ROCKET MYSTERY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 166, 15 June 1936, Page 2

ROCKET MYSTERY

REPORT BY SHIP’S CAPTAIN. WELLINGTON, June 15. Although no vessel lias been reported missing during the Inst fortnight and no explanation of the mystery has been derived from the flotsam and jetsam found on the coast, the members of the crew of the Union Steam Ship Company’s steamer Kartigi, who were on watch, in the evening of Juno 1 are certain that three rockets were seen by them in the vicinity of Cape Turnagain. The Kartigi returned to Wellington from southern ports on Saturday morning and Captain C. C. Waters, master of the ship, confirmed the report previously made bv him to the Marine Department regarding the sighting of the rockets.

In the evening of June 1, said Captain Waters, tho Kartigi, which was txiund from Auckland to Wellington, was about 12 miles off the land, between Blackhead and Cape Turnagain. The ship was steaming about four knots against a southerly gale of force 6 to 7, and a heavy sea, when at 6.55 p.m. the chief officer on the bridge sighted a rocket on a bearing of about south 65 degrees west, in the direction of Cook’s Tooth, a prominent peak about 3} miles north of Cape Turnagain. The rocket was followed by two others, all being seen by the look-out man and the man at the wheel, as veil as by the chief officer, who at once notified the master. A sharp look-out was kept all the time, but no sign of any vessel aiid not a vestige of wreckage was seen. At 9.10 p.m., however, when the shin was a little to the northward of Cape Turnagain, a light was seen for about three or four minutes, showing above the top of the hill. A bearing was taken and a plot on the chart showed the light to be approximately on the same bearing as that of the rockets sighted more than two hours earlier. The postmaster at Porangahau last night advised that another hatch cover had been found on the beach, but he said the residents were no nearer the solution of the mystery of what vessel tho flotsam was coming from.