Object In Search Now Identified

Press, Volume C, Issue 29635, 4 October 1961, Page 15

Object In Search Now Identified

The search for the strange glistening object seen by bush workers to the thickly-bushed Rotokohu area, north of Reefton. has ended. It has been almost certainly identified as a tinfoil radar reflector dropped from a meteor-

ological balloon. When the object was first noticed last week, it was thought to be the wreckage of an aircraft. The reflecting object was noted to be half-way up a tree, said Chief Inspector H. O. Hansen, of the Greymouth police, yesterday. Although searchers could clearly see it from a few miles away, they were unable to find it when they reached its position, to spite of a thorough search of the ridge on which it had been seen. This was probably because they had no reflection to guide them from their positions under the trees. ‘There is definitely nothing in the way of wreckage on

the ridge, and no further search will be made,” said Inspector Hansen. A radar reflector is part of a radio transmitter which is sent up below a balloon from various weather stations to New Zealand. It is usually about 3ft across the base. The reflector to question is thought to be from a balloon sent up from the Christchurch airport to aid weather calculations.