Japanese lawmakers met on Tuesday to create a nonpartisan group that will ask the government to establish an organization for investigating unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, also known as UFOs.
The lawmaker group will be chaired by Yasukazu Hamada, parliamentary affairs leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, also from the LDP, will serve as secretary-general.
The group will hold its founding general meeting on June 6 after Tuesday's preparatory meeting, which was held in parliament.
The U.S. government has created a specialized organization in the Defense Department to probe UAP.
The lawmaker group will urge the government to gather and analyze information on UAP and pursue cooperation with Washington by forming a counterpart organization.
In its founding statement, the group said that if UAP, which have been witnessed many times over Japanese territory, are cutting-edge secret weapons or unmanned spy drones from other countries, they would present a major security threat to Japan.
The group is asking members of parliament from all parties to join.