BIZARRENZ

Strange lights over Taranaki - Did you see this?

2012-02-11T16:19:00.001-08:00

The Taranaki Daily News has today received reports that last night at about 9.30pm in New Plymouth a set of six bright red lights were seen travelling from the east before turning and disappearing in the north.
"At first there were three lights travelling in a triangle formation and then three more followed", said a witness who didn't want to be identified.

If you saw these unidentified lights please contact the Taranaki Daily News by emailing web@dailynews.co.nz or phone 06 7590826

Scientists find 'supergiant' from the deep [Stuff.co.nz]

2012-02-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

Alan Jamieson with one of the supergiant amphipods.

From the depths of the Kermadec Trench, New Zealand scientists have retrieved the largest known examples of a creature that looks like a giant albino flea.

On a recent research trip to the trench to determine how far down fish could be found, staff from Niwa and the University of Aberdeen found "supergiant" amphipods – deep-sea scavengers that feed on dead material.
"the first big trap came out, first of all we said, great, we've got five fish," Niwa's Ashley Rowden said.
"But then we looked and said, `What the hell is that?"'
Not only were the amphipods a record size – the biggest was just over 28 centimetres – but they were found seven kilometres below the ocean's surface, far deeper than before.

Deep-sea amphipods, a relation of the sandhoppers that can be found on any beach, are typically two or three centimetres long. The research team knew of only two occasions when "supergiants" had been found anywhere in the world, with the last Kermadec sightings in the 1950s.
The discovery highlighted how much more there was to learn about the 10km deep Kermadec trench, Dr Rowden said.

"The marine realm of New Zealand is huge and it contains some unique creatures, yet the number of samples we've taken from it is incredibly low."

The amphipods were now in storage at Niwa's laboratory in Wellington, but would soon travel to Aberdeen so scientists there could determine if they were a distinct species.

Dr Rowden said they also hoped to work out why the amphipods were so big. "We're really waving our arms at the moment – there are lots of questions swimming about.
"We don't know how big these things can get."
KATE NEWTON

Ghostly experiences offered on tour [Kapi-Mana News]

2012-01-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

BY ANDREA O'NEIL

For someone who says she's not much of a people person, Kathy McBride has the wrong career: she's confronted by friends and strangers all day long - only they happen to be dead.
Ghost hunter, ghost buster, medium, psychic - call her what you will, Miss McBride says she has seen, heard and felt ghosts since childhood.
She didn't choose to be a medium. She had no choice but to heed her calling and become a fulltime spirit communicator 10 years ago, she says. It's not always an easy road.
"It would be nice to have a regular income."
Since then she has had a regular spot reaching spirits live on radio, has staged "Messages from Beyond" shows up and down the country and has worked with the police on cases, she says.
Locals will have a chance to put their faith in Miss McBride's abilities on January 28, by attending an event she calls "The Great Ghost Hunt". A group of 20 people will be taken by bus to a cemetery and the site of a murder, then to The Lodge at the Inlet to communicate with spirits.
She says participants can expect to see ghosts and orbs of light energy, be touched by ghosts, and feel extreme cold spots of minus-20 degrees Celsius to minus-30 deg C where ghosts pass by. There won't be a seance, which Miss McBride says are dangerous and encourage malevolent spirits, but the group will do some "table tipping", where spirits levitate a table half a metre in the air.
Cameras are welcome. Miss McBride says she has photographed spirits and orbs on many previous ghost hunt tours.
"We're quite scientific about the way we do this. I look for a real reason for the signs," she says.
"The real orbs - you can tell the difference."
Miss McBride uses a laser thermometer, spirit voice recorder and a gauss meter for measuring electromagnetic fields, which she says are disturbed by ghosts' presence.
Most ghosts are not evil, and while many people come on the tour to give themselves a fright, the point isn't to scare the living daylights out of them, Miss McBride says.
"It's not for people to be scared out of their wits. They want to experience the supernatural, the other side."
Many ghosts have a sense of humour and are happy to be "hunted" by tour groups, she says.
The ghosts themselves benefit from the tours too - Miss McBride can encourage them to move to the other side.
"It's about finding out who that spirit is, especially if they feel trapped or stuck."
For ghost tour bookings, phone 528 3506.

2012 - UFO SIGHTING COMPILATION JAN 1- JAN 12, 2012

2012-01-16T10:21:00.001-08:00

It's 2012, here come the UFOs [NZ Herald]

2012-01-01T17:29:00.000-08:00

The New Year has seen a spike in reported sightings of UFOs, with 2012 hysteria blamed for an increase in reports of flashing lights and floating orbs.

