Somewhere in the Skies - The Tomakomai Sipper w/ Zelia Edgar

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

In 1973, a night watchman for a lumber yard in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Japan, witnessed an odd sight. A light came out of the sky, positioned itself over the surface of the ocean, and proceeded to 'suck up' the water. Subscribe to Just Another Tin Foil Hat: https://www.youtube.com/@JustAnotherTinFoilHat Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ Substack: https://ryansprague.substack.com/ All socials and books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Email: [e-mail] Copyright © 2026 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #Japan #Hokkaido #UFOs #UAP #Aliens #Paranormal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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policyholders expect more, and modern insurers meet those expectations with Adion. From effortless premium collections to instant claims payouts, Adion's single platform automates the entire policy lifecycle. One platform to manage how money moves, control claims fraud, and automate operations. Adion, fintech built for your next move. The young man worked as a night watchman. After he had completed his rounds for the evening, he entered his car and turned on the radio

when all at once he saw a light streak across the open night sky he thought that maybe it was a shooting star but then the light came back welcome to just another tinfoil hat with your host Zillia Edgar join Zillia as she walks us through

some of the most bizarre UFO cases and incidents of high strangeness today we will be discussing the fascinating case of the Toma Kamaai Bay Sipper. This case occurred in July 1973 in the port city of Tomokomai in a very prefecture on the southern coast of Hokkaido, Japan. Today, Tomokomai is home to over 150,000 people, and is known for its scenic natural beauty. Back in 1973, a 20-year-old man known Sudanously as Masaki Kodoo worked as a night watchman at a lumber yard near Tomikamai.

Masaki was actually living in the Kanto region and attending university at the time that had returned to his hometown in Hokkaido for the summer break and had taken this job as a night watchman for a lumber yard. Now, Masaki's typical routine for the night would be to drive to the lumber yard, which is what he did, make the rounds of the place on foot, which he also accomplished, and then returned to his car, which is also exactly what he did that night in July of 1973. He got back to his car, switched on the radio, lit up a cigarette, and looked up at the sky. Really, the only thing he had to do for the rest of the night was sit there. He could even doze off if you wanted to. However, as he watched the clear night, he suddenly saw a light shoot across the

sky. His first thought was that it was a shooting star, however, right where it had vanished, he saw the light reappear. Masaki said that it looked as though a small orange light bulb had been turned on, but as he began to watch it, he said that it sort of started to ebb and flow, kind of expanding and contracting, but eventually growing to the size of a baseball. Though Masaki thought that it was probably a lot bigger than it looked because it was so far in the distance. Now, once it kind of stabilized at this baseball-like size, it began bouncing around in all different directions, but all within kind of a constrained, apparently meter area. This strange light caused Masaki to panic.

He said that he was extremely afraid of what he was seeing, his hair was even standing on end, but that he decided his best course of action was just to sit there and keep watching this strange light. Suddenly, Masaki said that it spiraled downward and rested right on top of a nearby cement factory and began emitting these green rays of light all in a northerly direction. It did this for a time and then it descended again, this time coming down in a big arc to rest above the nearby bay. From where Masaki was parked, he said that he could see the bay, he could see the ocean, and came to the conclusion that, spookily enough, the light appeared to be a lot closer to him than he initially thought. However, the light wasn't content to just sit there hovering above the surface of the water.

Masaki said that it emitted what he described as a transparent tube or straw from the bottom of the object. This was accompanied by a sound that Masaki described as like a certain type of cicada, but less monotonous, and also said that it was like kind of lowering in pitch. Now, once this glass-like straw made contact with water, Masaki said that it appeared to be kind of like sucking up water from the ocean. At this stage, Masaki said that he felt like he was stupefied. He hung his head, not watching the strange object for the span of several minutes, but then finally his curiosity got the best of him, and so he raised his head to look at it.

Now, by this point, he said that it had stopped vacuuming up the ocean, but was still just sitting there, maintaining its position above the surface of the water. When suddenly it began to soar across the bay towards him. He said that it was so bright that the surrounding area was lit up like daylight, but as it flew closer to him, it started decreasing in intensity. When it got close enough, he described it as about the size of a volleyball, but smooth like a ping pong ball, blowing a slightly diminished whitish color. As it approached, Masaki said that he could make out a row of small windows encircling the

center of the object, and through these windows, he could make out shadowy humanoid figures. In one of the center windows, he saw one of these shadow figures, two windows to the right of it, there were two of them. Now, as he realized that this object was coming right overhead, Masaki became aware of a strange sensation. At some point here, he began resting his head against his steering wheel. I'm still keeping an eye on what was going on outside. He didn't want to effectively turn his back to it.

So he was resting his head against the steering wheel. He thought maybe he had a headache coming on. When suddenly, he said that it felt like his hands and feet were bound or that he was unable to freely move from this position. Now, in this state, he claimed that he saw three or four other officers. very similar to the first, these bright lights which just showed up in the sky. However, what really terrified him was a sighting that he then made of another object, which he described as like the dark silhouette of three gasoline drums stuck to...

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and featuring legendary paranormal broadcaster, Jim Harold. Anamicon 20206 brings together researchers, journalists, filmmakers, authors, experiences, and investigators from all around the world. And best thing about Anamicon, there's no travel, no hotels, no expensive tickets whatsoever. It is 100% free to watch. Join us for fascinating ideas, original presentations, anomalous-themed music, videos and a global community exploring the unknown together. Watch Anamicon 2020 this September 12th on the Summer in the Sky's YouTube channel. And to learn all about our speakers and their presentations, be sure to visitanamacan.com.

