The Kaikoura Lights

[Dave Homewood]

I just found a clip of the famous Kaikoura Lights incident (the soundtrack has been removed)



This occurred when a SAFE Air aircraft was returning from the Chathams to NZ with a TVNZ camera crew aboard who'd been filming in the Chathams. They caught the unusual light on camera.

I seem to recall that some Skyhawks were scrambled from Ohakea to attempt to intercept the light/s. Does anyone know who the pilots were, and what they found? Has it been released publicly?

I guess the light is what the WWII pilots called Foo Fighters?

[mumbles]

Apr 29, 2008 17:31:07 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

I just found a clip of the famous Kaikoura Lights incident (the soundtrack has been removed)

I seem to recall that some Skyhawks were scrambled from Ohakea to attempt to intercept the light/s. Does anyone know who the pilots were, and what they found? Has it been released publicly?

I guess the light is what the WWII pilots called Foo Fighters?

I think the Skyhawks were on standby rather than actually scrambled.

Apparently a P-3 was sent down to the Kaikouras to do a bit of nocturnal investigation after the film was shown on TV.

The Safe Air flight was a mail/newspaper run between Wellington and Christchurch, and then Christchurch/Blenheim IIRC. The film crew was aboard to do a background piece after earlier aircrew sightings of unexplained lights.

[FlyNavy]

Looks like a planet with someone playing with focus and not being able to hold the camera steady. Did the photographer hear the organ music? ;D

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Sam. I wasn't fully conversant with the background.

I agree Phil that it does look dodgy as, and in 1979 NZ most people would have fallen for a hoax I think. But the Government took it seriously, did they not?

[FlyNavy]

Notwithstanding any RNZAF flights to investigate it is hearsay today. I'm waiting for the aliens to land like everyone else Dave. ;D

[Dave Homewood]

Aliens are not going to land, it's a load of old bunkum made up by the USAF to try to distract the cooks and wierdoes away from their black ops projects, and then embraced by the sci-fi writing community and psycology professions to make big bucks from. If there was actually intelligent life out there, they wouldn't bother coming here. And they certainly wouldn't come in the fashion seen in that film, they'd be awfully car sick.

[lumpy]

There will be much more knowledgable folks than me on this , but I believe your wrong Dave . The film crew was not there by chance . SAFE pilots had reported the lights for several nights previously , and the film crew was there to film them . ( the names Guard and Startup ring a bell as the pilots ). I also understand the pilots felt as though they were being followed by the lights , a fact that was bourne out ( partially anyway ) by ground based radar . Dont get me wrong though , I believe it was natural phenomen ( or perhaps a combination ) , but still very wierd

[Dave Homewood]

Yes, as Mumbles said above, I was wrong about the film crew.

Were Foo Fighters seen on radar like these lights?

[phil82]

Actually, they have landed, and are alive an well in the Labour Cabinet. You can't tell me any of them are from this planet...

[FlyNavy]

Many strange things can be seen in the sky from aircraft particularly at night. I can tell a story that was incredibly funny at the time but you may think today I have only added to all the hoohaa about 'lights in the sky'.

NAS Nowra was plagued by calls about flares and lights in the sky. If the Navy responded to every phoned in report of 'distress flares' seen somewhere on the south coast we would have packed it in long ago. Usually a simple investigation would find that 'distress flares' were 'flare shells' fired from warships off Beecroft for example. Yes sometimes there were real distress flares from usually fishing boats at sea with often other corroborating information, radio calls etc.

My story is that the new RAN Macchi had an incredibly strong landing light. Whilst doing our night instrument training at high altitude at night often (because the Macchi had an excellent gliding ability with the engine at idle) we would spiral down from altitude over a south coast town with the undercarriage down with the BRIGHT landing light shining and not much noise emanating from the engine at idle. At some safe point still at alititude we would raise the gear (light went out) and glide away to then reintroduce engine power to fly back to Nowra. Once or twice some practictioners did variations on this theme. It was amusing to see if there were any 'lights in the sky' phone calls. Mostly there were none. ;D

Apart from the psyops stories about UFOs as a cover for new technology aircraft it would seem that these stories will be with us until the aliens land because for sure there are many unusual phenomena in the sky. Pilots mostly get used to it.

