🦶 CRYPTID SIGHTING · EXP. Nº6501 ACTIVE

Hibagon

Hibagon is a cryptid — a creature whose existence is unconfirmed by science — with reported sightings near Shōbara, prefectura de Hiroshima, JP. This file collects the accounts and folklore surrounding it.

Where and when was Hibagon sighted?

Location: Shōbara, prefectura de Hiroshima, JP
Date sighted: Unknown
Coordinates: 35.0, 133.1
Testimonies: 0
Last updated: 2026-08-31

LOCATION

What is Hibagon?

The Hibagon (ヒバゴン) is a dark-haired, ape-like biped reported around Mount Hiba, in what is now the city of Shōbara in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The first account is precisely dated: at about 20:00 on 20 July 1970, a man of thirty-one driving through the Yuki district saw a two-legged figure come out onto the road and walk slowly back into the forest. Two more reports followed within ten days, and on 26 August the Chūgoku Shimbun put three farmers' accounts on its pages under the headline "'Ape' commotion at the foot of Mount Hiba". The name Hibagon was not in that headline; it was coined afterwards, from the mountain. What makes the case unusual is the administrative record. Swamped with telephone enquiries, the old Saijō town hall opened a Great Ape Consultation Desk to deal with them, and staffed it for four years. The desk was wound up in 1975 with nothing established; on 7 June 2025, fifty-five years after the first sighting, the town's tourism association re-established it inside the railway station, with the original officer as its adviser.

What is the history of Hibagon?

The Hibagon (ヒバゴン) is the only cryptid in Japan for which a town hall opened a service window. That single administrative fact is better documented than the creature, and it is where the story should start. The setting is Mount Hiba (比婆山, 1,264 m), in what was then the village of Saijō (西城町) in Hiba county, Hiroshima Prefecture. The mountain was already sacred long before 1970: it is traditionally identified as the burial place of Izanami-no-Mikoto, the creator goddess of the Kojiki, and walkers still pass the Goryō (御陵), the stone said to be her tomb, the grooved Jōkōseki (条溝石) and the Chibiki-iwa (千引岩), the rock that in the myth seals the world of the living from the world of the dead. The first report is dated with unusual precision. At around 20:00 on 20 July 1970, on a municipal road through the Yuki (油木) district, a man of thirty-one was driving when something came out of the forest onto the road on two legs, noticed him, and walked slowly back up the mountain. We know the detail because the witness told it directly, some time later, to Emeki Katsuyuki (恵木剋行), a Saijō town official who would spend four years collecting these accounts; he repeated it to the Chūgoku Shimbun in 2018, standing on the same stretch of road. Two more followed within ten days. On 23 July, about 600 metres from the first spot, a man of forty-three cutting grass near his house at around 05:30 saw an animal with a face resembling a human's standing upright with its torso clear of the undergrowth. On 30 July, in a paddy field two kilometres further on, a man of forty-seven called out at about 20:00 to what he took to be a relative coming along the ridge path, and found himself addressing something that looked like a gorilla. The affair became national on 26 August 1970, when the Chūgoku Shimbun ran the accounts of those three farmers — all since dead — under the headline "'Ape' commotion at the foot of Mount Hiba". The reporter was Miyao Hideo (宮尾英夫), then head of the paper's Shōbara bureau. He remembered his own first reaction plainly: "I took the first phone call for a prank and did not deal with it, but after that other people started sending in accounts too." It is worth noticing what that headline does not contain. The name Hibagon is not in it. The creature was christened afterwards, from the mountain it was seen on. What came next was a media siege. Reporters, research institutes and university exploration clubs converged on a mountain village of a few thousand people. The town hall was so swamped with telephone enquiries that it set up a desk to handle them, formally the Ruijin'en Sōdan-gakari (類人猿相談係), the Great Ape Consultation Desk, and universally known as the Hibagon Section. Shōbara's tourist board dates its creation to April 1971; Emeki told the Chūgoku Shimbun he was posted to it in the autumn of 1970. From the nineteen testimonies the desk gathered over four years, a composite emerged: about 160 cm tall, an inverted-triangle face under thin hair, a head nearly twice the size of a human one, dark-brown bristles some five centimetres long standing on end, and coarse hair of the same colour over the body. Reports continued, thinly, into 1974; the town's tourist body puts the total at twenty-nine and the last of them on 11 October 1974. In March 1975 the old Saijō town hall issued a formal declaration that the Hibagon affair was over. The Chūgoku Shimbun records that the desk itself was wound up that June. On 31 March 2005, Saijō, Hiwa and five other municipalities merged into the present city of Shōbara, and the administration that had opened the desk ceased to exist. The Hibagon did not. It appeared as a cuddly illustration on the poster for the 1999 Saijō Furusato Festival, and it has been the town's emblem ever since. Then, on 7 June 2025, fifty-five years after the first sighting, the Great Ape Consultation Desk was re-established — this time not in a town hall but inside Bingo-Saijō railway station, run by the Saijō Town Tourism Association, with three staff and a sign-unveiling ceremony. Its adviser is Emeki Katsuyuki, the officer from the original desk.

