Ittanmomen photo taken in Nagasaki, Japan.
The Ittanmomen （一反木綿） is a spirit-like entity from Japanese folklore that can be treated as a cryptid because there have been sightings of it.
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Name[]
Ittan is a unit of measurement for kimono fabric, but the exact length is not fixed and can be defined variously from 7 meters to 110 meters. Momen means cotton in Japanese. Thus, the name of this cryptid describes its appearance, which looks like a huge cotton cloth.
Ittanmomen in folklore[]
It is handed down in Kagoshima Prefecture in the Kyushu region. It was believed to look like a strip of cloth about 10 meters long, which, upon finding a human, would wrap around the neck or around the face and suffocate him or her to death. One of the traditions also states that when a man was attacked by one of these and attacked it with a sword, the Ittanmomen disappeared, leaving behind red blood.
Aspects of Ittanmomen as cryptid[]
The Ittanmomen as a cryptid is described as a flying creature with the appearance of a long band of cloth, similar to that of folklore. It may be considered a type of thin dragon-like Atmospheric Beast, like the Crawfordsville Monster.
Sightings and Reports[]
There have been many sightings, but not many cases where it is known when the sighting occurred.
Actor Shirou Sano（佐野史郎） revealed in his book that during the filming of the TV drama "Kyogoku Natsuhiko Kai"（ 京極夏彦「怪」）, he saw the Ittanmomen flying over the set of the drama. It was white and cloth-like in appearance. The drama filmed at this time was broadcast from January 2000, so the sighting is thought to have occurred before 1999.
In 2004, a group of UFO enthusiasts spotted and photographed Ittanmomen flying over Mount Rokko in Hyogo Prefecture. The object photographed at that time was estimated to be 30 meters long.
Ittanmomen photo taken in March 2011.
In March 2011, a video was taken in Koushi City, Kumamoto Prefecture.
Ittanmomen photo taken in May 2022.
In May 2022, the Ittanmomen was photographed in Nishitama, Tokyo. The exact situation is unknown.
Ittanmomen photo taken in February 2023.
On February 26, 2023, a video was taken in Mashiki City, Kumamoto Prefecture. This time it flew off toward the mountains. The photographer described it as looking like a dragon.
Ittanmomen photo taken in June 2023.
In June 2023, the Ittanmomen was videotaped. No detailed location was reported.
Other examples include a person on a Shinkansen train in Fukuoka Prefecture who saw an Ittanmomen flying alongside the train, a woman in Tokyo who spotted and tracked an Ittanmomen, and an elementary school student in Shizuoka Prefecture who saw one.
Explanations[]
The identity of the modern day Ittanmomen is most likely a large piece of cloth used to cover farmland and protect crops that has been blown up into the sky by the wind.