Relics of an abandoned future — the tangled story of Taiwan’s eerie UFO village

Imagine a tiny village nestled between high green mountains and a picturesque beachfront. Now add to that an image of a small army of golden UFO-like alien spaceships. But these are not regular spaceships, and this is not a regular village. The spaceships are decrepit homes, and the little village has been abandoned since 1980.

This isn’t the scene of a dystopian alien invasion story. This is the skeletal corpse of Wanli UFO Village, located an hour outside of Taipei, Taiwan.

The story of this forgotten UFO village is stranger than science fiction. The derelict UFOs are a Cold War-era haunt from a place tangled in the weird web of big geopolitical power players. In its own classically kitschy way, Wanli UFO Village is a retro-futuristic expression of Taiwan’s attempt to make sense of itself.

They now stand as symbols of a particular vision for Taiwan that has, like the buildings themselves, fallen into disrepair.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the history of Wanli UFO Village and analyse it as a bizarre relic of much larger socio-political forces at play in Taiwan.

The story of this forgotten UFO village is stranger than science fiction. Image credit - Ruby Dalmer

Futuro houses — utopian urban design
The story of Wanli UFO Village starts with the story of the UFO structures themselves. Wanli is home to a constellation of both UFO houses and rectangular, futuristic-looking modular pod homes. Both these designs are the magnum opus of Finnish architect Matti Suuronen.

In the late 1960s, Suuronen had the idea to design a creative ski chalet that would be lightweight, easy to construct, and most importantly, mobile. The concept was to be able to do winter in the mountains and summer in the tropics — disassembling and reassembling your home wherever and whenever you want.

Life in a fibreglass Futuro — the UFO structure — was condensed into 50 square metres. Yet each squeezed in a living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen, and private bedroom.

Venturo homes were a modified continuation of Suuronen’s architectural project. Together, Futuros and Venturos were a utopian Scandinavian solution to global housing challenges.

But unfortunately, these ideas stayed utopian. Due to global economic volatility, particularly the 1973 oil crisis, the cost of plastic and oil soared. The space-age homes began bleeding money, and by 1973, production on both designs froze forever.

Though fewer than one hundred functional Futuros were ever constructed, the design continues to attract a cult following. Today, only around 60 Futuros remain, mostly located in Europe and the United States. But remarkably, the highest concentration in the world lies in Taiwan’s Wanli UFO Village.

The journey from Finnish utopian architecture to northern Taiwanese shores requires us to zoom out — to the historical development of Taiwan itself.

"..unfortunately, these ideas stayed utopian." Image credits - Ruby Dalmer

Taiwan in the Cold War
After the Kuomintang (KMT) takeover of Taiwan in 1949, the island was struggling to find its identity. Cross-strait tensions were rising, with political confrontation between the newly established People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the newly formed Republic of China (ROC) — modern-day Taiwan — becoming more likely.

At the same time, Cold War political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union was brewing. From the 1950s onward, Asia became a critical Cold War battleground.

In 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States got involved in Taiwan. With the goal of stopping communism from spreading southwards, the US stationed its Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait — a move with ripple effects today.

Over the next few years, the US allied itself with the ROC government on Taiwan. In 1954, the Mutual Defense Treaty ratified this now cosy relationship — promising US support to Taiwan.

Militourism — Americans in Taiwan
As the Cold War progressed, so did the American presence in Asia. Over the 1960s–70s, US soldiers swept through Vietnam, Okinawa, Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, and of course, Taiwan.

With the Mutual Defense Treaty and increased American influence in the region, US armed forces came to Taiwan in droves. These soldiers left their footprints everywhere — with around 10,000 troops stationed in Taiwan at its peak in 1968.

Beyond the 10,000 Americans living on the island, another 40,000 more soldiers came for travel. This military tourism was formalised under the Rest and Recuperation Program (R&R), established by the US Army in 1965.

Taiwan became a popular R&R destination for US soldiers on vacation, particularly those serving in the Vietnam War. The island responded with a reactionary boom in the tourism, bar, leisure, and sex industries.

The question for Taiwan then became how best to seize the moment — to benefit from this new American influence.

The economic miracle and White Terror echoes
Coinciding with Americanism coming to Taiwan — in policy and in people — the island experienced an economic miracle.

Between the 1960s and 1980s, Taiwan became one of the “Four Asian Tigers”, achieving rapid economic growth in a short time. Over this period, the island became a global manufacturing powerhouse, producing some of the world’s most advanced electronics.

This made some Taiwanese exceptionally wealthy, with broader ‘trickle-down’ effects to the rest of society and new money to spend.

This period was also marked by the White Terror — the KMT government’s 38-year martial law authoritarian regime (1949–1987). Before 1979, White Terror policy prohibited Taiwanese from travelling abroad for leisure.

These coexisting phenomena meant two things: a growing number of Taiwanese now had disposable income, and travel was only possible domestically.

The space-age Taiwanese dream

These tangled forces — American diplomacy, US military presence, the economic miracle, and White Terror travel restrictions — all culminate in Wanli UFO Village.