Timeline: the documented record of Hibagon

24 July 1963 The Ministry of the Environment designates Hiba-Dōgo-Taishaku Quasi-National Park, 8,416 hectares across Tottori, Shimane and Hiroshima. Its official summary lists the Asiatic black bear and the Japanese macaque among the park's characteristic mammals.
20 July 1970 At around 20:00 on a municipal road in the Yuki district of Saijō, a man of thirty-one driving alone sees a two-legged figure come out of the forest, notice him, and walk slowly back up the mountain. He later recounts it in person to town official Emeki Katsuyuki.
23 and 30 July 1970 Two further encounters in the same district: a man of forty-three cutting grass at about 05:30 some 600 metres from the first spot, and a man of forty-seven who at about 20:00 greets what he takes for a relative on a paddy-field path two kilometres further on.
26 August 1970 The Chūgoku Shimbun publishes the three farmers' accounts under the headline "'Ape' commotion at the foot of Mount Hiba". The reporter, Shōbara bureau chief Miyao Hideo, recalls dismissing the first phone call as a prank. The name Hibagon does not yet appear.
1970–1971 Swamped with telephone enquiries, the Saijō town hall opens the Ruijin'en Sōdan-gakari, the Great Ape Consultation Desk, popularly the Hibagon Section. Shōbara's tourist body dates it to April 1971; Emeki Katsuyuki says he was posted to it in the autumn of 1970.
Autumn 1972 (per the English sources) Janet and Colin Bord's Alien Animals introduces "Mrs Reiko Harada, 46, a seamstress from the town of Hiwa" as a witness who met the creature while walking home with her child. English writing has since turned her into the author of a photograph; no Japanese source consulted supports that.
11 October 1974 The last officially recorded sighting. Shōbara's tourist body puts the total at twenty-nine reports; the Chūgoku Shimbun says the desk collected nineteen testimonies over four years, from which it built a composite of a 160 cm creature with an inverted-triangle face and five-centimetre bristles.
March–June 1975 The old Saijō town hall issues a formal declaration that the Hibagon affair is over. The Chūgoku Shimbun records that the Great Ape Consultation Desk was wound up that June, with the creature's identity never established.
1999 A cuddly illustrated Hibagon appears on the poster and programme of the Saijō Furusato Festival — the version that becomes the town's emblem. Costumes and a "monster dance", however, had already existed in Saijō while the creature was still officially unidentified.
31 March 2005 Saijō, Hiwa and five other municipalities merge into the present city of Shōbara. The administration that opened the desk ceases to exist; the mascot does not.
2020 Entomologist Senda Yoshihiro describes a new wingless rove beetle from western Honshū and names it Lathrobium hibagon, in the fiftieth year after the first reports. It remains an accepted species name.
October–November 2022 The tourism association and pupils of Saijō Shisui high school turn Bingo-Saijō into "Hibagon Station". NHK reports the stated aim without euphemism: to get people using the struggling JR Geibi Line and revive the district.
5 April 2025 After reports resume in the summer of 2024, the Chūgoku Shimbun reports that the Saijō tourism association has installed a small camera at one of the sites to determine what is actually there.
7 June 2025 Fifty-five years on, the Great Ape Consultation Desk is re-established — inside Bingo-Saijō station, run by the tourism association, with three staff and a sign-unveiling ceremony. Emeki Katsuyuki, from the original desk, is appointed its adviser.
31 May 2026 A crowdfunding campaign to film a Hibagon feature in Saijō closes having raised ¥3,242,500 from 217 backers against a ¥1,000,000 target.

