The New Zealand Air Force was curious about the sightings and wanted to find out what was happening in their airspace.

In 1952, Air Force sergeant Harold Fulton established the Civilian Saucer Investigation to “prove or disprove the existence of flying saucers’’. He claimed to have 350 members in 1956, including one former MP, and had logged 700 sightings by 1957.

In 1953, the Air Force’s director of intelligence paid five shillings to subscribe to Fulton’s quarterly UFO newsletter.

‘’The reports of your society are read with interest,’’ he wrote.

In 1956, Civil Aviation Minister Thomas Shand believed the subject of flying saucers “always appears to present a new aspect full of interest and mystery’’.

The Air Force took Moreland’s claim seriously enough to appoint Flight Lieutenant Charles Milford Jennings to investigate.

Charles Jennings in the 1940s. Charles Jennings in the 1940s.

He was a good choice. The 34-year-old had been in the Air Force for 16 years and was a decorated officer. He was awarded a British Empire Medal in 1953 for working 72 hours straight repairing planes during World War Two. He went to England to personally receive his honour from the Queen.

A telegram from the minister of defence to Charles Jennings' wife congratulating her on his BEM. A telegram from the minister of defence to Charles Jennings' wife congratulating her on his BEM.

A telegram from the Governor General informing Jennings of his honour. A telegram from the Governor General informing Jennings of his honour.

Jennings began as an instrument fitter for the Air Force and was now in charge of instruments and electrics on all aircraft at Woodbourne. He was a North Island boy, born in Raetihi near Ohakune, who had moved from Auckland to Woodbourne with his wife and three children in May that year. He had spent five months in Woodbourne the year before.

Jennings looked like a classic Air Force officer with his dashing looks, slicked back hair and light brown eyes.

He was curious about the rash of sightings, but wanted to apply scientific rigour to the subject.

His son, Leigh Jennings, remembers his father as practical, but open-minded.

“He was a technical person and to do that you have to use logic to work things through,’’ he says.

“But, at the same time, he was particularly open-minded, especially for his generation. He did a bit of yoga here and there. He cooked from time to time. This was at a time when men didn’t really go into the kitchen.’’

He was also a hobbyist writer and painted abstract oil paintings that still hang on his children’s walls.

His oldest son, Wayne Jennings, remembers how his father approached problems.

“Agnostic was his basic stance on life. Give me the evidence and I will tell you what I think.

‘’He had a real scientist’s mind. He used to say that there is nothing more exciting in life than being on the cutting edge of knowledge.

“Something like a UFO wasn’t going to completely and utterly bamboozle him.’’

But Jennings was sceptical about people who believed the rash of sightings were proof of alien life. He dismissed the Civilian Saucer Investigation group as unscientific.

“Its publications fall far short of scientific investigation … [because of] far too much emotive language and potted thinking,’’ he wrote in his investigation file.

He would prove his objective approach two years later when he investigated another sighting. In June 1961, a pilot at Woodbourne claimed to see a “bright opalescent green disc’’ in the sky and felt a pain in his eyes afterwards.

Jennings solved the puzzle. The pilot had an eye infection.


But the Moreland case was tougher. Gainsford later wrote that Jennings took the case seriously.

“Jennings has spent considerable private time on this matter. He is prepared to turn out at any hour of the day or night to personally investigate further incidents.’’

His son, Wayne Jennings, said his father spent a lot of time on the case.

“He must have spent quite a long time interviewing [Moreland] because my mother was very suspicious of their relationship.’’

His investigation was coloured by the anxieties of 1950s New Zealand. Cold War paranoia, nuclear fears and worries over new technology all played a role in his inquiries.

In 1954, the director of Wellington’s Carter Observatory, Ivan Thomsen, neatly summarised the way these fears affected thinking about flying saucers.

‘’In a world frightened by atomic bombs, amazed by phenomenal aircraft performances, becoming used to thoughts of space travel and living in part in an atmosphere of comic strip nonsense, the alleged ‘flying saucer’ phenomena have developed a form of mass hysteria.’’

A headline in the Auckland Star in 1954 was more succinct.

“Has Russia got atomic saucers?”

The Auckland Star asks the big question of the atomic age. The Auckland Star asks the big question of the atomic age.

Jennings first interviewed Moreland ten days after the sighting. He took along an audio oscillator machine, which could generate different musical tones, in order to find out the exact tone of the aircraft’s engine.

His summary of the interview is packed with details about the size and shape of the craft. The report notes the craft tilted at an angle of 15 degrees before it shot away and that it hummed at a frequency of 250 Hertz.

