New Zealand X-Files : Official “fib”, superiors “mystified”, + Kaikoura “whitewash”

Pages 204 to 206 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1 includes notes of an interview of Mrs Moreland on 23rd July 1959:




Page 191 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1 is a memo which refers (in para 3) to raising the classification of the material due to matters revealed by the investigation “which are known to Mrs Moreland, the Commanding Officer and himself (i.e. Flt Lt Jennings) only” (BUT see the details revealed in the internal documents examined below in Section F3…):



John Spencer’s book “World Atlas of UFOs” includes a summary of the incident, with the following comments in the chapter entitled “The Australian Perspective” (at page 161):

The incident created confusion in the household because Mrs Moreland's husband was a security guard at the nearby Woodbum Air Force Base. Mr Moreland decided to contact the authorities so the sighting could be identified. Mrs Moreland was interviewed by the Air Force psychologist who put her through some tests. After the news became known, locals visited the farm in large numbers. Henk knew the witness as a down to earth, credible person. Mrs Moreland's attitude was that of revulsion. She would not like to go through the experience again.

While John Spencer’s book states that Mrs Moreland “would not like to go through the experience again”, it doesn’t mention that she did in fact report a second sighting. Page 179 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1 refers to second sighting by Mrs Moreland (on 5th March 1960) and states that, due to press of a “derogatory nature, due in part to a press statement issued by Mrs Moreland”, “on this occasion she has requested that the matter be treated as confidential to the Service”. (Note the last bit in bold, since it is highly relevant to the discussion in Section F3 below about a government “fib” regarding this sighting).



Incidentally, veteran ufologist Bryan Dickeson’s favourite rendition of the incident is “If Colour Could Kill!”, in an American Gold Key comic book “UFOs: Flying Saucers” by the Western Publishing Company (No 8, November 1975), which he purchased at the Wellington Airport bookstall on a stopover in 1976. This shows an extremely glamourous Mrs Moreland, dressed like a normal Kansas cow-girl in full make-up, going out to milk ‘Bessie’ the cow. With the kind assistance of Anthony Clarke UFO Research NSW, I have received a copy of extracts from that comic. As Bryan Dickeson has commented to me, “This account bears little resemblance to the original”…






A relevant article appeared in the Flying Saucer Review issue for November-December 1959 issue (Volume 5 Issue number 6) at page 20 (quoting the 22 July issue of the Nelson Evening Mail”):
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

A relevant item was also published in the Mufon Journal for July 1989 at page 19:
www.theblackvault.com...

Section F2 : Other witnesses?

Several other individuals reportedly had sightings in the same area as Mrs Moreland at about the same time of her first sighting on 13 July 1959.

The APRO Bulletin September 1959 included (at page 4 of the PDF version) an article referring to another sighting in that area early the same morning by a Mr R A Holdaway:

Another sighting of an unidentified light source was made by Mr. R. A. Holdaway of Dillons Point Road, Blenheim, some three miles east of Mrs. Moreland's location at between 4:30 and 5 : 00 a.m. on the same morning. Holdaway got up for a drink of water and after returning to bed he saw a bright light shining through his window. As car lights on vehicles approaching along the road frequently shine through his window, he waited for the sound of an engine, but heard none. The light, which appeared to be of a whitish orange color bee a me brighter until it reached a high intensity and then gradually faded away without any accompanying sound.

As noted above, the book “The Challenge of Unidentified Flying Objects” by Charles Maney and Richard Hall (members of NICAP) included more detail in relation to potential further witnesses (in Part 1 Chapter III, at pages 28-30 of hardback edition, pages 26-27 of PDF version):

The Nelson Evening Mail of August 6 told of two other persons in a locality not far from the home of Mrs. Moreland who witnessed unusual aerial phenomena at about the same time. Mr. Roy Holdaway, a farmer at Dillon's Point, rises at 4:30 a. m. every morning. He told of seeing a sky object of "greeny colour travelling from east to west towards Blenheim." A neighbor's wife reported seeing a "very bright light in the eastern sky travelling in a horizontal position from north to south" early that same morning.

