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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.
“Headquarters”37 pages
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# OUR NEIGHBOUR AUSTRALIA Since January 1954 to date of issue, the appearance of "Unidentified object" in Australian skies, has climbed to a figure that can only be expressed as phenomenal. In short, there has been literally thousands of reports and Australian news-papers have gone hardly a day without mention of further incidents, more often than not, the press report would be referring to a number of happenings simultaneously. The government has been officially investigating via the R.A.A.F and Civil Aviation Dept for some years, but never with the openness and seriousness of these last few months. Mr Edgar R. Jarrold Director of the Australian Flying Saucer Bureau, has like wise been swamped with thousands of reports from press reported and private sources, sent in by the Bureau's State-wide branches and members. Mr Jarrold is in weekly contact with us and his letters bring a volume of news each issue. Recently Mr Jarrold has received the green light from official quarters, the signs are that A.F.S.B. may not be much longer classed as an unofficial investigating agency. We will not enlarge on this at present, because we do not want to restrict the flow of extremely encouraging news that has recently come the way of A.F.S.B. We strongly recommend to all our readers to send an 8 shilling money-order to A.F.S.B. Headquarters 3 Ferguson Avenue Fairfield Australia and obtain copies of the Bureau's splendid printed Mag. (8/- is sufficient for four issues) (quarterly) C.S.I. has just not the space to print all the Australian sightings of recent monthe, all the pages of the current June issue could be used up with just a brief reference to a portion of the reports. England too is receiving her share of reports and, at about the same date as the very close approaches by mystery flying machines were made to groups of YOUNG people in Melbourne Australia, similar happenings were reported in Hampshire and Somerset, England. It was reported that, the Air Ministry was completely baffled by these reports, because, it was stated, they could not explain it away as any known form of natural phenomena. Reports are widespread and becoming more frequent daily, recently the BBC News Review featured an interview with Capt James Howard, Capt and chief pilot of a British Overseas Airways Corp.Here is the news report of the particular sighting in case you have not seen it. FLYING OBJECTS TRAILED AIRLINER, PILOTS REPORT. London July I 1954. Crew members of a british airliner reported Wednesday night, their plane was followed for 80 miles by seven weird flying black objects near Goose Bay Labrador. Capt James Howard, pilot of the New York to London airliner said, the mysterious escort vanished when a U.S. Air Force fighter plane came up to investigate. The British Overseas Airways Corp. (BOAC) stratocruiser was at a height of 19,000 ft and about 150 miles south-west of Goose Bay early Wednesday when the objects appeared. They flashed into sight suddenly, and were obviously not aircraft as we know them," Howard said. "All appeared black, and I will swear they were solid." They might have been five miles away. They stayed with us for 18 minutes. There was a big central object which appeared to keep changing shape-"Flying Jellyfish" we dubbed it. Sometimes it was wedge shaped, sometimes like a dumbbell, sometimes like a sphere with a tail-like projection. The six small er objects dodged about, either in front or behind" All ten members of the crew and most of the 51 passengers awake at the time of sighting saw the objects. All were interviewed by U.S.Air Force intelligence.
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