UNIDENTIFIED AIRCRAFT - PAPUA AND NEW GUINEA

This file contains a series of official memoranda exchanged between the Australian Department of Defence, the Department of Territories, and the Department of Civil Aviation regarding two separate sightings of unidentified objects in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. The first incident occurred on the night of November 30, 1958, near the Gareit airstrip in the Western District. Labourers and two policemen reported seeing an unidentified aircraft, possibly a jet, flying low with its lights on. Subsequent inquiries by the Department of Civil Aviation at Biak and Darwin determined that no Australian aircraft were in the area at the time, and a Lockheed Constellation that had passed over the region did so two hours prior to the sighting. The second incident, reported on June 17, 1959, involved a radiogram from the Assistant District Officer at Baniara in the Milne Bay District. This report described an unidentified object sighted on Sunday, May 24, 1959, at 1900 hours. The object appeared high in the sky, moved in a westerly direction, and then began to descend erratically toward the southwest. The witness described the object as having a brilliant blue color that alternated at long intervals to a reddish glow, ending with a green flash before disappearing at 2015 hours. The Administrator of Papua and New Guinea initiated a full report on this second occurrence. The correspondence reflects the administrative process of the Australian government in tracking these reports, with the Department of Defence requesting information from other departments to determine if the sightings could be explained by known aviation activity.