The Kofu Incident
The account
Two boys saw a craft land in a vineyard, and a being with a wrinkled face touched one of them on the shoulder.
What investigators found
There is no physical evidence; skeptics point to the wave of UFO interest sweeping Japan in the 1970s.
The story
On February 23, 1975, two schoolboys from Kofu, in central Japan, said they saw an orange object come down in a vineyard near their homes. According to their account, a small creature with wrinkled skin, pointed ears and what looked like metal fangs stepped out of the craft and touched one of the boys on the shoulder, and he fainted from fright.
Family members said they saw a glow at the site, and marks on the ground were photographed, but nothing was proven. Skeptics note that Japan was in the grip of a craze for UFO shows and magazines, which may have fueled the children's imagination. Even so, the witnesses stood by their story for decades, and Kofu became the most famous case in Japanese ufology.