Japanese yokai, cryptids, urban legends, UFOs, mythical beasts and ancient mysteries, translated into English.
Entries: 431
A strong radio signal from space received by an American radio telescope in 1977. It was so striking that "Wow!" was written on the printout. It drew attention as a possible signal from extraterrestrial intelligence, but it has never been received again.
A doomsday theory about an unknown planet orbiting at the edge of the solar system over a long period, which will one day approach Earth and cause a catastrophe. It spread from the theories of the writer Zecharia Sitchin in the 1970s, and "collision dates" have been predicted many times, but astronomers say no such planet exists.
The 1961 incident in which an American couple, the Hills, said they were taken aboard a UFO during a night drive and examined by aliens. Their memories were said to have resurfaced under regression hypnosis, and it became the prototype of "alien abduction."
An affair in 1960s Spain in which huge numbers of letters arrived from supposed aliens from the planet "Ummo," along with reports of UFO landings and photos. Photos of a UFO bearing the same symbol as the letters caused a sensation, but in 1993 a Spanish man confessed it was a hoax.
The incident on the night of March 13, 1997, in which thousands of people around Phoenix, Arizona, saw lights in a V formation and a huge object. Lights later in the night were explained as military flares, but the earlier sightings are still debated.
An auspicious sacred beast of Chinese legend said to appear when a wise ruler arises. With the body of a deer, the tail of an ox and the hooves of a horse, it is said to be so gentle it will not even step on insects. It also gave its name to the giraffe in Japanese.
A god said to attach itself to a house or person and make that house poor. It is described as a thin old man holding a torn fan. There are rituals for driving it away, yet stories also tell of people who worshipped it devotedly and gained good fortune.
A yokai told of in Nara Prefecture and elsewhere: when you walk alone on a night road, "beto beto" footsteps follow you from behind. It is said that if you step to the side of the road and say "Betobeto-san, please go ahead," the footsteps disappear.
A yokai with a smooth face that has no eyes, nose or mouth. It became famous worldwide through "Mujina" in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. The story pattern of "startling you twice," in which you flee only to meet another faceless figure, is famous.
A child yokai with one large eye in the middle of its face. In the Kanto region and elsewhere it was said to visit houses on the "Koto-yoka" days of February 8 and December 8, and people drove it away by hanging many-eyed baskets from the eaves.
A pair of giants: "Tenaga," with very long arms, and "Ashinaga," with very long legs. Ashinaga is said to carry Tenaga on his back to catch fish in the sea, and on Mount Chokai and Mount Bandai legends tell of them as man-eating giants who were defeated.
A yokai with a terrifying man's face in the center of a flaming ox-cart wheel. It is said to steal the soul of anyone who sees it, but cannot approach a house with a charm reading "This is the village of Shobo" on the door. Toriyama Sekien drew it.
A water yokai said to live in Chinese rivers, the size of a child and covered in hard scales. In Edo-period Japan it was treated as a relative or another name of the kappa, and a kappa encyclopedia called Suiko Koryaku was compiled.
A yokai that appears on a night slope in the form of a little monk and grows taller and taller as you look up. It is told of on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, and is said to vanish if you chant "Miage-nyudo, I saw over you" and lie face down. It is a relative of the mikoshi-nyudo.
A one-eyed, three-fingered yokai that rises from a muddy rice field to the waist and cries "Give back my field!" It is said to appear because the son of an old man who left rice fields for his descendants betrayed his wishes by drinking and selling the fields.
UFOs shaped like long, slender cigars, often told of as "motherships" carrying small disc-shaped UFOs. In 2017, the cigar-shaped interstellar object Oumuamua was discovered, causing a stir.
The incident on January 7, 1948, in which Air Force fighter pilot Captain Thomas Mantell crashed and died while chasing a UFO over Kentucky. It was rumored that he was "shot down by a UFO," but he is thought to have blacked out from lack of oxygen after climbing too high.
An urban legend that the world is run by a system invisible from the surface, and that this system is now about to switch over to something entirely new. It is known as a story told by Mr. Toshi Densetsu, Seki Akio, on the Japanese TV program Yarisugi Toshi Densetsu.
A conspiracy theory that HAARP, an ionospheric research facility in Alaska, is actually a weapon that artificially causes earthquakes and extreme weather. It comes up after every major earthquake or typhoon, but the facility's radio waves cannot control earthquakes or the weather.
A conspiracy theory that contrails lingering in the sky are traces of chemicals being secretly sprayed by governments or others. It spread in the United States from the late 1990s. Scientists' investigations found no evidence, and the phenomenon is explained by the ordinary properties of contrails.
