The Kera UFO Incident: Japan’s Roswell and the Vanishing Hat-Shaped Craft

In this spine-tingling episode of The Shadow Frequency, host Matt Wilson investigates the Kera UFO Incident—an eerie 1972 encounter in Kochi City, Japan, often called “Japan’s Roswell.” When 13-year-old Michio Seo and his friends spotted a glowing, hat-shaped object over a rice field, they couldn’t have known it would spark one of Japan’s most enduring UFO mysteries. Over the course of weeks, the boys photographed, captured, and even lost the object—only for it to reappear. Matt breaks down the eyewitness accounts, explores the bizarre 1976 follow-up sighting by Sachiko Oyama, and weighs the skeptical claim that it was all just a misidentified ashtray. Is this a forgotten alien probe—or a childhood prank that defied logic? Kera UFO, Japan’s Roswell, Kochi City UFO, hat-shaped UFO, Japanese UFO mystery, paranormal Japan, 1972 UFO sightings