WeatherWatch.co.nz - which receives a handful of eyewitness reports of meteors and other lights in the sky every day - said there had been a dramatic increase of alleged sightings in the past 24 hours.
While there would usually be about 10 reports from around the globe on a busy day, Weatherwatch said 80 reports had been received in the past 24 hours, with another 10 coming in every sixty minutes,
WeatherWatch.co.nz weather analyst Philip Duncan said there had been reported sightings of flashing lights, "floating orbs" and "UFOS" from those celebrating the New Year in Otago, Cape Town, Venezuela, the UK, Australia and North America.
He said the increase in sightings could be attributed to two factors.
"Many people around the world have been outside celebrating the New Year. In the US, where most of the sightings came from, conditions were fairly mild and dry in many areas - so more people were outside to see things. Finally, it's 2012, the year the world is supposed to end according to the Mayans and it seems many are already worrying ".
The comments range from normal meteor sightings, to the strange and unusual.
One Spanish writer said: "My father and I saw them in Spain at 00:45 am, but there were 5 or 6 of them all in a vertical line quite close to the earth....I have no answer to all these questions that we are all asking ourselfs and when I think I have an answer it just leads to more questions, so all I have to say is, WE ARE NOT ALONE!"
Mr Duncan said the sightings were likely to be meteors, shooting stars, Chinese lanterns - which appear as slow moving orange lights - and other normal aircraft.
- HERALD ONLINE

UFO News: What Are The Waituhi Lights? (Video)

2011-12-31T00:56:00.000-08:00

In the latest UFO news, a father and daughter from Waituhi, New Zealand shot some video of strange lights in the night sky on Friday and are now appealing to the public for help in identifying the unidentified flying objects.

Kharma Jones and her father Matthew spied the noiseless, hovering aircraft while on a walk in the town, and, luckily, had a digital camera with them. The video shown below is the result.
While the video quality and camera work are shaky at best, the pair managed to capture a minute of footage which is hard to explain as any kind of conventional aircraft.
What appear to be three distinct flying objects, with a triangular light pattern, are seen hovering in the pitch-black night-time sky.
Lights on the craft can be clearly seen"winking out" which is not a normal occurrence for pilots navigating through the air so close together. And why are these objects hovering, noiselessly above? There are no known aircraft which can perform these kinds of aerial manuevers. So what are they?
That's what the Jones' would like to know and they're appealing to the public for help. "They were visible for about five minutes and then two of the orange lights went off on their own and they all disappeared like someone had turned a light switch off," said Mr Jones. "I can't believe no one else saw it. I don't know what to think."
Comments on the YouTube channel where the video is posted have no real explanation for this latest UFO news story. Commenters agree they've seen the lights as well, for at least a year, and no one is able to explain it.
What do you think? Is this evidence of a UFO? Or are these conventional aircraft? Do you have an explanation for the Waituhi UFO?

Waikato's most haunted [Waikato Times]

2011-12-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

They're not ghostbusters, they're investigators
Quantum Foundation founders Lisa Austen, left, and Tracey Royce investigate paranormal activity in the Waikato and say Hollywood horror flicks are nothing like the real thing.
Things that go bump in the night go bump a little more often in the Waikato than other parts of the country.
That's according to the Quantum Foundation, a paranormal investigation team founded by Lisa Austen and Tracey Royce in 2009.
They're not ghost hunters or ghostbusters – they're Hamilton's very own paranormal investigators – and if there's something strange in your neighbourhood they are "who ya gonna call".
The fearless duo say their free service is in high demand in the region which, according to the group, is home to a number of "paranormal hot spots".
The NZ Skeptics group isn't convinced, saying there is usually a perfectly reasonable and logical explanation for anything dubbed as "paranormal".
Mrs Austen and Miss Royce have conducted 10 investigations at private and commercial properties in the Waikato in the past 16 months.
"We don't go looking for ghosts as such, we go in trying to put clients' minds at rest," Miss Royce said.
"We're not ghostbusters either. We don't get rid of whatever is there.
"We can call in people to do that."
They take what they call a "scientific, research-based" approach to the supernatural. They ignore the horror movie hype and seek natural explanations for alleged "hauntings".
"We wanted to take a more investigative approach rather than a ghost hunting approach, which is just going out for sh..s and giggles basically.
"We weren't interested in that."
Using camera equipment, digital voice recorders, electromagnetic field readers, and photo analysis software, the pair amass information overnight and spend up to eight weeks reviewing footage.
Most of what they uncover is "mundane". For example, the common phenomenon known as orbs – patterns of light which some people believe to be spirits or energy from another realm – are actually just airborne particles reflecting light into the camera lens. But the pair remain undeterred.
They have both had experiences they can't explain and it drives them to uncover the truth.
Mrs Austen claims she witnessed a "full-blown apparition" (ghostly figure) while on an investigation at a private residence in the Waikato.
Miss Royce said she had a time slip experience – an alleged paranormal phenomenon in which a person, or group of people, travel through time via unknown means – at one of Waikato's most haunted sites, the Waitomo Caves Hotel.
The team have also conducted two investigations at Hamilton's Diggers Bar after a series of mysterious events led staff to believe it was haunted.
They captured five electronic voice phenomenon – communication by spirits, energies or extraterrestrials – at the bar that included laughing, a voice saying "it's coming" and one instance of aggressive swearing.
Others, however, believe the answers, if there are any, are a little closer to home.
David Riddell, journalist and member of the NZ Skeptics group, said gullible people were often suckered in by folks with fancy equipment who purported to be ghost hunters of sorts.
Electromagnetic fields? "We are awash with them from all sorts of sources, like cellphones, radio signals, that sort of thing."
And devilish laughs or spooky voices caught on tape? "Unless you are in a vacuum then nowhere is completely silent. A tape recorder is always going to pick up all sorts of different things, especially if it is left on overnight."
But Mr Riddell said sometimes just because something could not be explained it did not mean it was of another world."A lot of people, when faced with something they can't explain, automatically say must be something supernatural. But sometimes it is OK to say you simply don't know what it is."
Do you have a ghost story or picture? Send it to news@waikatotimes.co.nz.
JONATHAN CARSON AND ANGELA CUMMING - Waikato Times

