The Kaikoura Lights
The account
Unknown lights followed cargo planes over the sea off New Zealand, showing up on radar and on film.
What investigators found
Investigators proposed squid-fishing boat lights, bright planets and reflections, with no final consensus.
The story
In December 1978, crews of cargo planes flying along the east coast of New Zealand's South Island reported strange lights near Kaikoura. On the night of December 31, a television crew boarded one of these flights and filmed points of light that seemed to pace the aircraft, while Wellington radar picked up unexplained returns.
The case made headlines around the world and became one of the most cited in ufology, precisely because it combined film, professional witnesses and radar. Skeptics, however, pointed to ordinary causes: lights from boats fishing for squid with powerful floodlights, the planet Venus, reflections on the cockpit glass and false radar echoes caused by atmospheric conditions. No single explanation has settled the debate, which is still alive more than four decades later.