One of New Zealand's investigative and true crime authors, Scott Bainbridge, has written many books about some of Aotearoa's most intriguing stories.
His first two books Without Trace: On the Trail of New Zealand Missing Persons and Still Missing: More Unsolved Missing Persons Cases in New Zealand are about missing persons that led to some of the country's cold cases being reopened, as well as inspired the TVNZ series, The Missing.
More recently Bainbridge published his latest book New Zealand Mysteries, where instead of focusing on true crime, he writes about some of New Zealand's most mysterious tales.
Speaking on Sunday Café, Bainbridge talked about some of the mysteries from his 2020 book, including The Kaikoura lights.
He described the mystery as 'one that stood out'.
"There was an aircraft that flew Wellington to Christchurch and back and was followed - was flanked - by these mysterious lights that were all over the show," he told Mel Homer.
"People involved on the plane generally thought that it was a UFO, and this came about two weeks after another pilot disappeared between Melbourne and Tasmania.
"He [the disappearing pilot] was freaked out by saying, there were some lights following me, and he vanished and he was never seen again, and it made international news."
While these incidents got people's attention, Bainbridge said they have not yet found a general consensus on if there was in fact a UFO in the sky.
"I know that in recent years the authorities have opened our old UFO sightings files… but I don't think that it's actually ever been resolved."
However, Bainbridge said there are 'lots and lots of theories' surrounding the potential UFO sightings.
"One of the common theories is that there could have been lights from a fishing boat or infractions from the sky," he said.
"Somebody even wrote in and said that the light from the sea was shining on his lettuce in his garden, which amplified up into the sky… so, you know, all sorts of outlandish theories."
Listen to the full interview between Scott Bainbridge and Mel Homer above.
You can also download the full interview on the Sunday Café podcast, and listen on the go.
