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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.
“Sea”47 pages
## Page IO A notable feature was the sharply etched roundness of the device which gleamed in a uniform brilliant white luminescence. Tapering abruptly behind this white mass was a short fiery tail of bluish-green - much like the tonguing flame of a rocket. Its speed, although constant, was too fast for any known aircraft, yet too slow for a normal meteor. During the next few days I interviewed over fifty other witnesses. Most all confirmed the description which I had phoned to the Columbus Air Filter Centre and the newspapers. Some described the object as "cone-shaped", like a "pear" or, as my daughter told me, "a light bulb with a little blue tail". Reports poured in from every section of the city, mostly in the eastern half or from high ground in the West. One report from Cold Springs, Kentucky, claimed that the object was exceedingly low and appeared to have "windows". While all three Cincinnati papers lengthily reported the incident under banner headlines - blaming it on the heat or hallucination (2) - other accounts of the object's flight began filtering in from remote areas in central and north-eastern Ohio. From Columbus came reports that residents there also saw a ball of fire streaking over the city. It was described as a bright yellow coloured light with a red and green fringe or halation. The object silently disappeared in a cloud bank about 5,000 ft. up. Over Lancaster, about thirty miles southeast of Columbus, a similar object was reported by many residents. C.M. Smith of that city writes "... My family and I were sitting out on our terrace when we saw a giant fireball travelling very rapidly from south to north. It appeared as a pear-shaped object glowing white with a red and orange fiery tail." Ed: Several reports from northwestern Cincinnati described the object as suddenly and silently exploding just north of that city. One witness said he thought he saw it hit the earth and burst into verticle streamers like a bomb. Curiously, the object was not seen in adjacent areas northeast of the city, which gives rise to the theory that two objects were seen over Cincinnati almost at the same time. Lending weight to this theory is the fact that the majority of witnesses represented two extreme ends of the city, and from two extreme ends of Kentucky from which the objects were seen to originate. By this deduction, we can, therefore, account for the ONE OBJECT exploding in northwestern Cincinnati and the other, perhaps, changing course and flying ENE toward Lancaster, where the description of the object tallies with the object witnessed by myself. If the later case were not true, as we have earlier suggested, on the assumption that no one reported a UFO in the outlying areas of northeastern Cincinnati, then we may believe that THREE and POSSIBLY FOUR SEPARATE objects traversed the skies over Ohio. (1) The itemized hypotheses are CRIFO's and do not refer to or reflect upon official information, but, in fair warning, many loose ends of the formidable UFO puzzle now are fitting, and such is our interpretation. (2) In the light of recent developments, and for the sake of national sanity and security we feel that our responsible press has exceeded its bounds, when in debunking "Saucers", it must also belittle the sighters. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * C.R.I.F.O. "ORBIT" IS EDITED AND PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY LEONARD H. STRINGFIELD, 7017 BRITTON AVENUE, CINCINNATI 27, OHIO, U.S.A. SUBSCRIPTION RATES (OVERSEAS FIRST CLASS MAIL) $3.60c per year. AIRMAIL DISPATCH $6.60c " " .
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