U.F.O. lights seen in South Island nearly 70 years ago

Press, 16 January 1979, Page 17

U.F.O. lights seen in South Island nearly 70 years ago

By

JOHN WILSON

Mysterious lights and unidentified objects were no stranger to South Island skies nearly 70 years ago. At the end of July, 1909, reports of happenings similar to those reported recently came in from towns as far apart as Greymouth and Invercargill. The greatest concentration of sightings was in Otago. The most detailed daytime observations, and the most frequent observations of lights at night, were made by people in the small Otago town of Kelso. They had "not the slightest doubt” that an airship was responsible for what they were seeing. Its movements suggested to them that it was based somewhere in the Blue Mountains and that it cruised out to different parts of the country and back to the Blue Mountains.

Soon after the first reports from Kelso came reports from the Catlins/ Owaka-Kaitaiugata area of strange lights sailing serenely along. At Balclutha, a night cleaner in an engine shed went outside about 5 a.m. and saw a light directly above him. It shot skyward, dipped, and swooped from side to side, then sailed away. About the same time a Dunedin man, living in North-East Valley, was woken by a strange noise and went outside to see “a sort of great big black thing with a searchlight attached” floating by. Six boys, playing at night on a South Otago beach, also had a “close encounter” — a huge illuminated object, "as big as a house,” swooped over the beach, nearly coming into contact with them. On this occasion the light was seen through fieldglasses as an object with a dark superstructure, a powerful headlight, and two smaller lights at the sides. From Orepuki, near Invercargill, came reports of sightings of a bright light moving in the centre of a dark body. Other sightings in Otago were reported from Dunedin, Mosgiel, Oamaru, and Maheno. In Greymouth, a bright light was seen out. to sea by travellers on the train from Hokitika and watched by a large crowd from the Greymouth railway station. In Canterbury, reports came in from Temuka, Geraldine, Hilton, Winchester and Methven. In Methven, a police constable stood behind a telegraph pole to establish that the “large dark object carrying a bright light” which he was watching W’as travelling at about 10 m.p.h.

In Christchurch sightings of strange lights were made before the fightings furthei south, but they were assumed to haxe been attached to kite. Only after the people of Kelso had so positively seen an airship was the possibility raised that tiie vessel had been stealthily hovering over Christchurch before heading south. There was some consistency in the various

sightings. In daylight

The U.F.O. fever that seized New Zealand 70 years ago inspired a Siberian inquirer to ask recently for copies of reports that were printed in “The Press” in 1909. The inquiry from Mr V. I. Sanarov, of Novosibirsk, caused John Wilson to search files of the newspaper for what prompted all the fuss.

people saw a pontoon or boat-shaped structure with a short pole or mast in the centre. What seemed like the figures of men m the craft were reported only from Kelso and Gore, where two workers on a dredge plainly saw an airship with two figures aboard. The more frequent reports of strange lights hovering or moving in the sky had the common feature of the light’s movement being undulating or wave-like. Several reports referred to one large and one or more smaller lights being associated. It apparently did not cross anyone’s mind in 1909 that these objects or lights might be alien visitors. The commonest assumption was that someone (there must have been much speculation as io whom, but this did not get into the columns Of “The Press,” beyond an occasional reference to an unidentified inventor: was experimenting with an airship.

These were of course, the earliest days of flight. Bleriot's flight across the channel was repotred at channel was reported at appearances of lights and objects in New Zeilarn! skies. One military correspondent refused to discount the possibility that German spie-. were working from a missing yacht, the beestern, in one of the Southern fioids and sending an airship to examine the harbour works ac Greyniouth and. possibly, other items of what might be strategic importance. Other explanations were offered for the lights. Some were sure they were simply lanterns attached to kites — a “trick familiar to most tun-loving schoolboys." Others observed that some of the lights at least inrrved too quickly for this explanation to be plausible. The suggestion that the lights were fire balloons gained substance when an Auckland fireworks dealer reported sales of the devices and when the remains of a toy fire balloon fell in York Place in Dunedin. Bui this did not convince those who had seen the lights travel horizontally in still air at a higher speed than fire balloons could achieve. In Christchurch, an official at the local magnetic observatory said that Mars was, at the time, in the right position and relatively close enough to Earth to account for some of the sightings The harbourmaster at Timaru was sure that some of the sightings were of balls of "concentrated” electricity known to sailors as Jack-in-the-lantern. The objects and lights were never satisfactorily explained at the time and the incidents remained an “aerial mystery." But a hint of scepticism of what was involved can perhaps be read into “The Press’’ heading in its later stones about further sightings: “That Mysterious Light.”