Hi Suzanne

This is an historic UFO Account – the time frame would have been anywhere from mid-1970 when my parents first got together, to July 1972 when I was born, but I think it might have been Summer.

My mother has recounted how the two of them and their mates were driving at night towards the Mount (Mount Maunganui) from what is now the Bayfair area.  It had been a little cloudy, but the majority of cloud was centred around the top of the Mount. As the clouds thinned out, they saw a circular shaped object hovering above the Mount with lights glowing on it. The object was visible for a few minutes and became clearer as they got closer to the Mount itself. They could then make out multi-coloured lights rotating around the rim of the disc-shaped object before the clouds covered it again. They could definitely see the top of the Mount and that the object was above it as opposed to something on the Mount itself causing the lights.  They described it as appearing as if the object was hiding in the cloud cover. I think there might have been an article in the newspaper with others having also seen it.

Regards

Debra

Hi UFOCUS NZ

UFO Sighting:  Tuahiwi, Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand

Nov/Dec of 1972

My parents were woken to find my baby sister standing in her cot, excitedly jabbering away and pointing out the bedroom window.  The bedroom was filling up with extreme light to the point it was hard to make anything out in the room.  There was a ‘whooping’ noise and the fact that they were not able to see a thing in the room made them get up.  Mum picked up my sister and walked over to look out the window but were not able to see anything but yellow-white light.  Then as fast as it came, it went, along with the whooping whirring noise.

However, I slept through it all, how I don’t know, but I awoke to a gut-wrenching mess outside.  We lived rurally in Tuahiwi.  The cows had bolted through all the barbed wire fencing, through our house lot, crashing down the plantation beside my bedroom window where I had my bed.  The cows had run so close to the house that they actually scored the weather boards with mud off their sides as they stampeded past.  The ground area was a mess.  My horse broke through several barbed wired fences and bolted over 10kms away.  My German Shephard broke his thick sturdy chain and also pulled a massive post out of the ground.  Sheep in the surrounding paddocks were also scattered.

The same night this took place, friends of the family were staying in their holiday home in Pines Beach.  Just before midnight, going to bed, ‘M’ looked up through the window above their bed, as something had caught her eye.  What she saw was an eyeopener, as she knew it wasn’t an ordinary aircraft.  This thing had lights flicking in a circular rotating fashion; it was large, moved oddly and swiftly.  It just so happened that my mother (who died in an accident approximately 6 weeks later after this event) was talking to ‘M’ the following day and they both got onto the subject of their experiences of that previous night.  ‘M’ told mum what she’d witnessed and at what time.

Our house had been built on land with a high water-table.  We were not able to put in the typical septic tank and flush toilet due to this. After my mother died, we continued to live there until we eventually sold and moved.  The person who bought the place wanted to put in a sunken floor in the lounge area, but in order to do this he had to get the building consent specialists in first. And so, when they pulled up the lovely floor boards and did some ground testing, they noted that the underground stream actually runs in the opposite direction to what it should do.  A real oddity.  Also, the ground has a very high magnetic reading and is heavy in minerals.  Due to this report, he wasn’t allowed to proceed with the sunken flooring idea.

I have been back to the place some 20+ years later, to find a doctor and her husband had
bought it.  I spoke about the odd experiences in the place, to thankfully be told by this GP that she and her husband also had had unexplained experiences and eventually sold up and moved.

At the time of the experience my parents had, my younger sister, (12 years my junior) was only 10 and half months old and in her cot in their room.  After that experience, they put the cot into my room where my sister then slept.  I later had an experience one night of seeing something standing in my bedroom, talking ‘telepathically’ before it walked away and through my wardrobe.  Two nights later, it then woke me again, standing in my door way and I sensed strongly it had been in my parents’ room.  It is very hard to really describe in detail what I was physically feeling on the first ‘meeting’ I had where I reacted with raw fright and fear; the second encounter was in total contrast to the first experience. I have never had any of those experiences again since.

