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UFOs in the daily Press:

The "mysterious airship" wave in the New Zealand Press, 1909:

The article below was published in the daily newspaper Manawatu Standard, New Zealand, Volume XLI, Issue 8978, page 3, July 22, 1909.

Scan.

AN AIRSHIP STORY.

The Free Press, published in Balclutha, Otago has thrilled its readers with a circumstantial report of the appearance of an airship about the hills above Kaitangata on Sunday night. It is described as swooping down from a height, apparently, of 2000 feet to 1000 feet and even lower, and turning and going towards the sea or dipping, completely out of sight behind the hills. The story is told by several persons of unimpeachable integrity. "The light carried was a strong and steady one, and whenever the ship, or whatever it was, turned," they say, "we thought we could see a dark, opaque body. Certainly we could see, without a doubt, the reflection of the light in the clouds. It was a white light, with a reflector. When she was side on we thought we could see the reflection as of a black body above and below. It was a marvellous mystifying sight. After we had watched it for a half-hour the ship moved off in an easterly direction, whence it had first come into view." Another eye-witness says: "I left my companions and made off home, and then a peculiar thing happened. I had been walking for ten minutes, and chanced to look skyward, and lo and behold, there was the mysterious light, high up in the sky, and moving off inland in a westerly direction, towards the Blue Mountains, as it seemed to me." The people of Balclutha are asking if it is not a hoax or an airship, what is it?

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