Saw a smiliar golden/orange/red "fireball" type object moving south to north across the night sky at 23:09, 25/12/09 in Auckland It last about 30 seconds before fading out.

last night i saw exactly what you where describing at round 11 at night, i was with other people who saw it then we went inside and 5 appeared in formation moving ACROSS the sky, the where like burning orange dots under the clouds before finally disapering..?

I saw a UFO at Eden Park once... turns out it was a Flounder.

@ Vampz #18

Fair enough, I may have missed your point

@ GL #23 I think we are making the same point. By 'genuine UFO instances' I mean just that, without making any assumptions as to what they might be. I wasn't making any attempt to link UFO's with extraterrestrial life.

Maybe getting off point here, but for what its worth I'd say that better than 99% of 'UFO's' are ordinary things viewed under unsual conditions or by observers unfamiliar with what they are looking at. I'm interested in the 1% that fall outside that frame.

By virtue of my hobbies and interests I spend a lot of time looking at things in the sky, under all conditions day or night. I've seen dozens if not hundreds of things that at first glance appeared to be unusual, but turned out to be normal occurences at a second and third glance and given some context. I have only seen one thing I would tentatively class as a genuine UFO in my mind.

Cole #22

Funneeeee eh.

#16 samm - Actually, extraterrestrial life form research (I'm assuming that's what you meant when you say "genuine UFO instances") is taken very seriously. It's when people find shining light in the sky and immediately associate it with extraterrestrial without making a educated and studied hypothesis that they are ridiculed. Conspiracy nuts aren't helping the matter either since all they are doing is alienating the general public.

I love 6ftndr's hypothesis. aussie rugby players with a cracker up their arse being kicked home from europe......... HAHA that made my day!

I saw a UFO. Dunno if there were aliens in it or whatever, but it was unidentified and flying and an object. I was driving home and I saw three lights in the sky at an angle. I thought maybe it was a lamp or plane or helicopter because I couldn't see clearly through the trees. So, I kept my eyes on the lights as I drove down the street and they DID NOT MOVE. Then I finally saw it out above the yard of this abandoned house...it was round and tilted at an angle. SO I pulled over to the curb and stared at it for about a minute, afraid to get out of my car. All at once, it tilted to its side even more, showing the inderside of the UFO. It was crossed shaped and just plain weird. I'll probly be traveling along that road a little more often now haha.

There were 3 aircraft landed at Nelson within 20 minutes of each other around that time. Due to the weather and fading light they would have been making instrument approaches right over this area. I think some of these people need to eat more carrots and/or smoke less pot.

"Turns out they are those tissue paper hot air balloons, that kids sometimes make. In Germany they are sometimes released (illegally) to celebrate weddings and the like. Maybe this was something similar?"

I have been fooled by these things before : ) Can we trust Upper Moutere residents? There is a bit too much funny tobbaco smoking going on there to take them seriously.