Creepy New Zealand

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Boarding the train in Japan we're taking the imaginary bridge and heading to a beautiful island. What island is that you ask? We are heading to a place that has been kicking ass with listener support recently, and as we learned from a listener, they are not all pussies. We are heading to the land of Peter Jackson, Taika Waititi, Sir Edmund Hillary, Ernest Rutherford, who if you're not up on your scientists, was a  physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday, Jean Batten, a female aviator who made the first solo flight from England to New Zealand, and the list could go on. Since we gave it away in the last description… You've probably guessed it… We're heading to New Zealand! Not only that… Creepy New Zealand!

 

So you know by now how we do it here on our creepy series, we like to give you a history of the location we're at and then drive into all that is creepy about said place! Having said that, let's check out the history of New Zealand. It all started when Bilbo Baggins found a ring. It was the one ring to rule them all… Oh wait.. Sorry… Wrong history… oh ya here we go..

Māori were the first inhabitants of New Zealand or Aotearoa, guided by Kupe the great navigator. When did Maori first arrive in New Zealand? According to Māori, the first explorer to reach New Zealand was Kupe. Using the stars and ocean currents as his navigational guides, he ventured across the Pacific on his waka hourua (voyaging canoe) from his ancestral Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki. It is thought that Kupe made landfall at the Hokianga Harbour in Northland, around 1000 years ago. You will not find Hawaiki on a map, but it is believed Māori came from an island or group of islands in Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean. There are distinct similarities between the Māori language and culture and others of Polynesia including the Cook Islands, Hawaii, and Tahiti. More waka hourua followed Kupe over the next few hundred years, landing at various parts of New Zealand. It is believed that Polynesian migration was planned and deliberate, with many waka hourua making return journeys to Hawaiki. Today, Māori are part of an iwi (tribe), a group of people who are descendants of a common ancestor and associated with a certain region or area in New Zealand. Each iwi has their own hapū (sub-tribes). Iwi can trace their entire origins and whakapapa (genealogy) back to certain waka hourua. The seven waka that arrived to Aotearoa were called Tainui, Te Arawa, Mātaatua, Kurahaupō, Tokomaru, Aotea and Tākitimu. Māori were expert hunters, gatherers and growers. They wove fishing nets from harakeke (flax), and carved fish hooks from bone and stone. They hunted native birds, including moa, the world’s largest bird, with a range of ingenious traps and snares.

 

Māori cultivated land and introduced vegetables from Polynesia, including the kūmara (sweet potato) and often cooked hāngi (an earth oven). They also ate native vegetables, roots and berries. Woven baskets were used to carry food, which was often stored in a pātaka — a storehouse raised on stilts.  To protect themselves from being attacked by others, Māori would construct pā (fortified village). Built in strategic locations, pā were cleverly constructed with a series of stockades and trenches protecting the inhabitants from intruders. Today, many historic pā sites can be found throughout the country.

 

Māori warriors were strong and fearless, able to skillfully wield a variety of traditional weapons, including the spear-like taiaha and club-like mere. Today, these weapons may be seen in Māori ceremonies, such as the wero (challenge). You can also find these traditional weapons in museums. While Māori lived throughout the North and South Islands, the Moriori, another Polynesian tribe, lived on the Chatham Islands, nearly 900 kilometres east of Christchurch. Moriori are believed to have migrated to the Chathams from the South Island of New Zealand. In the late 18th century, there were about 2000 Moriori living in the Chathams. However, disease and attacks from Māori saw the numbers of this peace-loving tribe become severely depleted. The last full-blooded Moriori is believed to have died in 1933.The first European to sight New Zealand was Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He was on an expedition to discover a great Southern continent ‘Great South Land’ that was believed to be rich in minerals. In 1642, while searching for this continent, Tasman sighted a ‘large high-lying land’ off the West Coast of the South Island.