The Nelson Evening Mail article of 6 August 1959 cited in this extract of a book by Maney and Hall referring to the sighting by Roy Holdaway and the neighbour’s wife appears to be included in File AIR-244-10-1 at page 184. (Frustratingly, as with many of the other press cuttings in the New Zealand files, the source of this press cutting isn’t labelled, but appears to have the content attributed by Maney and Hall to the Nelson Evening Mail article of 6 August 1959):



Page 201 of File AIR-244-10-1 includes a transcription of a report by the Mr R Holdaway referred to above regarding his sighting on 13 July 1959:

In 2011, Professor Michael Swords wrote a blog post about the official documents relating to Mrs Moreland. He stated:

The case is also always listed as single witness, but read the illustration to the left/above. The officer has written in "AirForce person also reported the sighting".

As is clear from the material quoted in this sub-section, the sighting is NOT “always listed as single witness”, but the annotation does indeed suggest a witness beyond the three commonly mentioned in the UFO literature (i.e. Mrs Moreland, Mr Holdaway and the neighbours wife). While Professor Swords does not give a reference for the document annotated with a reference to an “Airforce person” who “also reported the sighting”, the relevant document can be found at Page 36 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1:



I have not found any reference in the files to any relevant sighting by an “Airforce person”, but not all of the relevant pages have been released. At present, I wonder whether this was intended merely to refer to an Airforce person reporting Mrs Moreland’s sighting to the authorities or a report on that sighting by an Airforce person – but it simply isn’t possible to be certain given the failure to disclose several pages in the relevant file.

It is possible that there was indeed an Airforce witness. Page 40 of Peter Hassall’s book “The NZ Files” (mentioned above in Section B) refers to information received by Colin Amery when following up the Moreland case in 1979 from two sources who worked at the Woodbourne airbase in the 1950s. Peter Hassall has kindly confirmed my presumption that that information was sourced from Colin Amery's unpublished 1985 manuscript "The UFO conspiracy" at pages 24-25 (mentioned in the "Book References" section of Peter Hassall’s book at page 146). The summary in Peter Hassall’s book at page 40 (quoted with his kind permission) states:

When Colin Amery followed up the Moreland case in 1979 he received information from two sources who refused to be identified. They both worked at Blenheim’s Woodbourne airbase in the 1950s and had been sworn to secrecy. One claimed that the wife of a squadron leader heard a jet engine-type noise between 5.30 and 6.00 am on 13 July 1959. Checks later showed no aircraft had taken off that early. Has she heard the UFO Mrs Moreland saw as it departed?

The other retired airman said he saw a blue light that descended from the sky about 5.00 am the same morning. He reported it to his superiors after the furore broke over Mrs Moreland’s report. Twenty years later they were still too scared to speak openly due to the possible legal penalties.

Frankly, from what I've previously read about Colin Amery - e.g. in relation to the Valentich seance - I'm not sure how credible he is as a source, but then his reference to these two other individuals is consistent with the slightly ambiguous handwritten annotation on one of the official Moreland documents which states that an airforce person "also reported the sighting".

Colin Amery and the Valentich seance are discussed in the item below by Bill Chalker in the Flying Saucer Review (1984 Volume 30 Number 2), which I think is a pretty unflattering portrait of Colin Amery :


The available documents in the File AIR-244-10-1 imply that the unreleased further documents relate to Mrs Moreland’s medical examinations following her first sighting and possibly further details of her second sighting. However, the mere fact that the further documents aren’t available means that it is, of course, impossible to determine whether some of those unreleased documents relate to any further witnesses (whether Airforce personnel or otherwise).

Unfortunately, the New Zealand authorities have not exactly had a policy of full and frank disclose in relation to their material on Mrs Moreland’s sighting (see Section F3 below).

Section F3 : Government admission of a “fib”?

Personally, I found the following sequence of documents amongst the most interesting I’ve seen in the New Zealand files (or, indeed, in official UFO files released around the world). Anyone that thinks that ufologists are all nuts for suspecting governments have sometimes kept documents relating to UFOs secret (or given misleading reasons for withholding UFO documents) should be required to spend a few minutes reading the following few documents and considering their implications.

Page 30 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1 is a letter dated 22 February 1979 from David Clarkson of the Christchurch Star asking whether the Ministry of Defence would now consider, twenty years on, releasing material relating to Mrs Moreland sighting.


