NZDF declassified RNZAF UFO files

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

"Adelaide, November 21. - An extraordinary phenomenon was seen from the observatory yesterday in the form of a slowly-moving brilliant, globular light having a planetary disc. It moved slowly northward, passing within 15 degrees or 20 degrees of the sun. It was distinctly visible for three or four minutes, and appeared like Venus at its greatest brilliancy, travelling in full view over a space of 90 degrees. When near the point of vertical axis its form changed and became elongated. It was then lost in the glare of the sky."

A New Zealand Junior Flying Saucer Society formed by six pupils of the Wellington South Intermediate School (average age 12 years) pointed out that "atomic explosions attract saucers and that there have been more seen since the Monte Bello Test". The Monte Bello explosion occurred on 3rd October, 1952.

19. The "Standard" (Labour in an article published on 5th November, recalled that unidentified aerial objects were freely reported in 1909. In that year reports were received that lights had been seen moving across the sky, but public interest was not really aroused until July 1909, when some schoolchildren and others at Kelso in Otago said that they had seen in the air "a strange machine which they described as shaped like a boat, with what seemed like the figure of a man seated in it. The airship approached from the direction of the Blue Mountains, circled high over the school and then disappeared in the direction whence it had come."

20. Immediately afterwards a story came from Auckland about the appearance of a peculiar light hovering in the sky in the direction of East Tamaki. It was thought to have been an airship. After this, reports of the mysterious airship having been sighted came from many parts of the Dominion including Southland, North Otago, the West Coast and Christchurch. Some people who said they had seen it flying over North Otago described it as shaped like a boat with a flat top and a report from Southland described the body of the airship as resembling that of a whale.

21. But too many airships altogether were reported, and the Standard pointed out that 1909 was the year in which man was beginning his conquest of the air and the descriptions of the phantom aircraft seen over New Zealand were obviously based on aircraft then under construction overseas. The less the person making the sighting knew about aircraft the vaguer the description became. In short this was an excellent example of mass hypnosis.

22. The appearance of these objects in the D.nedin area was taken as a personal challenge by the

, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a life-long star-gazer. With some fellow-enthusiasts he began investigating these reports. One object reported, on close investigation proved to be a planet rising above the horizon. finally, on 21st November, expressed his opinion:-

"While not prepared to suggest that every observer has been mistaken in his identification of these mysterious objects, I am firmly of the opinion that all these apparitions have been in fact natural phenomena. It is surely significant that none of the recent reports exanated from an established observatory. Experienced sky-gazers who study the heavens as a matter of routine when conditions are favourable have reported nothing unusual, "