 

Abel Tasman annexed the country for Holland under the name of ‘Staten Landt’ (later changed to ‘New Zealand’ by Dutch mapmakers). Sailing up the country’s West Coast, Tasman’s first contact with Māori was at the top of the South Island in what is now called Golden Bay. Two waka (canoes) full of Māori men sighted Tasman’s boat. Tasman sent out his men in a small boat, but various misunderstandings saw it rammed by one of the waka. In the resulting skirmish, four of Tasman’s men were killed.

 

Tasman never set foot on New Zealand, and after sailing up the West Coast, went on to some Pacific Islands, and then back to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). His mission to New Zealand was considered unsuccessful by his employers, the Dutch East India Company, Tasman having found ‘no treasures or matters of great profit’. Captain James Cook, sent to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus, was also tasked with the search for the great southern continent thought to exist in the southern seas. Cook’s cabin boy, Young Nick, sighted a piece of land (now called Young Nick’s Head) near Gisborne in 1769. Cook successfully circumnavigated and mapped the country, and led two more expeditions to New Zealand before being killed in Hawaii in 1779. Prior to 1840, it was mainly whalers, sealers, and missionaries who came to New Zealand. These settlers had considerable contact with Māori, especially in coastal areas. Māori and Pākehā (Europeans) traded extensively, and some Europeans lived among Māori. The contribution of guns to Māori intertribal warfare, along with European diseases, led to a steep decline in the Māori population during this time.  Signed in 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi is an agreement between the British Crown and Māori.

 

Around this time, there were 125,000 Māori and about 2000 settlers in New Zealand. Sealers and whalers were the first Europeans settlers, followed by missionaries. Merchants also arrived to trade natural resources such as flax and timber from Māori in exchange for clothing, guns and other products.

 

As more immigrants settled permanently in New Zealand, they weren’t always fair in their dealings with Māori over land. A number of Māori chiefs sought protection from William IV, the King of England, and recognition of their special trade and missionary contacts with Britain. They feared a takeover by nations like France, and wanted to stop the lawlessness of the British people in their country. As British settlement increased, the British Government decided to negotiate a formal agreement with Māori chiefs to become a British Colony. A treaty was drawn up in English then translated into Māori.

 

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on February 6, 1840, at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. Forty-three Northland Chiefs signed the treaty on that day. Over 500 Māori Chiefs signed it as it was taken around the country during the next eight months. The Treaty had three articles:

 

that the Queen (or king) of Great Britain has the right to rule over New Zealand;

that Māori chiefs would keep their land and their chieftainships, and would agree to sell their land only to the British monarch; and

that all Māori would have the same rights as British subjects.

The second and third articles have caused controversy through the years, mainly because of translation problems. Successive governments believed the Treaty enabled complete sovereignty over Māori, their lands and resources. But Māori believed that they were merely giving permission for the British to use their land. Disputes over ownership followed involving a series of violent conflicts during the 19th century. These became known as the New Zealand Land Wars, and were concentrated around Northland and the southern part of the North Island during the 1840s, and the central North Island in the 1860s. Both sides suffered losses, with the British Crown the eventual victor. Land confiscation and questionable land sales carried on through to the 20th century, until the vast majority of land in New Zealand was owned by settlers and the Crown. Following its signing, many of the rights guaranteed to Māori in the Treaty of Waitangi were ignored. To help rectify this, the Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975. It has ruled on a number of claims brought by Māori iwi (tribes) and in many cases, compensation has been granted.

 

While disagreements over the terms of the treaty continue to this day, it is still considered New Zealand’s founding document.

 

The grounds and building where the treaty was signed have been preserved. Today, the Waitangi Historic Reserve is a popular tourist attraction. Here you can explore the museum, watch a cultural performance inside the carved Māori meeting house, and visit the colonial mission house, historic flagstaff, and beautiful waka taua (Māori war canoe). Throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century, the ‘homeland’ of Britain had an enormous influence on New Zealand. Government administration, education, and culture were largely built on British models. New Zealand troops fought, and suffered severe casualties in the Boer War and the two World Wars. As Prime Minister Michael Savage said about England in 1939, ‘where she goes, we go, where she stands, we stand’. After World War II, cultural ties with Great Britain remained strong. However, successive New Zealand governments saw the USA as their major ally and protector. New Zealand signed the joined SEATO (South-East Asia Treaty Organisation) and signed the ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, and United States) Pact. New Zealand troops also fought with US forces during the Korean and Vietnam wars. While New Zealand is still heavily influenced by its colonial heritage, the country now has its own strong sense of identity. While still a member of the British Commonwealth, and maintaining close, friendly relations with the USA, New Zealand now has a far more independent trading and foreign policy. Since the mid 1980s, New Zealand has been a nuclear free zone, with its armed forces primarily focused on peacekeeping in the Pacific region. This history of the country was taken directly from NewZealand.Com. It was the best summation without getting too overblown we could find!  So now with that history of the country down let's get into the creepiness!!

 

First up, a ghost town! 

Now farmland and Bush, Tangarakau once was a thriving community of 1200 people. It's a tiny dot on the map 90 minutes' drive from both Stratford and Taumarunui - so remote that it isn't even on the Forgotten Highway. You must turn off State Highway 43 and drive 6km into bush and rugged farmland to reach all that's left of it, which is almost nothing. There's a campground with cabins and provision for motorhomes, a working farm, the heavily rainforested banks of the Tangarakau River and surrounding hills to explore and plenty of outdoor activities: fossil collecting, kayaking, hunting. The name, which translates as "to fell trees” seems appropriate, for there's nothing but paddocks where a community of 1200 tunnellers and railway workers once thrived. Tangarakau was the epicentre of an epic construction job accomplished with picks, shovels and dynamite - a project which it's said would have cost $9 billion in today's money. Construction of the Stratford-Okahukura railway line began from Stratford in 1901 and took more than three decades to complete. The link was mothballed in 2009, though you can still ride over it in tourist railcarts. For most of its life this railway thrived, with goods trains carrying coal, stock and wool and passenger railcars travelling both ways every day. One feature of visiting Tangarakau on the railcarts is that the railway ballast on this part of the track is full of fossils. For about 10 years, during the height of construction, Tangarakau boasted a drapery store, hairdresser and tobacconist, boot shop, tearooms, confectioner and fruiterer, social rooms, post office and savings bank, police station, a boarding house, resident doctor and dispensary (formed by a co-operative Tangarakau Medical Association), a maternity home, cinema and social hall, lending library and reading room, a well-equipped school, recreation ground and tennis court.

The streets were lit by a power station provided by the Public Works Department.

According to Taranaki's Ghost Town by Derek Morris, men who built the Stratford-Okahukura railway line earned only a few pounds a week. But everyone gave a day's wages to the victims of the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake. After the line was completed in 1932, the workers drifted away and most buildings were dismantled and removed. During the 1960s, the population dwindled to eight. Now only Bushlands Holiday Park remains.

 

Not far from the ghost town, in the spectacular Tangarakau Gorge, is the grave of pioneer surveyor Joshua Morgan who died in 1893.

Morgan was an extraordinary man - the first European to cross the Urewera Ranges and an eyewitness to the 1886 Tarawera eruption. He spoke fluent Maori and often used English and Maori interchangeably.

Morgan fell ill while surveying the road linking Stratford and Taumarunui and did not survive to see the historic railway line through to completion.

Morgan's tomb has become a place for travellers to pause and reflect on those who built the Stratford-Okahukura railway line. There's not a ton of sightings from this place but there are a few ghost stories. Some have stated that they've seen apparitions wandering the ground. And there are reports of strange noises in the area as well. Some campers at the campground have reported creepy things happening while they've stayed there including odd noises and something messing with their tents andRVs, wildlife or spirits of  the tallest workers that died working hard to complete the railway? 

 

So we started out light to whet your whistles. Let's get into more creepiness!

 

Next up we head to Auckland! There we find the Ewelme cottage, which from what we can tell is considered one of the most haunted places in the area! Built in the 1860s, this charming cottage in Parnell was once home to Reverend Lush and his wife. It also functioned as a bolt-hole during times of tribal conflict in Howick, where Reverend Lush preached. This house has remained largely intact and virtually unchanged in the years since when it was built.

