Builder spots UFO lights in Whangarei

A Northland builder says a cluster of lights hovered over Whangarei today before disappearing.

Graham Jones was working on a site in Morningside, when he saw three balls of blue lights near Whangarei Airport about 3pm. The lights were in a cluster of three, and moved silently toward Mt Parihaka, near the Whangarei War Memorial, before vanishing after trailing across Kamo and disappearing toward Hikurangi.

He said the crafts were about 30 to 40 feet wide and all he could see was a blue light across each.

``I know it wasn't an aircraft,'' he said.

Mr Jones called the Advocate after spotting the lights and is interested to know if other people saw them.

``I have better things to do - I am sane!'' he said.

His sighting comes after Suzanne Hansen, network director for Ufocus NZ research, which collates UFO/UAP (unidentified flying object/unidentified aerospace phenomena) reports, told the Advocate in September that she had received 237 such sightings in New Zealand this year, with many from Northland

Ms Hansen said there had been a significant increase in sightings involving descriptions of actual objects (not aircraft) as opposed to ``lights in the sky'' sightings.

She said a ``top scientist'' had reported seeing an object land in an isolated part of Northland, that was ``definitely not an aircraft or like anything else he had seen''.

However, president of the Northland Astronomical Society Terry Hickey had told the Advocate there were sound explanations for what people thought they had seen. Mr Hickey said he believed there was alien life ``out there'' but that it had yet to make it to Earth.

Mr Hickey said in the 42 years he had been in the society he had yet to see any UFOs and doubted if any had even visited our planet.

Did you see any strange lights in Whangarei? Email editor@northernadvocate.co.nz