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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.
“Christchurch”32 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
SPEED: Generally subsonic, in the region of 400 mph. Maximum estimate reported was 1.000 mph. ALTITUDE: Varied 1,000 - 3,000 feet. Maximum estimate 12,000 ft. RANGE: Over 600 miles plotted. Maximum estimate over 900 miles. SPECIAL PHENOMENA: A few doubtful reports told of explosions in mid-air, with an intense white light; no fragments were found. MATERIAL EVIDENCE: All reports stressed the lack of tangible remains. In one case, fragments reported to have fallen from a "rocket" were found, but analysis showed them to be ordinary coke slag. DAR TRACKING: The only definite report was that the radar station at Vaxholm, near Stockholm, using rather out-of-date equipment, tracked objects from the general direction of Peenemuende. SWEDISH PREMIER'S STATEMENT: Mr. Hansson, in the Riksdag, August 15th, 1946, emphasised the lack of information both of the nature and source of the "rockets". SWEDISH DEFENCE STAFF STATEMENTS: Two statements were issued, August 6th and October 11th. The majority of the sightings - about 80% - were dismissed as ordinary celestial and meteorological phenomena, or were too vague to be identified. It was admitted that reliable evidence showed that some rocket-like objects of unknown nature were being directed across Sweden from an unknown source. ## DISCUSSION OF EVIDENCE. GERMAN POSSIBILITIES: It is well known that in 1945 Germany was absolutely supreme in the guided missile field. Details of all these German supreme in the guided missile field. Details of all these German missiles, both built and planned, have been published, and even allowing for subsequent improvements, they had nothing remotely resembling the objects reported in 1946. In fairness, it should be said that some newspaper reporters realised that the "rockets" were something far in advance of any German missile. RUSSIAN POSSIBILITIES: The case here is even more improbable than the German one. In 1945 Russia had no guided missiles or jet aircraft. To put matters. its first public flight. It was a hasty post-war design, combining an earlier YAK-9 fuselage with a copy of a German JUMBO 004 B jet-engine. By 1946/47 Soviet copies of the V.1., V.2. and smaller German missiles were being built in quantity. Improved versions of these with longer ranges were reported in 1953 - but they still do not correspond to the UFO's with which we are concerned. For this progress Russia relied heavily upon second-grade German rocket technicians who were being recruited or forced into service as late as December 1946 and during 1947. The leading experts in the field had been recruited by the U.S.A. For what it is worth, the Soviet journal NEW TIMES of September 3rd, strongly refuted the allegations that the missiles were of Russian origin. No nation - Russia least of all - would imperil the secrets of an advanced new weapon by flying it in large numbers over foreign territory in peacetime. ARKS: The combination of what was apparently reaction propulsion, lack of wings, lack of noise, comparatively low speed, low altitude, flat trajectory and long range, was an impossible one for 1946 technological level. As one reported put it,..."it is aerodynamically impossible it apparently defies several scientific laws." Even today, 1955, nothing is known which fits the case. Long-range machines such as the A.4b, the A.9/A.10, the Martin
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.