Sunday, 23 February 1975. Kamimachi, in eastern Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture. Two second-grade cousins, Katsuhiro Yamahata and Masato Kawano, were roller-skating outside a housing block after sunset. Their encounter became one of Japan's "Big Three" UFO incidents, ranked beside the Kera Incident of 1972 and the Nikoro Incident of 1974. Researchers including Hachirō Kubota, Shin'ichirō Namiki and Kazuo Hayashi documented the case. The association UFOKOFU1975 registered 23 February as Kōfu UFO Day, and about 100 people attended the 50th-anniversary event in 2025, with Yamahata on stage.
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