Japan's next first lady says she rode spaceship

TOKYO - Japan's next prime minister might be nicknamed "the alien," but it's his wife who claims to have had a close encounter with another world.

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of premier-in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama, wrote in a book published last year.

"It was a very beautiful place and it was really green."

Yukio Hatoyama is due to be voted in as premier on Sept. 16 following his party's crushing election victory over the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party Sunday.

Miyuki, 66, described the extraterrestrial experience, which she said took place some 20 years ago, in a book entitled "Very Strange Things I've Encountered."

Been to Venus
When she awoke, Japan's next first lady wrote, she told her now ex-husband that she had just been to Venus. He advised her that it was probably just a dream.

"My current husband has a different way of thinking," she wrote. "He would surely say 'Oh, that's great'."

Yukio Hatoyama, 62, the rich grandson of a former prime minister, was once nicknamed "the alien" for his prominent eyes.

Miyuki, also known for her culinary skills, spent six years acting in the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theater group. She met the U.S.-educated Yukio while living in America.

A strong believer in spiritualism, Hatoyama said in a TV appearance earlier this year she met U.S. actor Tom Cruise — in a previous life.

"I have a dream that I still believe will come true, which is to make a film in Hollywood," she told a TV talk show in May. "The lead actor is Tom Cruise, of course. Why? Because I know he was Japanese in a previous life.

Cruise encounter
"I was with him then. So he would recognize me when I see him and say 'long time, no see!'" she said, though cautioned the program's young interviewer not to take her seriously.

Cruise starred in the 2003 film "The Last Samurai," which was set in Japan.

"I also eat the sun," Hatoyama said on the program, looking up with her eyes closed, raising her arms high as if she was tearing pieces off an imaginary sun. "Like this, hum, hum, hum. It gives me enormous energy."

She also has had a "Miracle Interview" column in the monthly spiritual magazine "Mu." Her columns were published last year in a book called "Most Bizarre Things I've Encountered," a compilation of interviews with 26 prominent people, including writers, scholars and culinary experts revealing their strange or spiritual experiences.

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