Japanese lawmakers met Tuesday to form a nonpartisan group that will ask the government to create an organization to research unidentified aerial phenomena known as UAPs, also known as UFOs.
The parliamentary group will be chaired by Yasukazu Hamada, parliamentary affairs leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, also from the LDP, will serve as secretary general.
The group will hold its founding general meeting on June 6, after Tuesday’s preparatory meeting, which was held in Parliament.
The US government has established a specialized organization within the Department of Defense to investigate UAP.
The group of lawmakers will urge the administration to collect and analyze information on UAP and pursue cooperation with Washington by forming a counterpart organization.
In its founding statement, the group said that if UAP, which has been sighted many times on Japanese soil, are advanced secret weapons or unmanned spy drones from other countries, they would pose a major security threat to Japan.
The group asks MPs from all parties to join it.