Sleuth keeps eye on sky for UFOs over NZ

A Hamilton man is helping to keep tabs on UFO sightings around New Zealand. Steven Hollowayreports.

By day Graeme Opie directs air traffic at Hamilton International Airport. By night he is out spotting UFOs in the night sky.

The Hamilton man is an investigator for the UFO Focus New Zealand Research Network (UFOCUS NZ) and is part of an eight-person team which has developed a website to formally report sightings of unidentified flying objects.

UFOCUS NZ is based in Tauranga and has received reports of about 50 unidentified objects in New Zealand skies over the past 12 months.

Mr Opie said five of these sightings have been ruled out as man-made objects, but the rest remained unexplained.

UFOCUS NZ logs sightings.

“We are particularly interested in the date of the sightings, the weather, the size, speed and angle above the horizon of the object and how far it travelled in a certain amount of time,” said Mr Opie. “We also want to know of any other witnesses present.”

Mr Opie was witness to Hamilton’s most widely reported UFO sighting in March 1995.

“It was only for about one and a half seconds, but I saw a shiny object which I’d say was doing around 30,000km/h, and did not show up on radar,” he said.

“Even the Yanks don’t have secret aeroplanes that travel that fast.”

Similar sightings were made by observers in the Waikato-Bay of Plenty area and these reports helped to create UFOCUS NZ.

Mr Opie said New Zealand had a rich history of UFO sightings with renowned events such as the Kaikoura lights, the Ngatea landing site mystery and the Gisborne UFO sighting that took place in the late 1970s.

He said while some of the reports were explained by natural phenomena or other conventional causes, the majority could not be explained.

“The formal documentation of sightings will enable more efficient investigation to take place on the subject, which will lead to more comprehensive research into these intriguing phenomena.”

www.ufocusnz.org.nz

(Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/waikatotimes/4134948a6579.html)