Eerie events at Embassy theatre - Renovations punctuated by ghostly sightings

2011-12-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

Embassy Theatre manager Damianos George in the foyer of the new cinema. CRAIG SIMCOX/Fairfax NZ

The supernatural raised its ghostly head during the construction of the Embassy Theatre's two new 70-seater boutique cinemas which open to the public tomorrow.
The site of the new fully-digital theatres beneath the upstairs auditorium still resembled a building site when visited by The Dominion Post a couple of weeks ago.
But the visit did reveal the opulence of the makeover which includes a tiled fireplace and marbled-topped bar in the new foyer. It also revealed that a ghost could be haunting the 87 year old theatre.

First of all the camera being used by the newspaper photographer Craig Simcox unexpectedly started displaying photos in black and white. There was no explantation for the spooky occurrence.
It was suggested to Embassy Theatre manager Damianos George that theatre could be haunted.
"I have heard a few ghost stories... so there could be a ghost."
The latest eerie occurrence happened during construction of the new theatres when a breathless staff member ran into the office asking what Mr George had been doing hanging around in the dark recesses of the cinema.
"I said 'I wasn't up there'. She said 'oh my God who the hell was up there' because we were the only people in the building."
There have also been plenty of sightings of ghostly figures and unexplained lights over the years, Mr George said.
James Gilberd earlier this year co-authored Exploring the Paranormal in New Zealand which investigated, and sometimes debunked, paranormal activity in New Zealand.
Wellington's top four hot spots for reported ghostly events were Inverlochy House, St James Theatre, Opera House and Downstage Theatre.
"I would love for us to do an investigation of the Embassy Theatre. I have heard some interesting stories about that place," he said at the time.

The two new theatres tonight get an invitation-only opening on December 8 with a special one-off screening of Steven Spielberg and Sir Peter Jackson's 3-D flick The Adventures of Tintin which goes on general release on Boxing Day.
Event Cinemas operations general manager Carmen Switzer said the theatres would open to the public on December 9 when there will be a two-for-one ticket deal.
- The Dominion Post

One-third of Kiwis believe in alien visits [www.nzherald.co.nz]

2011-12-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

A third of New Zealanders believe aliens have visited Earth and a majority think psychic powers exist, a study has found.

One thousand respondents were asked by UMR Research if they believed "that Earth has been visited by UFOs from other planets".
About 33 per cent said they did, and Maori (42 per cent) and Pasifika (40 per cent) were more likely to believe.
The number of believers is greatest among the 30 to 44 year olds at 36 per cent, and drops to 26 per cent among those aged 60 and over.
Graeme Opie, a sighting investigator and researcher for the Ufocus New Zealand Research Network, said: "According to reports, the number of Americans that believe in extra-terrestrials and life on other planets is quite high too, so it isn't too surprising that many of us here believe in UFOs."
The veteran Hamilton traffic controller and pilot adds, "I can say with near certainty that UFOs have been to Earth ... and there's plenty of literature to back this belief."
Sightings in New Zealand include events such as the Kaikoura lights, the Ngatea landing-site mystery and the Gisborne UFO event of the late 70s that included sightings of silver-suited humanoids in the Waimata Valley.
The UMR survey also found 55 per cent believed that at least some people have psychic powers such as ESP.
Women (67 per cent), over-60s (63 per cent) and Maori (60 per cent) more likely than others to be believers.
Six in 10 - 72 per cent of women and 52 per cent of men - believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit.
Nearly 8 in 10 believe that Jesus was a real person who lived 2000 years ago, and 57 per cent believe in life after death. That belief declined with age, falling from 65 per cent among under-30s to 49 per cent among over-60s.
A quarter believed astrology can predict people's futures.