Is there a rational explanation for Hibagon?

The two animals normally offered as the explanation are both officially documented on that mountain — which is the interesting part, because it cuts in more than one direction. The Ministry of the Environment's own summary sheet for Hiba-Dōgo-Taishaku Quasi-National Park, the protected area that contains Mount Hiba, lists as its characteristic mammals exactly two: the Asiatic black bear (ツキノワグマ, Ursus thibetanus japonicus) and the Japanese macaque (ニホンザル). Nobody has to argue that these animals could be there. The state says they are. The bear, however, is scarcer than the easy explanation assumes. In the Environment Ministry's Red List 2020, the black bears of both the eastern and the western Chūgoku region appear among the twenty-six mammal groups classed as Threatened Local Populations (LP) — small, isolated remnants rather than a healthy regional population. The ministry's sheet for the neighbouring West Chūgoku Mountains park describes its bears flatly as the westernmost surviving population on Honshū. Sport hunting of them has been banned in Hiroshima, Shimane and Yamaguchi since 1994. A bear is possible around Mount Hiba; a bear is not the ordinary background noise of that landscape. The macaque is. And here a working journalist has done the fieldwork. Takigawa Daiki of the Mainichi Shimbun spent six days filming in Saijō in early 2025 for a piece he published on 13 April 2025 under the title "Is the mysterious ape Hibagon a Japanese macaque?". He had gone there in January and February on a different assignment: crop damage by macaques. Local farmers growing leeks and sweetcorn had been losing their fields to monkey troops for several years, and the troops were getting larger year on year. His conclusion about his own six days is the most honest line in the modern literature on the subject — he could not get a decent photograph even of an ordinary macaque. That matters for the recent wave. Reports resumed in the summer of 2024, and on 5 April 2025 the Chūgoku Shimbun reported that the Saijō tourism association had installed a small camera at one of the sites to establish what was there. By July 2025 the association's secretary-general, Okazaki Yūko, said that the official tip form had produced no solid leads, and that they would continue with cameras and drones. That is a negative result published by the organisation with the strongest possible interest in a positive one, and it should be read as such. The commercial incentive is real, and it is older than people assume. It did not arrive with the mascot: Shōbara's tourist board records that costumes were being made and a "monster dance" performed in Saijō while the creature was still officially an unidentified ape. Today the incentive is not souvenirs but survival. Bingo-Saijō sits on the JR Geibi Line, one of the most lightly used railways in Japan and the subject of a formal statutory reconstruction council; the 2022 project to turn the station into "Hibagon Station", carried out by the tourism association with pupils from the local Saijō Shisui high school, was described by NHK in exactly those terms — get people to use the struggling Geibi Line and revive the district. A film crowdfunding campaign closed on 31 May 2026 having raised ¥3,242,500 from 217 backers against a ¥1,000,000 target. Two specific claims that circulate in English should be retired. The first is the photograph: English-language sources routinely credit one to a local woman named Reiko Harada. Harada is real and she is in the literature, but not for a photograph. Janet and Colin Bord's Alien Animals introduces "Mrs Reiko Harada, 46, a seamstress from the town of Hiwa" as the witness of a sighting they date to the autumn of 1972, walking home with her child; Coleman and Huyghe's 1999 field guide repeats her as a witness at Hiwa in the same words. No Japanese source consulted here attributes any photograph to her. The second is nastier: the English Wikipedia article has carried, tagged as unsourced since December 2011, the suggestion that the Hibagon was a person disfigured by radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It has no basis in the Japanese record and should not be repeated. What the man who ran the desk thinks is on record. Interviewed in 2018, Emeki Katsuyuki noted that in all those years there was never an account of the creature harming anyone, and said he hoped it would live on in people's hearts as a modern fairy tale. That is not the language of a witness defending a discovery.

