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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
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# 'Absurd, But I Think I've Seen A Saucer' Two correspondents to "The Post" report having seen objects on Saturday night which they consider may fall into the category of "flying saucers." The first correspondent says that at about 10.10am on Saturday, while travelling from the city to Karori, he saw "two objects in the sky, flying at high speed. There was a strange sound and sparks were flaring out from the back part. They were ovoid in shape, and one was flying above the other all the time. The 'saucers' were of two different colours—the highest was a bluish colour, and the lower one was greenish. They emitted a phosphorescence which was quite spectacular. "They circled at high speed and then parted. One flew off in a southerly direction, and the other seemed to fly, off in a south-westerly direction." ## FROM PLIMMERTON. "I hope you will not think this absurd, but I think I have seen a flying saucer," reads the second letter. "At Plimmerton on Saturday night I saw a green luminous object to the east, travelling south, at great speed towards Wellington. It was followed by a hissing noise, and had a band of brighter dots around it which may have been windows. "It was round like, a ball, I think, but definitely not the lights of a plane, which I at first thought, because it was going too fast, and was too bright." ## Strange Objects In The Sky (Special to the "Evening Post.") PALMERSTON NORTH, Today. Four reports of strange objects in the sky have been received. They are from independent witnesses, one at Feilding, one at Kelvin Grove, and two others at Palmerston North. They say they saw a strange phenomenon between 9.45 and 9.50 o'clock on Saturday night and at about 12.45 am on Sunday. A Feilding resident states that one of the objects was green in colour and travelling in a south-easterly direction towards Palmerston North. The "saucer" was egg-shaped and moving at a fairly high speed and accompanied by a faint hissing sound. While watching this green object approach Palmerston North, he saw a similar object, blue in colour, approach from the Hawke's Bay direction. The blue seemed to be slightly above the green, and they then proceeded together on a more or less southerly course, with the blue just above the green. Two other witnesses independently corroborate this account almost to the letter. 10. 10 a.m. is a misprint for 10.10 p.m. so that the time ties in with the second report from Palmerston North.
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 445 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.