By Lincoln Tan

UFO sightings in New Zealand linked to a 'temporal doorway' [ Dave Masko -www.huliq.com]

2011-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

“Cooo me, we have more UFO sightings than anywhere on the planet, and don’t forget our ‘temporal doorway’ that allows these aliens to come and go,” explained a New Zealand local in hyping “UFO tourism” down under in a country best known for its strange greenish kiwifruit, Lord of the Rings films and homeland for moody actor Russell Crowe.

New Zealand’s recent claim to fame as being “one of the top places for UFO sightings” happened in the wake of the recent release of more than 2,000 UFO “eyewitness accounts” that link this remote nation -- that’s situated east of Australia and across the Tasman Sea -- where locals say “there’s more UFO lights in the sky at night than kiwi’s in the fields.” While New Zealand’s popular newspaper “The Dominion Post” has claimed it would scan and print each and every major document from the country’s recent top secret hoard of UFO files – including the legendary UFO sightings at “Kaikoura” – there’s been enough details about “alien gangs” roaming New Zealand’s remote regions -- and something dubbed an “alien temporal doorway” -- to attract thousands of UFO fans to this country that’s currently marketing the filming locations of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

New Zealand’s alien temporal doorway linked in NZ government reports to U.K. UFO reports

One strange thing about the recently released New Zealand UFO documents, says a local named ”Nasburg” in The Dominion Post and reported on the national New Zealand website stuff.co.nz is New Zealanders visiting family back in England report seeing the same type of “UFO trails in the forests.”

“We thought these clearings in our woods – that resemble something pushed down by lots of trucks riding over a field – were just something that was happening in the forest.” However, Nasburg and other New Zealand ufologits found “linkage” in the recently released New Zealand UFO documents to the so-called “Rendlesham Forest Incident” -- that is highlighted in the U.K. UFO documents (released back in March) – may explain what’s happening “all over New Zealand,” writes Nasburg.

In turn, the U.K. UFO documents noted that the “Rendlesham Forest Incident” took place in December 1980 after “several sightings of UFOs were reported in Rendlesham Forest” in an Eastern region of England. Ufologists believe what happened in the Rendlesham Forest – where a “UFO trail” was formed throughout the forest by something that pressed down all vegetation “as if a dozen steamrollers had been there,” is a possible “path” to what’s been developing down in New Zealand “in mass during 2011.”

In turn, the regions of New Zealand where the “UFO trails” are spotted and now investigated points to what Nasburg writes “are locations for temporal doorways where the aliens who’ve landed can come and go,” with speculation that where they go is a parallel universe or realm.

Moreland Sighting from 1959 touted in New Zealand as “our Roswell”

New Zealand’s “Moreland Sighting from 1959” has been characterized as a massive amount of lights, creating “great brightness” as if the sun from above the clouds was producing bright, bright lights that illuminated the forest below.

“Among the hundreds of UFO sightings in New Zealand, only one was fully investigated, reported press.co.nz, a popular news site in New Zealand. “Public and media interest in the infamous Kaikoura UFO sightings in 1978, coupled with strong personal interest from Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, led to a detailed report. This is the first time it has been publicly released,” stated a recent stuff.co.nz report.

"The Kaikoura case was a special one in which the Government asked the RNZAF to investigate," states an official Defense Force letter in the files.

Numerous other UFO "sightings" in New Zealand have been reported by the public to the police, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Defense Ministry.

In addition, stuff.co.nz also noted that “some reports were cross-checked among the agencies "primarily to determine whether there may be a physical reason for the phenomenon, like a large aircraft or a meteorological balloon catching the sunlight at high altitude," the letter states. Otherwise, they were dismissed. “

Also, there was a UFO hunter group headed by “the Adamski Correspondence Groups,” based in Auckland and Timaru.

In one file, dated 1955, the Adamski group sent questions to purported American flying saucer expert George Adamski, stated stuff.co.nz. “In his answers he revealed that flying saucers were made of aluminum and other minerals, some of which had been found to come to Earth in a ‘jelly-like form, already disintegrating and by the time you pick up the jelly there is nothing but a bad odor left.’”

“At 5.35am on July 13, 1959, Blenheim farmer Mrs. FE Moreland was bringing her cows into the shed when she noticed a green light above her in the clouds. Soon an oval shaped UFO with two green beams of light and ‘fiery orange jets’ settled above her, enveloping her in a ‘peculiar green glow,’” added the stuff.co.nz report.