Moreland did not mention the one-handed man in her interview and Jennings sensed she was holding something back.

“Can I get more out of her?” he wrote in his notes.

But he believed her account.

“Mrs Moreland did not convey to me any impression of being excitable by nature. She was helpful and, I believe, quite honestly convinced that she did in fact see a craft,’’ he wrote to Gainsford.

‘’Her statement stands up in all respects.’’

The craft Moreland described would have been familiar to people in the 1950s. Flying saucers were a vivid part of the popular imagination from countless sightings and science fiction movies.

Jennings even looked for possible new technologies similar to what Moreland had described. He kept a newspaper clipping in his file about two “flying saucers’’ being developed in the US and Britain. But the “flying saucers’’ were in fact early prototypes of the hovercraft and only capable of very noisily hovering a few metres off the ground.

But the idea that Moreland had seen some kind of experimental military aircraft was not outrageous. Anything seemed possible in the 1950s.

The skies above New Zealand were filled for the first time with exotic new technology, capable of unprecedented speed and performance.

In 1955, numerous people reported seeing strange “flying pencils’’ over the West Coast of the South Island. It turned out they were the Air Force’s new Vampire jets, screaming across the South Island sky.

Four Vampire Jets perform a manoeuvre called a Bomb Burst above Wellington Airport in 1959. Four Vampire Jets perform a manoeuvre called a Bomb Burst above Wellington Airport in 1959.

Moreland referred to Vampire jets in her interview with Jennings. The jets, first introduced in New Zealand in 1951, sometimes used Woodbourne air base.

Two Vampire Jets at the Warbirds over Wanaka event in 2014. Two Vampire Jets at the Warbirds over Wanaka event in 2014.

She said the craft shot away at a speed “that would make a Vampire look like it was standing still.’’

In a further sign of his commitment to the case, one day Jennings took a geiger counter to Moreland’s paddock at 3am and waited there until dawn to see if he could detect anything.

He was clearly troubled by the prospect that Moreland may have been exposed to radiation from the craft. Especially since Moreland had developed physical symptoms after the sighting.

The backs of her hands were painful. Blisters popped up like pimples on her hands, lower lip and back. If she scratched them, watery residue came out. Then more would come up.

She had a painful swelling under her left eye and a small patch, like a brown mole, appeared on her forehead. She did not want to consult a civilian doctor, and would only see Woodbourne’s medical officer if the matter was “kept highly confidential’’.

“The symptoms shown could of course be self-induced due to nervous strain,’’ Gainsford wrote.

The blisters and the mole faded after six months.

The consequences of radiation exposure were well known to people living through the Cold War and the nuclear face off between the US and Russia.

Nevil Shute’s novel On the Beach was a best-seller in New Zealand and had vividly popularised the deadly consequences of a nuclear conflict.

Kiwi soldiers had officially observed British and US nuclear tests from 1956 to 1958 in Australia, the Pacific and Nevada.

Recently restored film of a US nuclear test witnessed by Kiwis at Eniwetok Atoll in 1958.

Jennings wrote a report on the sighting claim which was sent to squadron leader James McClymont. He replied within the day.

“Due to the absence of corroborative evidence, the report does not appear to warrant further action,’’ he wrote.

It seemed like the case was dead.

But about a week later, the Marlborough Express ran two stories about locals seeing a green light in the sky at about 6.50pm on August 7.

The Marlborough Express ran two stories about local residents seeing a strange green light in the sky on August 7. The Marlborough Express ran two stories about local residents seeing a strange green light in the sky on August 7.

The green light was seen by many people in Blenheim. The green light was seen by many people in Blenheim.

Jennings tracked down three of the witnesses and interviewed them. A woman told him she was looking for her newspaper on the front lawn in the dark.

“Gradually I began to be able to see details around me more clearly, I noticed my paper, picked it up, and thought: ‘That’s funny, where’s the light coming from?’ she told Jennings.

“So I looked up and saw a green ball of light.’’

She said it was a “bright, richly emerald green’’.

“I had the thing in view for several seconds and got the impression that it was tumbling over or spinning, but much faster than it was going along.’’

An Air Force officer also saw a “vivid green sphere’’ that “lit up the ground so that I could see all the road.’’

“The object was rotating … it looked rather like a catherine wheel firecracker when lit.’’

“I cannot really describe the green colour, because it was unlike any other green I have seen. It was vivid indeed though.’’

It must have sounded familiar to Jennings.

Then there was another break in the case. Moreland finally told Jennings about the man in the silver suit with one hand.