The UFO situation in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Rim

Thanks to a question by a fellow member, I've decided to open this thread up as it could provide some enlightenment into the UFO field in general as most of these countries (with the exeption of Australia) are barely looked at when it comes to serious UFO research.

I had stated in a another thread that New Zealand as a whole has a very weak "culture" when it comes to UFO research. Becasue of our isolation and our insistance that we keep our politics out of the international agenda, I feel that countries such as this could provide rich data about what is going on without the static of internal Ufology squabbling and governmental conspiracy theory.

So in this thread maybe we could talk purely about what research is being done on actual sightings, visitations etc. Take the research back to its roots so to say.

So if you have anything to say or ask.. go right ahead. I don't feel our government is hiding any secrets, they are just as ignorant as the rest of the general population (unlike the American, English so forth) But if you feel you have some evidence to the contrary, feel fee to post, it could prove to be interesting.

Thanks Black for opening this thread!

I hope that people come forward, state their country of origin, it's UFO policy or lack thereof, because people like me, in the U.S., don't hear too often about the UFO culture in other countries straight from the mouth of the citizens.

It's always interesting to me, how each country's government/political movement, deals with the subject.

Originally posted by LateApexer313

I hope that people come forward, state their country of origin, it's UFO policy or lack thereof, because people like me, in the U.S., don't hear too often about the UFO culture in other countries straight from the mouth of the citizens.

Indeed Apex,

And thank you for giving me the idea for opening the thread.
If anyone has any stories/photos that they would like to share.. you are more than welcome!

This is a unique opportunity for me to actually research what is going on here in New Zealand. I think I will start by looking into the "Kaikoura Lights" episode that happened in the late seventies on the East Coast of the South Island of NewZealand.

we can only go up from there so any more input would be muchly appreciated!

Dude, have a looky at this thread - Australia UFO

..........

The governemntal view point - as far as I can tell - in New Zealand is absolutely nothing.

The culture of the typical New Zealander is one of reserved bemusement when it comes to anything other than rugby, cars or buying a house (kiwis are property MAD!) to even mention that you have an interest in a topic such as this is a huge NO NO and this flows all the way up to government as well.

Currently there is extremely minimal pressure from any ufological group in NZ towards the government in releasing any stand on the subject at all, because we kiwis, after all, are very busy people with little time for "fairy tales" and "monster" stories.

This climate, I fear, will never change. Thats why forums such as ATS and the internet in general are so valuble to people such as myself, who are loath to admit to anybody that I have such an interest in this topic.

Along with finding out about any UFO reports, be they famous, the "Kaikoura Lights" to the little known, I will look into what the governemnt really thinks about the situation in general, and If any fellow members (even If you dont live in the Pacific Rim) are in a similar situation within a country that doesnt get a look-in when it comes to UFO research, please post your thoughts. Together we may be able to mass some more information as to what is really going on, Ufologically and governmentally.

Peace

Originally posted by JDN24
Dude, have a looky at this thread - Australia UFO

..........

Wow! Great post/thread man! Sorry for my Newbness, but I guess I should have checked to see if there were any other threads concerning this topic!

Hey nice idea for a thread, I'm a kiwi born and raised, I blog about the paranormal, UFOs, bigfoot etc and I've found for the most part there's not a lot of interest in these subjects down here, well not on the scale as in other countries.

I think the skeptics down here have more of a hold on the issue of UFOs than the UFO researchers, that skeptic lady (you may know who I'm talking about) seems to be involved in any news coverage of strange events down here.

I've tried looking for New Zealand sites dedicated to UFOs, but there doesn't seem to be a lot out there, I was wondering if you could recommend any.

The story that seems to get the most media coverage is the big black cat sighting down south, there was also some ufo coverage about a month ago with footage of the UFO, but they didn't go into it to much.

Anyway, that was a ramble, hope this thread keeps on trucking.

Aww so we can't talk about Australia so much? To me Australia is actually totally barren with regards to UFO sightings, outside of Pine Gap sorta things and they're hardly ever substantiated.