“Fleeing for the shelter of nearby pine trees, she claims to have spotted two men inside the craft, dressed in ‘silvery, shiny suits from the waist upwards" with headgear "like drivers helmets which glittered very brightly. The object appeared to hover for a few seconds, and then with a high-pitched whistle took off, leaving behind "a waft of hot, peppery air.’”

Also, stuff.co.nz noted that “in what appears to be an official summary of facts, the author said Moreland seemed to "quite honestly believe" she had seen the craft, which flew off ‘at a speed that would make a vampire look like it was standing still.’”

Of the alien spacecraft, she said "it was certainly a nice machine, whatever it was?"

New Zealand’s approach to UFO sightings is linked to regular citizens telling their stories

"Some reports of sightings come from those who are genuinely puzzled about something they have seen and are made in good faith. Others are taken up by those for whom UFOs it seems will explain all the mysteries of the universe. The ministry should not, in my view, willingly get drawn into the pursuit of chimera and should avoid providing fuel for fevered imaginations,” reported stuff.co.nz, while noting that “in another response to an OIA request, this time by conspiracy theorist journalist Ian Wishart, a Defense Ministry official, said it held no information ‘whatsoever’ to suggest that aliens had landed in New Zealand or that ‘they or their spacecraft have been sighted here.’”

"I know that some people claim to have identified these things (UFOs) and even to have consorted with aliens,” added another haunting report from the recently released New Zealand UFO files that go on to report “alien gangs roam the country.”

New Zealand government “looking into alien gangs” and other forest sightings

New Zealand Prime minister Sir Rob Muldoon “took a special interest in the investigation and "asked [that] he be informed of Defense’s conclusions to the study it was undertaking,” added the stuff.co.nz report, while also stating that “according to a Defense Force letter from 1984, Kaikoura was the only UFO sighting fully investigated by New Zealand’s air force. When sightings continued and worldwide media coverage ensued, the air force said it was forced to investigate.”

In turn, the Kaikoura investigation “failed to pinpoint a single cause of the unexplained lights and radar readings, but concluded almost all the sightings could be explained by factors including unusual atmospheric conditions, lights from a Japanese squid fleet, or a glow from the planet Venus. “

New Zealand’s documents point to tens of thousands of UFO sightings, but few details?

“In 2000, two UFOs were sighted above Roseneath. The first was a small triangular shape with an orange light at the back and a white ‘beam of light’ at the front, while the second was described as larger, with a white light,” stated stuff.co.nz. “Apparently, the smaller UFO flew underneath the larger one, before a beam of light from the mother ship danced across Evans Bay Parade. In 1998, a Porirua resident who refused to be identified, but who officials said sounded "calm and puzzled", claimed to have seen a large, oval, reddish-pink bright object with flashing lights appear at high altitude above the western hills of Porirua. After zooming across the valley, it hovered above the eastern hills for 25 minutes, occasionally ‘shuddering in place [up and down] before steadying down again.’ In January 1995, three teenagers reported seeing a star-like object moving in a ‘zig-zag fashion’ in the sky above Eastbourne, from where they were lying watching the stars by the Marsden Memorial. The object circled overhead, then returned to hover above Eastbourne,” added a report in New Zealand’s The Dominion Post.

For more information on the massive hoard of New Zealand’s once top secret UFO files go to: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4486327/Original-files-NZs-UFO-sightings

Strange light sparks UFO theories [www.stuff.co.nz]

2011-09-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

A strange light filmed in the sky over Auckland on Saturday night was probably not a UFO, comet, or rogue planet about to smash into Earth, astronomers say.

The descending point of light, which revealed a U-shaped nimbus when zoomed in on, was filmed in the sky west of Auckland about 6pm on Saturday.
The video was uploaded to YouTube by a user known as biggordy100 who narrates that the light is "back", indicating he has seen it in the past.
The tag-line on the video reads: "WTF is in our skies? ufo! nibiru? elenin? spaceship? comet? seen over Auckland at 18.00."
Nibiru is the name given by Doomsday and conspiracy blogs and websites to a supposed collision between Earth and a mystery planet - Planet X - that is supposed to occur in the early 21st Century.
According to Wikipedia, Nibiru was revealed to Wisconsin woman Nancy Lieder after aliens implanted a communications device in her brain.
Comet Elenin has a similar conspiracy theory attached to it - something about it actually being a secret brown dwarf star that is going to flip the Earth's magnetic polarity with disastrous results.
Astronomers who could be bothered have debunked both theories.
Astronomy educator at Auckland's Stardome Observatory, David Britten, said Nibiru would not hit Earth "because it doesn't exist".
He said the light that had been filmed was "almost certainly the contrails of a plane heading out over the Tasman Sea".
Britten said at that time, the sun had set enough for Auckland to be in shadow but the plane was still in the sun.
Its spreading contrail was catching the light and making the effect recorded.
Britten said the observatory was approached about similar sights semi-regularly.
"Look at the coverage over Hurricane Irene - if there was something out there that was going to hurt us, we would know about it.''
He said if the videographer had waited for dark, with a telescope he might have seen Saturn and its rings in approximately the same spot.

