Chris Gardner
The list of people claiming to have glimpsed an unidentified flying object in Hawke's Bay skies has grown, with a New Year's Eve sighting by a Hastings couple.
When Agnes van Hooijdonk opened the curtains of her Seddon Street home to keep a look-out for New Year's Eve fireworks at 9pm, she spotted an orangey red light in the sky, and thought it was a plane.
As she watched, she realised that the light was not blinking.
Her husband Henk, 70, a retired cabinet maker, said the light looked something like a hot air balloon but it did not behave as a balloon should.
"It was moving north to south, when the wind was blowing west to east," Mr van Hooijdonk said.
"It could not have been a balloon."
Fetching his binoculars, Mr van Hooijdonk watched the object for nearly 15 minutes, before it disappeared behind clouds, he said.
"It was very slow."
When the clouds cleared, the object emanating the light had vanished from sight.
Asked whether he believed in flying saucers and little green men, Mr van Hooijdonk said he had an open mind about things.
'I don't know whether it was a flying saucer but it was not a plane, helicopter or hot air balloon."
The Hooijdonks' sighting was Hawke's Bay's seventh since Christmas Day.
On December 25, Vic Lardelli, of Tamatea, saw a "reddy orange glowing ball" over Cape Kidnappers at 9.05pm, moving as if under controlled flight.
Tony Quigg, of Napier, also saw the object, along with 20 people at his home.
Graeme Gunn, of Tamatea, was one of about 10 people who saw a similar "yellow-orange ball" on Christmas night, out at sea from Bay View.
"When it went behind a cloud, you could still see it quite clearly" Mr Gunn said.
Megan Pitt, of Havelock North, described it as "really bright orange-red", which got slightly brighter, before moving slowly backwards, then rapidly shooting out of sight.
Kent Baddeley, of Havelock North, inadvertently captured an image of another UFO while taking photographs in the Maraekakaho area at about 3pm on Tuesday.
Mr Baddeley, an experienced photographer, was shooting pictures with a new digital camera he had received for Christmas.
When he later went to look at his shots, he saw what he thought was a small speck in the background of one of them. After blowing up the image he became convinced the object was a UFO.
Later that night, Ivan Conroy, of Waimarama, and his son-in-law, Craig Nilsen, saw an orange-coloured object in the sky at about 10pm.
According to Hastings astronomer Graham Palmer, there is no current astronomical activity that could explain the sightings.
What's going on in Hawke's Bay skies?
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