Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura’s recent reported comments about the existence of UFOs is a perfect example of chronic public illiteracy and failure, or inability to think through even the most mundane language (“UFOs ‘definitely exist,’ Machumura asserts” December 19, 2007) It is presented as silliness that anybody, especially a public figure, should make such an admission, and the presumption of silliness is possible only because of a very common mistake here that everyone ignores. It is a mistake to think that “UFO” refers to intelligent extraterrestrials visiting the Earth in flying machines because by definition, a UFO is any object in flight that is not identified. It could be a bird, a Frisbee, an unidentified airplane, and it might even be an extraterrestrial. So how could anybody not believe in UFOs? Using“UFO” to refer only to space aliens is another indicator of the insufficient adaptation of a foreign import to the popular culture here. It is not so much silly as it is pitiful. Now, seriously, I must return to my Sasquatch blog.