Utsuro-bune (虚舟, hollow boat), also Utsuro-fune and Urobune, was an unknown object that allegedly washed ashore in 1803 in Hitachi province on the eastern coast of Japan. Utsuro means "hollow" and -bune (from fune) means "boat". Accounts of the incident appear in four texts: Oushuku Zakki (1815), Toen Shōsetsu (1825), Hyōryū Kishū (1835) and Ume-no-chiri (1844).
According to the legend, a young woman aged between 18 and 20 arrived aboard the "hollow boat" on February 22, 1803. Fishermen brought her inland, but she was unable to communicate in Japanese. The fishermen returned her and her vessel to the sea, and it drifted away.
Historians, ethnologists and physicists such as Kazuo Tanaka and Yanagita Kunio have discussed the legend as part of a longstanding tradition within Japanese folklore.[1][2] Certain ufologists have claimed that the story is evidence of a close encounter with extraterrestrial life.[3]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
KaTawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Kunio Yanagita, Fanny Hagin Mayer, Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai, The Yanagita Kunio Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1986 ISBN 0-253-36812-X, p. 176–178.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
MaMowas invoked but never defined (see the help page).