Japan’s new first lady was abducted by aliens, knew Tom Cruise in former life

Profiles of Japan’s incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama tend to use a lot of adjectives like “remote and charisma-challenged” and “blue-blood.” Frankly, despite his reformist zeal, the guy seems pretty dull. His wife Miyuki, on the other hand, seems a lot more interesting:  Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japan’s Prime Minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama, is a lifestyle ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
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Japan's main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Yukio Hatoyama (R) and his wife Miyuki smile after casting their absentee voting for the August 30 general election at a polling station in Tokyo on August 26, 2009. Politics in Japan, where lawmakers mostly curry favour with silver-haired voters, often draws yawns from youths, but activists hope that on August 30 youngsters will rally to the ballot box. AFP PHOTO / JIJI PRESS (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Profiles of Japan’s incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama tend to use a lot of adjectives like “remote and charisma-challenged” and “blue-blood.” Frankly, despite his reformist zeal, the guy seems pretty dull. His wife Miyuki, on the other hand, seems a lot more interesting

Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japan’s Prime Minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama, is a lifestyle guru, a macrobiotics enthusiast, an author of cookery books, a retired actress, a divorcee, and a fearless clothes horse for garments of her own creation, including a skirt made from Hawaiian coffee sacks. But there is more, much more. She has travelled to the planet Venus. And she was once abducted by aliens.

The 62-year-old also knew Tom Cruise in a former incarnation – when he was Japanese – and is now looking forward to making a Hollywood movie with him. “I believe he’d get it if I said to him, ‘Long time no see’, when we meet,” she said in a recent interview. But it is her claim in a book entitled “Very Strange Things I’ve Encountered” that she was abducted by aliens while she slept one night 20 years ago, that has suddenly drawn attention following last Sunday’s poll.

“While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus,” she explains in the tome she published last year. “It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green.”

While her husband at the time dismissed her experience as a dream, she says that Yukio “has a different way of thinking.” Maybe there’s more to this PM than we thought…

STR/AFP/Getty Images

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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