Seaside Town to Build Center for UFO Study

This document, a Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) report dated January 7, 1994, details the plans of the Japanese coastal city of Hakui to establish an international center for the study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UFOs). According to city official Toru Wada, the municipality intends to construct a facility over the next two years that will house a library containing over 10,000 official documents related to UFOs, accessible to the general public in both Japanese and English. The building itself is designed to resemble an oval-shaped UFO, standing three stories high with a total floor space of 6,200 square meters. The city claims to have spent a decade acquiring these documents from various sources, including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Among the collection is a 1950 report from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the recovery of three alien bodies, described as 90 centimeters in height, and fragments of a spacecraft measuring 15 meters in circumference following a crash near the Mexican border. Josen Takano, a 38-year-old employee in the municipal planning section, is identified as a key figure in this initiative. Takano, who has studied UFOs since his student days, possesses a personal collection of thousands of books on the subject and has utilized the Freedom of Information Act to gather materials from the United States, Britain, France, and Canada. The city emphasizes that it does not intend to provide its own conclusions regarding the existence of UFOs, but rather aims to provide information to allow the public to form their own judgments. The project is supported by a network of enthusiasts across 12 other countries.