Posted On: April 30, 2022

I would like to thank one of our members for putting me onto this event that I did not previously know about. Thank you, David Habert.

The year is 1978, the place, between Blenheim and Christchurch, New Zealand. Several pilots on several different flights and a news crew witnessed multiple UFOs in the skies. The UFOs were following them and it is mostly caught on film.

On December 21^st, 1978, Safe Air pilots Vern Powell and Ian Pirie spotted strange lights while flying from Blenheim to Christchurch.

A producer for Melbourne's Channel 0 (now Channel 10), Leonard Lee heard the news and tracked down reporter Quentin Fogarty, who worked for the channel but was on holiday with his wife and children in Christchurch, staying at TV One journalist Dennis Grant's home.

Freelance Wellington cameraman David Crockett was also hired, along with his wife Ngaire, who operated the audio tape recorder.

The group were invited to jump aboard Safe Air's Blenheim-based Argosy plane, named Merchant Enterprise, late on December 30th, 1978, which pilots Bill Startup and Bob Guard were taking on a newspaper run between Wellington and Christchurch.

Shortly after takeoff, the pilots noticed strange lights appearing and disappearing over the Kaikoura coastline about 20 miles west.

"While we were filming a standup to camera, Captain Bill Startup shouted to us that we should go to the flight deck immediately as something was happening again," says David Crockett.

He managed to film a rapidly moving, bright white light.

"With the conversation coming through my headphones from the pilots and radar from Wellington, it all started to get very scary," says Ngaire Crockett.

"I was able to stand up a couple of times and was able to see these bright light coming and going. [Quentin] was a real mess and grabbed hold of both my hands and started shaking. I didn't have time to worry about myself, I had to help him."

One object reportedly followed the aircraft almost until landing. The plane landed at Christchurch to unload newspapers and the pilots asked the news team if they wanted to go back through the area they had traversed. Ngaire was too frightened so stayed in Christchurch. The others re-boarded the plane with Dennis Grant in Ngaire's place. "David had used up all the film in his 16mm camera," Grant says.

"Quentin called me sometime after midnight from Christchurch Airport to see if I could provide a fresh roll of film. I could, but there was a catch. I wanted to get on the plane for the flight to Blenheim."

The plane took off at 2.16am. About three minutes after takeoff, the group saw a bright, round light to the right. The airplane radar showed a target in the same direction about 18 nautical miles.

When the aircraft reached about 2000 feet, it encountered what appeared to be a large lighted orb which fell into station off the wing tip and tracked along with the cargo aircraft for almost quarter of an hour, while being filmed, watched, tracked on the aircraft radar and described on a tape recording made by the TV film crew.

The UFO was very large and had five white flashing lights that were visible on the craft. Some people say that they could see some little disks drop from the UFO and then disappear. The pilots described some of the lights to be the size of a house and others small but flashing brilliantly.

Fogarty would later be heard saying on camera: "Let's hope they're friendly."

Crockett filmed the light for several minutes as it appeared to travel along with the plane.

When they turned toward it, the light seemed to react by moving away from the airplane.

"The experience itself was extraordinary," Fogarty says.

"Just being on the cramped, noisy flight deck of the Argosy barreling down the coast in the dead of the night was exciting. Factor in a row of pulsating, hypnotic lights hovering outside the window, and it goes to another level."

After landing at Woodbourne Airport at about 3am, the group stayed at the two pilot’s homes in Blenheim.

Startup's daughter Tracy Moore remembers her father coming home in the middle of the night.

"Everyone was at our house talking about it in the middle of the night. They were talking about lights, unexplained radar.

"At one point, I remember dad saying it might be a good idea to report it to the police. It was during the Cold War, there was a bit of paranoia around. Mum said: 'You can't sit on this information'.

"It was scary at the time. It was a big unknown thing that had happened and we had all the adults around discussing it. There were certainly no jokes being made."

Fogarty interviewed the pilots before flying to Melbourne to give the recordings to Channel 0. The footage featured on prime time news that night and a longer documentary piece screened later.

The news went around the world and was featured by major news media, including by the Herald and by CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite.

The skeptical reaction was immediate. Explanations included that it was Venus, drug runners, light reflected from cabbages or squid boats.

The Robert Muldoon Government ordered an enquiry by the Air Force, which concluded that the sightings could be explained by natural but unusual phenomena.

Leonard Lee travelled to the United States to give the film to Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist who specialized in laser technology and worked for the United States Navy in Maryland, Virginia. He was also flown to New Zealand and Melbourne to interview witnesses.

A spate of sightings followed the initial report and an Air Force Skyhawk was put on stand-by to investigate any positive sightings. They have appeared intermittently since the initial December 1978 sightings, with the most recent sighting being reported during 2015.

Declassified documents from the CIA, taken after the dispatch of a Lockheed P-3 Orion to the area after the sightings, stated that the sightings were "unique among civilian UFO reports because there is a large amount of documentary evidence which includes the recollections of seven witnesses, two tape recordings made during the sightings, the detection of some unusual ground and airplane radar targets, and a 16mm colour movie."

In December 2010, the New Zealand military released a classified report on the incident under the Freedom of Information Act, which concludes the same thing.

My Take: This is a really great incident. Multiple witnesses including a news crew and 16 mm film. The official explanations are laughable at best. More people need to wake up to the UFO reality.