Page 29 of 225 in the same file is a draft reply to David Clarkson dated 5 May 1979, drafted on behalf of Denis McLean (the Secretary of Defence) proposing to refuse the request on the basis “of undertakings regarding confidentiality which were given to one of the principal witnesses at the time”. An annotation by the Secretary of Defence on that draft reply commented “Are the assurances of confidentiality of a personal kind? If so we should say so. Otherwise it looks like another cover-up”.


Pages 31 and 32 of 225 in the same file contain an internal memo dated 6th March 1979 replying to the Secretary of Defence’s query. That memo stated (in paragraph 2) that “the file indicates that the only time Mrs Moreland was given an assurance of confidentiality was in relation to an alleged second sighting in March, 1960”. The official went on to emphatically state (in para 3) that in regard to the original sighting in July 1959 “she was not given a personal assurance of confidentiality” (the word “not” is underlined in the relevant memo). Indeed, that internal memo goes on to state that “rather, she was told by the RNAG investigating officer ‘to keep her information to herself’. The security classification of the matter was raised from confidential to secret following his main interview with her in which she claimed that a man had landed and shouted at her in a foreign language. (The investigating officer thought the words she heard might have been Russian!)”.

So why did the draft reply refer to an assurance of confidentiality??

That memo goes on to state “However, a similar request came from Radio New Zealand, through the Minister. In drafting a suggested reply for the Minister form CDS ... I was told that the Minister was to say that the report could not be released because of assurances of confidentiality given to one of the principal witnesses at the time. The Minister has given a statement along these lines to Radio New Zealand”. The memo concludes “I drafted the Clarkson reply along the lines of the Minister’s statement, realising that it was not strictly accurate”:

Incidentally, in 2011 Professor Michael Swords wrote a blog post about Mrs Moreland’s first sighting which included the following:

Note the original security classification: "Top Secret".

Now you know why I'm a bit stunned by all this, and wonder if some strange hoax is being pulled. If so, it would involve messing with the NZAF files. But that doesn't seem very likely does it? So, until I'm told differently: The Moreland CE3 seems to be a face-to-face encounter with an unexplainable entity from an unexplainable craft, and maybe even the partial awareness of an early on-board experience still hidden.

The NZAF has apparently even now refused to release all documents associated with the case, citing a privacy agreement. How much, if any, more do they know?? And WHY the "Top Secret"?

The above internal memo dated 6th March 1979 appears to answer to that question, i.e. the classification of the material was originally raised due to an investigating officer thinking the visitor in the flying saucer was shouting in Russian.

But that wasn’t the answer given to the media at the time…

Page 26 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1 is the final response to David Clarkson (dated 9 March 1979). The letter stated “the material relating to the ‘incident’ could not be released because of assurances of confidentiality given at the time. I should perhaps explain that these assurances were of a personal nature and that, in our approach to this matter now, we are influenced only by a desire to keep our word to Mrs Moreland”.



The answer given to David Clarkson was one which had previously been stated (emphatically) not to be true in the internal memo dated 6th March 1979 (which stated that Mrs Moreland “was not given a personal assurance of confidentiality”, with the word “not” being underlined in the relevant internal memo).

So, it seems that an untrue statement by the Minister (which may have been a simply mistake) was repeated rather than corrected, even though officials knew that statement was “not strictly accurate”.

David Clarkson has commented in an article on the Stuff.co.nz website that he feels somewhat put out that “a fib” by the minister put a stop to his information.

Officials subsequently gave Mrs Moreland an assurance that material relating to her sighting would be kept confidential. Thus, later repetitions of the statement that such an assurance had been given (including statements to a New Zealand government Ombudsman in relation to a complaint about a refusal to release the documents) were technically true – albeit the full picture above was not given to that Ombudsman or other enquirers.

Such repetitions include:
(a) in File AIR 39-3-3 Volume 2 at page 157 of 387, in response to an enquiry in relation to Mrs Moreland’s sighting by veteran ufologist Herb Taylor. Internal notes (on page 155 of the same file) comment that “this character” had written before and the inclination was “to give him the gentle but firm brush”, following which he was told that RNZAF “must respect the wishes of Mrs Moreland”.

