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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.
“Ottawa”7 pages
R.N.Z.A.F. Station, WHENUAPAI
4th April, 1955
## AFTER FLIGHT REPORT.
Sir,
I have the honour to report that while acting as Navigator on NZ 5904 (Capt. F/O CHEAL) on a Night Cross Country which departed from Whenuapai at 311950M. I sighted an unidentified object flying on a course of 270 $ ^{\circ} $ T and at about 12,000' in the vicinity of Gisborne. We were at 9000' on a course of 037 $ ^{\circ} $ T and whilst taking a relative bearing on Gisborne at 2135M I noticed a large blue light approaching from 045 $ ^{\circ} $ REL. There was 8/8 Altostratus cloud base at about 15000' and the object crossed our bow at considerable speed in a flat flight path. The Captain was adjusting the auto-pilot at the time of sighting, and by the time I had drawn his attention to the object, it had vanished towards Lake Taupe.
I have the honour to be $ \mathbf{b} _ {2} $ .
Sir,
Your obedient Servant
Dan Monantrie
(IAN McMURTRIE) Sgt. Navigator.
The Commanding Officer, R.N.Z.A.F. Station, Whenuapai
FHIV Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 445 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.