I need to tell you about something that happened when I was seven years old. I'm calling from Japan, and this happened right here in Kofu City back in 1975. February 23rd. I remember the exact date because, you know, you don't forget something like this. Ever. I was with my cousin Katsuo that evening. We were out roller skating near the Hinode Housing Estate in Kamimachi. It was a Sunday, so we'd been playing later than usual, around six thirty in the evening. We were on this concrete slab in a vacant lot, just doing what kids do, and that's when we looked up and saw them. Two orange lights in the sky. Bright orange, glittering. They were coming from the east, from over Mount Tatsuzawa. At first we just stood there, you know, watching them. They weren't like airplanes. The way they moved, it was different. And they were making this sound, this crackling, ticking sound. Like a Geiger counter, if you've ever heard one of those. The larger one broke off and headed north toward Mount Atago. But the smaller one, it kept coming closer. It got right over our heads, and we could see it had this circular shape with three spinning things underneath. There was this black tubular thing extending down from it, and the noise got louder. We got scared. Really scared. So we ran.
We ran to Fukuoji temple, the one nearby, and we hid behind the tombstones in the cemetery. I know that sounds strange, two kids hiding in a graveyard, but we were terrified. We stayed there until we couldn't see the object anymore, and then we started making our way toward my house. But as we got near the road by the Hinode Complex, we saw this bright red flame in the distance. At first we thought maybe something had crashed, you know? Like a plane or something. We were curious kids, and the fear had worn off a little, so we headed toward it. The road turned into a dirt path, and beyond that were the vineyards. It was winter, so there weren't any grapes. Just these concrete poles standing in rows, holding up the wire mesh for the vines. When we got close enough to see clearly, that's when we realized the orange light we'd seen in the sky had landed right there in the vineyard. It wasn't a fire. It wasn't a crash. It was sitting there, on the ground. We took off our roller skates and got closer. The object that had been glowing orange in the sky was now silver. Metallic silver. It was dome-shaped, maybe five meters across, about two meters high. A disc. It was resting on three ball-shaped landing gears, and the top dome was rotating, but then it stopped. Sand was kicking up around it even though there wasn't any wind.
We spent about five minutes just staring at it. We got close, maybe 20 or 30 feet away. There was writing on the side. Strange symbols, raised up on the surface. They looked like hieroglyphics or something. One side had five characters. I remember thinking they looked like they could mean 'flying saucer,' but I was seven, so who knows. The other side had similar markings but I couldn't make them out as clearly. And then a door opened. Right above those characters, a door slid down and turned into a staircase. I could see inside, just barely. It was dim in there, but I saw machinery, lights flashing. Red, blue, green. And I saw another figure sitting in there, smaller, in front of what looked like a control panel. That's when the first one came out. It walked down those stairs, and I'm telling you, I've never seen anything like it before or since. It was maybe four feet tall, a little over. Wearing this silver suit that seemed to reflect light, made it look like it was glowing. The suit had this texture to it. And it was carrying something that looked like a gun, but not any gun I'd ever seen. But the thing that really got us was its face. Dark brown skin, covered in these deep wrinkles. So many wrinkles you couldn't see eyes or a nose. The whole face was just folds of skin. Except for the mouth. Where the mouth should be, there were three metal fangs. Two inches long, silver, like metal teeth. And it had these pointed ears. I know how that sounds, but I'm telling you what I saw.
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