UFOs over Westport NZ

Neat! That I have seen quite often, during fieldwork. But they are more active in my case. Quite often respond to mental or verbal request to change direction.

It’s not often that you hear about UFO sightings down here in New Zealand, especially on the nightly local news. The news report was very brief, only reporting that it was strange, and that there was no air activity in the area at the time.

Basically the video shows two lights drifting across the sky, not much more than that.

Makes me feel like trying out my little spot, seems like it would be a great place, no light pollution with a huge view of the vista, only problem, the place freaks me out.

(Source: http://myparanormallife.blogspot.com)

Believers turn to the heavens at UFO conference

By MATTHEW MARTIN

A CONFERENCE in Rotorua aims to demistify people’s perceptions about “little green men” and “close encounters” of the extraterrestrial kind.

Tauranga woman Suzanne Hansen, co-ordinator of UFOCUS NZ, an organisation devoted to UFO research and investigation, and organiser of this weekend’s conference, is keen to give the sceptics some food for thought.

She says sceptics don’t bother to examine the evidence and generally write off believers as “nutters”.

“We are definitely not saying that every report that comes to us is some kind of alien craft.

“There is an overwhelming amount of credible evidence now.

You have top politicians in countries like Canada who say they know this exists, top physicists saying people’s experiences of alien technology cannot be made up.”

She said her own experiences had been very real.

“I know what I have seen and have got my feet firmly on the ground.”

In 1962, aged 8, she experienced her first close encounter with “an orange cigar-shaped object that hung in the sky for an hour-and-a-half”.

The object was seen by her family, neighbours and hundreds of others in the skies above the Bombay Hills before it flew off toward the South Waikato. It was even reported by the media.

“For an 8-year-old it was pretty amazing, I have had an interest in this sort of thing since then.”

Among the speakers at this weekend’s conference is former nurse, midwife, health educator Mary Rodwell, a former UFO sceptic herself. She now believes a human genetic engineering programme is being carried out by extraterrestrial species which is part of an “upgrading” of homosapiens.

“We are not being changed into some kind of robotic or biological fodder. Most logical thinking people realise that in this vast universe that we can’t possibly be the only intelligent life out there.

“The most sceptical of the most sceptical are usually the viewers themselves – because they want to prove to themselves they are not crazy and so they are constantly questioning their reality,” Mrs Rodwell said.

“I want to be sure I’m not misleading people and coming from a place of integrity as well.”

This weekend’s two-day Future Perspectives conference is being held at the Rotorua Convention Centre. Sceptics are welcome and can register online at www.ufocusnz.org.nz.

(Source: http://www.dailypost.co.nz)

It was the strangest of times in our sky

by Marianne Gillingham

Some people are embarrassed to report sightings of things that flash or glow in the night but the establishment of the UFOcus group in New Zealand has one Gisborne woman recalling an episode a quarter-century ago that she will never forget.

Beverlea Parsons was a nurse in her late 20s when Gisborne was the centre of a high-profile wave of UFO sightings centred around the Waimata Valley.

Mrs Parsons was one of many people who experienced what was known as the Gisborne UFO “flap”.

At the time, The Gisborne Herald received more than 200 reports of sightings of objects in the sky, of lit-up hillsides and valleys, and flashing lights.

Reports ranged from personal accounts of encounters with fast-moving objects and lights in the night sky, by a wide cross-section of the Gisborne community, to associated rumours of the “little green men” variety.

But there was little doubt that some of the many Gisborne people who spoke to The Herald over those months had strange and often frightening experiences.

In January 1978, a large patch of seared grass appeared on a hillside, where two farm workers had earlier reported sightings of weird lights.

Sightings continued from about 1977 until the end of 1979, by which time residents in the Waimata area were being kept awake by the noise of traffic generated by sightseers.

One of them was Mrs Parsons, who says the sightings were so common at one stage that patients could see them from the maternity hospital in back Ormond Rd and other parts of the hospital.

She and a few friends would beat a regular track to the Waimata Valley at night, for a spot of UFO watching.

The whole episode was somehow addictively compelling, and she and her friends were never afraid.

They had numerous sightings of strange “lights”.

On one occasion, something flew over the car they were in, across the road and up the side of the hill.

These episodes remain vivid with her still.

“It has always been there — it does not go away. I am 56 now and should get on with life, but I will never get those things out of my memory.”

Some of their experiences were so close that they felt a similar feeling to that of being almost sucked in by a truck passing by, she recalls.

She describes her first sighting as little lights flashing — like camera flashes —around her and her two friends.

“We got these prickly feelings up our legs,” she said.