UFO was not debris, says local [Hawkes Bay Today]

2011-09-14T02:43:00.000-07:00

Taradale man Colvin Steel may have seen something the military chiefs of either the US or Russia might have been hoping to flick our way without too many people noticing.

The "military satellite" theory is one explanation for the sighting of a large, glowing ball in the sky on Tuesday night, which appeared to pulsate before splitting into two separate lights.
"I've never seen anything like that before," Mr Steel said, adding it did not display any indications it was something coming through the atmosphere.
He had been outside his garage about 6.30pm when he spotted a light in the eastern sky, about 15 degrees above the horizon.
"It was far too bright for a star. I went straight inside and grabbed my camera."
When he returned outside the light was even brighter, but did not appear to be moving.
"My hands were shaking a bit ... It was this amazing orb and I knew it was not a regular star."
He figured it may have been an aircraft coming in. But the direction was wrong and then the sight of two lights shearing off the main one, which he caught on camera, just added to the mystery.
"I just can't explain it," Mr Steel said, adding the two lights then merged again into a bright light which emitted a flash before disappearing.
It lasted about 30 seconds.

Hawke's Bay Holt Planetarium director and astronomer Gary Sparks said the location suggested it may have been "space junk".
"A lot of old satellites are de-orbited off the coast of New Zealand," he said.
The vast expanse of Pacific Ocean to the east, the relative isolation and the depth of the water, made it the ideal dumping ground for extraterrestrial objects which military agencies did not want anyone to find or recover.
"It could have been military stuff," he said, adding that governments did not seek permission to drop things from space.
"They just go ahead and do it."
That it appeared stationary would have meant it was heading straight in, with the atmosphere creating oscillations and a glowing, dimming, or distorting appearance.
The pieces flying off may have been disintegration - the different colours reflecting the different materials.
But Mr Steel did not buy into the satellite suggestion as there was no indication of disintegrating debris and the object simply appeared to be hovering.

ROGER MORONEY

http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/ufo-was-not-debris-says-local/1083641/

Jo Davy and James Gilbard discussing their new book, "Spooked"

2011-09-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

Jo Davy and James Gilbard discussing their new book, "Spooked" with Sarah Bradley on Good Morning, Tuesday 13th Sept.
http://tvnz.co.nz/good-morning/s2011-e130911-dary-video-4399739

Sighting 11 Morning After checking the Hole Vlog & String Traps

2011-08-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

Australian Alien sighting [NB:VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE]

2011-08-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

Wife and Husband Encounter UFO and Aliens in Australia

2011-08-20T21:49:00.001-07:00

ORB UFO 02 June 2011 9.30pm Rotorua New Zealand

2011-06-09T23:36:00.001-07:00

Irene terrified as ghost comes a-calling

2011-05-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

Waitara homeowner Irene Russ has had countless sleepless nights in the last year convinced a ghost named Jack was haunting her but the answer was in the telephone.
Pensioner Irene Russ has spent the last year terrified of buzzing noises and eerie blue lights that woke her every day at exactly 3.13am.

Worried that spirits had taken residence in her Waitara house, Mrs Russ first consulted a Maori elder – who said a ghost called Jack was lurking around. Then she contacted a church minister, who told her a man had killed himself in the lounge.

"It all started in about July last year when I started to hear noises in my room coming from the telephone wires," she said.
"It would get louder and louder and then the whole lounge would light up with a glow."

Fearing the strange awakenings were something from the underworld, Mrs Russ mentioned her problem to women living in the flat in front, who promised they would help get to the bottom of it.

"A Maori man turned up and said the culprit was someone called Jack. Apparently Jack didn't want to believe he was dead."

Unconvinced, Mrs Russ made contact with a church minister who came to visit.
"He told me that a man had slit his throat and died in the lounge and his wife was standing in the doorway to my bedroom.
He said there was another man hanging around in my room, and he told me to put crosses in all the spots where the bodies were."
By then Mrs Russ was very scared, to the extent she even changed her toilet habits in fear of being in the lounge when the buzzing noises sounded and the blue light glowed.

But this week she embarked on some ghostbusting detective work and solved the big mystery – her phone was dodgy.

She had bought the new telephone, complete with buttons that glow to help her dial in the evening, in May last year.
One night recently, she worked out the weird noises were coming from the phone.
Stage two of Operation Ghostbuster was to place a pillow slip over the phone.
"For the next two nights there were no lights, and when I took the pillow slip off the lights started the next night," she said.

