What is this?
 

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2...-soci.view-000

Seen from the ground (over 50 reports) high over Iwate yesterday and Fukushima and Sendai for several hours this morning. Sometimes clouds came in between. Also spotted 'seemingly above' by a passenger aircraft, according to the article. The Prefectural Police estimate more than 2~3,000 meters high. Not recognized by the prefectural or city offices in the area or By the Self Defence Forces, and different from any balloons that the meteorological agency sends up. Unusually slow moving, despite fairly strong NW winds.

This article also speculates as to possibilities, but draws no conclusions.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/36...8aacda17729597

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5c0094e1a.jpeg

Perhaps having a sniff of the atmosphere near Fukushima, as in SE of it measuring the fallout coming from the NW winds ? Going slowly due to small propulsion units somewhere on the under hanging frame pushing it back against the prevailing winds ?

Interesting thought there... and could explain why no-one wants to claim it publicly.

Nowhere to hide? Video footage available even!
"Some kind of cross-like object hanging from it," he says. (Would one leg look longer at an angle?)
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6362754

And on NHK with rubbish English subtitles, but it does mention propellors!
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/ataglance/983/

In this rather longer report they take a helicopter up to 3,000 meters but the balloon was still way higher. You can just see two propellers turning, especially near the beginning, and right at the end of the news clip. And blocks of.. batteries?

5G Drone/baloon?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20.../#.XuoILkVKjIU

PS The long polythene balloons they show in the middle are old examples of the ones that used to be flown from North Korea about 30 years ago.

Excellent find, Turin. Many thanks.

The big question will surely be how they have managed to accomplish this without seemingly having first obtained permission from anyone.

After two days of solid rain.

Just throwing this into the mix, an article in 'zakzak' (?) a subsidiary of Fuji media holdings. It's in Japanese and long, so I merely attach it, but it quotes an 'expert' who says that Japanese-US 'intelligence analysts' are seriously considering a DPRK North Korean origin. A similar one was spotted above Kagoshima (in the south of Kyushu) last year, it says.
https://www.zakzak.co.jp/soc/news/20...190005-n1.html

(Video footage on 17 June from a news helicopter at 11,000 meters showed it to be much higher up, with a suggestion of 'in the stratosphere'.)