D S

Hi there

About a year ago, maybe a little more – I think it was summer 2009 – my wife and I were lying outside on the lawn on a foam mattress at around 11 pm in the outer limits of Taupo – Three Mile Bay to be exact. We had identified around 30 satellites in this time, in all different directions, when I had the idea of taking my high magnification rifle scope with zoom lens and 50mm objective and having a look into the sky. Now I know that on a clear night in the countryside you can see a 747 passenger airliner at its max altitude with the naked eye (lights), but while gazing through my scope I noticed faint but definite blue lights at a great distance. When I took the scope away I could not see anything, but again I looked through the scope and saw the same blue lights moving at speed, so I had to keep my mind on its relative area. The lights were in a triangular pattern and flashing, and I knew that this sequence was not a regular airline light sequence, and airline lights are not blue. I have to say at the distance I was viewing this light, it had to be moving at unbelievable speed because I couldn’t see the light with my naked eye, but had to track it very carefully as i would have lost sight of it easily. Anyway this is my recollection of something that does not sit well with me. As well, one night in Mount Maunganui where I live, I sighted an object which was bright orange (not flashing). It was moving very quickly in a nor-east direction and disappearing out of sight at what I would say was great speed. The speed and change of path (direction) was too great to be an aircraft. Trust me – I live by the airport so I know the habits and movements of a lot of aircraft.
J.R.

Hi Suzanne

I thought you might be interested in this historic photo of a possible UFO landing site.

The photo was taken on a farm in the Waotu area, near Putaruru, Waikato District, around 1965. It shows a large burnt area that the farmer said appeared overnight. It is on the path that the cattle took to go to the milking shed. The farmer reported that the animals would not pass through the burnt patch and would navigate around it and then carry on up the path. He also said that there were pad marks in the centre of the patch, possible landing leg points of a craft.

The two men to the left in the photo are both policemen. One is in uniform, the other is my brother. They were sent out to investigate the matter. What dates the photo is the 1965 Morris Oxford car at the right. It belonged to my father who took the photo. He owned the vehicle for two years, so the photo had to have been taken between 1965 and 1967.

In the South Waikato News people reported UFOs hovering above the Central School in 1965. When I was a child, I saw orange orbs flying above Tokoroa. They flew in a diamond formation and had a yellow-orange centre with a diffused orange ‘aura’ around them. I have since seen many pictures on UFO websites on the internet of very similar objects flying in formation.

I was talking to a 94 year old lady and telling her about what I had seen as a child. She said to me that many years ago, her husband had called her outside to look above their house in Tokoroa. She said there was an orange orb hovering there, which then took off at a very high rate of speed.
She said to me, “If it was not a UFO then it was doing a very good impression of one!”

All these events coming together make a very interesting story I think. You are very welcome to use the photo and story on your website if you please. I have seen several other UFOs in my lifetime.
L. P.
Tokoroa

Dear Suzanne

I thought I should put forward my story about a UFO sighting, because I am wondering if there is any further information anywhere about it.

At the time ( mid 1970s around about), I was teaching at Oxford Crescent School, Upper Hutt, and at morning break the children spotted of ‘flying saucer’ hovering above the back playground. The whole school population (over 400 people) went out to see what it was. There was much excitement and conjecture.

What I remember was that:

1. The object was stationary at about 100 metres I guess, and there was absolutely no sound, no movement, and no sign of ‘life’.
2. At lunch break, the craft was still there in the same place. I had to go down to the town (1 km away) to do some banking, and there was a lot of flurry down there as well. Several people had binoculars and telescopes out looking at the thing. When I got back to school, the children seemed not so interested in it because it wasn’t doing anything!
3. At one stage the Air Force sent two jets down to see what it was. They circled it a few times, then went away.
4. The media then issued a statement that it was a weather balloon, even though noone claimed to have released one. Basically, people were told to ‘please calm down, don’t panic, it was a weather balloon, not a UFO’.

I didn’t believe it was a weather balloon, because it certainly did not look like, or ‘behave’ like a weather balloon, and it had been absolutely stationary for two hours plus. That’s not easy to do in this fringe area of windy Wellington.

As I was one of the very curious type, I kept an eye on it, and at about 1.30 or two in the afternoon, it moved, but still no noise. I was standing straight under it (along with a hundred odd kids as well, of course). It moved vertically upwards and stood there for about three minutes and then shot straight up at great speed, and in no time at all it disappeared – and still no noise.

There was a lot of to and fro-ing in the media about this sighting (possibly sighted by 5000 people), and eventually the ‘powers-that-be’ and the media managed to convince 90% of the population that was a weather balloon, and the story died.

