Document · December 1978 – 1981
RNZAF UFO file AIR 1080/6/897 Vol. 1: investigation of the December 1978 east-coast South Island sightings (Kaikōura)
Volume 1 of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's file on the Kaikōura sightings of December 1978, declassified and released by the New Zealand Defence Force in December 2010. It contains the RNZAF's witness interviews, a public statement on its conclusions, DSIR technical reports (including an image analysis of TV1 film), and independent studies, among them the NZ UFO Studies Centre's report. Our copy is the scan preserved on the Internet Archive; the OCR text is imperfect.
Sources: RNZAF file AIR 1080/6/897 (released by NZDF, 2010)
Facts and claims
- documented An RNZAF public-relations statement in the file says the unidentified radar and visual sightings off the north-east coast of the South Island "are the result of natural but unusual atmospheric phenomena". It cites conditions conducive to freak effects on radar and light waves, an unusually bright Venus rising in the east, spurious returns already seen on the Wellington ATC radar, and more than 50 Japanese squid boats, each using about 200 kW of light. It adds that lights near the Clarence River mouth may have been trains or vehicles. Source: doc-rnzaf-air-1080-6-897-kaikoura.pdf
- documented The investigating officer interviewed the principal witnesses of the nights of 20 and 30 December and worked with the DSIR, the Civil Aviation Division and the Meteorological Service. The Director of Operations' summary concludes that "Almost all the sightings can be explained by natural but unusual phenomena", and that the Clarence-area sightings are unconnected with the larger lights to the east filmed by the TV crew. Source: doc-rnzaf-air-1080-6-897-kaikoura.pdf
- documented DSIR Physics and Engineering Laboratory Report No. 632 (February 1979) analysed frames of TV1 film of a light taken near the Clarence River on 3 January 1979. It concluded that each frame's brightness "is consistent with its having been an image of Venus", that the frames were severely out of focus, and that deblurred images matched Venus in size. Source: doc-rnzaf-air-1080-6-897-kaikoura.pdf
- claimed The file also holds a non-government analysis of the object filmed and detected by the Argosy's weather radar on 31 December. It states that an intensive investigation ruled out Venus, other planets, stars, meteors, squid boats, ground lights, atmospheric effects and other conventional explanations. That analysis is a private study kept in the file, not the RNZAF's conclusion. Source: doc-rnzaf-air-1080-6-897-kaikoura.pdf
Connected files
Incidents
- Kaikōura lights (documents)
People
- Bill Startup (describes)
Videos
- The Kaikoura UFOs - 1978 (discussed in)
More documents
- CIA/FBIS Foreign Press Note FB PN 90-123: "USSR: UFO sightings no. 2 — General Maltsev comments" (1990)
- Brazilian Air Defence Command report on the events of 19–20 May 1986 ("Official UFO Night")
- Spanish Air Force file 670603: aircraft and radar encounter over Montánchez, 3 June 1967
- Project Blue Book case file: Haneda AFB, Japan, August 1952
- Project Blue Book case files: Chorwon, Korea, May 1952
- Press conference transcript: Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono (September 15, 2020)
Links
- Internet Archive (scan of the released file)
- ABC News — NZ military releases UFO files (December 2010)