Orange Lights Over Okinawa’s Hyakuna Beach

What happened

At about 7:30 pm on 6 July 2026, a local business owner taking photos at Hyakuna Beach, on Okinawa’s south-east coast, noticed bright lights low in the eastern sky over the sea. The witness told the Okinawa Times that one light split into two, and the pair drifted together and apart while moving in the same direction. They stayed visible for about 20 minutes. “Isn’t it a UFO?” the witness remembered thinking. Local reports collected comments like “maybe a UFO” and “very strange.”

The footage

Two videos are described in the Japanese press:

• Hyakuna Beach, Nanjo, 6 July, from about 7:30 pm (phone video by the witness): FNN’s Mr. Sunday report of 13 July describes an orange light “flickering as if burning” above the horizon. It becomes two lights, which brighten and fade in turns. The witness says, “Ah, it’s going out… ah, it’s back on.” TV Asahi aired the clip on 10 July. The total running length isn’t stated.
• Okinawa City, around the same time, about 20 km away (video by a resident, with English-speaking voices): According to FNN, two lights stayed in place for about 15 minutes. One faded, then a third appeared, and someone says, “Three!” The person who filmed it told FNN the lights hovered in one spot, so it was “not a plane.”
• Reference footage, February 2022: Ishigaki Island Astronomical Observatory provided footage its staff filmed of Japan Coast Guard illumination flares in a night exercise off Ishigaki. The coast guard had told the observatory about the exercise in advance. The Okinawa Times and Asahi published a still from it.

Timeline

• February 2022: Observatory staff film coast guard illumination flares off Ishigaki, which look like intense orange lights.
• 30 June – 30 July 2026: JASDF’s NOTAM window for dropping parachute flares and signal flares from aircraft around Okinawa.
• 6 July 2026, about 7:30–8:00 pm: The lights are seen and filmed from Hyakuna Beach, with similar lights filmed in Okinawa City.
• 7 July, 17:35 JST: The Okinawa Times reports the sighting.
• 8 July: JASDF Naha Air Base answers the Okinawa Times.
• 9 July, 04:00 JST: The Okinawa Times runs its explanation piece.
• 10 July: Asahi syndicates the explanation piece at 11:30 JST, and TV Asahi airs the footage.
• 13 July: FNN’s Mr. Sunday compares the clips with flare footage and with a US UAP video.

What believers claim

The lights split, hovered and blinked on and off, which doesn’t fit a plane. FNN ended its segment by comparing the Okinawa clips with a US government UAP video of two orange lights over the north-eastern United States. It said the two “certainly look alike” and that “the mystery has not been solved.”

What the research found

1. An astronomer matched the lights to flares. Ko Arimatsu, head of Ishigaki Island Astronomical Observatory, compared the colour, movement, brightness and burn time with the observatory’s 2022 footage. According to the Okinawa Times and Asahi, he judged the lights “highly likely to be illumination flares used in night training by the Japan Coast Guard or the Air Self-Defense Force.” To FNN he explained why aircraft lights don’t fit: aircraft lights, or reflected light, “usually move in a fixed direction along the aircraft’s path,” which is not what the video shows.