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Here's how Japan wants its military to deal with UFOs

Don't engage in battle with E.T., troops are told.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper
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An unidentified flying object captured by the US Navy in the "gimbal" video. Japan has unveiled its own protocol for dealing with UFOs. 

Department of Defense

Members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces have to be ready for everything, and that includes a possible visit from E.T.  Japan's defense minister, Taro Kono, issued standing orders on Monday for how the country's troops should deal with unidentified aerial objects that might threaten the nation's security. 

He's not asking them to engage in battle with aliens. The SDF members are being asked to record and photograph any such objects and to take steps for the "necessary analysis" of the sightings, the Japan Times reported.  

The ministry says there are no known cases of the Self-Defense Forces coming into contact with UFOs, and Kono himself has said in the past he doesn't believe in them

Japan's not alone in being prepared for close encounters of the third kind. The US now has an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, established to "standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena," the links they may have to foreign governments and the threat they pose to the US military.