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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
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# Kandom Notes Visitors From Space?—Boom And Slump # Indicators-Earthquake Zones EXPERTS in the American Air Force declare that in spite of numerous reports of flying saucers, there is as yet no evidence that beings from some other world have visited our planet. Undoubtedly this is correct. Until the mystery of the flying saucers has been cleared up, as was that of the Loch Ness Monster, it is anybody's guess whence these visitations come. Nevertheless, there is nothing to suggest that our little world is the only inhabited world in space. Nor is there anything but our own presumption to imagine that there are no beings more advanced than us in other worlds. In view of the fact that other worlds and other galaxies may have been there long before our own, it would be erroneous to assume that there can be no other worlds capable of supporting life as we know it. Experts claim that in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, there is reason to expect that there are suns like ours with planetary systems akin to ours, which there are worlds (too small for us to see) capable of supporting life. Some, in fact, say there is reason to expect that there are hundreds of millions of worlds in our galaxy on which life could flourish, it may well be that in some of these worlds knowledge has far outstripped our own. As for travel, it would take hundreds of years, and in some cases thousands of years, for visitors from one of those worlds to reach our planet at speeds of around several thousand miles an hour. It is thus doubtful if we shall be paying them visits for a very long time, if only because it would take a very long time to get there. Even in our own system it would involve journeys of 100 years or more to reach some of the more distant planets. Very little is known about the age of our own planetary system and less about the age of the galaxy in which we are a minute member. Our own world, it has been estimated, is about 4000 million years old. Our sun may be twice that age. Our planetary system is thus somewhere between the two. Just how long ago the Milky Way started, and how, is almost a complete mystery. There is thus plenty of room for surprises; but the greatest surprise of all would be if there was no other life in the Milky Way and no other intelligent beings. It would thus seem reasonable for us to expect visitors from space. It should cause us less surprise than did European visits to Pacific island communities some 200 years ago. Whether or no these visitors to our world will come from members of our own solar system is a matter still under argument by experts. Some claim there is no other planet able to support life as fully as our own. But there are at least two planets which are suspect, including Mars, which perhaps is the most likely. Incidentally, this assumes that life could not be supported under conditions different from our own. This itself may well be erroneous. We may be in for a series of surprises pleasant and unpleasant.
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