About a Place in the Kinki Region p.18: "A New UMA Has Been Discovered! The White Man!" - an article published in the May 1998 issue of a monthly magazine
"Somebody I know claims they encountered a UMA."
Following this tip from a writer our magazine works with, our editorial department got in contact with the person in question: A-san.
When A-san showed up for the interview, he looked like a perfectly ordinary person—which only lends more credibility to his claims.
We receive a large volume of tips every day but, at the same time, that means we have to filter through a lot of false information. We've even seen people claim to be aliens and, reading such outlandish claims after a sleepless night working on a brand new article, you start to feel a bit spacey yourself. (By the way, our editorial department does not, under any circumstances, deny the existence of aliens or UFOs.)
Considering this, it should be easy to understand the relief felt upon seeing an ordinary man like A-san. We were already off to a good start.
A-san, 35, is an office worker employed by a large company, currently living in Tottori. It didn't seem like his head was in the clouds, at the very least.
His claim was that he'd seen a UMA while out camping, six years ago.
For our regular readers, I'm sure there's no need to explain what a UMA is. But for any of you casual sorts (no offense) that just happened to pick up this issue, let's go over the basics.
UMA is an acronym for Unidentified Mysterious Animal. This term is written in English, rather than Japanese, and refers to any kind of creature whose existence remains a topic of rumour and speculation.
You might assume that this is a term borrowed from a foreign country, given it's written in English, but UMA actually traces its origins to Japanese. The term was first used in a 1976 issue of a particularly famous science fiction magazine published right here in Japan. It was inspired by the similar English term UFO, which is an acronym for Unidentified Flying Object. In English, people call UMAs cryptids.
One of the most famous UMAs of all time would be Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. It even caused a media frenzy all the way over here in Japan in the 70s, and we saw plenty of similar cases like Lake Ikeda's Issie. Nessie's existence is questionable, however, as even the person who took the famous photograph of the creature admitted it was a fake.
Bigfoot, a bipedal ape-like creature; mermaids (also known as sirens); and the skyfish, a fish that glides through the air instead of the sea (which we've featured ourselves) are some other examples of well-known UMAs. You could even consider aliens to fall under the category of an UMA.
Let's go over some UMAs that originate in Japan. There aren't actually many examples of Japanese UMAs, but some of the better known ones include Tsuchinoko, the kappa, and Takitarō the giant fish which was made popular by a famous fishing manga. Beyond those, most Japanese UMAs have barely any notoriety.
One reason for this obscurity is the existence of yōkai.
When asked what they'd categorise kappa as, many would call them yōkai. The same goes for things like Ittan Momen, Hitotsume Kozō, and the Jinmenken that caused quite the stir a decade ago.
However, as the existence of these creatures is still up for debate, they could also be considered unidentified, and so the title of UMA fits.
Thus, the lack of Japanese UMAs can partially be blamed on the fact many similar creatures are instead categorised as yōkai, which is a much older term.
Is any given unidentified creature a yōkai or a UMA? Is Hirosue Ryoko an idol or an actress? The distinction hardly matters.
A kappa wouldn't care whether it's called a yōkai or a UMA. Rather, its categorisation depends entirely on how the media chooses to portray it. In that sense, the media can be quite meddlesome.
We're a magazine focused on the paranormal and horror topics, so we went back and forth over what term to use for these unidentified creatures. We hope that by calling them UMAs, we might help the term pick up steam.
This intro has gone on a little long, so let's get right to the UMA that A-san encountered.
The sighting occurred in autumn 1992 at a campsite in ●●●●●.
A-san had travelled quite far, coming all the way from Tottori for a short camping trip.
The campsite in question opened in 1985, right before camping became a popular trend nationwide. It was established as a campervan-friendly site, situated near a dam at the foot of a mountain. With plenty to do, like hiking trails, it became incredibly popular at first—even on weekdays it was common to find the place fully packed, mainly frequented by young people getting into the trend.
Camping was at the peak of its popularity around the time A-san visited. He was the type that loved following the latest trends, so he'd been into family camping trips for a while now, having splurged for all the necessary equipment, tent included. He and his family had already visited several other campsites together that same year.
Despite the camping trend being in full swing, A-san and his family found themselves the only visitors on that particular holiday—even though it wasn't a bad campsite by any means.
Now, I'm a single man in his thirties with no friends who spends his time neck-deep in the paranormal so it's not something I'd understand, but apparently when it comes to campsites, the less visitors the better. It seems there have been plenty of cases of groups of younger campers causing a ruckus and partying late into the night, which isn't ideal for the family campers.
It was apparently an ideal situation, so A-san wanted to take advantage of it. He, his wife B-san, and their son C-chan (6 years old at the time) set up the tent, started a campfire, and enjoyed themselves.
Even when it comes to UMAs, women seem to be more sensitive to their presence. B-san was the first to pick up on the fact something was wrong. She started complaining about a headache, and kept looking off into the distance. A-san asked her what was wrong, and she said "I feel like somebody's watching me, somewhere over there" and pointed to the mountain beyond the dam.
Then, the radio they'd brought with them started acting up. The signal was fine but, out of nowhere, something that sounded like a man's voice would break through the broadcast.
A-san described the sound as a groaning noise, but C-chan said it sounded like someone saying 'heyyy.' Apparently if you tried to hear it that way, you could make it out.
The oddities didn't end there. The family worked together to make curry for dinner. C-chan was a shy child, but he had fun helping with chopping the vegetables and preparing the rice. However, when the curry was finally finished, A-san found it had no flavour. He asked his family, wondering if something was wrong with his sense of taste, but they said they couldn't taste anything either. It may have been an instant curry mix, but it's hard to believe it would taste of nothing at all, not even a hint of any of the spices.
