Kokkaido unidentified light report — July 1973

The catalogue spelling Kokkaido corresponds to Hokkaido, Japan, in the fuller Tomakomai account. Its witness is identified by a pseudonym, Masaaki Kudou, a 20-year-old university student working as a night watchman at a coastal lumberyard. The main reporting chain places it in July 1973, around 1:30 a.m.; an alternate May 22 date appears in some later literature. No exact Julyday is established. After a patrol, Kudou reportedly watched an erratically moving light descend near a cement factory and then over the bay. It stopped about 20 metres above the water. A transparent tube extended downward, glowed and appeared to draw water upward, accompanied by an insectlike sound. After the tube retracted, the object approached him. It appeared as a smooth pale sphere with small windows: one shadowy figure in a central window and two in another. Their features were not clearly resolved. He described feeling immobilized in his car. Several additional spheres and a larger dark form appeared before the lights departed; afterward he reported numbness and radio noise. Junichi Takanashi investigated, with accounts cited in FSR 22/1, MUFON Journal 106 and APRO Bulletin. These are reported perceptions, not verified water sampling or a demonstrated cause of immobility. The plate explicitly combines the water-tube and later window phases and preserves indistinct silhouettes.