Freaky Friday Files: UFO Sightings in New Zealand

Ash
1 hour ago
5 min read

Quick Disclaimer: Information in this blog post is alleged.

Hi friends! Happy Fri-YAY!! For this week's edition of Freaky Friday Files, I thought we could take a look at some UFO Sightings in my home country of New Zealand. I was inspired to write this as my partner, Luke, and I have been watching The X-Files. I'm really enjoying it and surprised I've never sat down and watched it in full, as I love sci-fi. I also want to go back and watch Fringe, too, even though as a kid it really scared me. And yes, I have already covered the Kaikoura Lights in "this blog post," so I won't go into too much detail about those. They are probably the most famous UFO case from New Zealand (Aotearoa).

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UFO Sightings in New Zealand

The 1950s

1955: The caption of an aircraft from the National Airways Corporation reported seeing a light that showed movement as well as changes in colour and intensity. However, this light was later concluded to be the planet Venus as it was rising in the night sky. LOL.
1959: In the early hours of the morning on the 13th of July, there was a farmer in Blenheim who was bringing her cows into the shed. Her name was Mrs. FE Moreland. As she was bringing the cows in, she noticed a green light in the sky. Following the light, an oval-shaped UFO with two green beams of light and orange jets settled above her. Mrs. Moreland described the UFO as having a "peculiar green glow". She went for shelter in some pine trees nearby and claims to have seen two men inside the UFO who were dressed in "silvery, shiny suits from the waist upwards" and had headgear "like drivers helmets which glittered very brightly". The UFO hovered for a few seconds, then there was a high-pitched whistling sound, and the craft took off again. Mrs. Moreland described the smell that it left as "a waft of hot, peppery air". After encouragement from her husband, Mrs. Moreland called the authorities to report what she had seen. She was questioned by the Air Force, who visited the area, and there was residual radiation detected in the area where she saw the UFO. She also had pigmented areas develop on her face following the incident - which were brown in colour. These didn't wash off for at least 6 years. Unfortunately, the property where Mrs. Moreland lived ended up attracting many unwanted visitors, so they stopped talking about UFOs. I'm not sure how much investigation went on, but it sounds like Mrs. Moreland was believed by others to have something happened to her that morning.

The 1970s

1978: Ah, the Kaikoura Lights! During December 1978, in the picturesque town of Kaikoura, a collection of UFO sightings occurred. Many people saw random lights in the sky, and a cargo aircraft crew saw a series of flashing lights that looked like a very large UFO with 5 flashing white lights and discs that dropped from the UFO and then suddenly disappeared on the 21st of December. Then, a TV crew that was investigating this UFO sighting saw lights whilst on a flight from Blenheim to CHCH. You can see the images of these lights "here". One explanation that has been offered for these lights is that they were reflections from squid boats.

The 2010s

2011: On the 12th of April, around 8:55 pm, a family in Hawera saw something "speeding through" the skies of the Taranaki and Waikato regions. It was described as a "fireball-like UFO". Around the same week, a few other sightings were reported. However, it may have just been some light from a space station or potentially a meteor that had entered the atmosphere a few weeks earlier on the 29th of March, 2011.
2016: In June of 2016, a man called Oisin Lavelle in Christchurch (my hometown) filmed some sort of mystery object in the night sky. Lavelle spent 2 hours watching a spherical-looking UFO in the sky that was brightly-coloured and moving south-west. The images of the object appear like they're just a lens flare - but hey, I wasn't there, so the man could be telling the truth about what he saw.
2019: On the 31st of March, around midnight, a couple on Karekare beach in West Auckland, spotted two distinct orange/red-coloured lights hovering above the water. As they noticed the lights, they began to question if they were helicopters looking for someone, but then the orange/red light went out, and the lights moved super fast, and the couple saw a bright white light that felt like someone was shining a torch at them - above the water. Some explanations for this "UFO" could be beach balls with LEDs inside or swamp gas from a weather balloon.

The 2020s

2020: On the 3rd of August, a woman in Porirua saw three objects that appeared to be hovering in the sky. Allegedly, this woman captured the UFOs on camera and posted them to her local Facebook group, where another person confirmed the sightings. I watched the video of this one, and it just looks like lights?!

Other Notable Events

I'm not sure how "legit" this one is, but in 1909, there were reports of people seeing a "mystery airship," and it was known as the "The New Zealand UFO Wave of 1909". Brunt (1967) says, "For a little over a month in the winter of 1909 hundreds of New Zealanders reported seeing “airships” of varying shapes and sizes moving about in the sky. Sighting reports came in from people over the length and breadth of the country and in the areas of maximum airship activity public interest in the subject reached such a high level that crowds gathered on the streets at night in the hope of seeing the “phantom ship”, as it was then called." He then goes on to say, "At the time of the flap no manoeuvrable airships or gas-filled balloons were being flown in New Zealand. The newspapers which accepted the airship hypothesis and did not try to explain the sightings away as misinterpreted natural phenomena plumbed for the belief that a back-country inventor was responsible for the objects. This theory fell into disfavour when the phantom airships were reported over eastern Australia as the New Zealand wave died." Most of these reports were from the South Island and occurred during the gold rush years.
Stuff (2026) posted a YouTube clip of a mysterious object that lit up New Zealand skies, particularly the North Island, with an orange glow in March.

Some Possible Explanations

Because I am definitely a skeptic (I think I'm more of a Scully than a Spooky Mulder), we have to discuss some possible explanations for such events. These are as follows:

Astronomy Explanations - the planet Venus is a common culprit due to the colouring and light it reflects.
Ships - such as Squid Boats - their lights are VERY bright when you look at them in pictures.
Drones/Satellites/Space Stations - I feel like this one is self-explanatory.
Space Junk and/or meteors entering the atmosphere can give off an orange glow that looks like a UFO.
Aircraft/Weather Balloons (although I don't know if I'm convinced that Roswell was just a weather balloon, but we can leave that mystery for another day).

Have you ever seen a UFO? Let me know in the comments below.

Ash x

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