If you continue down Highway 114 southeast out of Fukushima City, after about 10km from the extreme outskirts of the city, you’ll come across sleepy little 飯野町, Iino City. It’s a relatively small town, with the population numbering a few thousand people, seemingly most of which are farmers. There wouldn’t really be any discerning reason to stop by this little town if it weren’t for one wonderful thing: it’s the Roswell of Japan.

Ok, so it really doesn’t have the worldwide appeal and following of Roswell, and I’m not sure if many local people (outside of the few thousand in Iino) would even know/care about it, but it seems like it’s going to be about the best you can get here. And it’s all within a biking distance from Fukushima.

As the story goes, back in the early-70s a group of young 20-somethings were hiking up Mt. Senganmori, a local stub of a mountain that normally wouldn’t stand out in a country full of mountains except that it’s a stub that’s not part of the regular mountain range, so it stands out. The only other item of note concerning the mountain is that you can’t use regular compasses on it, as the mountain has its own magnetic field.

So on this fateful day these young hikers claimed to have seen a UFO floating above the lush Fukushima landscape. With this sighting in hand, one of the guys ran with the idea and let it drive his life from there on. This man who’s name I forgot (but I met) successfully convinced the people of his city that he needed to build a UFOふれあい館 (UFO museum) and all other sorts of otherworldly particulars on the mountain.

The Iino UFO Museum

The town, apparently with nothing else to do, agreed. It was a good thing that they did, as there’s really no other reason for this city on the map. Hey, it brings in the tourist money. They ran with the idea, and threw up UFO-related stuff all over the place. I mean, just check out the city’s official website. They love their UFOs.

So after passing through Iino and noticing all of the UFO stuff up on the mountain, Beth and I decided it would be a wonderful day trip to check out. Setting off on our bikes, we arrived early in the afternoon and set about finding a place to park. We eventually came to the conclusion that the best place to park our bikes is in… the park. Yes, the wonderful park that spells out in the grass exactly why you came here.

UFO… grass

Due to there being a meeting in the museum, we first set off to climb Mt. Senganmori itself. It’s really not too terribly much of a climb, being only about 500m above sea level, so, with guidence of many aliens leading the way, we reached the top.

Aliens leading the way to the top of Senganmori

At the top we found a well-constructed observation deck featuring a nice view of Iino and Fukushima, free binoculars through which you could see absolute shit, a shrine (because all places in Japan must have a shrine), and alien triangulation orbs.

UFO Triangulation Orbs

Or something like that. At the time I didn’t really know what the orbs were for, but we later found out that a beam of light was supposed to reflect in all three orbs and focus open a central point, which will then send a concentrated beam of later through the clouds and into the sky, thus summoning Godzilla. I think. My memory may be a little fuzzy.

As climbing mountains and looking out at views of a city/more mountains has gotten kind of old for me (such views, however beautiful, are a dime a dozen here), we quickly proceeded to descend. Once we reached the bottom of the trail, like any good hiker we felt it was necessary to check out the UFO bathroom. So we did.

The place for floater UFOs

By this time the meeting at the museum had finished, so we paid our 400 yen to get in, got our souvenir stamp, and proceeded into the museum. Before we even left Fukushima to go to this museum, we had automatically assumed that it was going to be extremely corny and to go primarily for the sake of amusement. We were not let down.

Authentic alien reproductions

The museum fully lived up to our extremely low expectations, so as long as we didn’t take anything in the museum seriously, it was all quite fun and amusing. I’ll refrain from describing in detail the exact contents of the museum, but it’s really pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a small-town UFO tourist trap. I will say, though, is that there’s a cool part of the museum where they show you a 3D movie of why this mountain is so special, etc. I’m a sucker for novelty stuff like that, so it was all good fun. Furthermore, the guy who runs the place is the same guy who saw the original UFO back in the 70s, so we were able to have a little chat with him about various things. He also got visibly excited when he found out we were from the US and wanted to know if we’ve been to Roswell. Sadly, we haven’t, and neither has he (but he really wants to go!).

Authentic mock-up of a UFO scientist’s lab

Following the 3D movie, Beth and I headed up to the second floor of the building. Notice how I said building and not museum, as when you get to the second floor of the building all of the UFO and alien stuff is left behind, and you’re suddenly in a community recreational area with vending machines, cheap exercise machines, a kitchen, and a bath. We were quite confused until we realized that when the city agreed to build this building, they had stipulated that the first floor house the UFO museum and the second floor house a community center. How’s that for conserving space, eh?

So then, we rested for a bit then headed back the rest of the way down the mountain, having met success with our participation in learning about how a sleepy little backcountry town I live near is actually the epicenter of the alien invasion of Japan. I’m excited.

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