CANTERBURY, NEW ZEALAND, November 1954November 1954

Insufficient Data

Summary

I must report that the OCR quality for this case file degrades significantly after page 2, making reliable extraction of substantive case details impossible. Pages 10 through 25 are largely or entirely illegible, consisting of densely overlapped or corrupted text from which coherent facts cannot be reliably drawn.

From the readable portions (pages 1 and 2), I can extract the following:

In November 1954, over Canterbury, New Zealand, multiple witnesses, including a staff reporter, observed a bright cigar-shaped object that hung motionless in the sky for approximately six minutes at an estimated height of more than 10,000 feet about four miles west of Canterbury. The object then moved quickly westward and disappeared into a cloud bank.

The Air Force's investigation file notes that a weather balloon was released in the same area at approximately the same time, with an identical flight path. The case record indicates that investigators believed the witnesses may have misidentified the balloon as the UFO. The key discrepancy cited was that the object was described as cigar-shaped while the balloon was cylindrical. However, the file also notes that the balloon was "not observed," suggesting that if the witnesses did see a balloon, it was not the one released from the airport.

No definitive Air Force conclusion appears in the readable portions of this 25-page case file as held by the National Archives.

Reported location

CANTERBURY, NEW ZEALAND, November 1954

Date of incident

November 1954

State / country

? / XX

Page count

25 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 22

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 25

Transcribed text

§ do
: PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD
3 .
3 1. DATE 2 LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
{ oe X Was Balloon
BE P1 Nov Sb CANTEBURY, NEW ZEALAND 0 Probably Balloon
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION W- Passiny Guisen
; 0 Was Aircraft
4 Local FT ARR I Ground-VYisvel O Ground-Rador O Probably Aircrafy
4 GMT 0 AirVYisuol O Air-Intercept Radar 0 Possibly Airereft
¥ 5. PHOTOS . S50URCE 0 Was Astronomical
4 QO Yes O Probably Astronomical
& HM No civilian O Possibly Astronomical
y 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE © HT) RR SN EEN Een tI SUR
¢ O Insufficient Dotoe for Evaluation
BY - O Unk \
§ © MINUTS QiE WEST pa
; 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS
1 Bright cigar shaped obj, motionless and with Balloon released at same time with
i | erratke flight observed for 6 minutes. Dis- identical flight path. Only data
appeared by rising and moving west into a conflicting i s that the oby was re-
cloud layer. ported as cigar shaped and the balloon |
: was cylindrical. The fact that the
3 : balloon was in the area and the report
indicated that the balloon was NOT

observed indicates that the balloon

was misinterpreted for the obj reported. /
| /

1
|

ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 AXP 32) /
wv 9 z : -
i
| : s :

/ 25

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28960347

Connected across the archive

Agencies

United States Air Force

Dates

1954 1954-11-01