Links are in the video description or the podcast show notes. We hope to see you there, September 12th. And remember, the anomalous is waiting for you at Anomicon, 26. Together. hovering soundlessly nearby. All of the glowing objects, about four or five in total, then vanished into this dark drum-like object. He said that it was like it sucked them up like a vacuum.

Then this object soared off in a northerly direction in a speed which Masaki described as the splendid speed of a shooting star. Left alone in the car, the feeling of being bound began to fade from his body, but Masaki then experienced a different feeling. He said that not only did he have a terrible headache, but it was like his body felt numb. Then he realized that his radio, which had been on, was emitting strange nonsensical noises.

He estimated that the whole experience lasted about 12 minutes and that he was so frightened he couldn't doze off, which, again, I guess he normally did on shift, and was extremely relieved when he was replaced by another security guard at dawn. So this is a funky case and contains a really common motif that's seen across many different UFO reports. Even in the original Flying Sasser Review article, Investigator Junichi Takanashi tied this case to several other accounts of UFO's gathering water with a hose.

It's interesting to note that a similarity can also be found in many cases of very, you know, much closer occupant encounters, such as the Simonton pancake encounter or the mince pie Martians. In each of those cases, people had close encounters with euphonauts who specifically requested water from the witness. Now, water is not just a strong alchemical symbol as one of the classical elements across most, if not all, alchemical or magical traditions, but is also a symbol of the unconscious mind. The fact that these apparently otherworldly beings consistently request or are seen to take water or be near water seems connected, in my opinion, to their connection to the human unconsciousness. Now, interestingly enough, the concept of this light emitting green rays towards the north, which is where it ended up flying off to, apparently, inside of the larger gas-can object,

reminds me of another case, the Hunnicat Gnome encounter of Loveland, Ohio, where the witness said that it appeared that the three beings he saw were signaling to something that he couldn't see in another field. You know, there very often seems to be the implication of other beings or another craft in these cases, you know, even the sand down clown, the being saying that there were others like him, or a case I covered recently of the disembodew hands of the Loire, where it appeared that this set of disembodied hands was talking to another cohort.

Yet again, light is seen as a catalyzing and escalating motif in this encounter as well. It began when the witness saw just a light in the sky. The light then continued to change to become more diffuse, and at this stage was when he saw the beings inside of the light. However, another primary effect is also observed here, and that is this buzzing noise, equated by Masaki to a cicada. Interestingly enough, however, it actually descended in pitch. That's not something that really stands out to me as being very common across these encounters,

but in keeping with the concept of the unconscious mind, it might be worth speculating that the dissent, again, like signals or primes the witness for a certain descent into the unconscious. Sharing that the light in the sky was relatively small, according to the witness, and he even stated that the shadows inside were too small and twisted to be regular humans. I think it's really important to mention something from the folklore of the Ainu people of Hokkaida. The Ainu are an indigenous ethnic group from northern Japan and southeastern Russia, and Hokkaido was primarily inhabited by the Ainu through the mid-17th century, with a distinct language and folklore to the rest of Japan.

One concept from Ainu folklore is the Karpokor, a supposed race of tiny people who moved about in the night. Although folk etymology has for a long time dictated that Korpokor means people under the butterbur on a certain flowering plant, it has actually been determined that it roughly translates more into underground people. Considering that Pocna Mosir in any language is the underworld, it seems likely, as in the case of the fairies of the British Isles, that this race of small beings is connected to the underworld. So to get back to the case, you have this light which buzzes up to the witness, and inside he sees small shadowy figures at night, in a space where

small underworld beings who move about at night are part of the folklore. As in so many cases, Masaki also experienced a sort of mental and physical stupefaction, a really eerie concept that whatever you're witnessing with these anomalies, they seem able to kind of stop you. They seem able to nullify you. And beyond that, we have a concept which I've mentioned many other times before, this concept of perfect timing. It was right when he looked up at the object after hanging his head and trying not to see it, that it began approaching him, almost like it was just waiting for him to look up and see it. This connection. I think points to the fact that these things, whatever they are, even though we define them as the unknown and the other, they are far more connected to us and to our viewing of them than, again, labeling them as the other or the unknown would signify. Now finally, to sum up this really weird encounter, which up until this point, it can be kind of argued that it seems highly symbolic, highly folkloric, even clothed in the modern folklore of a UFO encounter.

The radio starts acting up. So this is evidence that something was happening on some level to affect the electronic device in Masaki's car. Well, if you enjoyed this episode on the Tamakami Bay Sipper, please like. And if you're new to this field of crop circles, go ahead and subscribe to see what weirdness the future may have in store. Till then, you can keep up with me on my free blog at patreon.com slash just another tinfoil hat, where you will also find the works cited page for this episode. And yeah, also check out somewhere in the skies, not only for the very best anomalous listening, but for episodes of Just Another Tinfoil Hat Weekly.

So for today, I am Zilia Edgar, signing up. This has been Just Another Tinfoil hat with Zelia Edgar. Be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. For full video versions of these episodes, be sure to subscribe to Just Another Tinfoil Hat on YouTube. Thank you for listening. Leading insurers know that fragmented operations don't cut it anymore. Policyholders expect more,

and modern insurers meet those expectations with Adion. From effortless premium collections to instant claims payouts, Adion's single platform automates the entire policy lifecycle. One platform to manage how money moves, control claims fraud, and automate operations. Adion, fintech built for your next move.