The Space Alien: Boy Detectives Club, #3

Chapter 1

The Flying Saucers

The flying saucers first appeared in the United States. Before long, they were being observed all over the world. Although newspapers in Japan had published reports about the phenomenon for some time now, their increasingly frequent visits breathed new life into the story.

The saucer-shaped objects soared through the sky at high speeds and high altitudes. More than a few people wondered if they were surveillance aircraft launched by a foreign country. Others speculated that they came from a star somewhere else in the galaxy to investigate conditions on Earth.

But most scoffed at such notions.

A bunch of tall tales! they exclaimed. Sure, we could believe it if everyone in a major metropolis looked up and saw them. A couple of guys up in the mountains or out in the country—they’re just seeing things. Shooting stars can appear saucer-shaped. And there are optical illusions like mirages. The headlights of a car driving up a steep road and flashing across the clouds can look like that. In any case, those kinds of aircraft don’t exist anywhere. Where’s the hard proof? Where’s the evidence that one of those flying saucers ever landed on solid ground?

Serious people didn’t give the subject any serious thought.

The flying saucers themselves ignored the gossip, appearing in one country after the next, including the skies over Japan, where observances had once been rare. Yet because so few people witnessed these appearances, the larger number who hadn’t questioned the accounts, even when printed in the newspapers.

As far as the rest of society was concerned, these witnesses had merely mistaken one thing for another.

And then came the day that a startling incident gave the doubters second thoughts and made the skeptics catch their breath. What sort of an incident was this?

Before we proceed any further, let us introduce a young man by the name of Ichiro Hirano.

Ichiro Hirano was an elementary school student in the sixth grade. He lived in a sparsely populated area in the outskirts of Setagaya Ward in Tokyo. The house next door belonged to one Kitamura-san, a young man of twenty-five with a keen interest in the sciences. For the past month, Ichiro had taken to visiting him on a regular basis. Ichiro liked science too and was fascinated by his discourses on the subject.

Kitamura’s small house was a ramshackle structure with only three rooms. He lived with an aging, half-deaf housekeeper. Shelves stocked with dense science books filled the rooms, along with technical equipment like microscopes and telescopes. Ichiro loved observing the Moon and Mars through his telescope.

One day Ichiro asked him, Kitamura-san, do you think flying saucers are real?

Kitamura didn’t need to be asked twice. He launched into a detailed history of the flying saucer phenomenon, how UFOs had first been observed here and there in the United States and then here and there in many countries around the world.

After listing the various theories held about flying saucers—similar to those laid out above—Kitamura concluded, As for my own thoughts on the subject, I try to refrain from making light of the gossip and rumors. Even if people are mistaken about what they are seeing, I find it no less intriguing that so many people in so many places would be equally mistaken about the same thing.

It was human nature, he pointed out, to not believe everything at first sight.

The acceptance of new inventions is no different. The airplane, for example. A century ago, no one had seen a human being fly. Long before that, though, many dreamed about being able to fly like a bird. Even during Japan’s Edo period, daring individuals attached wings to their arms and attempted to soar through the air. People called them crazy. Who could imagine such a ridiculous thing? It was a laughable idea.

But who was laughing now?

Nowadays, planes carrying fifty or sixty people can circumnavigate the globe in two or three days. That’s why we shouldn’t be too quick to ridicule the idea of flying saucers. What is unimaginable to us may be perfectly commonplace to the inhabitants of another world.

The inhabitants of another world? Ichiro asked, a wondrous look on his face.

Other worlds beyond our own planet. There must be innumerable civilizations in the universe that are far grander than our own.

Ichiro said, his face flushed, his heart pounding, Oh, you mean like Mars? The aliens came here from Mars?

Maybe. And perhaps from a different star entirely. Either way, it is not unthinkable that sentient beings elsewhere in the universe should come to investigate our planet.

That means there could be people from another world inside those flying saucers?

It is possible. But even unoccupied, the instruments and mechanisms could conduct the reconnaissance on their own. Consider the wireless aircraft under development on this planet. There must be worlds orbiting other stars with far more advanced technology. An unmanned vehicle could be controlled remotely and sent to record conditions here on Earth.

Listening to Kitamura aroused in Ichiro feelings of both trepidation and delight.

What would beings from another star look like? Martians have rubbery tentacles for legs. Like octopuses. Real scary monsters.