Can you visit Hibagon?

Mount Hiba lies inside Hiba-Dōgo-Taishaku Quasi-National Park (比婆道後帝釈国定公園), designated on 24 July 1963 and covering 8,416 hectares across Tottori, Shimane and Hiroshima prefectures. It is genuinely walkable country — an uplifted peneplain of 1,200-metre summits and grassland ridges — and not a wilderness expedition. The practical base is the Hiroshima Kenmin no Mori (ひろしま県民の森) park centre at 156-14 Yuki, Saijō-chō, Shōbara, Hiroshima 729-5602, tel. (0824) 84-2020, open 08:00–18:00 with irregular closing days. It sits about 38 minutes by car from the Shōbara or Tōjō interchanges. Two things are worth knowing about it. First, it is in Yuki — the exact district of the July 1970 reports; the resort was under construction at the time, and it was whispered locally that the creature was a god angered by the works. Second, the company that runs it is called Agri Hibagon. The centre has a hotel, a restaurant and four camping areas. Fixed tents cost ¥3,700 and pitches ¥3,000, check-in 12:00 and check-out 11:00, booking required; winter bookings are taken by telephone only. Trails run up to Mount Hiba (1,264 m) past the Goryō, the stone identified as Izanami's tomb, and through a stand of beech that is a designated national natural monument. By rail, the station is Bingo-Saijō on the JR Geibi Line, at 722-3 Ōsa, Saijō-chō. Since a 2022 project by the tourism association and pupils of Saijō Shisui high school, the station is decorated throughout with Hibagon drawings and the platform benches carry a Hibagon brand mark. The tourism association office is inside the station, and since 7 June 2025 so is the re-created Great Ape Consultation Desk: if you see something, this is formally where you report it. A serious warning about the trains. The Geibi Line is one of the least used railways in Japan and is under a statutory reconstruction council; services on the upper section are very sparse and there is no useful bus alternative. Check the timetable before you commit to a rail day trip. In spring 2025 a trial free shuttle ran from Bingo-Ochiai station to the Kenmin no Mori and Kumano Shrine on weekends and holidays between 4 April and 28 June — it was an experiment, not a standing service, so do not plan around it. For souvenirs, Daikokudō (菓子司処大國堂), a confectioner founded in 1933 at 103 Saijō, Saijō-chō, tel. (0824) 82-2616, open 08:00–17:00 and closed Saturdays and Sundays, makes the "Hibagon eggs". The branded local leeks are sold as Hibagon Negi. A rice bowl called the Hibagon-don was created in 1984 at a teahouse in Misaka; ask locally whether anywhere is still serving it before making a journey for it. Finally, and this follows directly from the section above: the Environment Ministry lists the Asiatic black bear among the characteristic fauna of this park. Take the normal bear precautions — bell, noise, no dusk walking alone — and read any warning notices at trailheads.

Sources consulted

Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-08-11 · How we verify our content

📎 Source: Enigma Atlas

Hibagon

Where and when was Hibagon sighted?

What is Hibagon?

What is the history of Hibagon?

Timeline: the documented record of Hibagon

Is there a rational explanation for Hibagon?

Can you visit Hibagon?

Sources consulted

💬 Field testimonies (0)

Add your testimony

Hibagon

Where and when was Hibagon sighted?

What is Hibagon?

What is the history of Hibagon?

Timeline: the documented record of Hibagon

Is there a rational explanation for Hibagon?

Can you visit Hibagon?

Sources consulted

💬 Field testimonies (0)

Add your testimony

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