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As Calvin and Hobbes said, “the surest proof that there is intelligent life out there is that it hasn't tried to make contact with us”. In December last year, New Zealand’s Defence Force uncovered fifty years’ worth of its documents on UFO sightings. These include claims that extraterrestrial life has already tried to make contact with us, even some of us here in New Zealand. SIOBHAN DOWNES takes a look at our version of the X-Files, has a word with some UFO experts and then searches the skies for good measure.
Unidentified Flying Objects. Extra-terrestrials. Little green men. They’re the kind of things that we are encouraged to leave behind with childhood. Those who refuse to do so are subject to society’s ridicule. “You are all idiots”, commented one person in response to an online article about New Zealanders who claim to have witnessed UFOs. “I was abducted, probed and left in the cold. And that was just my time at Christchurch Boys’ High!” sneered another. Then, the classic insult: ‘I’m pretty sure it came from Uranus.”

 
In December 2010, the subject of UFOs sparked a media frenzy in New Zealand, and around the world. The New Zealand Defence Force released to the public over 2000 documents it had received over the past fifty years; letters, emails, pictures and reports from people claiming to have seen UFOs and extra-terrestrials. Internet forums went crazy – why would the Defence Force release these files? What do they contain? “Finally they’ve ‘fessed up…” one user ominously declared. “There is something up there down under”, remarked a British journalist for the Telegraph. I had to see for myself what the hype was all about. The UFO files, which had until now been held in secrecy at Archives New Zealand, have been scanned and published online, with the contributors’ personal details being withheld until the year 2080.

 
Just what was inside these elusive files, kept under lock and key by the defenders of our nation? In 1995, one man claimed to have met a giant alien who was wearing “size 440 shoes”. One woman was concerned after seeing a large object in the sky and then feeling a “sensation of light rain” on her arm, although the weather was clear. Details of “football shaped” aircrafts, countless vague reports of bright lights in the sky at night…these were not the dramatic Roswell-style conspiracies that I had been hoping for. The documents were either completely bizarre or completely boring. Even UFO researchers Murray Bott, New Zealand director of international organisation the Mutual UFO Network, and Suzanne Hansen, founder of UFOCUS New Zealand, seemed disappointed with the content. “Most are just reports of lights in the sky, of very little consequence”, said Bott, whose network emphasises the need to conduct “a proper scientific approach to UFO investigations and research”. Hansen raised the question of whether some undisclosed files remained under embargo, saying that her network had, in the past, received UFO reports from Air Force personnel. “Witnesses were told at the time that if the events were publicised, the Air Force would deny all knowledge of them.”
 

People from all walks of life –including those from respected and sky-savvy professions, such as military personnel, aviation and aircraft crew members – have sighted UFOs. An experienced aircrew witnessed New Zealand’s most famous UFO sighting, the 1978 Kaikoura Lights, the account of which is also included in the released files. On December 21 1978, while flying over the Kaikoura Ranges in the South Island, a group of strange lights, some large and some small, surrounded the crew. Ten days later, a television crew was sent up in a plane to investigate further. Again the strange lights appeared, and this time they were caught on film. The footage gained worldwide attention and a governmental investigation was launched. It was concluded that the lights were probably from cities, squid boats, meteors or planets. However, the first-hand witnesses remained unconvinced, and it appears that even the government were not so sure themselves – an Air Force fighter jet was put on standby, “just in case”. To this day, the Kaikoura Lights remain one of New Zealand’s biggest UFO mysteries.

 
It is part of the job of a ufologist, a person who studies UFOS, to attempt to decipher these mysteries. “After close scrutiny, 90% [of UFOs] become IFOs – Identified Flying Objects, because they can be explained by natural or man-made phenomena”, Murray Bott explained. As for the remaining 10%? Vicki Hyde, chair-entity of New Zealand Skeptics, details her thoughts about UFOs and aliens in her book Oddzone. “Having no proven explanation is not the same as completely defying explanation. It just means that we don’t have enough data at the moment to confidently identify what we’ve seen.” She argues that increases in UFO sightings often correlate with times of social tension, for example, during the World War II air raids, and after releases of alien-related blockbuster movies such as Independence Day. Hyde also refers to the simple fact that most of us look at the sky without knowing what we’re looking at. “Surprisingly few people these days are familiar with the night sky, as the bright lights of the cities have tended to wash out any of the background splendour of stars and planets.” Our limited knowledge makes us susceptible to hoaxes, some blatant (anything on YouTube), and some very convincing, including an elaborate UFO hoax set up by a group of Knox College students in 1952.

