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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
# St. ange Things Happening On the Moon LONDON.—Mysterious things are happening on the moon, which astronomers once believed was dead, unchanging world. Strange dark patches which might be swarms of insects or vegetation have been seen spreading slowly over parts of the moon's pock-marked surface. There is much evidence of recent moonquakes in the form of crumbling craters and colossal landslides. New cracks are appearing in the ash-dry crust. Volcanoes may still be active. Flashing lights, sudden surges of colour, and odd-shaped shadows, which could not be cast by the light of sun or earth, have been reported by reliable moon watchers. In full view of highly-trained eyes whole craters have been suddenly obscured as though by clouds of dust belched out from underground caverns. The man who has seen most of these events is Mr Percy Wilkins, a British Civil servant, who has spent much time in the last 44 years watching the moon through telescopes. Though without academic training, 57-year-old Welshman Wilkins is now internationally recognised as the leading living authority. about the moon. He is already immortal, for one of the moon's big craters has been officially named after him-a distinction he shares with Julius Caesar, Darwin, Newton, and Plato. From his home-made observatory in his suburban back garden at Bexleyheath, Kent, or from the French observatory at Meudon, Wilkins's eyes have explored mountains and valleys which no man had seen before. Wilkins does not think that the first men to land on the moon will find any animals alive there. The moon's stratosphere is virtually a vacuum, and could not support life as we know it, but it may once have been strong enough for animals to breathe. Some idea of the work he has done is given in his fascinating book, 'Our Moon' (Muller), published this month. So Wilkins believes that the space men may bring back with them fossils of extinct creatures, so strange and unexpected that they may entirely change our ideas of the universe. # 'PATROLS FROM ANOTHER WORLD' Explanation Of Flying Saucer Mystery? LONDON, Nov. 22. Flying saucers reported sighted from four Western capitals recently could be reconnaissance patrols from another planet, according to a theory worked out from experts' views. Major Keyhoe, a leading United States investigator of saucers, said recently that Earth men who wanted to observe another planet where people were believed to be living would send up a "mother space ship" from which small patrol craft could be launched. If attacked by fighter planes from the "other world" they would zoom away out of danger—just as the saucers picked up on a London anti-aircraft regiment's radar set, behaved. ## Base on the moon? It was stated today that the explanation would supply the answer to the saucer mystery. Earthmen who wanted to observe Mars would set up bases on the moons which circle Mars. Men from Mars may equally well have established a base on the Earth's moon. Flying saucer reports always come just when Mars reaches the closest point to the Earth in its orbit. The Air Ministry has dismissed 95 per cent. of the "saucer" reports as explainable by natural phenomena, but three members of Parliament have given notice of questions in the House of Commons this week about the remainder. The Air Ministry says that in the other five per cent. of reports experts have been unable to reach any conclusions. The anti-aircraft men who sighted a saucer at nearly 60,000 feet do not accept the Air Ministry's explanation that it was a meteorological balloon. Two R.A.F. officers flying a Vampire jet on the same day also reported the object. ## First spotting station CANADA, the United States, and South Africa have investigated reports of sighted saucers. Canada has built an official "saucer spotting station" near Ottawa in the first attempt to secure scientific proof that saucers may exist. It is revealed from Pretoria that the R.A.F. is exchanging saucer secrets with South Africa. In the star system near the Earth there are 22 planets on which astronomers believe life could exist. They think it is reasonable to suppose that life does exist on them. Dr. R. H. Stoy, Royal Astronomer at Cape Town, said: "There's some sort of phenomenon not yet adequately explained."—N.Z.P.A. (Rec. 11am). ## 'QUEER OBJECT' SEEN NEAR INVERCARGILL Two women saw a mysterious lighted object flashing through the sky above Invercargill about 10.45 last night. One of them, Mrs. J. Davis, of 153 Ettrick Street, said today: "It was a queer object with a lizard shape with two bright red lights in front of it. It came from a westerly direction at a very high altitude and passed right above my house and entered the clouds travelling in an easterly direction. It was no star." The Invercargill weather office said today that a meteorological balloon was released about 11pm yesterday but that it almost certainly was not what the women saw. The balloon carried only one small light which would be very hard to see.
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