The opposition DPJ has finally told the government what everyone else has been thinking for some time, namely, “Stop wasting time and public money going on about bloody UFOs and do some bloody work”. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba piped up last week saying he was “troubled over potential legal issues if one arrives and it requires action by the Self-Defense Forces”.

The following day, chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura entered the grand UFO conversation, adding “Personally, I absolutely believe they exist.”

Then the Education and science Minister Kisaburo Tokai said he ‘hoped aliens existed so children would become more interested in space’ - “It would be fun if they existed,” he told reporters.

And with the whole question taking up more column inches than it needs to, the opposition DPJ’s Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama (brother of Minister of Justice Kunio Hatoyama), ‘told reporters on Friday that Cabinet members and lawmakers should not get too involved in the UFO discussions, dismissing aliens as an impossibility.’

“Since it’s all complete fantasy, it makes no sense to discuss how the Defense Ministry should respond,” the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted him as saying.

How has it even come up for debate? Any cinema-goer knows that if aliens come, they’ll land in the U.S., and the U.S. will deal with them. Or they’ll land all over the world. And the U.S. will deal with them.