I made a thread about it a long time ago, I think I actually annoyed a lot of people with it but what the hell, here's the link.

It's not directly connected to NZ, but your title does suggest Australia too and this should provide you with some leads to follow: www.abovetopsecret.com...

I wish I could say I'd seen more in Aus but I really haven't. I hear very little outside of (as mentioned) Pine Gap theories and most of them seem to come from the US anyway. *Sigh*

I wish I had some more interesting material to work with. I'll check out the thread on Australian UFO's linked above.

hey blackhawknz....

thanks for opening this thread.... im from the south of new zealand.

you may want to check out this website...

www.ufocusnz.org.nz/index.html

it has heaps of information regarding sightings etc... in NZ.... even recent sightings.

also i was watching a great story the other day of sightings in australia in 1995 (I think)... check out this web link:

video.aol.com...

I can't tell if our government is on this whole UFO thing... If they are they are very good at hiding it. I think the thing about UFO's in NZ is that people just don't talk about it because they will think you are nuts.

I decided to do a little test on some people at work a few days ago, and asked if they had ever seen a UFO before. Alot of the time I had to explain to them that I was asking them if they had seen a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) not necessarily an Alien Space ship.

After having explained it to them of what UFO stood for, then they were more open in answering the question. I think people immediately think that UFO stands for Alien space ship when it doesnt, its an Unidentified Flying Object.

Anyways, funnily enough I had someone who confessed they had seen the Kaikoura Lights, or so she thinks, or it could have been a separate sighting altogether... we are not sure... and no she didnt take any pictures...

I did some research a few years back at the library, NZ archives, and there are some fascinating stories about sightings etc... so a trip to the library may be a good idea. I cannot remember the stories as this was about 9-10 years ago.

I also have sighted a UFO but I never reported it. It was in Whangarei... I havent told many people, only a couple... I was only about 9-10 years old. It was actually the night I was supposed to have gone to the observatory with my class to see Halley's Comet. But I couldnt go. It was late, around 9-10pm and I was looking out the window of my bedroom. It was overcast/cloudy... I can still remember to this day very clearly what I saw. It was like a fireball, with a short tail going pretty fast.. in a straight position across the sky, across the window, about 4 - 6 stories high in the air, then it turned sharply to the left and disappeared into the clouds. To this day I still dont know what I saw. But it remains in my memory very vividly.

anyway I hope this helps...

Look up AUFORN if you're interested in Aus.

Difference is its a lot lower key (IMO) over here than in the US.

NZ I don't know.

Nice Post!

I'd be really interested in hearing about NZ sightings! Something we don't hear enough of. I have some papers somewhere that were given to me years ago, where they try to explain away sightings in Aus as swamp gas, the planet Venus etc - they are very old but I'll try to get scans (if I can find them). Hidden in amongst it all are some very interesting sightings that they couldn't explain away in prosaic terms.

Hey Duality, I would have been one of those people you annoyed. It was the title - "Australia It's a Boring Place". Which obviously many people did not agree with. A small amount of research is all that's required. Sure we don't have Roswell but like the Op says, we also don't have a lot of the Politics that ruins it IMHO.

Australasia is a fertile place for UFO's and any discussion concerning them as our cultures by default are less prone to sensationalism.

Ok, here's some back ground on New Zealand's most infamous sighting known as the "Kaikoura Lights"

The Kaikoura Lights is a name given by the New Zealand media to a series of sightings that occurred in December, 1978, over the skies above the Kaikoura mountain ranges of the northeastern South Island of New Zealand. These sightings began on December 21 when the crew of a Safe Air Ltd cargo aircraft began observing a series of strange lighted objects around their Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy aircraft on several flights. The first sighting began when the crew of a cargo plane noticed a series of lights that tracked along with their aircraft for several minutes and then disappear, only to appear some where else. The pilots describe some of the objects of the size of a house and the others small but brilliant flashing lights. These objects appeared on the air traffic controller radar in Wellington and also on the radar in the on board the aircraft. The objects were also seen by hundreds of people on the ground.

