My first true UFO sighting was on Christmas Eve 2002.

I was living in Christchurch, NZ, and as I was walking past the kitchen, and I happened to notice a strange formation of lights out the window.

It was in a traditional 'flying saucer' shape, and had a large white light in the center, and two smaller red lights on either side of the white light. The red lights alternated brightness similar to the way level crossing lights flash, but neither of the light ever went out. It looked very much like an airplane, only with two red lights as opposed to one red, one green.

It was moving slowly sideways across the sky, until it became obscured by a tree. It never reappeared from behind the tree though. I never saw it again.

My father saw it as well, and agreed that it could very well have been a UFO.

From memory, we saw it sometime between 11pm and 12am, but I'm not 100% sure on that one. It looked like it might have been over the Riccarton Racecourse, but it could have been further out.

What do you make of it? Was it an airplane? Was it Santa? Or was it something more...?

So far, that has been the only UFO that I have seen that hasn't turned out to be a plane flying towards me. Which is a pity, since I'd quite like to see another.

My Grandma said she once heard a loud whirring noise (different to that of a helicopter blade) outside her bedroom window, but was too scared to look.