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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.
“The Advance”22 pages
what we are up to. Judging by the similarity of the reports simse they may have been watching us a good long time. By Robert L. Umger. # AN OUTSTANDING SIGHTING THE MT. KILIMANJARO ENIGMA. February 19, 1951, dawned bright and clear at Nairobi, Kenya, Colony, East Africa. At Nairobi West Airport, the regular Monday morning Lodestar was readied as usual for its morning flight to Mombasa, and soon passengers filed aboard, little dreaming, any of them, of what was to meet their astounded eyes barely 20 minutes later. at 7 a.m. exactly with 7 passengers and a crew of 2 aboard, the Lodestar took off. all went well until 7.20 a.m. when suddenly the radio officer drew the attention of his superior, Capt. J. Bicknell, to a bright object like a white star, apparently hanging motionless easily 10,000 ft. above it. Kilimanjaro. Capt. Bicknell's first reaction, he said later, was to say nothing. The two watched the strange object for 3 minutes, then, as it showed no signs of vanishing, 'informed the passengers. One began promptly studying the oddity, amazedly through a powerful pair of field-glasses, whilst the radio officer flashed an excited call to Eastleigh nearby, giving an account and description of the thing. Eastleigh's suggestion flashed in return was that the object might be a drifting Meteorological balloon, but checking on that possibility, after inspecting the enigmatic object for several minutes, Capt. Bicknell found that the more he examined it, the less it could possibly be mistaken for a balloon. It was a dull silver colour and marked at regular intervals along the fuselage with vertical dark bands. The entire outline, he found, was unmistakably distinct; nor, though it appeared to be incredibly distant, was its sharp outline obscured in the least detail by intervening haze, Capt. Bicknell estimated the thing was over 200 ft. long, bullet-shaped, and apparently constructed of metal which snone brightly On first sighting it, the Lodestar was heading roughly towards it, and watching it closely as they approached, Capt. Bicknell perceived another detail. The thing possessed an square-cut vertical fin at one end. There were no signs of movement, it was absolutely stationary. So it remained for 17 minutes. Passengers of the Lodestar were now taking turns with the field-glasses, and two of them had commenced
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