was also drawn as wide and appeared to be grinning.
Fujiwara glanced downward. He noted that the being stood bipedally on two of its four starfish-like limbs, all of which tapered to rounded nubs. Its’ torso seemed to be a modest affair, more akin to a fleshy hub in the center of its body from which its’ limbs seemed to sprout out in multiple directions, rather than that of a bulky humanoid trunk.
The thing wore a bluish, conical helmet from which a relatively small antenna emerged from the apex. The antenna was capped by an elliptical disc that allegedly emitted odd bursts of visibly undulating electricity that seemed to ripple over the being before dissipating.
Fujiwara observed that the Kitami Octopoid’s plastic shrouded skin appeared to be brownish and bumpy not unlike the flesh of a common toad. Unlike a toad, however, was the viscous sheen of slime that covered the being’s skin.
He further discerned that the thing’s flesh was mottled with what looked to be a series of lumpy, almost freckle-like, blue and yellow lesions or scabs.
Whether the slime-like coating on the being’s flesh was a natural form of protection — similar to the glyco-protein secretion that makes it difficult for parasites to attach themselves to fish — or just an oozing discharge from the many open sores on its skin is a question that remains unanswered to this day.
It was at this moment that the entity stuck one of its flesh appendages skyward and Fujiwara’s home was suddenly consumed by an unbearably hot beam of orange light. The justifiably terrified farmer quickly retreated from his front door and scurried to his bedroom.
Through his open window Fujiwara could see that the source of the odd illumination was a flying saucer approximately 5-feet in height and 26-feet in diameter. The object was floating about 70-feet off of the ground in a field adjacent to his home and, according to the farmer, it seemed to be: “…emitting rays of orange color.”
As if this ostensibly extraterrestrial invasion wasn’t already disturbing enough to ruin a lifetime’s worth of peaceful slumbers, Fujiwara suddenly felt a warm gust of air surge around his feet and, within moments, he found himself being drawn toward his window by an invisible force.
Try as he might to remain earthbound, the traction exerted by this unseen energy sucked the now panicking agriculturalist out of the window toward the waiting saucer. Just as Yoshihiro braced himself for an impact with the outer shell of the craft he realized, much to his surprise, that he was being “absorbed” through the hull of the saucer.
Once inside the transport, the shaken Yoshihiro did his best to assess his surroundings. He raised his head off the floor and noted that the compartment he was in was parallelepiped in shape and blue in color. He saw weird lamp-like attachments on the walls as well as air vents and a large sign with writing that looked vaguely Japanese to the farmer, but that proved to be illegible.
Yoshihiro found himself suddenly overwhelmed by a noxious scent that left him queasy. That is when he noticed a pair of plastic clad octopoidial entities identical to the one on his doorstep now standing above him.
The panicked farmer started to push himself up, but the creatures managed to hold the struggling human onto the floor with a strength that belied their diminutive stature.
As frightening as their actions seemed to be, Yoshihiro claimed that they were attempting to calm him by means of telepathic communication. Their message was simple and came with a pledge:
“No danger… We promise to release you close to your house.”
Despite their promises of safety and release, Yoshihiro was not to be placated and with a burst of adrenaline fueled strength he managed to wrench himself away from his twin abductors and ran blindly until he spied a partially open hatch.
Terrified Yoshihiro threw himself through the opening and through sheer dumb luck (or perhaps the mercy of the ufonauts) the flying saucer had descended to just 10-feet off the ground. The farmer hit the cold ground with a dull thud, but he pushed the pain aside and scrambled to his feet in a desperate attempt to escape his ostensibly interstellar captors.
Yoshihiro sprinted away from the hovering orange object toward a nearby house. He frenziedly pounded on the door. The startled homeowners cautiously peaked outside and recognized their wide-eyed night caller as a farmer who lived less than 2-miles away.
Almost certainly as scared as they were concerned, the neighbors let the ashen faced Yoshihiro inside. It was then that he realized that although the horrific ordeal had seemed to last only a matter of minutes over an hour and a half had elapsed since he had been sucked from his domicile. Yoshihiro made his way back home, though it seems doubtful that he managed to get any sleep.
Though no one else claimed to have seen the craft, UFO investigator Kinichi Arai claimed that at the same time Yoshihiro was being abducted, a junior high school student named Miyuki Fujita who lived nearby was woken up by a light shining outside her window. Although the young woman did not get up to see the source of the illumination, she testified that it was much brighter than the moon.
Less than 24-hours later, the farmer began to feel bursts of excruciating pain in his ears. This was followed by an intense burning sensation in his fingertips. Yoshihiro grabbed a pencil and some scrap paper claiming that he felt an impulse to write.
