Sighting record / 1955
Monday, 31 October 1955. Just after eight in the evening. An NAC DC-3 is cruising north at 8,000 feet above the cloud. Captain W. T. Rainbow sees a brilliant light rise from the cloud tops to the southwest. It climbs to his altitude. It pulses every three seconds like a revolving beacon, shifting from white to yellow to orange to red. Then it overtakes his airliner. Four people on board watched it clearly, among them a senior air traffic controller. New Zealand's Minister of Civil Aviation ordered a full and immediate inquiry. The astronomers said Venus. The captain did not accept it.
On the evening of Monday 31 October 1955, National Airways Corporation Flight 108, a Douglas DC-3 registered ZK-AZN, was northbound for Auckland. It cruised at 8,000 feet between the control points of Ohura and Raglan. Among the passengers were Air Commodore R. J. Cohen, Inspector General of the RNZAF, and A. R. Tuckett, a senior air traffic control officer and a pilot himself.