Hirohito Shibuya and his ex-wife, Chiaki, allegedly told the girl that she would be abducted by aliens if she did not enter into a relationship with them.
JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty ImagesHirohito Shibuya, a self-proclaimed fortuneteller and hypnotist who lives with a “harem” of his ex-wives. 2006.
On Feb. 7, 2023, police in Tokyo arrested a polyamorous 74-year-old man and one of his ex-wives for allegedly attempting to brainwash a young girl by showing her pictures of aliens.
As reported by Kyodo News, police believe that Hirohito Shibuya and his ex-wife Chiaki, 43, had been planning to sexually assault the adolescent girl after brainwashing her.
Officially, they were arrested on suspicion of attempting to commit constructive forcible sexual intercourse — meaning the victim is either unconscious or in no state to resist, investigators said.
Shibuya has denied the charges. Chiaki, meanwhile, has remained silent.
Investigators said the incident leading to Shibuya’s arrest occurred on Dec. 12, 2022, at Shibuya’s home in Higashiyamato, near Tokyo. Shibuya lives at the property alongside Chiaki and at least eight more of his ex-wives, as well as three children.
Police allege that Chiaki lured the adolescent girl to their home under the guise of introducing her to a genuine fortune teller. Instead, police believe Chiaki and Shibuya showed the girl images of aliens over the course of several hours, telling her she “would be abducted by aliens” unless she entered into a relationship with them.
The girl reportedly believed the couple and told them she would visit their home again. Thankfully, her friends and family convinced her to instead go to the police.
According to the Japan Times, this was not Shibuya’s first incident of this nature.
In 2006, Shibuya was arrested after allegedly trying to force a woman to live with him and his “harem” of 10 women. Investigators said that on Oct. 20, 2005, Shibuya pressured a young woman in her 20s for roughly two hours to convince her to join his household.
One investigator said Shibuya threatened the woman, telling her: “If you leave here, you will be ground up. If you tell anyone, you will be killed.”
Shibuya once again denied the claim. He said, “I just told her what appeared in [my] dream.”
Police at the time referred to Shibuya as unemployed, but some reports stated that he was a fortune teller and hypnotist. Shibuya claimed he was telling the woman’s fortune and that he had not threatened her, but “may have said things like that while [he] was carried away telling fortunes.”
He also told an interviewer that he could not work due to gout and a panic disorder, for which he received support from his “harem.”
“In a dream I became aware that I would become popular with women if I made certain incantations,” he said. “Women began to gather at my home when I was fortune telling. I’m now living in commune with those women in a polygamy-like way.”
Sources who knew him said he first began living with a small group of women aged 20 to 49 as early as February 2000. At the time, an infant lived with them as well.
The new allegations levied against Shibuya also share an eerie resemblance to manipulation tactics employed by Robert Berchtold, the pedophile at the center of Netflix’s Abducted in Plain Sight.
Between 1972 and 1976, Berchtold groomed a neighboring family to get closer to their 12-year-old daughter, Jan, whom he abducted twice.
During one of these kidnappings, Berchtold drove Jan from the United States to Mexico in an RV and made it seem as if the two had been abducted by aliens. These “aliens” — in reality just a recording Berchtold played to the young child — told Jan it was her duty to save the Earth by bearing Berchtold a child.
“They” also told her that she wasn’t to say a word of the situation to any of her family members, or they would be endangered.
For years, the fear of these “aliens” and the end of the world kept Jan Broberg quiet and allowed Berchtold to continue with his twisted desires.
The investigation into Shibuya is ongoing, but investigators believe that he may have threatened other women, some of whom may still be living with him.
If Robert Berchtold’s story is anything to go on, Shibuya’s claim of aliens is a far more effective manipulation technique than it would initially seem to be. Thankfully, in this situation, the girl’s friends and family intervened before it was too late.
After learning about the Japanese man who tried to groom a teenage girl by threatening her with aliens, read about the time a woman tried to justify killing her six-year-old child to save her family from aliens. Then, read about the Bronx astronomy mentor who was charged in the 22-year-old cold case murder of a teenage girl.
