| Article taken from the Adelaide, ADVERTISER Tuesday, January, 2 1979. |
| Air force wait on UFOs |
| There must be something up there - air controller |
| WELLINGTON, Monday - The New Zealand Air Force's strike squadron has been put on standby to investigate any further UFO sightings over the country. A defence Ministerry spokesman said tonight one or two Skyhawk fighter-bombers would be "scrambled" if the Wellington airport radar picked up more possitive sightings. The move follows the sighting of a UFO 13,000 feet over the north-west of the South Island at the weekend. An Australian television crew filmed the object from an Argosy freighter plane. The film has been screened in Australia and Britain. "We do not consider there is a defence threat", a ministry spokesman said tonight. "But it's all very interesting." Melbourne channel 0 TV station says Saturday night's filming is the best documented sighting of a UFO. The latest sighting - by experienced pilots of inter-island freighter aircraft in Cook strait area began a week ago. The Wellington airport radar picked up several unxplained signals in the Clarence River area of the South Island on Saturday night. Several lights were seen at the same time by an Argosy airfreighter, on a newspaper run with the TV crew aboard. The lights were tracked by the Wellington air traffic control radar on the Argosy outward flight from Wellington to Chtistchurch. Although the TV men had planned to leave the aircraft at Christchurch, the pilot, Captain W. Startup, persuaded them to do a return trip with him in view of earlier sightings. "We were just re-creating a similar flight which spotted UFOs on the night of December 20, "Captain. Startup said. "No one in their wildest dreams thought we would actually see anything". He said the mystery object apparantly had tracked the plane. "It was very bright white light," he said. "We first say it about 18 miles ahead of us. It appeared still until we got within 10 miles, then it turned with us as I changed course. "It then went above us, and circled and came down beneath us. It was making definite movments in relation to us. "I have no idear what it was. But whatever it was made of, it was big enough to show on our aircraft radar." Air traffic controllers have described the sightings in the same area on the north-west of the South Island as "New Zealand's closest encounters." "It's got us guessing," Wellington's chief controller Mr. R. Phillips said today. "We have all been sceptical about flying saucers, but there must be something up there". |
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