Photo/Illutration A smashed window where a bullet-like object was found at a resident’s home in the Igei district in Kin, Okinawa Prefecture (Provided by the Okinawa Defense Bureau)

KIN, Okinawa Prefecture--A man living in the Igei district here near a U.S. Marine Corps base discovered a broken window at his home on July 6 and found what looked like a bullet the following morning, according to local police.

Officials from the Kin town government and the Defense Ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau rushed to the scene.

Okinawa prefectural police have started an investigation.

The incident occurred in a residential area with houses and rice fields located just outside U.S. Marine Corps Camp Hansen. The base's training area is located several hundred meters from the home.

It is believed that the accident may have resulted from a stray bullet fired at the base. There is no report of any injury related to the incident.

According to the prefectural police, the projectile measures about 5 centimeters long and about 1 cm in diameter. A fist-size hole was made in the smashed window.

What looked like a spent projectile was found in the bottom frame of the door where the broken window is installed.

A local man living there became aware between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on July 6 that the window had been broken at his home. He then discovered the bullet-like object at around 11 a.m. on July 7.

Live ammunition is used at some training facilities at Camp Hansen.

The Marine Corps had notified the Okinawa prefectural government that it would conduct shooting training all day including late at night from July 4 to 10.

Seiji Kinjo, 82, who lives nearby, said that he heard something like gunshots from the direction of Camp Hansen when he was doing farm work at around 8 a.m. on July 7.

“It’s very scary if that is a U.S. military bullet again,” he said. 

In 2008, a bullet was found lodged in a car parked in a parking lot on the premises of a resident’s home in the Igei district.

Police later found that the Marines were conducting shooting training in Camp Hansen in the hours before and after the bullet was found in the car.

However, the U.S. military allowed the prefectural police to enter the camp to investigate only about a year after it occurred.

Police were unable to link the incident and the training. They concluded their investigation after sending documents on the incident to the local prosecutors’ office with no suspect's name included.

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