Re: The Supernatural
UFO
In 1967 , near Elsthorpe in Central Hawkes Bay, I had a strange experience. I was working on Paihia Farm as a shepherd general as we harvested our lucerne crop late into the night. It was after midnight by the time we had finished stacking the bales in the barn and as I rode my Yamaha Landscout about 3 miles home it was about 1am. By the time I had had a shower and got ready for bed it was nearly 2 o’clock and as my head hit the pillow I glanced out of the window and was surprised to see a bright light in the sky which seemed to be moving around rapidly. I was intrigued by this and got up again to look out of the window when it became obvious by it’s rapid changes of direction that it was not an aeroplane or a star.
In my past I had been a freelance photographer and I still had my camera gear, so I grabbed my Mamiyaflex C2 and fitted it’s telephoto lens. Only then did I realise that there was no film in the camera and as I frantically searched for a film and fitted it , it seemed that the bright light had disappeared.
After a few minutes staring at the night sky with no sign, I sighed and put the camera and it’s tripod back in the wardrobe. As I climbed into bed my wife said “What’s that light?” and pointed at the window. It was back! I was back at the open window like a shot and focussed my camera on the light which was still darting about in the sky. Due to it’s erratic behavior the first 4 or 5 shots failed to capture the target but I kept shooting because, in those days the technology of cameras did not allow you to see the result until the film was developed. I used up all the 12 frames on the film roll and hoped that I had something as the light disappeared again.
By this time it was a bit late to start developing but all of next day as I worked on the farm, I asked if any of my workmates had seen the light but none had, so I had to wait until the evening to develop my film. By 9 o’clock that night I had a negative that I could examine with a film enlarger and I saw that I had 2 usable images of the light. When I had been looking out of the window I could only see a bright source appearing about the size of a bright star and it was only it’s rapid movement which gave it away.
The next day in the darkness of the evening I set up my enlarger and trays of developer and fix and proceeded to produce some prints. While they were not perfect there was no way I could satisfy myself as to what it was. Over the next few weeks I asked around again to see if anyone could corroborate the sightings but at 2am there are not a lot of people staring at the night sky, but a part of my conversations resulted somehow in spreading and I was contacted by The Listener who sent someone to interview me. They asked if they could publish the photo and , of course, I said yes.
Soon after publication I was contacted by an American representing ‘NICAP’ , (National Investigation Committee for Aerial Phenomena), he visited me at the farm and quizzed me about could it have been a star? Could it have been a helicopter? But nothing fitted the circumstances and to this day I look upon it as what the ‘UFO’ means, an Unidentified Flying Object.