Mr Su Ming (蘇銘), the architect behind Taiwan’s alien village, was a government official who fled with the KMT to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. After a career in the public service, he pivoted to entrepreneurship — with his first project making soda drinks for American soldiers in Taiwan.

The drinks became wildly popular among Americans and locals, making Su Ming a very rich man. As any savvy rich man, he wanted to expand more.

All across Taiwan, the economic miracle was making its impact. The huge influx of American tourism, combined with domestic travel restrictions, meant holiday getaways were on the rise. Hotels, resorts, and amusement parks were cropping up everywhere.

But something was missing. There was a critical lack of beach resorts, seen as staples for American-style holidaying.

Under martial law, beachfronts were under lock and key, requiring special regulations to access. But for an ex-government official like Su Ming, restrictions were easier to bypass.

The government was convinced by the vision: building a beachy utopia catered to American servicemen and Taiwanese new money. Keeping America happy was key to Taiwan’s interests. And beyond mutual defence agreements and hard foreign policy, this also involved tropical beach resorts.

By 1980, it was official. The area known either as Feicui Bay or Emerald Bay (翡翠灣) was selected for Su Ming’s project, as it was one of the emerging locations developed for mass tourism. In this vacationer’s promised land, construction on the UFO village began.

Why the UFOs?
But why did Su Ming’s vision for this idea of a modern, American-catered Taiwan involve alien spaceships? While there may not be a straightforward answer, according to some sources, Su Ming thought the futuristic architecture was fitting for a rebrand of post-economic miracle Taiwan.

Modern, globalising Taiwan was interested in Western architectural stylings, the kind that would stand out from traditional Taiwanese designs. And little else stands out more than a UFO.

And though UFOs aren’t exactly conventional Western architecture, the design pushes past modernity and beelines straight for the future. For Su Ming’s vision, this perhaps symbolised as radical a departure from tradition and the past as architecturally possible. Or maybe he just thought they looked cool.

The promise of a glimmering space-age resort and the future it embodied for Taiwan quickly soured. Image credits - Ruby Dalmer

The makings of a ghost town
The promise of a glimmering space-age resort and the future it embodied for Taiwan quickly soured. In 1980, just two years after construction began, the project was scrapped completely.

Just as tangled socio-political forces led to the project’s conception, so did they seal its ghost-town fate.

The first major factor contributing to the village’s abandonment was formal diplomatic estrangement.

Over the course of the Sino-Soviet Split (1956–1966), where the relationship between the PRC and the Soviet Union was fracturing, the US seized the opportunity to forge closer ties with China. This paved the way for the official normalisation of relations between the US and China in 1979.

As a condition for this new relationship, the US terminated Taiwan’s Mutual Defense Treaty and severed formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Soldiers gradually headed home. The Nixon Doctrine and Vietnamization — policies supporting American retreat from Asia — bolstered the exodus.

By May 3, 1979, the last American soldier had left Taiwan. Without any American servicemen, a beach resort catered to their tastes had lost its sheen.

Added to this was economic downturn. The resilience of Taiwan’s economic miracle fluctuated, and when the economy began to sputter, investors acted quickly. Without steady cash flow and a mass tourist exodus, the project was beyond the point of no return.

There are also an array of more local reasons for the UFO ghost town. Some accounts suggest Emerald Bay itself was a poor choice for a beach resort. Factors range from volatile weather, unsafe seas for swimming, the cultural unsuitability of beach getaways in Taiwan, and a myriad of rumoured ghost stories and superstitious happenings around the area.

Abandoned UFOs on planet Taiwan
So a web of intertwined forces, from domestic to international, have frozen Wanli UFO Village in time. But what does it look like today?

Even though the project was abandoned, several homes were successfully constructed from 1978–1980. A few of these homes were sold, and some people took up residence. So although the area was abandoned, these original owners continued to occupy the UFO houses for a number of years.

There are now approximately 10 Futuros that remain in Wanli. One or two still appear to be inhabited. Along with the UFOs, Wanli is also home to a number of Venturos — the other design by Suuronen. The Venturos are in better condition than the Futuros, and several of them remain occupied.

Importantly, it is contested whether these buildings are authentic Suuronen designs. Many signs, the gulf of distance between Finland and Taiwan for one, point to Wanli being a local imitation of Suuronen’s utopian project.

An unassumingly important legacy
Wanli UFO Village serves as a memory of a complex island trying to figure out who it is. It is an expression of the weird flow-on effects of becoming tangled in the web of big powers.

The legacy of the Cold War continues to cast far-reaching shadows over Asia. For Taiwan in particular, that legacy is acutely felt every day.

Zooming into local pockets of fascination is often our best tool for understanding the big picture. Situating these UFOs in their broader context helps us understand the vast complexities of Taiwan itself.

Strange things happen when diplomatic decisions collide with domestic realities. In Wanli, this collision produced a derelict UFO village, frozen in time forever.

 - Asia Media Centre