 
There is also a semantic problem with the term “UFO”. For those of us brought up on E.T, when we think of UFOs, we immediately assume that aliens are behind the wheel. “The name…has the implicit assumption that the phenomenon involved has actually been identified – as an alien spacecraft”, writes Hyde. So, are we right in thinking that extra-terrestrials are paying us a visit? This is a question that divides the ufologists. “Given the vastness of space, for extra-terrestrials to have visited Earth…it appears on the face of it to be impossible,” says Murray Bott. Suzanne Hansen disagrees and thinks there is good reason for extra-terrestrial life to have visited planet Earth. “Perhaps [extra-terrestrials] may focus on any planet where there is evidence that the occupants may be endangering their own existence and survival, and consequently, the safety of other ‘cosmic neighbours’. We do not have a good track record of environmental care, and nuclear technology has the potential to destroy humanity.” Hansen is a vocal advocate of alien abduction theories and offers a support and counselling service for those who claim to have experienced a “close encounter” with extra-terrestrials.

 
For some people, contact with extra-terrestrials seems to come naturally. The Aetherius Society is a self-described “UFO religion” whose teachings lie in communication with UFOs and extra-terrestrials. Its founder, a London taxi-driver named George King, claimed to be in contact with a god-like alien called Aetherius, who came from Venus. The transmissions received from this extra-terrestrial became the basis of the Society’s “Cosmic Missions”. Gordon McKenzie, the Church Minister of the New Zealand Aetherius Society, explained more. “The [Cosmic Missions] we perform are named Operation Sunbeam, the Saturn Mission, Operation Space Power, Operation Space Power Two, and Operation Prayer Power.” All of these “operations” emphasise using “cosmic energy” to help planet Earth. “We believe that the Earth is a great Cosmic being, [but] mankind is now a serious threat to this planet.” The process of one of the operations, Operation Prayer Power, involves the Aetherius Society members directing hours of time spent in prayer into positive spiritual energy, which is stored in a box and sent to Los Angeles. The stored energy is then directed to areas around the world that have suffered from natural disasters or warfare. McKenzie assured me that Canterbury had received its dosage of Aetherius energy following the February 22 earthquake. “500 prayer hours of energy were sent to Canterbury…from our Los Angeles headquarters.”
 

It all comes down to keeping an open mind. The universe, after all, is a big place. “UFOs exist,” stated Gordon McKenzie, “Many people think that when you die you die. Boy, are they in for a shock when they pass on!” Scientific and sceptical arguments aside, there is no doubt that the idea of UFOs and aliens have inspired some great films, literature and pop culture icons. And if keeping an open mind means we are able take a second out of our chaotic Earth-bound lives to cast our eyes to the skies every now and then…well, what’s the harm in that?
 
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KNOX COLLEGE: THE GREATEST HOAX OF ALL TIME?
 

In December 1952, a group of Knox College guys designed what was to become known as the “Great Inter-Planetary Hoax”, with the aim of deceiving the Otago Daily Times. It was genius in its simplicity: before the holidays, the students came up with a map showing two fake UFOs flying from the far north to Invercargill. They came up with precise, carefully planned details of what the UFOs would look like (one would be blue, one would be green), and where the UFOs would be at what times, so that as the students all went to their homes around New Zealand for the holidays, they would be able to report a nationwide, convincing series of sightings. All around the country, the media - especially the ODT - lapped up the students’ fake UFO reports. For twenty-six years, no one was able to explain them. UFO believers around the world rejoiced! Then, in 1978, one of the former Knox College boys finally revealed that, what had then been New Zealand’s greatest UFO mystery was nothing but a student prank. Hilarious.