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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
Formed last July, the A.F.S.B. still retains its original view that positive identification of the cause, origin and intentions - if they possess occupants - of the objects will in all probability be a lengthy process; but even working on that assumption, already some highly interesting facts have emerged from a careful study of global sightings and other phenomena. One of the most amazing factors encountered is the bewildering variety of types, speeds and general behaviour associated with the strange objects, those viewed in Australian skies alone within the last year ranging from lights, discs, and cigar-shapes skimming along at far in excess of jet plane speed, to a slow-moving "silver ball" which revolved nonchalantly, noiselessly, and unhurriedly over Parramatta, N.S.W., for fully ten minutes one day in May 1952, in the full view of residents and children. Why do some flash along at supersonic speed, whilst others merely perambulate? The A.F.S.B. does not yet possess the answer to this, though it hopes one day to discover the reason for that and other puzzling phenomena. It would, for instance, like, too, to know the meaning of apparently purposeless lights, often illuminating in broad daylight, the nose or interiors, sometimes both, of the strange craft, lights which sometimes glow in snakes or sort rose, orange or blue, yet at other times split the sky with savage green, blue or white brilliance almost too unbearable for human eyes because of its unearthly brightness. ## SYDNEY, N.S.W. FEBRUARY 23,1953. The report of what is believed to be the largest saucer ever observed, reached the Australian Flying Saucer Bureau from Nairobi, East Africa. Eye witness, Mrs. A.M.King of P.O.Box 2162, Nairobi, wrote:- "I left Kombasa at the end of June 1947, on the S.S Llandovery Castle en route to Cape Town, and going through the Straits of Ladgascar about the beginning of July was on deck with another lady passenger at approx. 11 p.m. when we noticed a particularly bright star. It was travelling very fast and approached the ship. Suddenly a searchlight appeared, which flashed a strong beam of light on the water within 50 yards of the ship. It descended, its beam shortening and becoming brighter as it neared the water, and the next instant there was no more light, but an object appeared apparently made of steel and shaped like a cigar cut at the rear end. It remained in the air
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