Ah, yes, the inventive stories of the British writer H.G. Wells. In fact, nobody knows what form they might take. Nobody knows if there are any living beings on Mars. These flying saucers didn’t necessarily come from Mars. It’s more likely they arrived from bigger planets much farther away.

So creatures creepier than an octopus?

Who can say? Maybe those rubbery tentacles make them look like jellyfish. Maybe they look like clanking machines. And maybe they look just like us.

That sounds even scarier. What if you ran into a guy like that walking down the street?

Kitamura chuckled. I have no idea what I would do. But who’s to say we won’t cross paths one day? Imagine there are aliens from outer space inside those flying saucers and one of them landed somewhere here on Earth!

Kitamura fixed Ichiro in his gaze. Ichiro felt a shiver up his spine. For a moment, his vision blurred and Kitamura himself took on the form of a fantastic monster.

What is it, Ichiro? What’s with that funny expression on your face?

Oh, no, it’s nothing.

Nothing but his imagination. Kitamura grinned back at him in his usual calm and kindly manner.

Chapter 2

A Million Eyewitnesses

On a Saturday afternoon not too long after Kitamura and Ichiro had their conversation, Ichiro and his father went to a big theater near the Ginza shopping district in downtown Tokyo to see an animated movie. It was around five o’clock in the evening when the movie ended.

Not yet ready to call it a day, the two of them exited onto Ginza Avenue and made their way on foot toward Shinbashi Station. The store windows along Ginza Avenue were all lit up. The neon signs glimmered. The night had not yet fallen. The electric lights and the sky above glowed with an equal brightness.

It was that bewitching hour of the dusk, when everything felt slightly off, when even people passing by on the sidewalk grew indistinct and faded into the shadows.

As on any evening, the Ginza shopping and entertainment district was thronged with pedestrian traffic. So as not to get lost in his thoughts and wander off on his own, Ichiro kept a tight grip on his father’s hand. But then he was struck by the overwhelming feeling that something unexpected was about to happen in the skies above. He tore his gaze away from the store windows and looked up.

Undisturbed by even a wisp of wind, the clear skies appeared heavy and gray. Here and there a star twinkled in the twilight. Ichiro couldn’t help thinking about those flying saucers. What star, what different world so very far away, had sent them here?

What’s the matter? His father gave his hand a gentle squeeze. Let’s pick up the pace.

That’s when it happened. Ichiro started. His heart leapt into his throat. Was he seeing things? Directly above his head, shining with a pure white light, a saucer-like object shot across the high dome of the sky.

What’s going on, Ichiro? his father pressed. What are you staring at?

Dad, look! There’s another one! Two of them. Three. No, four! And one over there. Five of those flying objects! Do you see them, Dad?

Startled by this unexpected outburst from his son, Ichiro’s father turned his attention to the sky as well. It was all a blur at first, but Ichiro kept saying, There! There! His father looked in the direction he was pointing and soon caught sight of them.

One, two, three, four, five flat and round and shining disks shot over Ginza Avenue and flew off toward the west. Ichiro wasn’t imagining things. His father could see them too.

The father and son standing stock-still in the midst of the crowds thronging Ginza Avenue soon drew the attention of other pedestrians. First one, then two, then they all stopped and looked up.

Balloons! a boy yelped.

A young man shouted back, Those aren’t balloons! Balloons wouldn’t shine that bright. Those are flying saucers. Real flying saucers!

His words ran like a wave through the crowds. People froze in their tracks and raised their eyes toward the sky. Movement along the Ginza ceased, as if thousands of its inhabitants had suddenly turned to stone. It was a truly strange spectacle.

As drivers and riders noticed what was going on around them, automobiles and bicycles stopped as well. Such was the uproar that even the trams and trains ground to a halt.

Except not all of the pedestrians had seen the flying saucers. In the time it took to call out, Where? Where? the five silver saucers crossed the Ginza skyline and disappeared from view.

There! There! came the responding cry, as people rushed toward Sukiyabashi Crossing and Hibiya Street like a surging tide. But human beings on foot couldn’t keep pace with the flying vehicles. The fleetest of foot amongst them soon lost sight of the saucers.

Then they noticed the dark silhouettes dotting the rooftops along Ginza Avenue, where store employees and customers had gathered, trying to figure out where the flying saucers went. The pedestrians clambered up to the rooftops to stand alongside them. But flying like arrows shot from a strong bow, the saucers