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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.
“Hill”41 pages
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# 23 12. 4. Flying Saucers 23 Sir,—In reply to "What Source?" whose observations on the credibility of flying saucers were published on December 14, I suggest he read some of the huge mass of evidence that has been collected over the last few years, particularly in the United States of America, both by individuals and the Pentagon (U.S.A.F.H.Q.). The Pentagon painstakingly sifted and resifted all the available evidence, giving a logical explanation to a large percentage of it, but was unable to explain away the balance. "What Source?" quoted Mr. Thomson's views on probable life on other planets, plus his own, but with all the scientific reasoning, in the world one doesn't know what is on the other planets. One of America's leading physicists who was involved in the Pentagon investigations is of the firm opinion that these craft derive their propulsion from the magnetic lines of force that parallel the universe—minimum speed 180,000 miles a second, which would make the return trip to, say, Venus, in one hour. So much for distances. Pubiatua. NO SOURCE. # Dalmore Family Watch Object In the Morning Sky For 20 minutes early this morning, a woman living in Pheehill road, Dalmore, watched what she thinks was a flying saucer. At 4 a.m. she was looking at smoke rising from behind the Botanic Gardens, thinking there was fire, when she saw a large, peculiarly white object hovering directly above Opoho. flying saucer," she told the Star. "The object hovered for about 20 minutes. I got in and out of bed several times, trying to make up my mind that it was not an hallucination. Then the object began to move quickly away to the north-east so I woke my husband and 18-year-old son, who is in the Regular Air Force." "It gradually became smaller and smaller. It seemed to be climbing rapidly and finally we lost sight of it in the distance." The three of us watched it for about five minutes. It was travelling very fast by this time. We could see it faintly as it passed behind clouds and then brightly as it passed a clear space. None of the family had ever taken flying saucers seriously, the woman said, but now they are convinced the object they saw was real. "I won't say that this was a flying saucer." she told the "Star." # "Dazzling light emitted by object in sky" WHANGAREI, Friday (O.C.). A cone-shaped object, emitting a dazzling yellow light, was observed high in the sky at 3 a.m. today by Mrs. E. Morgan, of Houto. She watched it intermittently for nearly two hours. The light fluctuated and the object altered height on several occasions, Mrs. Morgan said. It was first sighted due east of her home and she called to her brother, Mr W. Boag, to check her observation. Mr. Boag watched the object for 15 minutes. It twice came lower and each time left a trail of light like a tail. Mrs Morgan said that she also noticed another object due west, but much further away. Although very small it had the same characteristics and could also be seen in daylight. The two objects disappeared together about 5 a.m. 11 11 # GCG1 NAP G # "Flying Anchor" Seen By Five Westmere People WANGANIT CHRONICLE A "flying anchor" was seen in the skies over Wangamui last night by five Westmere residents. The brightly-lit object, which was seen to pass slowly from east to west over the city and Westmere, was described by Mr P. Bagley, of Westmere, as being about the size, but not the shape, of half-a-crown. Mr Bagley said the object seemed at times to be hovering in the air. His mother saw the object first when members of the family were working outside on their poultry farm shortly before 9 p.m. Mr Bagley, his mother, father, young sister and a cousin watched it for about a minute. A telephone call was made to the "Chronicle" by Mr Ragley, but when he returned outside the object had disappeared in a westerly direction. It could not be seen from the vicinity of the "Chronicle" office. Mr Bagley's father described it as being anchor-shaped, and Mr Bagley discerned what he thought was a tail. No sound of an acroplane could be heard, and it was impossible to judge the object's height, but it gave the impression of being "very, very high." It gave off "a bright but ordinary-coloured light." Footnote: The last flying saucer seen in this district-by a man at Castlecliff-landed at Turakina and proved to be a lighted weather balloon from Ohakea. It did not have an anchor shape, however. --- # More Saucer Sightings Reported 1. 1.1.1.1.1. The silver, cigar-shaped object, believed to be a flying saucer, seen hanging motionless in the air about four miles west of Coutts Island by a "StarSun" reporter on November 21, was seen by a man and a few days later by a woman. This is stated in the latest issue of "Flying Saucers," the quarterly journal of the Civilian Saucer Investigation (N.Z.). The "Star-Sun" reporter and his wife were travelling by car towards Christchurch at 3.46 p.m., when they noticed the object. They watched it for seven minutes before it moved off west towards the Southern Alps. Cylinder-shaped "A Christchurch member of the Civilian Saucer Investigation, Mr H. E. Ward, believes he saw the object mentioned," states the magazine. Mr Ward was at Harewood Airport the same day when he saw a dark, cylindrical form high in the sky. He was about a mile and a quarter away from the object. A Mrs Gindenberg told Mr Ward that she had seen a silvery object moving north-east near Kaikoura at 10.30 a.m. on November 23. The object was not very high. She said that she had not read the article by the "Star-Sun" reporter, the magazine states. Flying Saucers Sir.—Whether an increase of mass, as stated by "A Little Learning" in your December 31 issue, or a decrease of mass, as quoted by myself, would occur at very high velocities, with infinity reached either way at the limiting speed of 186,000 miles a second, proportional effect would occur, in either case, as a range of speeds between 16,000 and 93,000 miles, a second approximately would be required, according to the relative position of the planets, to do the return trip between Venus and the Earth in one hour, with the certainty of destruction by friction should an atmosphere be entered at anything like meteoric speed. Returning to the original question as to whether so called flying saucers have a terrestrial origin or derive from beyond; the shape which has originated the term, namely a more or less flattened disc, indicates their earthly source (if they do indeed exist) as this shape is related to the utilisation of support from an atmosphere during flight (e.g., skimming disc) and has no meaning relative to space travel outside an atmospheric envelope where a sphere is, the ideal form, or, to mechanism for breaking away from the gravitational field of a planet through its atmosphere, which requires an elongated bullet-shaped contour similar to that in experimental use at the present time. Eastbourne. WHAT SOURCE? ---
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.