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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.
“Etna”1 page
# What Was That # THE LIGHT WAS VENUS, SAYS 4 NOV 1955 STAR WITNESS Of the several approaches made to the puzzle of what it was that pilots and passengers of an NAC airliner saw, brightly lit and apparently moving at high speed, in the western sky of North Taranaki on Monday evening none has produced a solution satisfactory to every one concerned. It was stated on Saturday that Venus had been declared officially out as the explanation, as the planet would have disappeared over the horizon at 8.6pm. The information given "The Post" in that regard was incorrect. Calculations made by the Director of the Carter Observatory (Mr. I. L. Thomsen) for the R.N.Z.A.F. show that for a given position along the line of flight and for the height at which the plane was flying the approximate time of disappearance over the horizon was approximately 8.19 pm. Venus might therefore have been seen from the airliner. The conviction of Captain Rainbow, pilot of the airliner, that the object, whatever it was, moved rapidly, is one main point which has not been cleared up. Before leaving Wellington at the weekend, the Minister in Charge of Civil Aviation (Mr. Shand) said that he would now ask the Meteorological Service to give its suggestions in the hope that a firm and simple answer might be supplied. The Royal New Zealand Air Force can call its Inspector General, Air Commodore R. J. Cohen, as a star witness in the top-level services inquiry ordered into the "Flying light" mystery. The probe follows an NAC ## "Lighted Object" In Auckland Sky A lighted object in the sky, flying silently at great speed, was seen by Mr D. W. Paul, of Hendon Avenue, ## SEEN NEAR ## WELLINGTON What appeared to be a vast large star low down over the Wellington hills drew the attention of a prominent Auckland business man as he left Wellington in the inter-island steamer Maori last night. "It aroused my attention because of its size and the fact that it seemed to be pulsating," said the passenger. The attention of a fellow traveller was drawn to it and soon five or six people were watching the object closely. The probe follows an N.A.C. crew claim that a fast-moving light followed their main trunk airliner over the North Island on Monday night. witching the observer might One of the watchers suggested that it may be a light on a radio mast and this was accepted until after the boat had left Wellington Heads and the light was observed to be moving parallel with the sun. This is his evidence: "I was asleep when the pilot Captain Rainbow, shook me awake. He told me he had seen something strange. That was the thing Captain Rainbow describes as "like a marine beacon revolving, with some kind of a porthole in it, and changing colour—and flying seven times faster than we were." ## ...and slept "I looked out," Air Commodore Cohen says. "I told him it was a planet—and promptly, went back to sleep." That was the stage at which Captain Rainbow decided not to tell women passengers because the news might alarm them. And it was then, too; that his pilot, First Officer Trounce, agreed it was not a planet, but something flying alongside
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