At least NORAD is tracking Santa Claus

In light of this week’s government-level UFO banter in Tokyo, it’s kinda fitting that the 100th Monkey Effect was conceived in Japan.

You remember that one, right? Scientists studying simian behavior on Koshima Island in the 1950s supposedly noticed how an 18-month old female monkey started rinsing off sweet potatoes in a stream before eating them.

She teaches a few adults to emulate her; more join in. Next thing you know, the numbers indulging this new activity reach a critical mass of, say, 100, and — bingo — the entire population is washing its sweet potatoes.

But it doesn’t stop there. Suddenly, without coming into physical contact with each other, monkey colonies on remote islands begin adopting the same behaviors. Depending on what you read, it’s either the observational basis for a paradigm shift or a bunch of hokum from New Age fact-fudgers.

Either way, De Void couldn’t help thinking about the 100th Monkey Effect when Reuters covered a Japanese exchange on UFOs on Tuesday.

Setting the stage was last month’s milestone press conference in Washington, D.C. That’s when pilots and retired military officials from nations whose governments sponsor UFO research (France, England, Chile and Peru, among others) called on the U.S. to join them in their official studies.

So, the other day, Japanese lawmaker Ryuji Yamane, of the opposition Democratic Party, challenged his government in kind.

“This is an issue that the nation is interested in. It is a defense issue, and a confirmation operation needs to take place,” Yamane said. “But the government does not even try to collect information necessary for confirmation.”

That prompted a headline-making statement from Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura. “I definitely believe they exist,” he said to laughter from the peanut gallery. Which obliged Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to weigh in as well, saying “I have yet to confirm" that UFOs exist.

On Thursday, Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba retorted, “There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying objects and some life-form that controls them.”

But he wondered if a military response to UFO violations of Japan’s airspace would be justified in the absence of hostile intent. “Would that be mobilization for an act of defense? That would not be the case if they say, ‘Everyone on Earth, let us be friends,’ ” Ishiba told Kyodo News. “Or what can we do when we can’t figure out what they’re saying?”

So the dialogue gets under way in Japan. For a few minutes, anyway.

Meanwhile, back in the States, the 100th Monkey Effect is profound. Responding to calls for more UFO transparency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command will be tracking Santa Claus in real time at www.noradsanta.org.

On that sad note, De Void is signing off. This exercise in futility will resume on the other side of Christmas.