Kaikoura lights
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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 of the 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 report concluded that the Kaikoura UFOs were caused by Venus or reflections of light from a squid boat offshore or a train or a passing car. 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.
[edit] References
- The Kaikoura UFOs. ISBN 0-340-25689-3. Startup, Bill; Illingworth, Neill; 1980; Hodder and Stoughton; Auckland, London, Sydney; Paperback;