On December 30, 1978, a television crew from Australia got permission to shoot some background film for a network show on interviews about the sightings. Only minutes after their the cargo aircraft left Wellington for Christchurch, the whole event began again, as though the UFOs had been waiting for the camera. For many minutes at a time on the way to Christchurch, the unidentified objects were simultaneously watched by five observers on the flight deck, tracked by Wellington Air Traffic Controllers, and filmed in color by the television crew. One of the object followed the cargo aircraft almost until landing. The cargo plane then took off again with the television crew still on board, this time for Blenheim. When the aircraft reached about 2000 feet, it encountered a gigantic lighted orb, which fell into station off the wing tip and tracked along with the cargo aircraft for almost quarter of an hour, while being filmed, watched, tracked on the aircraft radar and described on a tape recording made by the TV film crew.


Following the sightings, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, the police and the Centre Observatory in Wellington cooperated in an investigation, the results of which were stamped Top Secret and lodged in the National Archives in Wellington. The New Zealand Ministry of Defence attributed the sightings to lights from squid boats reflected off clouds, unburned meteors, or lights from the planet Venus or trains and cars. In the United States, investigating scientists are still extracting a wealth of detailed information from that film, which one of them has described as being comparable in scientific interest to the rocks brought back from the moon.

reply to post by blackhawknz


Great post mate.... star for you.


Guess we got to try and get hold of that footage from somewhere.

Cheers

Mungo

Here is a rather short video of one of the lights that appeared over Kaikoura, it's strange but I cant seem to find any more videos (including all the actual news footage of the lights) anywhere on the net. This is interesting but not the best of the videos of the lights by far.

www.youtube.com...



[edit on 1-4-2008 by blackhawknz]

Pasted that but not working.....have another go?

Cheers

Mungo

Sorry, still new to this lol... all sorted now i hope

So is the file still "Top Secret"? and is the video evidence with the file I wonder???

Originally posted by mungodave
Guess we got to try and get hold of that footage from somewhere.

The footage is on the internet. I watched it last year, but I never bookmarked the source! Damn! It's more than the 30 second clip that I found a few moments ago on YouTube.

It *might* be a segment in the UFO Black Box video, I can't remember. Possibly Out Of The Blue?

Damn, when I find it, I'll link it. The full footage shows Quentin Fogarty from Channel 10 inside the plane, looking out at the UFOs.

I remember seeing it on TV when I was a kid, so that's why I didn't pay too much attention to the source URL last year!

Thats the funny thing.. I have seen the video heaps on NZ tv.. but I, for the life of me, cannot track down anything better than this few seconds of video.

As for it being top secret, I'm starting to wonder exactly what The NZ military know. My father served in the army for twenty years, spent two summers on the Ice (Antarctica) and will still not tell me exactly what he did down there apart from being load master for the Hercules aircraft that came to Scott and McMurdo bases. (Mind you, a lot of things are classified, doesn't mean that theres a conspiracy.. but what if! lol)



[edit on 1-4-2008 by blackhawknz]

Check out this link if you havent already....

www.ufocusnz.org.nz...

apparently some guy investigated the validity of the sighting, radar, video footage etc... and this is what they said:

"The Kaikoura lights footage was examined by Dr Bruce Maccabee, an American scientist and UFO researcher with an MS & PHD in Physics, who is an optical data processing expert. He concluded that the footage had captured the images and movements of a genuine UFO.

Dr Maccabee states, “Some of the most technically interesting sightings are those in which radar plays a role. There are many ‘radar only’ sightings (with no coincident visual sightings). Of greater interest are the radar-visual cases in which (a) witness(es) report an object in the same direction and undergoing the same dynamics as a radar target.”
“These New Zealand sightings may be the most “instrumented” in civilian ufology, with multiple witnesses, two independent tape recordings made during the sightings, colour movie film, and ground and air radar.”

Go to the link above, on the page there is another link to Dr Maccabee's website regarding the Kaikoura Lights.

very interesting stuff...