CASE FILE · DD-25
1978 Kaikoura lights
Period · 1978Place · Kaikoura coast, New Zealand
01 · OVERVIEW
Case overview
In December 1978, freight-aircraft crews repeatedly saw lights off New Zealand's South Island. A subsequent television flight recorded film while some radar returns were reported. New Zealand defence files preserve investigation material. Analyses invoking squid-boat lights, stars or planets, atmospheric refraction and anomalous radar propagation may explain different observations, though whether one explanation covers the entire sequence remains disputed.
A later aerial view of the Kaikoura coastal area where the 1978 flights occurred; it is not footage of the reported lights.
Andrew Cooper · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗03 · IMAGE CONTEXT
Image analysis
The close relationship between mountains and coast helps orient the flight path and possible ground lights. The event film is separate, and this landscape photograph cannot identify the observed phenomenon.04 · EVIDENCE REVIEW
Nature of the evidence
Multiple-flight observations, television film, radar reports and preserved government files
Whether filmed lights and radar targets were the same objects and the cause of each observation
Military · institutionalMultiple witnessesVideo · radar
05 · SOURCE TRAIL