I will always know it was a UFO and I am glad I saw it, because otherwise I would never believe others who have seen them.

Obviously, it didn’t come to do us harm otherwise it would have. Most people that I told about this experience didn’t believe me, even though I am considered to be intelligent, realistic and stable. I was not surprised, because really, only seeing is believing.
O.W.
Formerly of Upper Hutt

Hi guys

I live in a rural location and on one particular crystal clear night, my husband and I observed something very unexplainable. We arrived home around 10 p.m. – car parked, husband out on driveway taking in the sky scene, fresh air and quiet. Me – I was still at the car gathering all the stuff that was to go up to the house. I heard my husband say something. A little annoyed, I gruffly replied, “What!” as I continued gathering.
“Look at that!”

By this time I had finished gathering. When I finally got alongside him, he said, “See that?”
He physically positioned me, and it took a few moments to see what he was talking about. It was a crystal clear night – the stars blanketed the sky – awesome. On such nights, a small cloud can be visible by the void that it leaves in the sky – ie. a dark patch of sky that appears to have no stars. Okay – what my husband and I saw was such a void – a MASSIVE void – a constant dark shape and moving. It appeared to be very low, the approximate distance above us of about 900 – 1200 feet. We estimate its size was about the size of a rugby/football field. As we watched the black shape moving across the sky, two very large red glowing circular shapes appeared. My husband and I got the impression the object was passing and its tail end had come into view. It was moving very slowly, south-eastwood over the range of hills at the back of our property. We watched it move over the range until it was out of sight. Five minutes easily passed from when my husband first saw it. The really eerie thing was that there was not a sound – absolutely nothing. In the country, on those crystal clear nights, you can hear a pin drop. The UFO was huge, low and moving. We heard nothing.

Do you know what I have thought to be strange about the sighting? My husband and I came inside afterwards and didn’t go on about it – no real excitement – something I would have expected of myself in any case, and definitely both of us on this occasion. It was huge!! Not a single sound though, as we stood there watching it. It was REAL and there were two of us seeing the same saying. We just carried on with the evening! I thought the first thing I would have done would be to phone my mum, who would love to see a UFO in her lifetime. Very strange.

Pelorus Sound
South Island

Hi Ufocus NZ

I have had quite a few strange experiences in my life, and a few UFO sightings, although only one that was truly unexplainable. ‘Lights in the sky’ is one thing, but what I saw was truly unexplainable.

This sighting occurred in the far North, just north of Sandy Bay, Whangarei, around December 1989, in quite a remote area around an hour or so into the hills from any main centre. I was eight years old, and was with my brother, my father and his partner. It was night time and we had just parked at a scenic lookout to look at the sky. I noticed right away that the moon looked very strange, then to my astonishment, I realized that what I was looking at was not the moon at all; the moon was in another part of the sky and clearly visible. An object that was more or less a perfect diamond shape was stationery in the sky. It was massive and was glowing pink with ‘segments’ visible in the diamond shape. I pointed it out to my brother who is two years older than me, and he immediately became frightened and hid on the back seat. My father and his partner could see it as well and were very perplexed and baffled by the sight.

After hanging around for a good 10 minutes or so, the object just disappeared. We could hear no sound at all either.

This incident started my interest in UFOs and the paranormal. To this day, my brother and father remember the incident and I recall it vividly. The object did not look like a spaceship, however, how would we know what one would look like? It seemed like a piece of nature rather than a craft. I have never seen anything like it again and have never heard anyone talk of a similar UFO.

M.R.
Northland

Dear Suzy

When I was 18, 1978, I went on a holiday with my sister to Ohope Beach to stay at a friend’s batch. At the end of our holiday, we decided to pack up and travel home at night, rather than wait until the next morning. Our home was about 50 miles away through rural countryside. It was a very clear starry night, and we were the only car on the road most of the way home. We were about 10 miles from home, when we reached a straight stretch of road about 2 miles long. Suddenly three bright lights appeared and moved approximately 30 feet above us and a very bright light shone down on the car. We thought it must have been a helicopter and were both quite shocked how low the aircraft was hovering. We pulled over to let it pass over us and realized that there was no engine noise at all. My sister and I were very afraid and we couldn’t work out what it was – we just wanted to get home fast. We could not see the body of an aircraft – just very bright lights. The bright beam of light retracted somewhat and swept across the night sky, then shone down on us again as if ‘it’ was viewing us from different angles. The object moved around in the sky with its beam still on us.