"When I heard the buzzing noise in the phone wires again I went to see what the lights were and that was when I discovered the phone was playing up."
She now has another phone plugged in.

But when the Taranaki Daily News visited Mrs Russ yesterday afternoon, the dodgy phone – which had been glowing perfectly only minutes earlier – would not play ball, and the flashing lights were nowhere in sight.

It seems the ghost of Jack may have had the last laugh.
[JO MOIR- Taranaki Daily News]

UFO over Cambridge NZ 26th Dec 2010

2011-05-14T21:41:00.001-07:00

Strange sightings in Bay skies - UFOs?

2011-04-17T02:57:00.000-07:00

by Kate Newton with Genevieve Helliwell [Bay of Plenty Times]

PHOTO:Auckland photographer Brian Aickin snapped this picture of "three mystery objects'' in the sky.

Seen something strange in the night sky? You are not alone.

Calls have been coming into the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend over the past few weeks from people convinced that lights they have seen in the sky aren't those of earthly aircraft.

Graphic designer Cole Jamieson knows what he saw on March 30 wasn't a plane. He and his partner were driving over the Maungatapu bridge at 7.30pm when they saw three bright white lights, all the same size, height and evenly spaced over downtown Tauranga.
"They were much bigger than plane lights, more like large spotlights from a helicopter, but brighter," Mr Jamieson said.
"There were no other lights, no coloured or blinking lights like all aircraft are required to have. Both me and my partner saw the lights and we both knew what we saw wasn't normal."
Mr Jamieson drove into the city to see if he could work out what they were but by the time they got there the lights had gone. He has since driven over the bridge at the same time of night to see if they were from something explainable - like Devonport Towers - but said the ones he saw were too high to be a building.
He has since done a lot of searching on the internet and found many cases have been reported worldwide recently, including one that appears to take off from the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine in Jerusalem.
"There's been a huge increase worldwide," Mr Jamieson said.
"The Fox and ABC networks are always having stories on them at the moment."
Tony Wilson of Papamoa and his family saw strange lights on Monday and Tuesday nights this week.
The family's curtains were being cleaned so Mr Wilson's wife was able to see into the southwest sky and point out to the rest of the family what initially looked like a flickering star.
But then it had started moving erratically.
"It was predominantly silver but you could see flashes of red and occasionally blue and silver," Mr Wilson said.
It had looked as though it was above the Kaimais, he said, but eventually faded out.
"When I saw it again on Tuesday I was starting to think it was a planet but planets don't move spasmodically so I'm not sure what it was," Mr Wilson said.
"I'm certainly not a UFO nut but I would put it in the UFO category."
Another Papamoa man told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend about what he had seen on the night of April 4 on the condition he wasn't named.
He said he saw two lights hovering in the sky out at sea that began moving erratically before disappearing into the distance.
UFO research group UFOCUS New Zealand, which is based in Tauranga, files reports of UFO sightings on its website.
There is one Western Bay sighting from this year.
It was reported as an orange ball of light spotted from Pyes Pa at 9.30pm on February 19, travelling from the port to Oropi.

"The object was the size of the witness' index fingernail at arm's length, was travelling at helicopter speed, and appeared to be above the cloud.
"There was no strobe light as there would be on a helicopter," the report said.
"There was no light reflecting off the clouds from the object, and it was lost to view behind the clouds."
Vicki Hyde, spokeswoman for the New Zealand Skeptics, said unexplained lights could often be explained by science.
"About 80-90 per cent of everything unusual can be explained ... but that doesn't mean the other 10-20 per cent is aliens. It just means these things haven't been able to be explained.
"People sometimes jump to the UFO conclusion too quickly ... more often than not these things are reflections or helium balloons that go behind a tree or a cloud," she said.
Ms Hyde said sometimes people didn't talk about seeing lights for fear of being laughed at.
"I don't think people who see strange lights in the sky should be ridiculed. They're not idiots. They're just seeing something they cannot explain and they're curious about it so I think it's good they speak up."
However, she was quick to explain a strange light didn't necessarily mean aliens were looking down on us.
"Until aliens land in front of the Beehive and say, 'Take me to your leader', then I am not convinced because I don't believe they would travel to Earth and play silly buggers with us."

White UFOs “Interacting” over Melbourne Australia 07/04/2011

2011-04-16T02:49:00.000-07:00

At least two white UFOs were recorded over Melbourne, Australia at daylight interacting or moving in really strange ways.

UFO sightings in Taranaki & Waikato skies.

2011-04-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

CLOSE ENCOUNTER: Aaron Sellwood and his family saw the unidentified flying object on Tuesday night.

A Hawera family had a close encounter amid a spate of sightings of mystery lights speeding through Taranaki and Waikato skies.