(b) In response to an enquiry by Mr Knapman of MUFON, Squadron Leader Lynch stated in 1983 that the report in relation to the 1959 sighting by Mrs Moreland “is confidential and an assurance was given to the witness by the Secretary of Defence, that the Ministry of Defence would do nothing to release the results of the enquiry conducted by the RNZAG without her permission” (see Page 175 of 225 in File AIR-244-10-1)

I wonder if members of ATS find David Clarkson’s word “fib” appropriate and adequate, given the above sequence of documents??

Section F4 : Government files - “No reference” to any investigation

Lack of sufficient searching of official files (possibly due to a view that the matter was not worth spending time on), rather than any intention to deceive, appears to lie behind statements in later correspondence regarding a supposed absence of documents relating to any investigation into Mrs Moreland’s 1959 sighting.

In response to an enquiry by Harold Knapman of MUFON about Mrs Moreland’s sighting of 13 July 1959 and other incidents, Squadron Leader Cole wrote on 15 October 1981 following a search of their records. He stated “… nor is there any reference to the sighting by Mrs Moreland. With the exception of the Kaikoura sightings, the RNZAF foes not undertake investigations into the sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects”.


In a further letter on 8 February 1982, Squadron Leader Cole wrote that a “thorough search was made of our records but no reference to ... an RNZAF investigation could be found of a sighting in July 1959” (see Pages 120-127 of File AIR-39-3-3 Volume 4):


Given the number of official New Zealand documents referred to above in relation to that sighting, the claim that a “thorough search was made” for such documents, without any success, is somewhat difficult to take at face value.

Perhaps the thoroughness of the search was affected by the view taken of the significance (or lack thereof) of the UFO topic, although it was the authorities that stressed that they had performed a “thorough search”…

SECTION G : SIGHTING BY TWO AIRCRAFT CREWS (1961) : SUPERIORS MYSTIFIED

The official files made available online in 2010 also include details of a sighting on 31 January 1961 by a respected Air Force officer (Flying Officer Ragg) who insisted he saw a mysterious cigar-shaped object. He was supported by a report by a Sergeant Signaller also on the crew of his Devon 1807 aircraft and, to a rather limited extent, by the crews of a second Devon aircraft.

The internal documents indicate that Flying Officer Ragg was “mystified as are his superiors”.

File AIR-244-10-1 Volume 1 includes relevant documents at pages 135-141 of 225, including witness statements by Flying Officer Ragg and Air Signaller Sergeant Cowan.

(Those documents are in a slightly jumbled order in the files. For example, page 140 should in fact immediately follow page 137).

Flying Officer Ragg’s witness statement (at pages 137 and 140 of 225 in that file) was as follows:






Sergeant Signaller Cowan (a member of Flying Officer Ragg’s aircrew) produced the following witness report:



More details about the crew of the second Devon aircraft (including the names of those involved, including Flying Officer Dalziell) are given in a further document at page 135 of 225 in that file:




A report by the Commanding Officer at RNZAF Station Wigram reported that Flying Officer Ragg was “mystified as are his superiors” (at page 138 of 225 in that file):

SECTION H : UFO INVESTIGATIONS COMMITTEE (1970)

File AIR-244-10-1 Volume 1 includes quite a few documents (at pages 44-72) in relation to a rather lacklustre committee set up to co-ordinate investigations of UFOs in New Zealand. The committee seems to have been a rather bureaucratic exercise, with little actually being done. This seems to have been a view shared by some of those involved at the time. For example, a report at page 72 in relation to the establishment of the committee includes (at paragraph 3) a statement that a document about the result of the meeting “is couched in such careful terms that it does not mean very much at all”:



The view’s expressed in a memo by Wing Commander Black in October 1969 seem to reflect the general view at that time within New Zealand – resources in New Zealand did not permit the authorities there to exhaustively investigate UFO reports. As Wing Commander Black stated (in para 3 of the document at pages 69 to 70 of 225 in the same file), “If the sighting is still unexplained we do not carry the investigation any further but merely record the matter on file”.

SECTION I : KAIKOURA LIGHTS (1978)

The “Kaikoura Lights” sightings of December 1978 are New Zealand’s best known UFO sightings.

The best known aspect of this series of sightings involves the filming of alleged UFOs during night of 30th-31st December 1978 (shortly after midnight) on a flight from Christchurch to Blenheim in New Zealand, involving TV reporter Quentin Fogarty following up early sightings on 21 December 1978.

