Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Kihara Confirms Tokyo Is Analysing PURSUE Files, Including Two Videos Near Japan

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters in Tokyo on 11 May 2026 that the Japanese government is analysing the Pentagon's 8 May PURSUE release 'with great interest', flagging two videos in the first tranche that depict unidentified anomalous phenomena near Japan. One is a 2024 infrared recording of a ball-like or football-shaped object captured by US Indo-Pacific Command. Kihara said Tokyo is 'constantly gathering and analysing information' on UAP and is coordinating closely with Washington and other partners. This is the first formal acknowledgment from a foreign government that it has opened a substantive review of the PURSUE material. The statement builds on the March 2026 announcement by a non-partisan Japanese parliamentary group of plans to propose a dedicated UAP coordination body and follows the 2024 establishment of the bipartisan Parliamentary Group for the Study of UAP from a Security Perspective, chaired by former Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada.