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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
SIR-For the past eight years or so there have been persistent reports of people in various countries having seen "flying saucers." Unfortunately the first reports were immediately followed by a never-ending chain of fantastic stories mostly created by irresponsible and rather unbalanced sensation, hunters, neurotics, and hoaxers. Let us have a realistic look at this subject. I have seen one of these "saucers" not an "eerie light" or a "strange phenomenon"but a real thing, made of duraium and rivets, manned not by "superbees" from Mars, but by ordinary human beings. During the last two years of World War II I was assigned to an aircraft manufacturing company in Prague as an apprentice of aircraft engineering. One day (in the closing stages of the war) when I arrived to work. I saw a strange aircraft, oval shaped, and seemingly unpainted, which apparently took off from the neighboring airfield belonging to the Technical Institute of Aeronautics, then occupied by the German Luftfahrtministerium (Air Department), This particular aircraft accelerated at an incredible speed and gained altitude within a few seconds. Then it slightly banked and turned at what seemed to be almost a right angle. None of my friends working at the Institute could give me any particulars After the war I learned from another person (also previously employed by Technical Institute) that this "flying saucer" was equipped with a new type of rocket. He also drew for me a rough image of the aircraft and explained how it operated. He did not know, however, what happened to the plane when the Russians took over. Even the U.S. Intelligence officers, who questioned me after I fled from Czechoslovakia in 1948, didn't seem to take much interest in this matter. "Herr George Klein, wartime aviation adviser to Hitler's Supply Minister Albert Speer, stated in Berlin recently that on February 14. 1945. a German research team tested an aircraft of saucer-shape in Prague Only recently, by a mere chance, I found this in an aeronautical magazine (Aircraft, August, 1953); VERYBODY to whom I have spoken about this aeroplane took me and my story with a great amount of scepticism "Carrying a test crew, the saucer climbed to 40,300ft. in three minutes and attained a level speed of 1375 miles per hour on its first test-flight. "It is likely that members of the research team fell into Russian hands It has been admitted (though rather reluctantly) that many countries today are building jet aircraft directly derived from German originals. I have proof that, for example, the U.S. first swept-wing experimental fighter, Bell X5, is in fact, the Messerschmitt P1101. The newest Russian jet-fighter, MIG19, is an "honest to goodness" Focke-Wulf Ta-183/1 and so on So I can't help feeling certain that U the Allies of the last war-U.S.Britain and Russia-have captured German scientists and aircraft designers together with plans and prototypes. they also have continued in research and manufacture of planes employing the ultra low aspect ratio (or what is popularly called the "flying saucer") So far only two countries have admitted to building "flying saucers" Canada (Avro), and Yugoslavia. But the big Powers are still keeping quiet about their progress in this field If the "flying saucer" of 1945 could accelerate and travel at a phenomenal speed of 1400 miles per hour, being powered by imperfect and feeble rockets the speed and range of those developed after nine years of research is beyond my wildest imagination All told, I'd much rather see the Martians than the Russians in possession of such a magnificent weapon. GEORGE MARIK Bayswater Road. King's Cross. ---
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