A concise summary of this incident can be found in a relevant entry on Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org...

This series of sightings appeared as Case 57 in my item on the Top 100 most frequently discussed UFO sightings, since it was discussed in 50 of the nearly 1,000 UFO books examined as part of the research for that item.

This incident has featured in a list of twenty UFO cases produced by Bruce Maccabee in 1999 in response to a challenge to produce “the best evidence for an extraterrestrial origin for the UFO phenomenon”. It also appeared in a list of the ten “best” cases published by Ronald Story in his book “UFOs and the Limits of Science” (1981), and was described by him as being “the most puzzling picture sequence of all”.

Here are a few videos relating to this relatively well-known incident:

From about (28 minutes 5 seconds to 34 minutes 15 seconds) into the “Black Box Secrets” episode of the “UFO Files” TV series


“Bruce Maccabee on the UFO Sighting Kaikoura, New Zealand” (Extract from a C2C episode):


“The Kaikoura Lights New Zealand UFO Sighting”:


“The Kaikoura UFO sighting continues to baffle, 30 years on”:

It would be relatively easy to write quite a few pages solely about issues relating to this series of sightings. After all, at least two books have been devoted to the Kaikoura lights incidents and, as mentioned above, it has been discussed in at least 50 UFO books I own and quite a few articles in various UFO journals and online.

However, the Kaikoura lights have already been the subject of a thread on ATS by ziggystar60 at the link below:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

So, I’ll merely highlight the location of some relevant official documents and some other available resources in relation to the Kaikoura Lights.

I've recently been reading Bill Startup's book "The Kaikoura UFOs" and relevant discussions in quite a few other books, articles etc. I've been surprised at the volume of primary source material relating to the Kaikoura lights mentioned in the above literature. In particular, I've been surprised at the volume of primary source material mentioned in that literature that I have NOT seen online, or even discussed online. For example, Bill Startup's book includes quite a few extracts from various ATC recordings and other tapes. I have not seen MP3 recordings of those recording (or even transcripts of them) online. I continue to be surprised at the amount of material which is held by ufologists in relation to such classic cases, but not made available (yet…) online. Surely if ufologists want to be taken seriously then the burden is upon them to make strenuous efforts to make source material on the “best” UFO cases available to any scientists or others that want to examine the evidence, ideally by digitising it (and then, say, making it available free file storage websites)?

File AIR-1080-6-897 Volume 1 (included in the downloadable archive at the link in Section A above) is devoted to the Kaikoura Lights incidents. (Notably, a further official file apparently devoted to this series of incidents is yet to be digitised (but available for anyone to view at the Christchurch Regional Office of Archives New Zealand and photograph with a digital camera…). I currently have no idea what that further file contains and whether it merely duplicates the documentation released online in 2010 or whether that further file adds significantly to the available information. See Section D above.)

Anyway, relevant material in File AIR-1080-6-897 Volume 1 on this series of incidents includes:
At pages 191 to 201, the official report on these sightings. (Multiple copies of this report litter the New Zealand files).
At page 200- a sketch map (Annex A to official report)
At page 201- another sketch map (Annex B to official report)
At pages 126-128 – an official Press release
At pages 13-78: a very detailed 1979 article by veteran ufologist Bruce Maccabee

I’ll embed the entire official report below:

I’ll also embed below a few pages from veteran ufologist Bruce Maccabee’s lengthy item in the same file. Other material by Bruce Maccabee on these sightings can be found on his website (including a [url=http://www.brumac.8k.com/NEW_ZEALAND/A%20History%20of%20NZ%20Sightings%2012%2031%2078.doc]downloadable Microsoft Word document giving an overall history) and the further items on his website at the links below:
www.brumac.8k.com...
www.brumac.8k.com...

Interestingly, File AIR-1630-2 Volume 1 includes a memo (at pages 93-94), stating that “the Prime Minister took a close personal interest in what went on”



Apart from the more famous sightings from aircraft on 21 December and 30/31 December 1978, there were quite a few sightings by individuals on the ground in this period. Some of those sightings are discussed in AIR-39-3-3 Volume-3, including comments by a military witness (W/O I B Uffindell) and his superior officer (Wing Commander W H Donaldson) about an investigation into the Kaikoura Lights sighting which Wing Commander W H Donaldson felt was a “whitewash” affair (see pages 107 to 109 and a related press report).

