New Zealand UFO/UAP Sightings 1940 – 1949
All sightings, photographs, drawings, and articles are © Ufocus NZ.
UFOCUS NZ has an extensive archive of New Zealand UFO/UAP sightings dating from 1869 to the present day. Due to the volume of sightings, only a small sample of the sightings will be displayed on the website in each decade. Anyone wishing to check out a particular historic sighting or date can contact us, and we can search the archive for you.
The extent of our investigation and analysis of sighting reports is dependent upon the data received and the length of time elapsed between the sighting event and the receipt of a report. If applicable, additional comments are made at the bottom of a report.
Date: July 28, 1948
Time: 4.30 pm
Location: Hamilton, Waikato, North Island
Features/characteristics: Cigar-shaped object
Description:
The two witnesses interviewed on tape by Station 1XH Hamilton, for inclusion in the [1961 NZBC’s] UFO programe.
The witness and her adult daughter and I were upstairs in a large sunporch, overlooking the Waikato River, and facing the Te Aroha Mountains. It was a bright sunny day, afternoon, and the witness was using the phone and gazing out of the windows, when she noticed a pinpoint of light near the mountains. She unthinkingly watched this light and was amazed to see it grow larger and larger. She drew her daughter’s attention by pointing and signing for her to look out, but not speaking as she was listening to the phone caller.
The two women were amazed to see that it was a silver airship shape, which reached the river and made a right-angled turn [northwards], following the river’s course.
It appeared to be made of a silver metal and shining in the sun, and was shaped like an inverted bowl. From the under part came an intense light, so bright that they likened it to a Magnesium Flare. There were no wings and no engine noise.
The mother quickly finished her phone call and fetched binoculars from an inside room, and had time to pass the glasses back and forth to each other, and focus on the object as it slowly passed to the north. Only one other person was reported to have seen the object – a man on the Hamilton Railway Bridge, one- to one-and-a-half miles upstream, who saw what he described as the sun shining on an “aeroplane”, but as the two women were so much nearer, and had binoculars focused on it, they could definitely state it was not an aeroplane, nor could a plane travel so slowly or silently.
Date: 1945
Time: Midnight
Location: Tamuranui, King Country, North Island
Features/characteristics:
Description:
During 1945, the witness, Mr. Bray, was a member of the RNZAF, stationed at Rotorua. Whilst on leave at his home in Taumarunui, he observed at midnight a cigar-shaped object, showing red, yellow, and orange alternating lights along its length. It left a definite trail as it passed overhead. About eight minutes later, another similar object appeared flying the same north-to-south course.
Date: June 1944
Time: 12.30 pm
Location: R.N.Z.A.F. Camp, Bougainville Island, Solomon Sea, South Pacific.
Features/characteristics:
Description:
While serving with the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a fitter with Service Unit 10, the witness and his companion used to borrow the Engineering Officer’s jeep during lunch breaks to go swimming at Torokina Beach, Empress Augusta Bay.
On this occasion, after their swim, the companion, then facing west out to sea, pointed up into the sky and said, “What’s that!”
They observed a huge, dark-grey, seemingly metallic, bulbous (cylindrical) mass hanging out of a large cumulus cloud. It moved silently, its outline fading into the misty cloud and out of sight.