Yoshihiro fell into what he called an unconscious or trance-like state and began to draw a series of strange and (to him at least) incomprehensible hieroglyphs. It was then that a booming voice exploded in his head commanding:
“When the disc lands on the mountain, you will come and board by yourself.”
Whether inspired by compulsion or mere curiosity, Yoshihiro followed the voice’s orders and on April 8, he and two unidentified friends made out for nearby Nikoro Mountain. They arrived at 6:30 pm. and, as per the instructions, the farmer left his compatriots behind and ascended the peak alone.
After reaching the psychically designated area, Yoshihiro was greeted by the same (or identical) orange illuminated saucer. This time he boarded without a fight, but it is still unclear as to whether it was by his own free will or some sort of psychic pressure.
Once aboard Yoshihiro was treated to a trip that very few humans have ever been privileged to experience. According to the agrarian these bizarre syntheses of cephalopods and echinoderms gave him a guided tour of near space flying around the moon once and the Earth twice.
It is unknown (at least by me) what (if anything) these two unique species discussed during the flight, but it is known that the journey took about an hour and a half to complete. After this trip Yoshihiro was returned to the designated location on Nikoro where he collapsed.
It is difficult to ascertain whether he was simply overwhelmed by the fatigue that would surely have taken its toll following the intensity of his experiences (both physical and psychological) over the last 24-hours or if something on the ship adversely affected him, but he was found unconscious by his friends on Nikoro and taken home.
It apparently took Yoshihiro days to recover from this harrowing ordeal. During his recovery, the farmer realized that he had developed psychic abilities. He found that he was not only able to communicate with the ostensibly alien beings that had so diligently pursued him, but he also displayed telekinetic skills finding that he could bend small pieces of metal with his mind.
On April 13, 1974, the plastic wrapped aliens invited Yoshihiro to go on one final astonishing trip. Once again the farmer was taken aboard the luminous craft. It would seem that the terror that had overwhelmed him just days before was now replaced by a Speilberg-ian sense of wonder.
Yoshihiro and his extraterrestrial hosts flew (at what must have been a bewildering speed) past the angry red planet toward the middle portion of our solar system where the young farmer was treated to a sight never before seen by human eyes; the silently staring, storm ridden behemoth that we’ve dubbed Jupiter.
It must be presumed that Yoshihiro stared in awe at the incredible gas giant, but the next phase of the journey would prove to be even more astounding and, when all was said and done, controversial.
The strange starfish-like space navigators then left Jupiter’s orbit and landed on Saturn’s largest moon, the densely atmospheric Titan. One of the creatures disembarked from the vehicle and retrieved a rock from the moon’s surface. This potentially priceless object was presented to Yoshihiro as a memento of his voyage.
Excited to finally have confirmation of his increasingly bizarre encounters, Yoshihiro wasted no time in delivering this extra planetary artifact to scientists at the laboratory of the University of Studies of Engineering of Kitami.
The team ran a series of tests on the stone and, much to the farmer’s shock and dismay, came to the conclusion that the rock was nothing more than a chunk of stalactite from a local Kitami cave.
Already the source of neighborhood — and, after the press got ahold of the story, nationwide — ridicule one would assume that Yoshihiro might become reclusive and try to avoid any sort of public scrutiny, but it seems that the once simple farmer chose an alternated path.
Although the visitations stopped, Yoshihiro claimed to have maintained a seemingly continuous dialogue with the space creatures. He began to refer to himself as the spokesperson for the “Summon Call Space Union” or “Samcall” for short; although he failed to elaborate on who or what was summoned or for what purpose they or he might be called.
In any event, Yoshihiro claimed to have focused his newfound psychic abilities — which had evidently evolved far beyond the mere bending of spoons — on teleporting over immense distances and even preventing catastrophic natural disasters, stating:
“I can teleport to a star (250 million light years away) in 6 minutes… my role is delaying the natural disaster such as earthquake and eruptions.”
Despite his newfound teleportation skills, Yoshihiro further claimed that he had constant access to no less than three UFO, confirming:
“I have three UFOs for activities, and usually I hide the barrier in the mountain of Hidaka.”
The farmer testified that the UFOs enabled him to stop volcanic eruptions by allowing him to travel inside the hollow Earth where he was able to prevent the flow of magma from going topside by stuffing rocks inside the volcanoes inner channels.
Whether he did so by using the flying saucer’s technology, his Xavier-esque psychic abilities or some combination thereof is just one of the many mysteries surrounding the astonishing Yoshihiro Fujiwara that need to be answered.
But just to be on the safe side, I’d like to publicly thank Mr. Fujiwara for being the bulwark between the relatively comfortable life most of us live and a fiery death in a pool molten magma… cheers to you, good sir!
Rob Morphy is an artist / journalist / filmmaker / graphic designer / crypto historian / podcaster / co-founder of American Monsters, Cryptopia and Cryptonaut Podcast