June 30, 1998. The ninetieth anniversary of the Tunguska event.¹ At the University of Tokyo Kiso Observatory, Ichirō Maeda, a young graduate student of astronomy, spotted a new diffuse source and turned his attention to it. “Hmmm… Could this be a new comet?” he thought, and immediately told his professor, Akira Inoue.

“Inoue-sensei,² I think I’ve spotted a new comet. Could you please have a look at it?”
Inoue walked over to his student’s side and had a look at the screen. “Yes, it does look like a comet,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Notify CBAT,³ Maeda-kun.⁴”
“Right away!”
“Meanwhile, keep tracking it.” Ichirō gave him a nod of affirmation.
Inoue kept his gaze fixed on the screen, smiling at the thought of this new discovery. He and his student would get an IAU⁵ Circular and a comet named after them. Ichirō interrupted his thoughts to inform him that the CBAT had acknowledged their telegram.
“Well done, Maeda-kun.”

By July 2, the Circular from CBAT had gone out: the new object was classified as C/1998 M7. Two more days passed and Ichirō found out he couldn’t make sense of C/1998 M7. From his observations, Ichirō inferred that the nucleus of C/1998 M7 was about 1–1.5 kilometers in diameter. But, unlike any other comet he knew of, it didn’t show up on any survey prior to June 30. It appeared suddenly at a distance of 0.35 AU,⁶ deep inside the solar system. What made it even stranger and scarier were its movement and its plume; its acceleration was non-gravitational and pointed the wrong way. Its plume, too, was wrong – it was stubby, far too bright for the comet’s size, and sunward.

“Inoue-sensei,” he reluctantly told his professor, “I don’t think C/1998 M7 is behaving like a normal comet.”
“What do you mean, Maeda-kun?”
“Here,” said Ichirō, and showed him the image sequence on the screen. “Notice the sunward plume?” Professor Inoue had spent most of his academic years studying comets and asteroids. This was unlike anything he’d seen before.
“This can’t be…” Inoue whispered, reluctant to believe what he suspected.
“What’s more, its acceleration isn’t gravitational.”
“What?” Inoue asked in shock.
“Yes. In fact, it seems to be decelerating.”
“Decelerating?”
“So it seems. Of course, I need more days of observation and more data, but…”
“Compile what you have into a summary immediately!” ordered Inoue. “I must call Okayama⁷ and ask for a spectrum analysis!”
“Yes,” responded Ichirō, and started writing.
“Could this be… thrust?” whispered Inoue, his voice buried under the clicking of the keyboard on Ichirō’s workstation.

During his phone call with Professor Hayao Satō, the director of the Okayama Astrophysical Observatory, Inoue chose his words as carefully as humanly possible for fear of being seen as some sort of UFO conspiracy theorist. Like pretty much all of his peers, he never ruled out the existence of extraterrestrial life. But the idea of contact with an alien race terrified him – he was certain it would be devastating for humanity.

The call was short and cordial, but one could hear the stress on both ends of the line. C/1998 M7 had also been picked up, one day after Ichirō notified CBAT, by Spacewatch on Kitt Peak and others. The entire astronomical community was baffled by the object’s asymmetrical outgassing and the deceleration. Satō told Inoue that many colleagues suspected it was an alien spacecraft. For its part, OAO would try to figure out the object’s composition.

“What did Satō-kyōju⁸ say, sensei?” Ichirō asked, after the call ended.
“They’re as puzzled as we are.”
“It shouldn’t be doing that, should it?”
“What, slowing down?”
“Yes.”
“Of course not,” Inoue said and went to the coffee machine. “Ugh. It’s cold already,” he said, grimacing in annoyance, and turned it on again to reheat the jug. One of the things he could never stand was cold coffee.

* * *

Meanwhile, in discussions on C/1998 M7 in mailing lists and newsgroups, the object was described as artificial more and more frequently. Yet, no public announcement described it as such. The results from Okayama had already come in: it resembled an odd metallic asteroid, with no silicate character or ice bands.

“Doesn’t look like we’re getting our comet, Maeda-kun,” Inoue sighed, and continued reading. C/1998 M7 exhibited a complete absence of cyanogen (CN), dicarbon (C₂), tricarbon (C₃), and amidogen (NH₂). Additional data from Nobeyama Radio Observatory’s 45-meter dish⁹ revealed it had none of the gases comets are made of. It had an asteroid’s surface and a comet’s tail in the wrong place.

