Man claims UFO sighting in Christchurch: Stardome astronomer says likely drone or balloon

A Christchurch man has taken video footage of what he calls a “freaking weird thing, a doughnut-shaped disc” flying in the skies of the Garden City.

Nicholas Glasson showed the video to the Herald, saying he felt as though the flying object he spotted about 8.30pm yesterday was “watching” him.

“I stared at it for ages and thought it was just some trash or something floating, but it was so bizarre,” he said.

“It was doughnut-shaped and like a disc. It was flat, to my surprise, as it revealed when it glided around. It was just hovering and swaying a bit when I first saw it.

“[It] almost felt like something was watching me, and I watched it all the way home and had to film it. I still can’t believe my eyes.

“So strange.”

When the Herald approached Stardome, an Auckland observatory and planetarium, for expert analysis, astronomy educator Josh Aoraki agreed with Glasson’s description.

“I have just watched the video – strange,” Aoraki said.

But Aoraki dismissed the flying object as a likely drone or balloon.

“I can’t identify what it is from the blurry video but it seems to move like a drone to me – we get videos like this every now and then,” he said.

“However, something to note about the video is that it was shot during the day, so it is something within our atmosphere and it seems to be fairly close to the ground.

“This rules it out as a satellite or meteor, which can only be seen at night and are outside of our atmosphere, so we can’t really offer anything more than that as it is not an object in space. Most likely not aliens, unfortunately.”

Over the past six years, 10 unexplained sightings have been recorded by authorities.

There are no close encounters with little green men or flying saucers, but a number of lights cannot be explained.

A recent sighting on March 30 this year had an “unidentified falling light” seen at Tasman Bay, near Nelson.

“The object was too fast for an aircraft and too slow for a meteor,” say file notes, released by the Civil Aviation Authority under the Official Information Act.

Last year, there was just one sighing, an “unidentified red and orange light” over Christchurch.

The southern city was also home of the only officially reported sighting in 2014.

These sightings all happened since a treasure trove of lights, reports of alien invasions and other unexplained incidents were revealed when New Zealand’s previously classified UFO files were unveiled.

Since then, not all unexplained sightings have been reported to authorities.

The newly released records don’t include any mention of Australian film crew footage that appears to show two objects racing across the horizon near Queenstown two years ago.

Nor did the authority get word of a spate of sightings of three red lights in the summer skies over the 2012/13 holiday break.