Television News Camera Crew (Kaikoura Incident)

Broadcast Journalists

During the 1978 Kaikōura UFO Incident, an Australian television crew from Melbourne's Channel 0, aboard a Safe Air cargo flight over New Zealand, captured famous 16mm film footage of mysterious, pulsating lights that actively tracked and maneuvered alongside their aircraft on December 31, 1978 (see related videos section in the Kaikoura Lights UFO Incident case file).

The high-profile television crew—consisting of journalist Quentin Fogarty, freelance cameraman David Crockett, and his wife Ngaire—chartered the Safe Air freight plane to document the ongoing aerial anomalies that had been heavily reported in the area over the previous ten days. During the flight from Wellington to Christchurch, Wellington Air Traffic Control notified the pilots that an unidentified object was tailing them.

As the objects appeared, Fogarty delivered a live report while the lights maneuvered around the plane, appearing as bright white orbs with reddish hues. Crockett successfully captured this phenomenon on camera. Later, as they approached the Clarence River, a whole formation of objects appeared on both visual and radar screens.

While this footage gained global attention and became one of the best-documented sightings of its era, sceptics and later government investigators proposed natural or man-made explanations for the Kaikōura Lights, including the reflections of squid fishing boats in the clouds, meteors, or the alignment of the planet Venus.