By the sixth, follow-up astrometry from the Spacewatch project on Kitt Peak in Arizona and the LINEAR program¹⁰ in New Mexico, which had become fully operational in March, cemented the validity of Ichirō’s observations: no gravitational solution matched the deceleration of the object. Two more days passed, and C/1998 M7 was now within range of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex’s solar-system radar in California and the vast Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico. Their findings, which took one more week to come, were terrifying: the combination of radar cross-section and delay-Doppler imaging revealed a coherent, elongated object with a multitude of features like protrusions and flat facets, a length of approximately 1–1.5 kilometers, and no detectable rotation – the object held itself steady in a manner that seemed almost deliberate.

“Is it… attitude-stabilized?” Inoue gasped, as he read the two observatories’ reports.
“Attitude-stabilized?” asked Ichirō in disbelief.
“It appears so.”
“Then it must be…”
“Yes.”

Two hours later, a motorcade escorting a black Toyota Century limousine arrived at Kiso. A group of police officers entered the facilities and their head, Chief Inspector Kenichi Haneda, asked to see Inoue and Maeda.

“Please accept my apologies for the sudden visit, Inoue-sensei and Maeda-san,” he said, after showing them his badge. “The government needs to consult with you immediately.”
“I see,” responded Inoue. “Is Satō-sensei going to attend, too?” he added.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer this question, Inoue-sensei.”
“Understood. Come, Maeda-kun.”
“Thank you, sensei,” said the policeman.

The policemen escorted Inoue and Ichirō to the gleaming government limousine. The chauffeur opened the rear passenger doors for them and closed them after they’d both entered. The two scientists settled into the soft wool-upholstered seats of the government car, fastened their seat-belts, and the convoy drove away.

“What do you think they want, sensei?”
“I’m not sure, but perhaps they’ll demand we self-censor all our communications to the public and the press on this matter,” Inoue said, cleaning his black-framed glasses, and took a deep breath. Ichirō nodded grimly.
“I’m a bit surprised, though,” Ichirō said after a few moments of silence, looking at the scenery outside his window.
“Hmm?”
“The drive from Tokyo to Kiso is about four hours. They arrived to pick us up less than three hours after we got the results from Goldstone and Arecibo.” Inoue sighed and crossed his arms.
“Perhaps they got them before we did. At any rate, I bet every space research facility and every amateur stargazer out there is looking at this thing.”

* * *

Inoue and Ichirō were taken to one of the smaller meeting rooms at the Kantei, the Prime Minister’s Office. It was oblong, dominated by a long table capable of seating twelve persons, six on each side. Behind the attendees, there were twelve more seats for assistants – stenographers and such. On one of the narrow sides of the room, a roll-down projection screen hid a large wall-mounted whiteboard; a smaller one, mounted on a tripod, was left aside. The projection screen was served by a ceiling-mounted CRT projector connected to a computer on the other side of the room.

Satō was already there, having drunk half his cup of coffee. An aide escorted Inoue and Ichirō in, telling them that the Prime Minister would come shortly. Hearing these words, Satō turned to see who had been brought into the room. He recognized his colleague and rose to greet him and Ichirō. The two professors greeted each other with a mutual eshaku, a small forward bow. They hadn’t seen each other in more than a year, due to their conflicting schedules, but they’d known each other from the time they were still students.

“Did they bring you here because of C/1998 M7, Akira?” Satō asked.
“Yes. By the way, Hayao, allow me to introduce my graduate student, Ichirō Maeda. He discovered this strange object.”
“Pleased to meet you, Satō-sensei,” Ichirō said after bowing in deference. Satō returned the greeting.

About ten minutes later, the government members who had competence on such matters arrived: the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Motome Suzuki; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Takashi Sakamoto; the Director of the Japan Defense Agency, Kazuto Ichikawa; the Minister of Home Affairs and Director of the National Public Safety Commission, Michio Hasegawa; the Minister of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture, Hirokazu Takeda; the Director-General of the Science and Technology Agency, Takao Nogi. The last government member to enter the room was the Prime Minister, Kōnosuke Hayase.