It is a glimpse into what life in New Zealand used to be like!

 

It is also rumoured to be haunted by the spirits of women and children, and in particular by the spirit of a young girl. We found a description of a paranormal investigation done at the house and we're gonna share some of those findings. Rather high EMF levels were detected in a few places within the house. 🖕 They do disclose that some of these reasons were due to wiring in those areas. Upstairs, a couple of the more sensitive members felt rather uneasy and could feel ‘something’ in the child’s bedroom area. One of the sensitives, during an EVP session, picked up that the toy doll, sitting on a small chair in the child’s room, was lovingly named “Georgina”. One photograph, taken outside the house standing on the veranda aimed at a glass window, seemed to show a rather eerie face looking back at the camera through the glass. Also upon reviewing our photographs we noticed a couple of rather odd-shaped shadows which appeared on the wall in the study. These shadows did not appear in other photos taken off the same spot. They managed to debunk one of the shadow photos but the other one could not be replicated or explained. Two members recall doing an EVP session. One of the members had brought along a balancing bird toy as a trigger object. It balanced nearby to where they were sitting and started the session. During the EVP session they noticed that the bird was moving. Unfortunately a video camera wasn’t on it at the time. However, upon reviewing the recorded EVP session from that room, a “kkkkk” sound is heard and immediately after, they are heard then sounding excited about the bird moving. One of our sensitives felt that there was something, (a male) in the downstairs office. She also felt very sad in the upstairs children’s room and thought that maybe there was a little girl up there. The name Isabella came up. Outside of this we've found stories of many people seeing the ghost of a young girl by oak tree in the garden, this is a very common sighting. A further resident had claimed that people have seen a cat running down the hallway and disappearing into the wall! Another visitor claimed they heard whispers when they were in the upstairs of the house, which is also where the paranormal investigators claimed it seemed most likely there was activity. 

 

Nothing like a good old haunted house! 

 

Next up, one of our standby sites… An old railway tunnel! The Otira tunnel to be exact. The Otira Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Midland Line in the South Island of New Zealand, between Otira and Arthur's Pass. It runs under the Southern Alps from Arthur's Pass to Otira – a length of over 8.5 kilometres (5.3 mi).  The opening of the 8.5-km Ōtira tunnel completed the long-planned transalpine railway between Christchurch and Greymouth. At the time, it was the longest tunnel outside the Alps and the seventh-longest in the world.

 

Work had begun on the ‘Midland’ line 36 years earlier, but the private developers’ grand plans soon came unstuck. The government’s Public Works Department (PWD) took over in 1895 and the West Coast section reached Ōtira by 1900. Tenders for a long tunnel through the Southern Alps to Arthur’s Pass, 737 m above sea level, were called in 1907. Contractors J.H. McLean & Sons began work the following year, but the project was plagued by engineering problems, extreme weather and labour shortages, forcing the PWD to step in again. When the two ends of the tunnel were joined in 1918, the surveyors’ centre lines were less than 30 mm apart, impressive accuracy for the era. Due to the tunnel’s length and steep gradient, electric locomotives were used to haul trains through it until 1997. As with all of the other rail tunnels we've covered, this one has had its share of deaths and accidents associated with it! The onboard commentary tells of a ghost who is sometimes seen on the Old Coach Road. Apparently the male ghost walks with his swag along the road beside the tracks. It is considered that the man was a Scotsman who was one of the workers killed during the construction of the 8.5km Otira Tunnel. He is always seen travelling east on the Old Coach Road and is thought to be trying to get to Littleton so he can catch a ship home. Many people have claimed to see this ghost also in various other spots along the railway.

 

Next up… How about a psychiatric hospital! Kingseat Hospital was a psychiatric hospital that is considered to be one of New Zealand's notorious haunted locations with hundreds of claims of apparitions being reported, as of 2011. The construction of Kingseat Hospital began in 1929 when twenty patients from a nearby mental institution came to the site along with twelve wheelbarrows and ten shovels. Kingseat Hospital was named after a hospital in Aberdeenshire, Scotland following Dr. Gray (the Director-General of the Mental Health Division of the Health Department at the time) returning from an overseas trip, who felt it appropriate to have a sister hospital with the same name in New Zealand. Flower gardens, shrubs and trees were grown in the grounds of Kingseat Hospital, using surplus plants from the Ellerslie Racecourse and Norfolk Island pine seeds from Sir George Grey’s garden on Kawau Island.

 

Kingseat Hospital was in operation from 1932. In 1939, the Public Works Department and Fletcher Construction Company, Ltd. agreed on the construction of a two-storey nurses home at Kingseat Hospital, with the government to provide the steel for the building.

 

The hospital grew throughout the mid-late 1930s and 1940s to such an extent that by the beginning of 1947, there were over eight hundred patients. In 1968, certain nurses at Kingseat Hospital went on strike, which forced the administration to invite unemployed people and volunteers to assist within the hospital grounds with domestic chores.

 

In 1973, a Therapeutic pool was opened by the then-Mayoress of Auckland, Barbara Goodman, four years before the main swimming pool was added to the hospital in 1977. The site celebrated its 50th Anniversary Jubilee in 1982.

 

During the 1970s and 1980s, there were many places attached to psychiatric hospitals in New Zealand where alcoholics were treated for their drinking addictions and Villas 4 and 11 at Kingseat Hospital served this purpose. In 1996, South Auckland Health sold Kingseat Hospital after government decisions to replace ongoing hospitalisation of mentally ill patients with community care and rehabilitation units. This led to the eventual closure of Kingseat Hospital in July 1999, when the final patients were re-located off the complex to a mental health unit in Otara.

 

After the closure of Kingseat Hospital in 1999, the grounds were initially considered as a potential site for a new prison, able to accommodate six hundred inmates. In 2000, legal action was taken against the Tainui tribe for financial issues involving the former hospital. By 2004, more than two-hundred people had come forward to file complaints against the national government for claims of mistreatment and abuse of patients at New Zealand's psychiatric institutions (including Kingseat Hospital) during the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the complainants, who at the time of the incidents were aged between 8 and 16 years old, said that they were heavily over-medicated, unwillingly subjected to electro-shock treatment, and placed in isolation for long periods of time — sometimes for months. A paranormal team found a diary that contained the following: 'There was never enough hands to help the extremely handicapped eat, no medications to avoid being scratched or attacked nurses or kitchen or laundry staff alike-if having to go past the residents to clean up or stop them attacking each other,' the diary read.

 

'We could use the hours between meals to just clean up the dining rooms.. I cried with relief to learn this hospital has closed.'

 

Oof, also the diary claimed more nurses died there than patients. One of the most prolific reports is of the 'Grey Nurse', believed to be the ghost of a former worker who died while the psychiatric hospital was still operational.

 

The property contains abandoned nurse's quarters where the apparition is meant to have been spotted lurking in the shadows. 

 

The nurse is just one of many 'shadows' spotted in the halls, a phenomenon which has been described as having 'always existed and feed[ing] on negative energies and the emotions of fear'.

 Here we have another paranormal team account: 'The EMF meter suddenly went off. We started tracking the field and found we could actually gauge the shape and size of it. It was about the size of a football and was floating about a meter or so off the ground,' he wrote.

 

'At one point it was ‘hovering’ around Kel’s [another team member] head for a couple of minutes, before moving off...As I was measuring the field around Kel, I could feel an icy cold patch all around my hand holding the EMF meter,' he said. The team recorded several unusual incidents, including hearing the name 'Stephen' very clearly when they used a 'spirit box' to communicate with ghosts in the rtold  A family living in one of the villas told the Haunted Auckland team that spirits regularly showed themselves.

 

'They play with the kids. Sometimes we see them, but they don’t bother us at all, it’s all good,' the team were told.