Resources: wikiwand.com

Another Video

Posted On: April 30, 2022

I would like to thank one of our members for putting me onto this event that I did not previously know about. Thank you, David Habert.

The year is 1978, the place, between Blenheim and Christchurch, New Zealand. Several pilots on several different flights and a news crew witnessed multiple UFOs in the skies. The UFOs were following them and it is mostly caught on film.

On December 21^st, 1978, Safe Air pilots Vern Powell and Ian Pirie spotted strange lights while flying from Blenheim to Christchurch.

A producer for Melbourne's Channel 0 (now Channel 10), Leonard Lee heard the news and tracked down reporter Quentin Fogarty, who worked for the channel but was on holiday with his wife and children in Christchurch, staying at TV One journalist Dennis Grant's home.

Freelance Wellington cameraman David Crockett was also hired, along with his wife Ngaire, who operated the audio tape recorder.

The group were invited to jump aboard Safe Air's Blenheim-based Argosy plane, named Merchant Enterprise, late on December 30th, 1978, which pilots Bill Startup and Bob Guard were taking on a newspaper run between Wellington and Christchurch.

Shortly after takeoff, the pilots noticed strange lights appearing and disappearing over the Kaikoura coastline about 20 miles west.

"While we were filming a standup to camera, Captain Bill Startup shouted to us that we should go to the flight deck immediately as something was happening again," says David Crockett.

He managed to film a rapidly moving, bright white light.

"With the conversation coming through my headphones from the pilots and radar from Wellington, it all started to get very scary," says Ngaire Crockett.

"I was able to stand up a couple of times and was able to see these bright light coming and going. [Quentin] was a real mess and grabbed hold of both my hands and started shaking. I didn't have time to worry about myself, I had to help him."

One object reportedly followed the aircraft almost until landing. The plane landed at Christchurch to unload newspapers and the pilots asked the news team if they wanted to go back through the area they had traversed. Ngaire was too frightened so stayed in Christchurch. The others re-boarded the plane with Dennis Grant in Ngaire's place. "David had used up all the film in his 16mm camera," Grant says.

"Quentin called me sometime after midnight from Christchurch Airport to see if I could provide a fresh roll of film. I could, but there was a catch. I wanted to get on the plane for the flight to Blenheim."

The plane took off at 2.16am. About three minutes after takeoff, the group saw a bright, round light to the right. The airplane radar showed a target in the same direction about 18 nautical miles.

When the aircraft reached about 2000 feet, it encountered what appeared to be a large lighted orb which fell into station off the wing tip and tracked along with the cargo aircraft for almost quarter of an hour, while being filmed, watched, tracked on the aircraft radar and described on a tape recording made by the TV film crew.

The UFO was very large and had five white flashing lights that were visible on the craft. Some people say that they could see some little disks drop from the UFO and then disappear. The pilots described some of the lights to be the size of a house and others small but flashing brilliantly.

Fogarty would later be heard saying on camera: "Let's hope they're friendly."

Crockett filmed the light for several minutes as it appeared to travel along with the plane.

When they turned toward it, the light seemed to react by moving away from the airplane.

"The experience itself was extraordinary," Fogarty says.

"Just being on the cramped, noisy flight deck of the Argosy barreling down the coast in the dead of the night was exciting. Factor in a row of pulsating, hypnotic lights hovering outside the window, and it goes to another level."

After landing at Woodbourne Airport at about 3am, the group stayed at the two pilot’s homes in Blenheim.

Startup's daughter Tracy Moore remembers her father coming home in the middle of the night.

"Everyone was at our house talking about it in the middle of the night. They were talking about lights, unexplained radar.

"At one point, I remember dad saying it might be a good idea to report it to the police. It was during the Cold War, there was a bit of paranoia around. Mum said: 'You can't sit on this information'.

"It was scary at the time. It was a big unknown thing that had happened and we had all the adults around discussing it. There were certainly no jokes being made."

Fogarty interviewed the pilots before flying to Melbourne to give the recordings to Channel 0. The footage featured on prime time news that night and a longer documentary piece screened later.

The news went around the world and was featured by major news media, including by the Herald and by CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite.

The skeptical reaction was immediate. Explanations included that it was Venus, drug runners, light reflected from cabbages or squid boats.

The Robert Muldoon Government ordered an enquiry by the Air Force, which concluded that the sightings could be explained by natural but unusual phenomena.

Leonard Lee travelled to the United States to give the film to Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist who specialized in laser technology and worked for the United States Navy in Maryland, Virginia. He was also flown to New Zealand and Melbourne to interview witnesses.

A spate of sightings followed the initial report and an Air Force Skyhawk was put on stand-by to investigate any positive sightings. They have appeared intermittently since the initial December 1978 sightings, with the most recent sighting being reported during 2015.

Declassified documents from the CIA, taken after the dispatch of a Lockheed P-3 Orion to the area after the sightings, stated that the sightings were "unique among civilian UFO reports because there is a large amount of documentary evidence which includes the recollections of seven witnesses, two tape recordings made during the sightings, the detection of some unusual ground and airplane radar targets, and a 16mm colour movie."

In December 2010, the New Zealand military released a classified report on the incident under the Freedom of Information Act, which concludes the same thing.

My Take: This is a really great incident. Multiple witnesses including a news crew and 16 mm film. The official explanations are laughable at best. More people need to wake up to the UFO reality.

Resources: wikiwand.com

Another Video