The two professors and Ichirō stood up and bowed to the government officials, but little time was given for etiquette and formalities; the Chief Cabinet Secretary introduced everyone and all took their seats quickly. The Prime Minister had a short exchange with him and, breaking with protocol, opened the meeting and addressed those present himself:

“Gentlemen, I apologize for calling this meeting on such short notice, but it is an extremely urgent matter which I trust you’ll agree is of utmost importance. I summoned these two esteemed professors and the fine young researcher who discovered this space object that everyone is talking about, so that they might help us understand its nature. Inoue-sensei, could you please take the floor and inform us about this object?”
“Sōri,¹¹ thank you for granting us your time,” started Inoue. “This discovery was primarily made by my graduate student, Maeda. On the thirtieth of June, he spotted an object that resembled a comet. While observing its trajectory, however, he noticed three characteristics that suggested it was something different: one, it is decelerating; two, it seems to have appeared out of nowhere, as it doesn’t show up in any previous images, and, lastly, its plume has a peculiar shape and points towards the sun rather than away from it.”

The ministers looked on in shock. They all knew what comets look like, but Inoue’s description of C/1998 M7’s behavior was unlike anything they’d ever heard or read before. Even though Sakamoto and Ichikawa had been informed by the Americans about this object in great detail, to hear about it from one of their own hit much closer to home. Inoue scanned their faces with his gaze, took a deep breath, and continued.

“On the fourth of July, I requested a spectrum analysis from the OAO to determine its composition. This is not something extraordinary; we do it with every new Solar System object we locate, but C/1998 M7’s behavior made finding out what it is made of more urgent. Here, I think I should let Satō-sensei explain his team’s findings.”
“Indeed, as Inoue-sensei mentioned, this object behaves in a completely abnormal manner. I’m not going to overwhelm you with extremely technical details. What we know is that it’s not a comet. It is metallic – like a metallic asteroid. It has none of the elements that make up a typical comet, as confirmed by additional analysis by Nobeyama. What’s even more surprising is that it emits a very bright plume from the side that is closer to the Sun.” Inoue nodded and exchanged glances with Satō, then pressed the button on his microphone.
“I must add here that imaging we received from Spacewatch and LINEAR revealed something even more unsettling: this object does not rotate. It doesn’t roll and tumble through space like a typical asteroid. Its movement is very steady and could well be construed as deliberate.” His tone was palpably worried and ominous as he uttered that last word.
“Deliberate?” asked Hayase.
“Indeed, Prime Minister,” answered Inoue. Satō nodded.
“Then it must be…” Ichikawa started, but stopped mid-sentence.
“…a spacecraft?” added Hasegawa.
“I’m afraid I can’t explain it any other way,” answered Inoue, lowering his head.
“The Americans were right,” said Sakamoto sotto voce.
“Inoue-sensei,” said Hayase, “if it is true that it’s a spacecraft and that, as the Americans estimate, it’s headed for Earth, what can we do?”
“I’m afraid I’m ill-equipped to provide an answer to such a question,” he replied humbly. “If it misses the Earth and leaves our solar system, it will be the best scenario. If it crashes on Earth, we must expect massive disruptions along its path, like the Tunguska Event, and tremendous loss of life at the site of its crash.”
“But what will happen if it lands safely and its crew disembarks?” asked Ichikawa. Hasegawa nodded in agreement.

The two professors looked at each other, perplexed. Indeed, they were not prepared to discuss such scenarios. The ministers noticed their glances and each one of them tried to process the implications of the scientists’ findings. The potential for disasters and casualties on the ground that the crash scenario entailed was bad enough; the possibility of a safe landing was terrifying, as the Earth would have to interact with, and possibly fight, soldiers possessing unfathomably advanced technology. But what scared the politicians the most was the panic that would spread if word got out that an alien spacecraft the size of a hill was going to either crash or land on Earth. A dark silence filled the room.

* * *

“I don’t even want to think what will happen if the public hears aliens are on their way to Earth…” said Hasegawa, after a long and tense moment.
“Indeed,” Hayase replied. “There will be panic.”
“Or mockery,” added Takeda.
“Mockery?” asked Nogi.
“You know how most people laugh at the Fox Mulder¹² types. If we go out and say an alien spaceship is heading our way, they’ll think we’re insane and any warning we issue will be ignored and ridiculed.”
“I don’t know which of the two is worse,” said Nogi.
“Ichikawa-san,¹³ what would you do? What about you, Hasegawa-san?” asked Hayase.
“I really don’t know,” Ichikawa said. “The Agency has no doctrine for this. Perhaps we should start classifying every image out there and follow up with a media blackout.”
“That’s not going to work,” said Takeda. “They’ll find the images elsewhere and they’ll republish them,” he added.
“And then we’ll look like we’re keeping a dangerous secret from the people, risking everyone’s lives,” Nogi replied.
“Yes,” agreed Hayase. “It would be construed as a cover-up and trust in the state would collapse.”
“Besides,” said Suzuki, “it would only be temporary. The press clubs and the TV stations would cooperate, but only for so long. The weeklies and the foreign press? Absolutely not.”
“I’m afraid this would spark riots, especially if this thing ends up entering our atmosphere,” Hasegawa added.