We took off and my sister tried to keep a steady pace for the next few miles home, with the lights still in view for some time. We were pretty shaken by the time we reached home, mainly because we couldn’t explain what we had seen and experienced. We telephoned the local flying club the next day to see if anybody was out and about that evening, but nobody had been flying. The next day we made a strange discovery. The entrance to our farm driveway was made of two wooden sides or fences. We found that they were completely destroyed, not by a car, nor was there any sign of an accident. There were no skid marks or broken bits of fence lying around. The wood was splintered like matchsticks and the tiny pieces were lying around all over the ground where the fence had been. It was as if an explosive had gone off. We still can’t identify or explain what happened to this day.

S. M.
North Island

Dear Mr Opie

I read your interest in unusual flying objects and thought I would tell you about something I saw once, that may interest you.

Late evening of 31 December 1944, I was on a beach in Queen Charlotte Sound when I heard a ‘rushing’ sound. When I looked up I saw a round object traveling west to east above the hills parallel to the surface (horizontally above the hills).

The Marlborough Express reported the object as being a meteor(ite) (2nd & 4th January 1945). Reports came in from Wairau Valley. Wellington, Carterton, Masterton and Castle Point. Fishermen off Porirua Harbour described it as having a crimson centre merging to brilliant white, then a blue trail like a car exhaust. Reports were that it was traveling slowly and leaving a smoky trail.

People at Castle Point reported that there was a loud explosion with a red ball going on further and then the colour going out just off-shore. Nothing was ever found of its remains if indeed there was an explosion. I doubt that there was an explosion, but that it (an object) went through the sound barrier, and seemed to disappear because the sunlight was no longer shining on it.

Whether the object was some experimental thing or something else I don’t know. I expect it would have been reported in the Wellington papers and perhaps Auckland at the same time.

I only know of one other person who saw the actual object as I did, traveling horizontally (which meteorites do not do) and virtually silently. I only hope this may be of some interest to you
Yours sincerely

J.G.
Blenheim

Dear Suzanne

On September 2003 at 9.30pm-9.45pm approx. while I was preparing my telescope for an evening’s star gazing, I saw what I first thought to be Mars because of its colour, then realized that Mars shouldn’t be in that part of the sky at this time or date, so I looked at it with 7×50 binoculars and immediately saw that it was moving slowly against the backdrop of the stars. I saw a cubic object, light orange in colour. It was as though it was lit from inside – it was glowing. I called my wife to witness this event.
I watched it moving from NW slower than most satellites. Movement was only discernable through the binoculars, as otherwise with the naked eye, it looked like a star or planet. The object stopped due west of us, where it suddenly shone a powerful light momentarily down, first to the left and then to the right about 250 meters apart. At first I thought that perhaps two people were shining powerful lamps from the ground, but on second thoughts I concluded that the light came from the object as it was instantaneous on and off, as though checking for something. The object moved off slowly in a WSW direction towards Makara. There was no sound audible. The next day I wrote a report in my sketch pad and also made a sketch from memory.
This image was drawn on computer from that sketch. The verticle sides were slightly convex that I couldn’t manage to do that image with this software.
Regards

D. E.
Johnsonville, Wellington

Ufocus NZ: See other reports of ‘box-shaped’ craft sighted in NZ skies on our 2005-2007 sightings page, or go to our Articles page.

Hi Sue, Graeme and team

We witnessed an incredible sight in Westport – I think around 1983 – I can find out the exact date from the other witnesses. Four of us were driving down Brougham St – a wide street in town, and the main road to Karamea. It was about 1 am, and we had been to a meeting.
Taking up the entire width of the road about 100m in front of us was a glowing green elliptical shape. It was hovering around 10-20m above the road, and was about 20-40m in width. It was a solid colour, ie it could not be seen through, but it was not a clearly defined material (eg metal). The colour was more like one of those ‘glow-in-the-dark’ balls and did not appear to shed light (onto anything nearby). The shape was a classic UFO elliptical (saucer) shape – even and clearly defined.

