Personally I do not like the term UFO as it means Unidentified Flying Object and the objects we research are not entirely unidentified. Also they do NOT fly! Birds, flies, bees, gliders and aircraft etc fly and have appendages to operate in an atmosphere. Also the term is purely a military one. We investigate craft that TRAVEL in space or around planets which is something "UFOs" cannot do. However, I do not know a good term for our visitors unless we use " Identified Traveling Objects ".

Just over 50 years ago my wife and I owned a bookshop in Wellington N.Z. and one day a book came in with the title "Flying Saucers Have Landed". This I took home and read and I became interested in the subject. As we had a library in the shop, we placed this book into the library, and I was surprised with the result. Some people would come in and tell me of some of their sightings etc around Wellington. Other books followed including Donald Keyhoes' books. Well I found out that there were two UFO groups in N.Z which were sending out newsletters. One was in Timaru (South Island) by Phyl and Fred Dickeson and the other was in Auckland where Henk and Brenda Hinfelaar also produced a newsletter. The organization was known as the George Adamski Correspondence Group and both leaders would write to Adamski with questions from local people and he would reply with a letter covering the answers etc.

At the end of 1954 my wife, son and I moved to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty. It wasn't anywhere as big as it is today and some shops have been known to put up notices saying, "Closed Gone Fishing". This doesn't happen today as it's now a city with a well established Port. I once read a note that stated a ship came into the harbour about 1863 AD and they had counted over 1000 canoes on the shore.

Well after I had been in Tauranga a short time I was asked by Henk if he could send down a list of people who get the newsletter and if I would I like to get them together and get a discussion group going. This did happen and it continued for a period known as the Adamski Correspondence Group. In the 1960s George did a tour and lectured around N.Z. He gave a talk at Rotorua and I was invited to meet George with several other people at Putararu where we spent the weekend and had several discussions. While there we visited a doctor's home and were shown a small burnt circle. Nobody saw this happen but on examining the circle they found what looked like melted glass and some wiring. Was it a remote craft that landed and had been disintegrated ?

The lecture was given on the weekend which I attended with friends and the next night there was a special get together with George and a discussion. While at Putararu a UFO was seen to move over the town. Some of the people looking after George took him to Lake Taupo where they handed him over to the next hosts, and while sitting on the shore a "mothership" was seen overhead releasing scout craft.

Another George who was to visit us in NZ was George van Tassel who had also been contacted. He owned the Giant Rock Aerodrome and held Conventions there. He had been instructed by the Aliens to build the "Integreton", which was built in the Yukka Valley California. This project has not been completed. It is a building made without any nails and has other unique features. A small scale model was built with plastic tubes so that mice could be tested in it and this worked well. The mice were rejuvenated and were lively and lived longer etc. It was said that this type of equipment was built into the bigger mother ships so that people taking long trips through space could be rejuvenated etc.

Just going back to the early 1950s, a Harold Fulton who was a Sgt in the R.N.Z.A.F., had produced what seems to be the first printed magazine on this planet on Flying Saucers and was sold in shops. His organization was known as The Civilian Saucer Investigation. As our local group got more settled in we set about organising the First N.Z. UFO Convention for the early 1970s This was held in the old Tauranga Town Hall which has now been pulled down and the area is Council offices etc.

We spent some time communicating and organising publicity. The day before the Convention we were preparing the hall with UFO material including cardboard models showing the shape of some of these craft. We came across a notice which read "House Full" and we laughingly said we will use that tomorrow and sure enough we did. As we didn't have much in the way of funds we made sure the tickets were purchased before the event. My wife kept most of the records. To our delight TV1 turned up and stayed till the next morning so we did get good coverage.

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