New Zealand
LocationCountryNew Zealand
LocationCountryNew Zealand is the setting of the 1978 Kaikoura lights, filmed from aircraft off the South Island, and of a 2010 Defence Force release of about 2,000 pages of UFO files.
New Zealand is the setting of the 1978 Kaikoura lights, filmed from aircraft off the South Island, and of a 2010 Defence Force release of about 2,000 pages of UFO files.
New Zealand, the island nation in the south-west Pacific, belongs to the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, whose members have discussed UAP reporting, but it has never run a UFO investigation office of its own. The New Zealand Defence Force does not officially investigate UFO reports, though for more than half a century it kept files on them.
The country's early record is modest. In 1955 a National Airways Corporation captain reported a light that moved and changed colour, which the Carter Observatory concluded was Venus rising, and in July 1959 a farmer near Blenheim claimed to have seen a craft with two men in silvery suits. The defining case came in December 1978. On 21 December the crew of a Safe Air cargo plane flying from Blenheim to Christchurch reported lights around their aircraft while Wellington air traffic control tracked returns on radar, and on 30–31 December a Melbourne television crew with the reporter Quentin Fogarty filmed lights off the coast on 16 mm film. The Kaikoura lights drew competing explanations: the government's science agency, the DSIR, judged squid-boat lights the most likely cause, the U.S. optical physicist Bruce Maccabee concluded that the film showed "unknown objects or phenomena," and a former DSIR scientist, William Ireland, argued in 2000 that the footage showed squid boats about 6 kilometres away.
In December 2010 the Defence Force released files held at Archives New Zealand, about 2,000 pages of reports from 1952 to 2009 drawn from press cuttings, the Civilian Saucer Investigation group and government agencies, with personal details removed. The official Kaikoura report, made public in the release, concluded that the sightings "can be explained by natural but unusual phenomena." Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said people could "make what they will" of the files, adding that "virtually everything has a natural explanation."
In 2026 New Zealand's skies made UAP news mainly through launches and air traffic. Rocket Lab's Electron rockets flew repeatedly from Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula, and in August a U.S. Air Force C-17 bound for Antarctica from Christchurch turned back after a warning about "space activity"; the Civil Aviation Authority said Russia's air-traffic agency had alerted it to a "planned missile launch." New Zealand's place in UFO history rests on the Kaikoura film and a defence archive released with the minister's view that virtually everything in it had a natural explanation.
In 1978, an Australian TV crew went looking for UFOs off New Zealand’s coast and filmed a bright light that appeared to follow their plane, just days after pilots reported strange objects that Wellington air traffic controllers tracked on radar. https://t.co/7rOww6k3kT
[Retweeted] New Zealand's Defence Force says it holds no UFO or UAP info. Same letter: their rep sat in AARO's first Five Eyes UAP meeting at the Pentagon in 2023, and the rep's role is withheld on security grounds. Oh, and NZDF destroyed its own 1952-2009 files. Am I reading this wrong? https://t.co/F09BXOmvmT
RNZ reports that New Zealand’s Defence Force has no records of anything related to UFOs since 2010. So for the past 16 years, nothing in New Zealand’s airspace has been unidentified? https://t.co/LrMwJvBgha
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Electron | Owl Around The World (StriX Launch 11) Provider: Rocket Lab Launch Time: 2026-09-02 11:12 UTC / 2026-09-02 07:12 AM EDT Launch Pad: Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand Pad Country: NZL Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more information about how to identify space launches and their effects, check out our Space Launches Wiki Page. Launch Example Image 1 - Lau...
Mystery Russian “Space Hazard” Warning Forces U.S. Air Force Flight to Turn Back from Antarctica
This week, a USAF aircraft bound for Antarctica was forced to return to New Zealand after a warning of “potentially hazardous” space-related activity.
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Electron | The Lightning God Defends (iQPS Launch 8) Provider: Rocket Lab Launch Time: 2026-08-20 13:00 UTC / 2026-08-20 09:00 AM EDT Launch Pad: Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand Pad Country: NZL Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-39 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-20 15:38 UTC / 2026-08-20 11:38 AM EDT Launch Pad: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedu...
🚨Mystery "Space Activity" Forces USAF Antarctic Mission to Turn Back A US Air Force C-17 heading to Antarctica was forced to turn around after a warning of potentially hazardous "space activity." The aircraft departed Christchurch under the call sign ICE28 and flew south for more than two hours before abandoning the mission. New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that the decision followed a NOTAM warning of "space activity, potentially hazardous to aviation en route to Antarctica....
RT @rosscoulthart: Anyone know what the “mystery space activity” was that forced a @usairforce flight to Antartica to return to NZ? https:…
I've been seeing these flashing lights weekly for over a year when I meditate in the morning, I have countless videos. I welcome any thoughts. Time 29 June 2026 6:45 am Location: nelson New Zealand This is a Forrested hill side with no roads only walking tracks
