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This is a New Zealand Defence Force public release of RNZAF file AIR 39/3/3, "Flying Saucers," which covers 1952 to 1955 and was declassified in September 2010 under the Official Information Act. It collects sighting reports from the public and military personnel, press clippings, and a table of 1952 sightings. It also holds Carter Observatory opinions attributing some reports to meteors. A large part covers the inquiry into lights seen from National Airways Corporation Flight 108 on 31 October 1955, which the RNZAF could not fully explain as Venus.
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Light and the moving aircraft. It is common for planets low in the sky to scintillate. At 8000' feet in position 38 degrees south 125 degrees east (the approximate position of the aircraft when the light was on seen) the setting time for Venus on October 31 was 8.19pm. makes brief men Auckland. "Since the captain of the aircraft (Captain W. T. Rainbow) states that the direction of flight of the aircraft was not altered during the time the light was in sight, the R.N.Z.A.F cannot explain the apparent movement of the light or establish definition of the light it was Venus," says the relatively that it was Venus, steady. The report said that the strange light was seen low in the western sky between 8.06pm and 8.11pm on Monday, Oct. 31. Venus could have been observed in the approximate position of the light when it was first sighted from the aircraft flying at 8000 feet between Wanganui and Auckland from a National Airways Corporation from a National Airways Corporation aircraft could have been Venus, but cannot explain the apparent movement of the light, according to a report released last night by the Acting Minister of Defence (Ms. Halting). "I have read one or two books about these things," Captain Rainbow added. Our experience tallied with descriptions I have read of similar objectsighted, by pilots in overseas countries." ## 4 "It is easy enough to say it was a planet but we saw it moving in and out if the top of a layer of stratus cloud. whistled the plane up to 9000 feet and the object climbed with us. 1. My co-pilot (First Officer S. G. rounce) couldn't make anything of either, although we kept it under observation for quite a while. The inny thing about it was that the light rightened and then dimmed regularly about every three seconds. When he landed in an N.A.C. passenger flight at Kaitonia this afternoon, captain Rainbow said it was not a planet, nor a comet or meteor, although first I thought it was a planet. We first saw it astorm and I put the plane automatic pilot, steering a steady course. In about four or five minutes the object had overtaken the plane and as slightly ahead of it. I have never seen a planet move like that. My co-pilot (First Officer S G Asked to comment on Captain Rainbow's statement that the object was only 15 miles, distant, Air Commodore when said it was very difficult to judge distances at night. He had himself seen similar things on night flights seriously about 10 minutes from 8.15 p.m. to 25 p.m., but really didn't give it a cond thought. It changed colour through a wide range of shades but on planets do that in that position. "A number of passengers discussed the object and wondered what it could. Captain Rainbow asked me what it ought it was, but he did not offer theory then. He saw the thing for much longer period than I did. I was it a bit concerned about it at the me, but a number of people have asked me about it since so I am having theory checked."
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 445 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.