UFO reported on Waikato farm

Waikato | Saturday, 29 December 2007

A new Waikato UFO sighting was unveiled at an international conference in Rotorua in September.

UfocusNZ, featured by the Waikato Times in July, is an organisation which catalogues and researches UFO sightings.

Founder Suzanne Hansen of Tauranga and Hamilton air traffic controller Graeme Opie both spoke at the Future Perspectives conference, attended by about 200 delegates. They presented examples of their research including a new sighting at Waitetuna Valley, east of Raglan, on March 26.

A couple said they saw a UFO moving up a valley on their farm, at 8am on a fine morning. Interviewed separately, both described the craft as about 30m long, cylindrical with pointed ends, a bright metallic silver with evenly spaced oval shaped windows. The object had horizontal wings.

According to UfocusNZ's notes "they commented on how shiny it looked in the morning sun as it moved slowly and silently up the valley before disappearing behind hills".

The description was very similar to a report from three witnesses in Whitianga in 2003 and other sightings around the same time at Thames, Coroglen, Coromandel Peninsula and Mercury Bay.

Hansen says there were some brilliant speakers at the conference.

Most controversial was American podiatrist Roger Leir who claims to have removed alien implants from humans.

News media reports from Rotorua suggested some delegates were sceptical about the presentation, particularly a video which didn't show much detail.

Leir, who has written four books on alien implants and claims to have removed 13 extra-terrestrial implants from humans, refused to speak to the news media.

Hansen described the reporting as "negative" and says she warned Leir New Zealand audiences were very sceptical.

"He's a very genuine person and he's made a very big step to come out publicly."

Hansen says there is a New Zealand woman who believes she has a similar implant and may be flown to the US to see Leir.

Another speaker was Mary Rodwell, principal of the Australian Close Encounter Resource Network, who suggests humans are being genetically upgraded.

She has researched "star children" or "indigo kids" with extraordinary abilities. The suggestion is that aliens have manipulated their genes.

Another speaker, Nick Begich, talked of a joint US Navy and Airforce project in Alaska to manipulate weather patterns for military purposes.

Hansen says as a result of the conference, reputable international organisations will link in more with UfocusNZ.

The organisation now has more awareness overseas and an interview she recently gave for an international UFO research website received 480,000 internet hits.

Hansen says the organisation wants to visit the South Island to spread word about its work.

She says there is far less reporting of UFO research in the New Zealand news media than overseas.

"I don't know why we don't see more of this in the news media. This is something that concerns us all. If there's something in the sky, shouldn't we be looking at who it is?

"I think New Zealanders seem to feel quite threatened by it. But when you do a bit of digging you find an enormous amount of people who want to talk to you quietly about it." Geoff Taylor