July 15, 1996
Source: New Zealand Press Association
Sydney, July 15 - He's not interested in ''fruitloops'', but he is serious about collating information on ''Unusual Aerial Phenomena''.
Ross Dowe, spokesman for Australia's National UFO Report and Sightings Hotline, today began a New Zealand hotline link-up.
In Australia, callers to the hotline pay $A3 ($NZ3.55) per minute to report their sightings and New Zealanders will pay about the same to record theirs.
Mr Dowe told NZPA the hotline used to bear the call costs itself, but instituted the user-pays line two years ago after a psychiatrist advised it would deter pranksters. Calls are also recorded.
``We want to receive information from the public, collate it and try to seek rational explanations,'' Mr Dowe said.
``We have found the cost a good way of deterring the pranksters and we get relatively few calling us in Australia.
``We are running a legitimate investigation into unusual aerial phenomena and related matters. We don't want the fruitloops who claim to have had cups of tea with twin-antennaed green men.''
Mr Dowe, a former computer programmer, said in Australia the hotline had a network of people dotted across the country who could be contacted to help verify sightings when reports were made and it was hoped a similar network could be set up throughout New Zealand.
He claims the hotline, which has been running for 4-1/2 years, has now collated more information than the United States Airforce-run Project Blue Book.
It was set up with the backing of a group of businessmen who wished to remain anonymous, one of whom was very well known throughout Australia and New Zealand, Mr Dowe said.
Recent reports to the hotline had indicated an interesting trend in relation to the Mt Ruapehu eruptions, he said.
Several strange, bright orange lights were sighted throughout Australia in the weeks leading up to the latest series of eruptions, a pattern similar to that which had occurred in the lead up to the mountain's October eruptions, Mr Dowe said.
``In both cases we got a steady build-up of reports of orange and green lights in the sky along fault lines throughout Australia. And then, there was a sudden drop-off, with no new reports from anywhere in this country for four days following the start of the eruptions.''
The latest sightings, from Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, were reported around the same time of night, with a spate of similar sightings since the middle of May, but particularly since the beginning of June, he said.
Ruapehu began its latest eruptions on June 17.
``These sightings cannot be put down to the usual prank, industrial-sized rubbish bags filled with hot air and set alight, which often glide for about five to 10 minutes. These reports were of sightings which travelled between 30 and 100km in distance.''
He said it was possible the reports were the result of ``illuminations of electromagnetic forces falling within our (human) visual spectrum range''.
``It's possible there could be a electromagnetic displacement occurring because of the imminent eruptions. I think that sounds a more logical explanation than twin-antennaed green men,'' he said.
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