DISPUTEDCRAFT · PAINTINGS & MANUSCRIPTS
The Hollow Ship, Bakin's Version
1825 · Edo (Tokyo) · Japan
WHAT IT IS
The best-known telling of the hollow ship: the novelist Bakin's sketch for a literary club, with the woman, her box and the windowed vessel.
THE ALIEN READING
The most detailed version, often cited as the original 'UFO landing' record from Japan.
WHAT THE RECORD SAYS
Bakin collected curiosities for a club of storytellers, and he suggested the woman was Russian. Written 22 years after the supposed event, it is the most literary of the versions, not the earliest record.
WHERE IT STANDS
Disputed. What it shows, or how old it is, is still argued over by specialists.
STATUS IS OUR CURRENT ASSESSMENT, NOT A VERDICT · REVIEWED 3 OCT 2026
THE RECORD
- DATE
- 1825
- PLACE
- Edo (Tokyo) · Japan
- MADE BY
- Kyokutei Bakin, Toen shōsetsu
- MEDIUM
- Paintings
- TECHNICAL
- Illustrated miscellany · Toen shōsetsu (1825) · compiled by the Toen-kai literary circle
MORE FROM VOL. II · BEFORE THE CAMERA
FOLIO 19 · DISPUTED
The Hollow Ship of 1803
1803 story · late Edo copy
FOLIO 14 · EXPLAINED
The Madonna with Saint Giovannino
Late 15th century
FOLIO 15 · EXPLAINED
The Dečani 'Spaceships'
c. 1350
FOLIO 16 · EXPLAINED
The Sputnik of Montalcino
1595
FOLIO 17 · DISPUTED
The Nuremberg Sky Battle
1561
FOLIO 18 · DISPUTED
The Black Spheres over Basel
1566