I was driving, and with an expletive you can probably surmize!… I slammed on all anchors and came to a halt. We would have driven straight under it if I hadn’t stopped. After what seemed like 5-10 seconds, during which all three of us gazed in awe (the other witness was asleep), the object then shot up and away over the Stockton Range at an unbelievably fast speed – I can only guess at something like 10-20 km in a second.

We reported this to the local newspaper in the hope that someone else had seen it, but no takers. However when I mentioned it to an old timber worker (now deceased) from the Victoria Forest Park (now named Kahurangi), he said he had seen these objects before, but didn’t tell people about it in case they thought he was nuts. I will contact the other witnesses who were with me in the car on that evening, so that they can provide independent verification of this sighting. I am a science teacher, and I know what I saw. It was not any kind of aircraft.

Science teacher
South Island.

Dear Suzanne 

I had a very exciting close up view of a large UFO in 1968 when I was living in Rotorua. The only person I ever told about it was my husband and my sister, as I thought I would be looked upon as a ‘nutter’.

To this day I have never forgotten the experience and never will. To this day I can still see the object and remember the shape. I have kept the secret all these years.

I was living in a State housing area, and it was 9 o’clock at night. I had gone out to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and my attention was drawn to a large white light outside the window (it was dark). It was a light I had never seen before. I went to the back door and opened it, and there in the vacant section over the fence at the back of the house, I saw a large object about the size of a house. It was square in shape and had something like ‘turrets’ on all four corners. Had I climbed the fence, I could have walked over to it, but I was too scared as I had a young child asleep in the house.

I stood transfixed, and after about 20 seconds, it completely disappeared almost as though it knew it had been spotted! The bright white glaring light just disappeared like someone had turned it off – and it was gone. I went over into the paddock the next morning to look for marks in the grass, but there were none. I never saw it again, and there was no indication that anyone else (in the neighbourhood) had seen it.

After that experience I am a firm believer that UFOs exist.

J. E.
New Plymouth
North Island

Ufocus NZ – see ‘Articles‘ page, ‘Geometry in the Sky‘ for descriptions of rectangular shaped craft sighted over the Bay of Plenty).

A witness account from the time of the Gisborne UFO flap, late 70s – early 80s.

Hello Suzanne

I have lived in Gisborne for the past 36 years and back in the early 1980’s had several sightings of UFOs. Despite living on the outskirts of Gisborne city, my ex husband and I witnessed a UFO hovering just above our back garden and then it just shot into the sky and seemed to disappear! I had just had my third baby so we were both up in the early hours of the morning attending to her and had this experience. The next day I mentioned it to my neighbour and she and her brother were very skeptical. However, three days later she came over to relate to me that at 4.00am, she was up to visit the loo and she thought the moonlight was extra strong. She glanced out of her window and both our properties were bathed in very bright light and there she witnessed a UFO hovering just above her apple trees. She said that if she had not witnessed this for herself, she would never have believed the stories of other people witnessing them.

I also saw them travelling in the late evening from west towards Kaiti Hill.

We moved into the rural area not far from the city (Hexton) and lived on Kings Road. Here too I had the experience of seeing UFO’s travelling across the sky and then suddenly disappearing. One night I wakened and like you, saw a brilliant light around my house and the beams were coming in the windows. I could not move or breathe and felt a slight buzzing – then all of the sudden the light disappeared. I was terrified.

After Cyclone Bola (November 1988), I moved back into town. One night my son and one of his friends (both 12 years old) decided to sleep outside on the trampoline in their sleeping bags. It was the middle of summer and as boys do, they were looking forward to the adventure. About 2.00am, there was an almighty crashing noise and the boys were fighting their way to get back into the house. They were both excited and scared. They had talked till late in the night and were watching the sky when they spotted three UFO’s travelling together and almost above them, but high in the sky. These vehicles started travelling in patterns of a pyramid and zig-zagging in and out of each other. They were also coloured blue/silver. The boys watched in awe and then decided it was too scary and came running in to spend the rest of the night inside.

My very first sighting was in 1963 when I was visiting India. I was up on the roof of an apartment building – about 11 stories high and was enjoying the cool evening breeze just looking out over the city, when I suddenly looked up and there just above me was a UFO! I froze in shock and as reported above, one minute it was above me and the next it ascended up into the atmosphere at a terrific speed and disappeared.

