Chiba's Difficult UFO Case

Chronology
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Episode 847-848 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	Chiba's Difficult UFO Case
Japanese title:	千葉のUFO難事件 (Chiba no Yūfō Nanjiken)
Original airdate:	January 28, 2017 (Part 1) February 4, 2017 (Part 2)
Season:	25
Manga source:	Volume 89: File 5 (942) ~ Volume 89: File 7 (944)
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa
Next Conan's Hint:	Concrete (Part 1) Garbage bag (Part 2)
Staff
Director:	Yasuichiro Yamamoto
Music
Opening song:	Ikusen no Meikyuu de Ikusen no Nazo wo Toite
Closing song:	YESTERDAY LOVE

Cast

Characters

Conan Edogawa

Kazunobu Chiba

Naeko Miike

Yumi Miyamoto

Ran Mouri

Kogoro Mouri

Hina Wada

Juzo Megure

Ninzaburo Shiratori

Wataru Takagi

Miwako Sato

Ai Haibara (background)

Mary (background)

Shuichi Akai (background)

Akemi Miyano (background)

Sonoko Suzuki (background)

Makoto Kyogoku (background)

Natsuko Shibuya (mentioned)

Yoko Okino (TV)

Case

Situation

Part 1

Murder

Location: A backyard lot at Haido High School

Victim: Kyogo Nakatsu

Age: 42 years old

Cause of death: Suffocation

Suspect: Yusuke Kuchiki

One morning, Nakatsu and Kuchiki were both found by construction workers lying side by side inside a patch of hardening concrete. Forensics found that Nakatsu was suffocated by having his breathing cut off, but no murder weapon was found. Upon being questioned, Kuchiki has claimed that Nakatsu was actually killed by an alien hovering above them; some credibility for this tale is lent by the fact that the only footprints found in the concrete were Nakatsu's and Kuchiki's.

People

Hina Wada
	17 years old Haido High School karate player Ran's self-declared karate rival

Kyogo Nakatsu
	Victim (suffocated) 42 years old Magazine editor

Yusuke Kuchiki
	38 years old Magazine contributor Alien fanatic

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

Conan's reconstruction of the alleged "UFO"

Yusuke Kuchiki murdered Nakatsu because the latter had derided his latest effort in taking an actual UFO picture; the trigger for the murder was that Nakatsu suggested that he could submit even a picture of a fake UFO. Kuchiki used a solar balloon - a black, cylindrical plastic bag which floats if the air inside is warmed sufficiently - as the murder weapon, cutting off Nakatsu's breathing and forcing him into the concrete patch. Following Nakatsu's demise, Kuchiki let the balloon float away into the nearby Haido Park, where it eventually ended up in one of its trees, and then dropped himself onto his own deepened footprints (which would have betrayed his perpetration), erasing them. He merely concocted the "alien murderer" story in order to ward suspicion off himself.

However, Kuchiki committed a number of mistakes which eventually lead to his arrest:

• In order to faciliate his plan, he had practiced the disposal of the murder weapon long beforehand, leading to Hina's purported UFO sighting. The black practice balloon and several book about physics, in which the solar balloon effect was described, were found by Conan in Kuchiki's cupboard during the house search.
• The fact that Kuchiki had pulled his hood over his head despite the warm day on which he committed the murder, in order to prevent his hair from getting stuck in the hardening concrete.
• That he did not post his alleged "alien encounter" on the Internet, despite him being such an UFO fanatic, because he did not want anyone to search for and find the "UFO", which was still stuck somewhere in Haido Park.
• The fact that, following the attempt at Natsuko Shibuya's life, security cameras were installed in the park, rendering Kuchiki unable to retrieve the balloon without being seen. The traces of Nakatsu's saliva and Kuchiki's fingerprints on the plastic would provide the crucial evidence of his murder act.

See also

• Season 25