The Japanese folklore it is rich in supernatural monsters and events But, among all, one of these has been particularly discussed in recent decades: theUtsuro-Bune. It is not a frightening creature but a particular bowl -shaped boat Which, according to many Ufologists, would be nothing more than an unidentified flying object (UFO). What the legend describes as a boat coming from the sea and with a strange girl on board, therefore, would be nothing more than one of the first contacts documented between the human being and some alien civilization.
But what’s true in this story?
What does the legend of theUtsuro-Bune
According to what is reported by various manuscripts of the time, in 1803 On the coasts of the province of Hitachi one arrived one strange boat In the shape of a bowl with a beautiful girl on board. She had a light complexion, hair and red eyebrows, with a dress never seen by the inhabitants of the area and able to speak only a foreign language that no one was able to interpret. In his hand he held a box: according to some versions of the legend this was empty, while according to others he contained the head of the dead lover. As for instead the boat – call Utsuro-Buneliterally Cava ship – this would have been high 3.3 meters And 5.4 widein the shape of a bowl, and was made in rosewood And iron with glass windows. Also in this case the boat is subject to different descriptions depending on the story taken into consideration. In some texts, for example, it is described as an almost totally black vehicle – and on this point we will return shortly.
Returning instead to the legend, initially the inhabitants of those areas tried to communicate with that girl but after a short time, unable to understand each other, they decided to re-get it and send it offshorewhere he came from. From that moment no one had his news anymore.
The possible explanation of the Utsuro-Bune
For many decades this curious story was not of particular interest and was relegated to simple popular legend. This at least until Roswell’s accident, when in 1947 the alleged fall of a UFO in New Mexico. From that moment on, the Ufological Community continued to expand, until it runs into the story of theUtsuro-Bune And suppose that that strange boat was nothing more than an alien spacecraft and that the strange girl was actually an extraterrestrial.
Of different opinion, however, historical and Japanese folklore experts who attribute to this legend a symbolic meaning, not to be taken literally, as also told by the expert Kunio Yanagita al The Public Domain Review:
The typical history of folklore is that an antense of a family was a foreign noblewoman who crossed the sea by ship
The idea behind these stories was to assign a mythical origin to one’s family, so as to legitimize one’s own importance within society.
This element must be combined with a second, i.e. theisolationism of the country during the Edo period, that is, when the commercial exchanges with Europe They began to become more and more consistent. In fact a good part of the country was contrary to this opening And for this reason, the myth of the “mythological” origin may have dusted off to strengthen and disseminate its national identity, as opposed to the foreign contamination – represented in this case by the woman who is not welcomed but rejected.
The isolationist vision of this story could also be confirmed by the dark color that often assumes the utsuro-bune in the stories: just as the strange ship-looking was black, so the European ships were, covered with tar to be waterproofed.
According to another hypothesis, however, the girl would have faults similar to those of the goddess Shōfukuji venerated in a temple located a short distance: the story would therefore not be anything but a “commercial found“To increase the number of pilgrims. To date we do not know exactly if such a boat has ever existed but, with the data at our disposal, it is likely that it is one legend told for “cultural” purposes rather than a probable contact with some alien civilizations.