I did report my Gisborne sightings to Norman Maclean who was taking names in the 1980’s but have not mentioned it again, as people may think that those of us who have seen them (UFOs) are absolutely barmy or cracked.

Anyhow, good luck with your research. I hope I hear about any progress that you might make in the future.

1995 sighting

Hi, I live at Ngunguru (near Tutukaka) and I just happened to be watching a documentary on UFOs about the sightings of the silver object travelling very fast in 1995, Hamilton/Tauranga. I saw it too!      I was talking to a client, during what I think was morning, and looking out my window over the sea when a brilliant round object appeared travelling at an incredible speed north to south. As my house is situated very high, I was able to observe it for a reasonable length of time, expecting it to disintegrate, however, it continued on.  It had a long silver tail, no sound, although I certainly startled my client with my reaction.  I have a great interest in planes and this was certainly no plane as I understand them.  To this day, that sighting is imprinted in my brain and as I am now 72 – that’s not bad. I love watching the sky at night and have seen many meteorites etc but never anything like that.

Regards J. C.

Ufocus NZ: Read about the 1995 sightings across NZ.

(2020)

Hi Ufocus NZ

This is about a sighting that happened over Mount Maunganui and Tauranga area (North Island) some years ago when I was in primary school at Arataki.  I think it was around 1970 maybe 71.

Mum and Dad saw it because the sound it made, and went outside to see a blue disk heading across our house in Crane Street, and heading across where the airport is.  Many neighbours were outside and saw it also – it was late at night.  I heard them talking out on the front porch but never got up.  At school the next day a few kids had also seen it, and teachers were saying, “There’s no such thing as UFOs etc”.

It was reported in the newspaper, the Bay of Plenty Times or Herald, I think. I have tried doing a search on the net but can’t find anything.  It was before the UFO sighting by a transport plane near Kaikoura, which was on TV.

(2020)

Hi

Back in 1999, my partner and I were living in Wanaka, down in the South Island.  It was a beautiful hot day and we were both outside.  All of a sudden there were bright glowing objects moving at very fast speeds across the sky.  We both new they couldn’t be human craft.  We jumped in the car and went to the local pub, and we found that others who had arrived had seen the same objects.  We were all amazed!  Not long after a woman on a local farm rang and said the objects had hovered over her property for a few seconds.  I have never talked about this since as I don’t want to be classed as crazy, but 70 % of the town saw the same objects.

G.C.

(2020)

Hi Suzanne 

I came across your story when I was searching ‘NZ UFO stories’ online. I am an avid UFO/Extra-terrestrial biological entity enthusiast, and have been investigating what has been going on for several years.  I was born in 1964 and am 55 years old.  What grabbed my attention was the extract from your story where you described your UFO sighting in Hawkes Bay, 1975.  The reason it got my attention is because myself and my mother also had a UFO encounter on the Takapau plains in the late 1970s, I am thinking it was 1978 – 1979, I was 13 – 14 years old.

The first encounter was at night when my mother was driving out to her family farm at Wanstead (East of Waipukurau).  She was travelling from Wellington; it was night time and back in the 1970s there wasn’t a lot of traffic as you probably well know.  She encountered a bright light following her, which came very close behind her and followed her, then disappeared.  She was scared stiff and drove into Waipukurau, but it had gone by the time she got to Waipukurau, so she gathered herself together and headed out into the country to see her mother.  She told us all about it and we were all puzzled and intrigued.

The second time it happened, Mum had picked me up from boarding School in Masterton and we were headed out to the farm for holidays.  It was dark again, and same place along the Takapau Plains, this big white light appeared and came up behind us.  It reminded me of a headlight on a train.  It then went out both sides of us, to the right and the left, so it wasn’t a train or car as there were no roads out there.  It would appear, huge then small, as if it was coming very close to us then shooting away in the distance. I apparently said, “Stop the car!” so Mum pulled over and we watched it for a while, then another car came along behind us in the distance and suddenly the light was gone.

It has always stuck in my head and we have been puzzled by it.  I asked Mum not long ago did she encounter any “missing time”; she said no, not that she can recall.  Mum is 83 years old now and has a sharp mind.  She talks about it happily when it is bought up in conversation.

So I am wondering if it was the same ‘UFO’ and who else had encounters.

Kind Regards