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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.
“Rome”7 pages
the fact that the object descended practically vertically, and at what seemed to be a high speed. Then it just settled down on the ground. After about 20 minutes, these seven people were joined by a Polish policeman, who - after seeing what had happened - went to make a report. ## A close up view. The seven witnesses approached the object. They estimated its diameter as between 15 and 20 metres. It had a spherical centre - apparently of metal - which was entirely closed. On the outside was a large flat circle on which wide exhaust pipes could be seen, reminiscent of jet engines. No engine however was visible. This outer circle was also of metal. There appeared to be no human beings aboard. There was neither sound nor movement. None of these people dared approach the central sphere, but all were impressed by Russian inscriptions - on both central sphere and outer circle. None had any doubt that the object was Russian. ## The man who disappeared. While the policeman was away, one man - a German - thought it prudent to disappear. He left the place at once; the others remained. Soon after 8pm the policeman returned, and shortly afterwards a Soviet helicopter landed with several MVD officers. Immediate action was taken to close off the area. None of th six remaining witnesses, nor the policeman, has been seen or heard of since. A police net was thrown out to catch the man who had left. Police and troops were turned out to comb a wide area. The Russian authorities know the man's name; but - up to the time our observer reported - he had not been caught. After this, the arear was cordoned off for a week. After that, there was no further sign or trace of the mysterious object. From August 1 to August 10, no more flights were observed. Then a few more were noticed up to August 15. We have heard no more since then.
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 445 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.