Lots and lots of further material can be found in various UFO journals, most of which are now available online. I’ll just quickly list some of the relevant items.

Articles by Bruce Maccabee appeared in the MUFON Journal in May and June 1979, with a more detailed article in 2 parts in 1980 (Number 146 April 1980 at pages 3-11 and Number 147 May 1980 at pages 7-15). Issues of the MUFON Journal can be found online at:
/oodjcoc

Quite a few articles on these sightings have appeared in issues of FSR. Those issues can be found online at the link below if you scroll down a long way, just over half way down that lengthy page, a:
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Relevant articles in FSR include:

(1) An article by Bill Chalker entitled “A Re-Viewing of the Great Nocturnal Light – UFO fallout over New Zealand, December 1978” appeared in the FSR magazine in 1980 (Volume 26 Number 1 Spring 1980, at pages 12-18 (which are at pages 15- 21 of the PDF version). It details various sightings in New Zealand that month.
(2) An article by Kevin Berry entitled “The Kaikoura Controversy” appeared in the FSR magazine in (Volume 26 Number 2 1980, at pages 13-15, which are at pages 16-18 of the PDF version)
(3) An article by Quentin Fogarty entitled “The NZ Film : A Reply to the Debunkers” appeared in the FSR magazine in (Volume 26 Number 2 1980 at pages 16-19, which are at pages 19-22 of the PDF version)
(4) A letter by John Cordy (a radio controller on duty at the time) in the FSR magazine in (Volume 26 Number 5, January 1981 at page 27, which are at page 30 of the PDF version).

In relation to the last of these items, I note that John Cordy was interviewed about 13 minutes into the relatively recent “The Truth is Out There” feature (in a segment on the Kaikoura sightings which begins at about 11 minutes 40 seconds into that video to 13 minutes 55 seconds, which also features a recent interview with Captain Bill Startup):



IUR 1979 v04 includes a relevant article (with various photos) at page 2 of the PDF version.

JSE 01 – 2 includes a 42 page article entitled “Analysis and Discussion of the Images of Periodically Flashing Lights Filmed Off the Coast of New Zealand” by Bruce Maccabee.

SECTION J : “WE ALWAYS KNEW WE WERE ON SHAKY GROUND”(1984)

While I think that the documents in relation to the Moreland incident (above, in Section F – particularly Section F3) provide a fairly striking illustration of an unwillingness to disclose some UFO documents, other documents indicate that the New Zealand authorities were prepared to refuse disclosure of material (and allow the refusal to be considered by the government Ombudsman) even if they thought the Ombudsman would probably require them to disclose the material. For example, a document in File AIR-1630-2 Volume 1 (at page 111) states that “we always knew we were on shaky ground” in relation to one such refusal to disclose material:

SECTION K : “THERE IS ALSO A CLASSIFIED FILE”(1985)

There is an intriguing handwritten annotation on a memo written in 1985 in relation to an enquiry from prominent UFO author Timothy Good seeking “the official attitude of the New Zealand Government” on various issues relating to the investigation of Unidentified Flying Objects.

(As many of you probably know, Tim Good has written several books. His best known book was entitled “Above Top Secret” and that book popularised that phrase. I’m fairly confident that the title of that book led to the name of AboveTopSecret.com).

Timothy Good’s enquiry was forwarded to Defence Headquarters in New Zealand, as an enclosure to a letter from the New Zealand High Commission dated 7 August 1985. That letter was subsequently was annotated by various officials.

One of the annotations on the covering letter states “There is also a classified file”.

That annotated letter is shown below. (It can be found at page 91 of File AIR-1630-2 Volume 1):


Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reply to Timothy Good did not refer to the existence of that “classified file”.

The enquiry from Timothy Good (dated 30 July 1985) is in the same file at page 92 of 133. The reply to Timothy Good (dated 6 September 1985) is in the same file at page 90 of 133.

