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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
# '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 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. Earthman 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. Ilam). "Flying Saucer" Cameras. The United States Air Force announced that it has installed "flying saucer cameras" to help find an explanation for mysterious radar-confirmed objects reported to be streaking through the skies. ## 'QUEER OBJECT' SEEN NEAR INVERCARGILL Two women saw a mysterious lighted object flashing through the sky above Invercargill about 10.46 last night. One of them, Mrs. J. Davis, of 153 Eltrick 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. ## Support For Balloon Theory LONDON, Nov. 27 (Rec. 11 lam).—The journal "The Aeroplane" is satisfied that the "unidentified objects in the general category of flying saucers" sighted over England recently were balloons. There seems little doubt, it says, that the object picked up on the radar set of a London anti-aircraft unit on November 3, and quite probably several others recently reported, was one of the non-extensible balloons now being used in America for the collection of upper air data. Their appearance over Britain, says the journal, is by no means impossible, since balloons launched in New Mexico have been picked up as far away as Norway and Spain. Some balloons have gone higher than 107,000 feet. # SOUTH AFRICA REPORTS A 'SAUCER' A spokesman of defence headquarters at Pretoria, said today that South African Air Force officers had reported that they had seen objects over South Africa which might have been "flying saucers." He added that the officers were trained in the detection of rockets and other objects moving at high speed. They had given a clear description of the phenomena. A senior Air Force officer said in Cape Town today that Air Force headquarters was investigating a mysterious radar contact which indicated some unexplained phenomenon in the sky. ## Kent Phenomenon LONDON, Nov. 20 (Rec. 11am) The Air Ministry said today that a strange object resembling the popular notions of the "flying saucer" which was seen on a Kent Army radar unit could have been a meteorological balloon. Referring to a War Office statement, last night that a mysterious object had been traced for 10 minutes, the Air Ministry said a radio-sonde meteorological balloon had been released in the same area at that time. The meteorological station also had followed the balloon's course by radar.
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