U.F.O. hoax secret out

Press, 7 March 1978, Page 1

U.F.O. hoax secret out

A Christchurch man has “blown the gaff” on what may go down in the annals of U.F.O. literature as one of the cleverest hoaxes to be perpetrated in New Zealand.

Mr Ken Nichol last night revealed that the numerous reported sightings of unidentified flying objects on the night of December • 6, 1952, were in fact the product of the fertile imagation of a Dunedin student, acting in concert with several other Otago University students well known locally for their capping pranks. The sightings and other “evidence” were pieced together from newspaper clippings and described by a Mr Brian Mackrell in a feature article in “The Press” last Saturday.

When the hoax was revealed for the first time last evening, “The Press"

telephoned Mr Mackrell at his Palmerston North home and asked him how he reacted to the news.

“Certain things did strike me as being a bit coincidental at the time 1 was correlating the evidence. Like the hissing sound, described by all the witnesses,” he said.

Mr Mackrell, who said he is not a member of any of the organisations whicn believe in U.F.O.s, said that he had collected the newspaper clippings of the sightings as a child. He is now a Post Office supervisor. Did the news of the hoax make him change his mind

about U-F.O.s? “No, there is too much documented evidence like that from radar that indicates there is something there, which could be some natural phenomena that are still unexplained,” he said. Mr Nichol is a lecturer in social studies at Christchurch Teachers’ College.

He said that most of the students behind the hoax were in 1952 boarders at Knox College, and came from a number of faculties. The thing they had in common, apart from being students and most living at Knox, was that they had all become known for their

part in student pranks. “There had been a lot of reports in the ‘Otago Daily Times’ about U.F.O.S. The bloke who thought the hoax out had a particularly fertile mind. He was quiet and tremendously imaginative. “He gathered a group of us together and outlined his scheme. We were all pretty impressed and agreed to participate,” said Mr Nichol.

The scheme was plotted just before the university examinations and executed when the students went for the university vacation to their various home towns. Mr Nichol believes he is

one of the few students who kept the original document giving instructions on what to do on the night ot December 6. Headed “The Grand Interplanetary Hoax,” the document vowed to “cure the O.D.T. of flying saucerites.” It instructed the plotters to give a “normal ficticious address” and write to the local newspaper saving that the object was sighted “while travelling from” such and such a place. It further said that the hoaxers should “add no other embellishments unless specifically requested (although you