As the ministers argued, Ichirō scribbled a note and slid it to the two professors, who read it and gave him slight nods.

“Prime Minister, if, by your permission, I may add something here,” Satō spoke, “Takeda-san and Suzuki-san are right. Even if the government classifies the imagery, it will emerge one way or another.”
“Do you have any ideas, Satō-sensei?” asked Hayase.
“In fact, Maeda has something to say, if you permit.”
“By all means. Maeda-kun, what do you have in mind?”

“Prime Minister, thank you for graciously granting me your time,” Ichirō started. “As Takeda-san and Suzuki-san pointed out, it would be impossible to keep C/1998 M7 a secret. As we speak, the entire astronomical community has its eyes on it, from academics to amateur astronomers. Takeda-san also correctly advised against rushing to tell the population it’s an alien spacecraft, even though we all suspect it is.” Ichirō’s recognition of his insights made Takeda smile.
“My suggestion,” continued Ichirō, “is to exercise caution as to how we describe it to the public. We know it’s a metallic object. We know its outgassing is unusual. We know it decelerates. What we don’t know is whether it is indeed an alien spacecraft, whether it is indeed headed for the Earth, why it decelerates, and – if it is an alien vessel – what its intentions are. So, we must choose the wording of our announcements very carefully. We can say some of the things we know. Others we can downplay. As for the things we don’t know or are not sure of, we should avoid mentioning them. We cannot control what the people say or think. But we can remain careful.”
“Yes, this makes sense,” said Suzuki.
“However,” said Ichikawa, “we must not forget that our main concern is to protect the people on the ground from this object, whatever it is. Maeda-kun, do you have any estimates regarding what could happen?”
“We have two main scenarios, Chōkan.¹⁴ The most favorable is that it somehow veers off.”
“Let’s hope things turn out this way,” said Sakamoto.
“I hope so, too. But now comes the unpleasant scenario, and it doesn’t matter if this object is a spacecraft or a rock. If it stays on course towards Earth, with its current behavior, it will crash. And it will be catastrophic.”
“Catastrophic?” asked Hasegawa.
“Yes. If an object this large hits an inhabited area, it will cause tens of thousands of casualties. And even its pass through the atmosphere will cause serious damage to property and nature. Probably even injuries or casualties.”
“Maeda-kun, can you estimate where it might fall?”
“Not at the moment, I’m afraid.”
“Maeda-kun,” asked Hayase, “in the worst scenario, how much time do we have to prepare the population?”
“I would err on the side of caution and give a month.”
“A month?” Hasegawa said to Ichikawa.
“So,” said Hayase, “it could fall anywhere on Earth and we only have a month to prepare people around the world. Is that correct, Maeda-kun?”
“Yes, Prime Minister, that is correct.”
“I see. Gentlemen, we have no time to waste. We must organize on the national level and coordinate with the rest of the world. Sakamoto-san, everyone – I have faith that you will do your duty to the nation and the world.”
“Yes, Sōri!” the ministers responded, as if in chorus.

---

1. A massive mid-air explosion of an asteroid or comet that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia on June 30, 1908. ↩︎
2. Teacher/Master (in the sense of “master and disciple”)/Doctor/Professor. ↩︎
3. The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ↩︎
4. Kun: Japanese honorific showing endearment. Used by school teachers addressing their students, or by older co-workers to younger men. ↩︎
5. International Astronomical Union. ↩︎
6. Astronomical Unit: unit of length roughly equal to the average distance from Earth to the Sun. ↩︎
7. The Okayama Astrophysical Observatory (OAO). ↩︎
8. Professor (academic rank/job title). ↩︎
9. A 45-meter radio telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory in Minamimaki, in the Nagano Prefecture of Japan. ↩︎
10. The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project for the systematic detection and tracking of near-Earth objects. It’s a collaboration among the United States Air Force, NASA, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory. ↩︎
11. Prime Minister in Japanese. ↩︎
12. The male lead of the X-Files TV series, noted for his belief in the paranormal and his appetite for conspiracy theories. ↩︎
13. San: Japanese honorific meaning Mr. / Ms. ↩︎
14. Director in Japanese. ↩︎

Last updated: July 20, 2026