Kappa Encounters

Kappa are one of the many types of water imps mentioned in Japanese folklore. They resemble hybrids of monkeys and turtles with shells on their backs and bizarre hollow openings in their heads that are filled with water. They are tricksters, and are known to steal livestock, attack swimmers and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Some mythological descriptions of the beings mention a body covering of scraggly hair, and thus some modern cryptozoologists have jumped to the conclusion that the kappa must be aquatic primates. I have three (four if you count the minimalist info provided by the caption above) accounts of supposedly real Japanese river goblins to share with you today.

## Tsushima's Midnight Children

On August 1st, 1984 – at about 23:00 – a squid fisherman by the name of Ryu Shirozaki was walking home from a local pier after work. As he passed near the Kuta River of the town of Tsushima in the Nagasaki prefecture, he came across what appeared to be a group of children playing at the water’s edge. While it wouldn’t have been entirely uncommon to see people fishing in the river at the time, it was strange to see children playing there.
As Shirozaki approached the beings, he became struck by how strange they appeared in the moonlight. They had swarthy faces, unusually spindly arms and legs, and skin that glistened in the light. He called out to them as he neared, but they seemed to be surprised by this and swiftly vanished into the water.
The next morning, Shirozaki discovered a set of slimy, teardrop-shaped footprints on the nearby pavement. The prints consisted of a bizarre gelatinous substance that had already begun to coagulate in the sun, and their path stretched fro around 20 meters. Each print measured about 22cm long and 12cm wide, and they were spaced roughly 50-60cm apart. Shirozaki and a few other curious onlookers suspected that the prints belonged to a kappa, and this rumour quickly spread around the town.
Here is where the story potentially loses some of its credibility due to lack of implied official documentation. Police forensic investigators apparently arrived on the scene and determined that the footprints consisted of ‘an unknown secretion’. A sample was taken back to a nondescript lab for analysis, but this was somehow too small – leading to the results being inconclusive and the police eventually dropping their investigation of the kappa footprints.

## Yokosuka Lizardman

A more believable report involves two construction workers by the names of Makoto Ito and Toshio Hashimoto who were fishing off a stone seawall near the US Navy Base in the Japanese port city of Yokosuka in November of 1978 when they saw something they would never forget. Ito recalls that ‘It just popped up from beneath the surface and stood there. It was not a fish, an animal or a man. It was about 3 meters in height and was covered in thick, scaly skin like a reptile. It had a face and two large yellow eyes that seemed to be focused on us.’ The witnesses described this entity as a Kappa, which is a mythological creature from Japan that resembles a hybrid of a monkey and a turtle. They act as water goblins that are prone to stealing livestock and attacking swimmers. I’m not sure if the description of this entity as being 3 meters tall is correct, or if the witness meant to say it was 3 feet tall. If the former is correct, then this sounds more like a lizardman sighting.

## It Was Not a Child at All

According to a Mysterious Universe article on the subject of kappas and their possible existence as real entities, there was another report made by two policemen in the 1970s, who said that they had seen a form hunched over at the side of a country road at dusk. The officers slowed down and approached the being, thinking that it might have been a small child – either lost or else somehow in trouble. As they drew closer, the entity reared up and they could see that it was not a child at all, but rather a child sized creature that resembled a cross between a monkey and a frog, with prominent claws and eyes that were described as ‘large and piercing’. The contemporary kappa was then said to have chattered in a high-pitched voice before running briskly on two legs across the road and into the brush. Although the information that I can find about this case doesn’t mention where this incident took place, it implies that it was not particularly close to a water source.

## Sources

The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe

http://pinktentacle.com/2008/05/seven-mysterious-creatures-of-japan/

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-mysterious-kappa-of-japan/