A flaming ball dancing above Hawera left residents in stunned awe on Tuesday as it zig-zagged through the night sky, while Waikato residents are certain they saw a UFO on Saturday.

Aaron Sellwood and his family in Hawera wondered if they were seeing things when what they believe is a UFO put on a spectacular light show before speeding away. But when the strange object returned, 20 minutes later, all doubt was removed.
Mr Sellwood said he was standing on his driveway on Burns St at 8.55pm when a fireball in the sky caught his eye.
"I looked at it and could see a flamey-type object with a dark shadow on top which looked to be a pyramid shape with a round top," he said.

Mr Sellwood said he then rushed inside and grabbed his ex- partner and four children to come and have a look.

The flaming object then hovered in the sky above his neighbours' house. "It turned its flames off and it looked like it was cooling down. There was what looked like an element beneath it - a big red ring," he said.

Hawera Observatory and Astronomical Society secretary Pat Sutherland said she saw a similar event a week before.
Mrs Sutherland said a light to the north-east of Hawera danced in the sky and appeared to "zoom towards her".
"I thought it was a planet to start with because it wasn't sparkling, but then it started moving."
She said the night sky was not foreign to her and she knew when something unusual was happening.
Hawera dairy worker Graham Fraser witnessed a similar event earlier this year on January 17.
He said he was heading to work at 5.13am when he noticed a bright light in the sky just south of the Hawera subway tunnel.
"It was a beautiful clear morning, I could see Venus and what I thought was a couple of stars.
"But one of them wasn't because it started moving while I was looking at it," he said.
The South Taranaki town is proving to be a hot spot for mysterious lights as another bright orange light was spotted above the southern end of Hawera about 9.40pm on Boxing Day last year.

WAIKATO SIGHTING: 'SOMETHING WAS TRAVELLING THROUGH THE SKY THAT NIGHT'

IS IT A BIRD? IS IT A PLANE?: A photo of one of the Unidentified Flying Objects seen over Waikato.

North Hamilton man Adrian Kilpatrick is convinced he and his wife Kathryn saw a unidentified flying object above his Woodridge home last Saturday night.
When he first saw it, at around 6.30pm, Mr Kilpatrick, a long-time believer in UFOs, thought it was a light plane coming into land.
"But then it looked like the plane was on fire, like the engines were glowing orange," he said, adding that the object's absolute silence had made him wonder further of its origins.
He estimated the object was flying around the height a small aircraft might fly and appeared less than two kilometres north of their house.
It moved towards Hamilton from Ngaruawahia, before changing direction and zipping towards Morrinsville.
Mr Kilpatrick estimated it was visible for about three minutes.
"The people who are skeptical about UFOs haven't seen one yet. They are real," the Hamilton businessman said.
Suli Laomakei and Kelly Dixon have seen something too. The pair, employees at Te Rapa's Prolife Foods, were outside taking a cigarette break at around 11pm when they saw a "light the size of the moon" moving quickly across the night sky on March 29.

"It was very bright when it moved. Everything below it lit up," Ms Laomakei said. "It was huge, and looked like it had flames coming out of it."
Ms Laomakei, who estimated the object was only around 100m off the ground, said she was not a believer in UFOs before the sighting, but the strange light had her scratching her head. "Something was travelling through the sky that night," she said.

METEOR, SPACE STATION EXPLANATIONS
Auckland Stardome Observatory astronomer Dr Grant Christie said a meteor entered the atmosphere over New Zealand around 11pm on the night of March 29, lighting up the night sky.
Dr Christie estimated the fireball to be travelling around 30 and 80km above the earth, describing as one of the brightest observed fireballs above New Zealand since 1999.
As for Mr Kilpatrick's travelling light? Observatory spokesperson Gina Dellabarca said it was likely caused by the International Space Station (ISS), which is currently manned by six people and orbiting around 350 km above Earth.with the last pass at around 6pm yesterday. It is expected over New Zealand again this Saturday at about 6.30pm.

Mr Kilpatrick however remains firm that his sighting was indeed a UFO.

"Does it (the ISS) fly around 200 metres off the ground?," he asked. "It's not the same thing. Once you've seen it, you know it's real."

- Taranaki Daily News and Waikato Times

Original files: NZ's UFO sightings files dating from 1952 - 2009

2011-04-11T03:55:00.000-07:00

Read original documents, released by the Government, recording UFO sightings in New Zealand. please upload, print hard copies and circulate this information if and wherever you can.
www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4489308/Original-files-NZs-UFO-sightings

UFO ORBs,New Zealand on the 1st March 2011

2011-04-10T23:23:00.001-07:00

Black triangle UFO New Zealand 5th December 2010

2011-04-10T23:22:00.000-07:00