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Profile · Japan
Takeharu Mikami
Researcher · UFO Lab Director Editor · Monthly Mu Festival Organiser 🇯🇵 Iino, Fukushima
Bio
Takeharu Mikami is the Director of the International UFO Laboratory, Japan's only dedicated UFO research institute, located at Iino in southern Fukushima Prefecture. The laboratory opened in 2021 as an extension of the long-running UFO Interactive Hall, which has operated continuously since 1992. Mikami is also editor-in-chief of Monthly Mu magazine, the long-established Japanese publication covering UFO and paranormal research that has been a fixture of the Japanese civilian UAP community for decades.
The Iino community is built around Mount Senkanmori, a 462-metre near-perfect pyramid-shaped mountain at the centre of the town. Locals have reported luminous objects above and around the mountain continuously for more than forty years. The sighting frequency was high enough that in 1992 the municipal government of Fukushima City and the former Iino Town built a museum dedicated to the phenomenon. Mikami runs the modern continuation of that work.
On UAP
Under Mikami's directorship the International UFO Laboratory maintains the multi-decade Iino witness catalogue, runs research expeditions to Mount Senkanmori, and coordinates with the Japanese parliamentary league on civilian-source UAP data. The laboratory is the principal point of contact between the political track of disclosure in Tokyo and the long-running grassroots Japanese UAP research tradition rooted in rural Fukushima.
Mikami also co-organises the annual Iino UFO Festival, held every November since 2021. The 2023 festival drew approximately 4,000 visitors to a town of 5,000, with an Alien Costume Contest on the main stage, research presentations, civilian witness panels, and a guided trail up Mount Senkanmori to the UFO Contact Deck at the summit. The festival has become the single largest annual gathering of the Japanese civilian UAP community.
Notable Public Statements
Mikami has spoken on record to the Japan Times, the South China Morning Post, and The Diplomat about the long pattern of reported sightings around Mount Senkanmori and the laboratory's research approach.
As editor-in-chief of Monthly Mu, Mikami has overseen continuous coverage of Japanese UAP cases, parliamentary developments, and the international disclosure conversation, providing one of the longest unbroken civilian publishing records on the topic in any country.
Where to Find Them
In the Archive
Editorial note. This profile is built from publicly available material: the official UFO no Sato website, Japan Times and South China Morning Post coverage, The Diplomat's history of UFOs in Japan, and the published festival programmes. The archive catalogues Mikami's role as the civilian community's principal voice on UAP in Japan. If anything on this profile needs correcting, please get in touch.