The next time they took with them a friend who was Christian, thinking that people would be more inclined to believe her.

That night they saw a huge light, similar to an enlarged falling star, which went into reverse after falling then split into three lights, which each veered off at great speed in different directions.

On another occasion they heard what they thought was the low monotonous sound of a truck coming up the valley road, except that the sound was monotonous and they could not hear any gear changes.

“It went right over the top of us,” she said.

“We saw a big brilliant light passing in front of us.”

On that occasion, a farmer further up the valley reported a similar sound and light across the valley.

Some of the lights they saw were rotating and flashing. On one occasion there was a green ring of light flashing over another one that was red and rotating.

Mrs Parsons was just one of many who reported incidents at the time, some from as far away as Tawhareparae and Tokomaru Bay, but all centred around the Waimata Hills.

A station manager reported at one stage that he and his family had seen a glowing orange egg shape, giving off a beam of white light.

It hovered around the sky for more than an hour, so they called in their neighbours to witness it.

Many people in the district reported seeing these lights.

A man driving along the Waerenga-a-Hika straight at night, reported a brilliant orange glow lighting up the inside of his car.

“I looked out the window and got the shock of my life. Outside, just 50 feet away, was a large oval object, floating alongside my car.

It looked to be huge, rising in the sky about 300 feet, orange with thousands of small flashing lights on its side.

He told a Herald journalist he had never seen anything like it before, and never wanted to again.

The flap episode tapered away that year and has never been explained.

UFO groups believed at the time that the Waimata Valley could be an “anchoring point” used by aerial phenomena orbiting the Earth. Sceptics put it down to tomfoolery with laser lights.

Mrs Parsons has since seen laser lights in action, and says they would never in a million years have come anywhere near what she and others had seen and experienced.

(Source: http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/article.asp?aid=10434&iid=789&sud=27)

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)

NEW ZEALAND NOW HAS FORMAL UFO REPORTING SYSTEM

A formal reporting system and specific guidelines have been developed for people who observe unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in New Zealand.

The system provides people with step-by-step advice on how to document what they saw, the circumstances in which they experienced the sighting, and if it had an effect on them.

Reporting system developer Mr Graeme Opie, a Hamilton air traffic controller and pilot, said the reporting program was created in line with overseas models developed by leading global UFO researchers and scientists.

Mr Opie, who is a sighting report investigator for the nationwide UFO Focus New Zealand Research Network (UFOCUS NZ) states, The system is based on a scientific approach where witnesses can go to our website ( www.ufocusnz.org.nz ) and obtain advice on sighting documentation, and complete a comprehensive report format.

Essentially, the single most important factor is for a person to write down and sketch as many details of what they observed as soon as possible after the event, he said.

Mr Opie said 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.

He said the system was developed following an increase in sightings and witnesses wanting to know what to do during and after a UFO sighting.

In the last 12 months, UFOCUS NZ has received 48 reports of strange objects in New Zealand skies, said Mr Opie.

While some of these reports were explained by natural phenomena or other conventional causes, the majority could not be similarly explained, he said.

Mr Opie said his own experience with unidentified flying objects first took place in 1995 when he was on duty in the Hamilton Airport control tower.

I sighted a very bright silver object with a sparkling orange tail.

It was travelling extremely fast as it crossed my field of vision.

The event was witnessed by people across the central North Island as it sped from seaward of Tauranga before disappearing south of Waitomo in the Waikato, said Mr Opie.

Mr Opie said the sighting resulted in comprehensive investigations where witness interviews proved conclusively that the object was not a meteorite or a fireball as proposed by a spokesperson from the Carter Observatory.

The ATC radar centre also confirmed that there were no aircraft in the area at that time, he said.

I consider that what I saw from the control tower was a UFO definitely some form of controlled UFO-type craft of unknown origin and technology. I just happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time. I found it most interesting that it didnt appear on our radar screens.

Mr Opie said New Zealand has a rich history of UFO sightings, including such renowned events as the Kaikoura lights, the Ngatea landing site mystery, and the Gisborne UFO flap that took place in the late 70s, complete with sightings of silver-suited humanoids in the Waimata Valley.

He said UFOCUS NZ, the organisation which collects material on UFO sightings, is hosting a first ever International Future Perspectives Conference on UFOs and related topics, in Rotorua on September 29 and 30 this year.

Leading international and New Zealand researchers will be speaking at the conference and responding to participant queries and experiences, said Mr Opie. The latest research and photos on UFO sightings in New Zealand and from around the world will also be shared.

(Source: http://farshores.org/ufo07nz2.htm)
(Original: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0707/S00185.htm)