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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.
# "Flying Cigar" Tracked By Radar ## (7.30 p.m.) An Italian radar station tracked a cigar-shaped object for 39 minutes on Friday night, the Italian Air Force announced at the weekend. Thousands of Romans reported sighting the object. The Air Force said a station at Practica Di Marc, 40 miles south-west of Rome, picked up the object which flew at 3600 feet along a 15-mile stretch of const west of the capital. It flew slowly before making great speed and disappearing. The Air Force added that the object was shaped like a cigar cut in half, with a big antenna amidships. A trail of smoke poured from the pointed rear. Many who saw the object said its exhaust trail across the sky was luminous. ## Flying Saucer "Nonsense" WUERZBURG (Bavaria), September 19 (Rec. 8 p.m.) Professor Otto Hahn, German Nobel Prize-winner in chemistry, said yesterday that nobody with a sound mind could believe in the nonsense about flying saucers. "If men from Mars or other creatures undertook pleasure flights to the earth they would greet us with a 'Hello' instead of" circling round the world at high altitudes," he told a meeting of scientists. Professor Hahn, Germany's leading scientist in atomic research, said he regarded it as improbable that the weather could be influenced by atomic explosions. ## Blue, Globe-shaped DUNEDIN EV STAR Object Seen Over City, Woman Claims A woman claims to have seen a blue, globe-shaped object moving at great speed across the night sky over the city this week. She stales that, when walking along Allandale road, St. Clair, at 8.35 on Wednesday night she saw a blue object, above her head. It was some time before she realised that it was not a star or anything else that she had ever seen, but she was, nevertheless, able to study it for about 20 seconds before it began to move away. It then moved southwards in great speed in the direction of the St. Clair baths, and in about 40 seconds it disappeared behind the St. Clair cliffs. The woman described it as, "a brilliant blue object, rather more globe-shaped than saucer-shaped, or at least definitely not flat. It was smaller than an aeroplane, but it moved much faster than one." The R.N.Z.A.F. station at Taieri reports that there was no flying on Wednesday night. # SPIRITUALISTS CLAIM CONTACT WITH VENUS LONDON, September 21. (Rec. 7.30 p.m.).—Inhabitants of the planet Venus are reported to have presented their compliments to a band of archaeologists and spiritualists at Avebury, Wiltshire, with their regret that they cannot visit Earth till they are sure that human beings will like them. The Venusians are said to have passed on this message to a group of 70 persons who came from London on Sunday. To test their powers of mental telepathy on the site of a Stone Age temple the group stood in windswept fields and attempted to contact both flying saucers and the Venusians. They reported no luck, with the saucers, but Mr. George Kling, one of the spiritualists in the party, was said to have made contact with Venus. Members of the party described later how "Grey Fox," Mr. King's Indian "guide voice," said, "Some of you would be frightened if we came today. There is too much difference of opinion on Earth." Mr. King, said later that the Neutrarians wanted to help Earth because they were frightened of the damage human beings may cause with atomic research. ## Wider interest in flying saucers An increase of over 70 members in three months was reported by the president of the Civilian. Saucer Investigation, Mr H. H. Fulton, at the second general meeting held yesterday evening in Mount Eden. Great progress had been made in the investigation since the decision in May to include public membership, he said. More appearances of unidentified flying objects had been recorded in 1954 than at any time previously. He noted a definite swing in the scientific world towards acceptance of the saucers as solid, controlled craft, probably from extra-terrestrial sources. Photographs of flying saucers taken by Mr. K. F. Gibbons, of Nelson, were passed round and will be studied by a qualified photographer. # LATEST 'SAUCER' STORY COMES FROM PORTUGAL LONDON, Sept. 28. — Reuter's Lisbon correspondent says that the story of aluminium-suited men who climbed out of a "flying saucer" to pick flowers and shrubs, was told in a letter published in the Portuguese newspaper "Dairio de Lisboa." The writer, Cesar Cardoso, said he saw the flying saucer on a mountain near the village of Almaseda, in the Serra da Guardnha. Three 6ft 7in men clothed in aluminium suits got out, cut some flowers, shrubbery and twigs and put them in a shining box. Cardoso said that he and three friends were invited to enter the saucer. When they refused the men did not insist, but climbed into their saucer and flew off vertically at a terrific speed, emitting a shower of sparks.—N.Z.P.A. (Rec. 11am).
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.