I am currently an Anthropology student and watching this episode made me think about Japan and the influence of Shintoism within their culture. This episode jumped from topics quickly and looked over what Shintoism means and is to the Japanese. Although, the overarching view within the episode is that aliens are visiting Japan because of their connect to Shintoism and their rapid growth cannot be explained in humanistic terms.
Japan’s economic miracle is addressed in the episode with the reasoning that Japan could not have developed that quickly on their own. However, the economic miracle can be explained by the results of the benefits of post World War II Japan from the Cold War. The Japanese government not only accepted aid from the U.S. Marshall Plan, but economic intervention from the government themselves.
The episode also states that Japan has had an increased number of UFO sightings. However,like that majority of UFO sightings, they can be the results of balloons, weather phenomenas, meteors, and hoaxes. The unexplained UFO sightings all around the world are typically fundamentally different from the other sightings. UFO sighting have a logical reasoning behind them, which can be explained scientifically.
Another issues raised in the episode was the keyhole shaped Kofun. These tombs were built during the Yayoi and Kofun period around 3rd to 6th century AD. The Kofun have large monoliths on top of the tomb. The episode also mentions the Ishi-no-Hoden megalith, or the Iwafune Shrine in Japan. The mythology does call the shrine a “Heavenly Sky Boat,” however if we focus on a comparative approach to the sky boat and the importance of communication between the gods and people we can see how these megaliths can represent cultural significance.
We know from other cultures around the world that humanity has been able to move large stones with the use of human ingenuity. On Easter Island, they more than likely rocked the large statues back and forth to move them forward. In Ancient Egypt, the stones were moved with sleds while pouring water in front to increase movement for the sled. Just because humanity did not have the technology that we do today does not mean the people in the past were unintelligent.
Although Ancient Aliens can be a fun idea to discuss. There is no factual, scientific evidence that can be given to any of these theories.