 

Footage shows the paranormal investigators of Haunted Auckland supposedly communicating with a ghost named Alexis Jackson, a nurse who continues to “look after patients” at the hospital. During a visit to a former nurse’s house, another team member claimed to feel “dizzy and nauseous” when she touched a bathtub. Climbing in, she sensed something terrible had happened.

 

“I closed my eyes and saw a bit clearer a picture of a woman being pushed under the water,” she said. “I saw her arms and legs threshing in the bathtub. I could see a hand and arm pushing her under the water drowning her. 

 

staff at Spookers(a haunted house attraction)  have been creeped out by “object manipulation”, and chilly spots. And at the Kingseat villas, there’s been some serious poltergeist activity with reports of shaking cupboard doors, tapping on windows, self-operating toilets and taps, and moving furniture. Voices have been heard, sulphur smelt, and shadowy figures seen. TV show Ghost Hunt features footage of an unplugged dentist chair turning itself on and claims to have captured the shape of a ghost’s face in a shower stall. 

 

Good stuff!

 

Cryptids anyone? Sure thing! How about the Moehau! Moehau also known as Maero, Matau, Tuuhourangi, Taongina or Rapuwai described by the Maori people of New Zealand as being "Terrible creatures, half man, half animal", with a very aggressive temperament, they were only too happy to massacre and eat anyone that strayed into their domain. Early encounters often talk of these creatures exhibiting aggression and throwing rocks to frighten people off. It was these creatures, largely found in the Coromandel Ranges, that were thought to be responsible for the find of a headless, partially devoured body of a prospector in the Martha Mine region in 1882, later further up in the foothills the corpse of a woman was found, it was discovered she had been dragged from the shack in which she lived while the remainder of her family were away, and her neck had been snapped.

 

On the topic of aggressive behavior, Taonginas were greatly feared by the population of the lower Wanganui River as they were said to viciously attack any fishermen who strayed into their territory. This vicious behavior however seems to have abated in more modern encounters as the beasts in most instances flee on sight of  humans.

 

Rapuwai are believed, from legend, to be able to crush any strong Maori warrior with ease employing their large powerful hands. They are said to be tool-producing beasts using wood and stone, the articles crafted are said to resemble those produced by Homo erectus hominids. The Rapuwai are mostly believed to be an evolved orangutan that fled to these uninhabited islands of Polynesia. Meanwhile the Moehau are depicted as being as tall as a man, completely hair covered, with marginally ape-like facial features. The primary difference from human appearance being the extremely long fingers, tipped with sharp talons, capable of tearing apart the toughest prey. Often described as “Manimals”. It is possible that if these man-beasts existed prehistorically they would have been more than capable of bringing down the largest of Moa - Dinornis. The large talons spoken of seem to designate this creature's predatory nature. However, large talons are also found elsewhere in the animal kingdom in animals that rip open rotten logs to acquire nourishment, considering the indigenous Maori used to eat the large nutritious Huhu Grubs; it is not impossible that this beast may also be insectivorous. Matau Giants are described as being ape-like but 3m tall. The Rapuwai are gigantic, slow clumsy creatures that are of a strong muscular stature.

 

These creatures can be categorized as follows, those that are the stature of an ordinary human, the Moehau and Maero and those that are of giant stature the Matau, Tuuhourangi, Matau Giants and the Rapuwai.Many areas of New Zealand are named for these great hairy man beasts, Moehau Mountain, where they are believed to reside and people are cautioned against going up there is one such place. The Moehau are thought to populate both Mount Tongariro and Ruapehu, the Karangahake Gorge, Coromandel Ranges, Martha Mine Region, Waikaremoana – in the Urewera Ranges, The Heaphy River of the Northwest Nelson State Forest Park, Kaikoura Mountains, Fiordland National Park and are believed to be very common in the Haasts Pass area particularly around the Haast River.

