CONFIDENTIAL
Under the Radar WORDS ANDY TAYLOR
PHOTOGRAPHY ART VANDEL AY & IMAGES SUPPLIED
Is there a corridor of UFO activity that runs through the Bay of Plenty, have we already made contact with alien life, and why do we have to meet in a garden centre to get a coffee at Easter. UFOCUS NZ President Suzanne Hansen talks to Andy Taylor about all this and more.
Suzanne Hansen is probably one of the most internationally acclaimed Kiwis you’ve never heard of. In the past year alone she has addressed both her peers and public meetings in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Australia, the United States, and Canada, and Finland is next on the horizon. The research organization she leads, UFO Focus New Zealand (UFOCUS NZ), has staff in New Zealand and Australia and ties to associated organizations around the globe, in particular with CEFAA (a Chilean military, aviation and government UFO investigation group). And after a TV appearance in 2010, TV3 enjoyed the highest number of website hits it had ever seen. The reason you’ve probably never heard of her is that her field of research is one that most Kiwis still have difficulty discussing. When it comes to chitchat round the BBQ, New Zealanders are about as likely to kick around the possibility of alien life as we are to get into a deep and meaningful conversation about politics or religion. UFOs are still a no-go area in mainstream New Zealand, and that is odd, because they are not exactly strangers to us. One of the earliest, well-documented UFO episodes in New Zealand came in 1909, when what would become a spate of sightings began on the West Coast. On 31 July an engine driver and fireman aboard a train out of Hokitika noticed a powerful light out to sea that appeared to be rising and falling in the sky. When the train stopped at Nelson Creek Station, excited passengers crowded the platform to watch. Reports soon came in that two dredge hands in Gore had seen what they called ‘an airship’ with figures on board descend and then shoot upwards in a yellow glare, and in August a woman in Kelso had her house buzzed by a flying object that made the tin roof vibrate. Then, from Napier, Feilding, Wellington, Blenheim, Kaikoura and Nelson fresh reports flooded in, with many of the witnesses being well-respected members of their communities. Reports described a bright light enveloped in an opaque body that moved in a wavelike fashion at a height of between 300-900 metres, which often shot vertically out of sight at speed. Early explanations that it was a German airship on a spy mission were discounted by the speed and range of the sightings, and the theory that the booze was to blame seems unlikely; much of the country was under strict prohibition so widespread drunkenness would have been difficult – and expensive – to organise (let alone cover up). In early September the sightings ceased just as suddenly as they had begun.
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Suzanne Hansen of UFO
CUS NZ