The relevant “classified file” is not identified in the handwritten annotation. I wonder if it is File AIR-244-10-1 (which included the classified material in relation to the Moreland sighting discussed above in Section F and other interesting material, some of which is included in this thread), or one of the further files not released online in 2010 (see Section D above in relation to further known files) or something else altogether…

SECTION L : BRUCE CATHIE

I can’t refer to New Zealand ufology without at least briefly mentioning Bruce Cathie, who died a few days ago. As discussed in the Wikipedia entry at the link below, he was a New Zealand airline pilot who wrote seven books related to flying saucers and a "World energy grid":
en.wikipedia.org...

Several videos about Bruce Cathie and his “Harmonic Code” can be found online, including:


Bruce Cathie in conference: Part 1:


Bruce Cathie in conference: Part 2:


Bruce Cathie and C2C episode:


An archive of Bruce Cathie’s website can be access via the Wayback Machine’s Internet Archive:
preview.tinyurl.com...
web.archive.org...://www.brucecathie.com/

SECTION M : CONCLUSION

I found it interesting to contrast the contents of the official files released online in New Zealand in 2010 with the main stream media coverage at that time. Yes, there certainly is a lot of incredible material in these files (in the strict sense of not being credible). However, the documents also tell an interesting tale of government confusion and obfuscation. It would be entertaining to draft alternative headlines based on the content of the files highlighted above.

I’d be interested to hear from members of ATS as to whether they think that “fib” is an accurate and adequate description of the reply to the media (and the Ombudsman) in relation to the Moreland encounter, in the light of the internal documents relating to that reply. I considered using stronger language.

The New Zealand files released online in 2010 provide yet another case where the files currently available online are far from exhaustive of relevant official UFO documentation that is actually easily available. The PDF files in the current collection do NOT include all the New Zealand government’s UFO documents. There are various New Zealand files which are clearly relevant to ufology which are listed on the website of the National Archives of New Zealand but have yet been made available in digital form. Perhaps someone should do something about that...

Once again, I don’t know whether to find it sad or amusing that many UFO groups clamour for various governments to release their files on UFOs (organising petitions or hearings), but few of those UFO groups can be bothered taking up offers by some governments to make UFO files available if modest copying charges are met (or, as in this case, photographing files themselves under a policy which positively encourages researchers to visit the archives with their own digital cameras). One might be forgiven for suspecting that the people behind some UFO groups don’t really want answers but are instead more attracted by the publicity which they gain from organising petitions, press conferences and hearings. Those of you that know me will probably guess, correctly, that on balance I favour being amused by this…

Collating UFO material from different sources in the last few years has made it increasingly obvious to me that there is a lot of low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking if people could be bothered. With just a bit of effort (I’m talking hours of work, not days or weeks), and a bit of co-ordination, it would be possible for members of ATS to add dramatically to the material freely available online in relation to numerous UFO cases within a fairly short span of time. Oh well…

SECTION N : REFERENCES

Quite a lot of relevant references are given in the body of the article above, but I think it worth repeating just a few links:

PDF archive of New Zealand UFO files:
we.tl...

The above link is valid for two weeks, i.e. until 24 June 2013. Thereafter, the files will continue to be available on the Box.com free file storage website at this link (from which individual files can be downloaded, or you can simply click on the "Download" button at the top right of that webpage to download all of the files with a single click).

UFO Focus New Zealand (UFOCUS NZ):
www.ufocusnz.org.nz...

National Archives of New Zealand website:
www.archway.archives.govt.nz...
archives.govt.nz...
archives.govt.nz...

References to discussion of the Kaikoura lights sightings in a table at:
www.isaackoi.com...

SECTION O : POSTSCRIPT

Oh, okay... The document in relation to the alien with the 440 size shoes mentioned in lots of the press coverage summarised in Section B above is embedded below (from Air 1630 2 Volume 2, at page 102 of 153):



That letter is one of many, many letters written to the New Zealand authorities by the same person (“Margel” of “The Ethology of Light”). His letters were, um, somewhat disjointed...

See, for example, Air 1630 2 Volume 1 pages 86, 77, 78, 79 and 80:








Some of the other hand-written letters in the files from other individuals to the New Zealand authorities are also hilarious.

For example, a letter from Mr John C Thompson in File Air 1630 2 Volume 1 at pages 121-122 of 133 is also pretty amusing, but since it includes numerous rude words I’ll refrain from posting images of that document below. Don’t the authors of such letters to government officials realise that the style of their correspondence is counter-productive and unlikely to result in a positive reception??