The scariest time I ever had regarding a bright light was one day being at low level on a dusk sortie with a ship at sea. In the distance was a very, very bright light on the horizon. I had never seen anything like it. As the sortie came to an end and as I had plenty of fuel I requested permission to chooff off to the east to investigate. It took quite a few minutes to reach the source of this extremely bright light. There was a low overcast in the twilight accentuating the effect. The source was a largish trawler with a bunch of big spotlights on a mast illuminating their activities. I guess they were searching for aliens in the depths? No - just fishing. ;D

[lumpy]

I had the opportunity to have a question and answer session with one of the Safe pilots involved . Both were very respected , experienced pilots , and neithier had seen anything like that before . I agree the film footage looks like a shaky camera , but it seems that is what it actually looked like . ( He wasnt into the ufo theory either , but could offer no real explaination )

[FlyNavy]

If no explanation is possible (at the time) does not imply that the lights or phenomena was an alien spacecraft. Almost typed UFO. But we don't know if it was flying or the movement is result of poor camerawork as indicated.

[skyhawkdon]

I can confirm that no Skyhawks were ever "scrambled" but there was some discussion about doing so by the media and politicians. The problem was it was the Christmas holidays and no one was too keen on recalling personnel from leave just to be on "standby". The pre-Kahu A-4's lack of an air-to-air radar and any real night fighter capability was also a factor... the mind boggles though had they been scrambled in the dark for an intercept armed with nothing more than a torch! ;D

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Don.

Has there been any reports by RNZAF crews over the years of seeing unidentifiable objects in the sky? I know at least one Air New Zealand pilot reckoned he saw UFO's, and wrote a book on it.

[sniff]

Dave:
Captain Bruce Cathie, NAC.
His website here, the books are a little heavy to read!

www.brucecathie.com/

Ray Carran flew the P-3 after this siting. I think the report was declassified in recent times.

[tbf25o4]

If you get a copy of my book "Kiwi Orions" the kaikoura incident is well covered in one of the chapters.
Paul

[FlyNavy]

Paul, Can you give a couple of sentences summary of what that chapter says please? Thanks.

[denysjones]

Just as slight aside a telemovie is being made of the incident by a Christchurch group called Voodoo Productions (they apparently mainly do music stuff). The other week they did some filming at Ferrymead as Viscount cockpits can pass off pretty reasonably as Argosy ones.

I've no idea when/how it will be released and so far haven't tracked down evidence of it on a website they supposedly have up regarding the project (although you can find one about their other activities).

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Denys, that should be interesting. Odd they didn't use one of the Argosy's at Blenheim.

[mumbles]

Quoting from "The Kaikoura UFOs", Capt Bill Startup with Neil Illingworth, Hodder and Stoughton 1980

"[on] January 2, the Orion patrolled the sky over the north-eastern part of the South Island from midnight to dawn. The Ministry if Defence told the public that no UFO's were sighted. The Orion crew, led by Squadron Leader R.J. Carran, had a busy night tracking down 14 unexplained radar blips, the Ministry said, but found an explanation for each."

and possibly speculation but:
"the authors have reliable information that as the Orion approached at least some of the mysterious radar blips, they suddenly disappeared off the radar, and left behind them areas of strong localised turbulence, which suggests recent rapid motion or fairly substantial changes in temperature".

Regardless of the quality of the film, the other witness accounts of activity during the period concerned, from reliable and credible witnesses, suggest something very unusual was occuring, natural or not.

The automatic UFO=Alien spacecraft assumption I find quite frustrating at times.

A UFO is simply that: Unidentified.