And then, C-chan had a sudden nosebleed. It came out of nowhere, and wouldn't stop.
Those of you readers who've had their brain warped by our magazine are likely thinking right now: could this be the work of aliens?
Headaches, radio interference, nosebleeds... All of those are common side effects from changes in the magnetic field. Basically, they could be the result of a UFO which harnesses magnetism to fly.
We would like to argue this isn't the case, though. And not because we're tired of all the UFO tips we've been getting. Definitely not.
Firstly, there have been zero UFO sightings reported in that area. As we can see in the Kofu UFO incident, in most cases UFO sightings happen repeatedly in the same area. It's theorised this is due to natural magnetic fields making certain locations better for landings. If these problems were caused by a UFO, you would expect there to have been more sightings at some point.
Secondly, the location is particularly poorly suited for landing a UFO. An ideal location would be a large, flat area like farmland or an open field. The campsite A-san and his family visited, however, stood at the foot of a mountain—the surrounding area was forested and mountainous, and the only nearby structure was a dam. There was practically no flat land to speak of. And even if the UFO was there to abduct people, rather than land, visibility from above would be obscured by the trees.
And lastly, as you'll see later, this UMA appears to be quite big itself. If we assume it was an alien, it would have needed to travel using an especially large UFO—making the theory that it landed in such a mountainous area even more ridiculous.
Now, let's get back to A-san's testimony.
The good mood had sharply declined due to all the odd occurrences, so the family decided to call it a night early and head to their tent.
The next morning, A-san was brushing his teeth at a faucet when B-san called out to him.
She described hearing voices outside their tent throughout the night.
Amongst the chirping of crickets, she could just barely make out the sound of a man shouting 'heyyy.' B-san concluded that the source of the voice must have been very far away, so she didn't think to wake A-san up.
She was scared, especially considering the feeling of being watched she mentioned the day prior.
A-san, on the other hand, didn't think too much of it. They'd come all the way out from Tottori, so he made the most of it by taking a walk by the dam and helping C-chan catch some bugs. B-san stayed in the tent the whole time, still complaining about a headache.
As the sun started to set and the family were packing up their things, A-san remembered that he'd seen a sign for an observation deck nearby. The family decided to take a quick detour there to take a photo commemorating the camping trip.
They climbed a set of stairs leading to a wooden observation deck. The structure looked like it'd been there long before the campsite itself was built.
After taking in the view, beautifully dyed by the setting sun, they set up their camera to take a photo. At that moment, C-chan yelled 'ah!' and pointed way into the distance.
He was looking right at the mountain beyond the dam. Roughly half a kilometre away, at about the midpoint of the mountain, he had spotted something white peeking out through the trees. It looked to be fluttering, like a white flag or a piece of cloth that'd gotten caught on a tree.
The observation deck had a pair of viewing binoculars built into the platform—the kind where you'd insert a coin and the shutter over the lenses would open.
After plenty of pestering from C-chan, A-san put a coin into the binoculars and adjusted them to be able to see the white thing, then lifted C-chan up so he could look through them.
C-chan curiously stared through the binoculars for a while, but then suddenly started wailing.
A-san was surprised by the sudden outburst. He handed his child over to B-san and looked through the binoculars himself to see what'd caused the crying.
What he saw looked like a very large hand. Behind it, through the gaps in the foliage, he could somewhat make out the white body it belonged to—which looked to be entirely naked. A-san believed the thing must have been several metres tall.
The hand was making a slow, beckoning gesture, as if telling him 'here, come here.'
When A-san looked away from the binoculars, he saw his family watching him, looking very worried. He also noticed at that moment that the sound of insects, which had been a constant background noise until now, was completely absent.
A-san was bewildered, he couldn't believe what was happening. As if to confirm what he'd seen was actually real, he peeked through the binoculars once again.
The hand was pointing straight at him.
He's unsure exactly how long he spent staring at that hand, but he was unable to take his eyes off of it. A while later, A-san suddenly came to his senses and looked away. His family was nowhere to be seen.
Hustling down the stairs from the observation deck, he spotted them. They were holding hands and stumbling away from the parking lot.
He asked B-san where they were going, but all she replied was "have to go" over and over while staring blankly.
A-san forced the two of them into the car and drove off. After a while of driving, they seemed to come to their senses too. Apparently neither B-san or C-chan had any recollection of what happened on the observation deck.
That was the entirety of A-san's testimony. Our editorial team believe his claims are sincere.
At this point in time, there have been no known sightings of a large, white humanoid creature like this in Japan. And it's out of the question that this was just some huge perverted creep. There are no known UMAs matching this description, but the closest would be Bigfoot. Bigfoot is only found on the other side of the planet and, while we do have similar creatures here known as ijū, they look nothing like the thing A-san saw. Our editorial team believe this is an entirely new UMA and have decided to call it 'the White Man'.
Since its voice and gestures mimic a human's, it likely has some degree of intelligence, or perhaps its mimicry is just pure animal instinct. In tales from overseas, mermaids are depicted as charming sailors with song. And in Japan, kappa are known to mimic the sound of a crying baby to lure in victims. Does the White Man have similar abilities?
Like mermaids and kappa, it may also be targeting humans to steal their life force (by draining their vitality.)
We intend to continue looking into the White Man, but we need to be conscious of the costs of doing a field investigation. Therefore, our continued reporting depends on sales. If you want to see more, make sure to stay subscribed to our magazine!
Translation Notes 17-24
The translation notes are organised by part. Please be careful of spoiling yourself by reading ahead.
This is an amateur translation of the web novel 近畿地方のある場所について as posted to kakuyomu.jp by the author 背筋. The web novel is freely accessible to the public, and this translation has no relation to any other adaptions. I claim no rights or ownership of the content presented.