 

The Matau Giants inhabit Lake Wakatipu in Central Otago. Toanginas are found in the lower reaches of the Waikato River. Maero are encountered in bush country throughout both the North and South Islands. Rapuwai are said to inhabit the Marlborough Distract and the Milford Sounds area. There is further another as yet unidentified type of man beast that lives in the Cameron Mountains in the South West of the South Island. Footprints are in most instances the main evidence of these creatures, in 1903 footprints larger than a mans were found in the Karangahake Gorge in Coromandel. In 1971 a trail of footprints similar to a mans though extended in appearance was located on snow-covered ground and led into a zone of bush on a hillside by a Park Ranger. 1983 was when a deer hunter chanced upon man-like footprints that could have been no more than an hour old along a riverbank in the Heaphy River area. In 1991 campers in the Cameron Mountains of the South Island elected to abandon their camp after finding unusually large man-beast prints near where they were camping.

 

In 1970 another party of campers had to abandon their camp as a 2m tall man beast assailed them screaming loudly and hurling rocks at the camp.

 

1972 and a hunter in the Coromandel ranges watched a naked, hairy man beast about 2m tall work its way through the scrub on the other side of a gully, upon reaching the place the creature had been traversing, footprints were found.  

 

Well we know why Moody's going to New Zealand! 

 

Next up are the kaikoura lights! UFOs or whatever the lame explanation that the "man"  gives us. The now-famous sightings began in the early hours of December 21. Civil Aviation officials later called in the air force due to the number and nature of the UFO reports.

 

Two Safe-Air flights left Woodbourne bound for Christchurch and one sighted lights off the Clarence River just before 2am. On the way back north, the crew were told Wellington Radar was picking up returns from its transmissions in that area, and the crew reported lights again at 4am, making rectangular patterns.

 

The second aircraft left Woodbourne at 3am and also checked out the radar observations, without seeing anything near the river. But radar signals in Wellington appeared to show something tracking the Argosy and at one point the crew saw a bright orb, pear-shaped with a reddish tinge which seemed to be stationary, though the plane's own radar showed it tracking the aircraft. On December 31, another Argosy carrying a film crew saw a cluster of four or five lights near the Kaikoura Peninsula, and a pulsing white light, while Wellington radar had contacts about 21km ahead of them, near the Clarence River.

 

Then there were radar "returns" from behind the aircraft, and a radar "target" where the crew saw a white light off their starboard side.

 

Flying out of Christchurch after 2am, the crew again saw a large white light, which they said aligned with a large radar target.

 

The sightings were filmed by the professional news camera crew filming an item about the earlier incident.

 

In the 2cm-thick file on the Kaikoura sightings, a report by Dr Bruce Maccabee for the NZ UFO Studies Centre, said the incidents were hard to explain through "conventional phenomenon". Conventional phenomena huh… Right… Wanna hear the explanation? Well here ya go… declassified New Zealand Defence Force files released yesterday showed the RNZAF attributed the sightings to "freak propagation" of radio and light waves, an unusually-bright Venus and the lights of a squid fishing fleet, cars and trains. Sounds like a whole lot of bullshit to us. 

 

We'd be remiss if we left out a haunted hotel. So we now take a trip to the Vulcan hotel.  The Vulcan Hotel is a restored and reputedly haunted public house, located on the main street of St Bathans, and is the town's main tourist attraction. Originally called the Ballarat Hotel, it was built in 1882 of mud brick. The building is registered as a Category I historic place by Heritage New Zealand. The building is notable as possibly the country's most famous haunted building. Room 1 of the hotel is reputedly home to the spirit of a young woman, thought by some to be a prostitute known as "the Rose", who was strangled to death in the hotel in the 1880s. The new owner of the building had an encounter with a ghost! Royce Clark has been visiting St Bathans for duck shooting and rugby with mates for more than 40 years, and has been a regular at the hotel. He recalled a story where an electric jug in his room turned on by itself although it wasn't plugged in, one night and he thought it was his buddies needing around but he couldn't find any sort of trickery even after he took it apart the next day. He also talked about hearing strange things during his visit. 

 

Ok so there you have our first installment of creepy New Zealand. There were stone more cool spots including a hospital and prison that we didn't get to this time but we'll for sure be back!

 

7 top new Zealand horror movies

https://worldgeeklynews.com/films/7-great-horror-films-from-new-zealand/