The Tokomaru Bay Illuminated Valley

By Suzanne Hansen, UFOCUS NZ Network
Copyright © Suzanne Hansen 2007

Background.
The late 70s and early 80s heralded a time of intense UFO activity around the city of Gisborne and in the East Coast region north of Gisborne, North Is, NZ, and in particular, in the Waimata Valley and surrounding rural areas.  This quickly became known as the ‘Gisborne UFO Flap’, although similar UFO ‘flaps’ were occurring worldwide at that time, and the renowned NZ ‘Kaikoura Lights’ sightings occurred in December 1978.

The Gisborne UFO flap was characterized by sightings of humanoid figures in silver suits (seen by ordinary farming folk); unusual shaped, matt or shiny metallic craft; huge areas of blazing white or orange light covering whole valleys or hillsides; strange aerial buzzing, cracking or exploding sounds (sometimes emanating from visible craft); and reports of abduction experiences.  The local ‘Gisborne Herald’ newspaper was able to print a veritable feast of newsworthy accounts over a period of months and a number of amateur investigation groups sprang to life.  The major time of the flap occurred during 1978 and 79, and after that, reports began to drop off into the early 80s.  The Gisborne flap never attained the worldwide notoriety of the Kaikoura lights, which had stunning film footage and ATC radar confirmation in its favour.  However the sheer numbers (over 200 officially reported) of credible, everyday people in the Gisborne and East Coast areas who saw other-worldly objects and events in the sky, far outweighs any other UFO flap that has occurred in New Zealand.  It also ushered in the beginning of ‘classic’ alien abduction experiences in NZ – the kind characterized by contact with ‘the greys’ (although we do have reports of earlier contact experiences).

East Coast Highway 35, North of Gisborne, March 1978

Taking the long way home.
In 1978, my husband and I were living in a remote township on the East Coast and had been to the city of Gisborne for the day shopping.  We had dinner in Gisborne, visited friends, and left at around 10.30pm on our 2 ½ -3 hour journey home.  High up in the hills between Tologa Bay and Tokomaru Bay, there was an isolated part of the highway where the farmhouses were few and far between.  From this vantage point, you could look out over a series of hills and valleys.  We reached this point of the highway at around 11.30 at night, just over an hour out of Gisborne. 
 
As we reached the high point of that stretch of road and proceeded over the brow of the hill, we were absolutely shocked to suddenly see a massive area of bright, white light emanate up into the air from the paddocks on the floor of a valley less than a kilometer away from us. It was as if someone had flicked a switch as we came over the hill - darkness, then sudden bright white light.  The car stalled.  At first we were stunned; what on earth could be making a glow like that?  The valley floor itself was obscured from our vision by a couple of small hillocks or rises.  On either side of these, we could see the sides of the valley lit up so clearly, that you could virtually see every tree on the hillsides, and lit so brightly, that they looked a silvery-white colour within this light.  We had never, ever seen anything like it.  It was brighter than the brightest daylight – but in fact it was a totally different kind of light altogether.  The light was so intense, and seemed to permeate everything so completely, that there appeared to be no shadows and yet great detail was still distinguishable.  It was as if the light was shining from every direction at once and yet at the same time it was clearly originating from something.   Momentarily numb with disbelief, we stared at this strange, dense light - frightening in its intensity, and awesome in its magnitude.

Having gathered our wits somewhat, we began to panic like hell and yell at each other about what it could be, but the high strangeness of the situation quickly took over with surprise and confusion rapidly turning to shock and disbelief.  We had no logical explanation for this spectacle and were so over-awed that we lowered our voices and began to speak in whispers.  I was scared by the fact that we were in a very vulnerable position in the middle of nowhere with no phone to use if we needed help.  I started panicking in case the car wouldn’t start again, and I said to my husband that we were definitely not going any further along the road towards that light until whatever it was went away, or until we knew what it was.  I was even prepared to drive back to Gisborne.  We looked back along the road hoping that some late-night traffic would be coming along, but none did.   We were both very afraid and didn’t know what to do.  My husband tried to reassure me (and himself) by saying that the light was probably caused by possum shooters with a spotlight!  I think his rational mind was frantically searching for a familiar explanation or ‘box’ to slot the experience into so that he could deal with the sight before him.  Well having lived in the country most of my life, I’d never seen a hunter’s spotlight that powerful, that it could light a whole valley brighter than daylight in every direction, and shine a couple of hundred feet up into the air as well!

Into the light?
While we were sitting there looking and whispering – a relatively short space of time - I began to notice that my arms and legs were starting to feel numb and tingly – like when you get ‘pins and needles’.  My body suddenly felt very tired and ‘heavy’.  The whole atmosphere began to change and feel very strange – quiet, distant, vague and otherworldly.  Within seconds, I became aware of a deep buzzing sound, and at the same time I felt slightly dizzy and faint.  As the buzzing rapidly increased, I began to try to tell my husband, wondering if he felt the same, but I found myself unable to move my limbs and I cannot remember ever finishing what I was trying to say.
 
My next recollection was of us both sitting very still in the car.  There was no light to be seen – everything was in darkness.  I felt drained.  We both just sat staring out the front window of the car - I don’t know how long for.  Eventually I must have collected my thoughts somewhat, because I can clearly recall taking out my handkerchief and wiping the inside of the windscreen (why I don’t know), but my husband seemed to be still and listless.  I recall saying to him, “The light’s gone.”  He didn’t move or reply so I said, “Shall we go now?”  He mumbled, “Okay”.  He started the car up, and we set off on the remainder of the journey.  We must have had no energy or inclination to talk, because I remember traveling in silence. 

Reality sets in.
The next day we both felt extraordinarily tired, and attributed it to the fact that we had had a late night.  I also experienced painfully sensitive hearing for several days and everyday noises caused considerable pain and reverberation in my eardrums.  Any unexpected sounds frightened me causing my heart to race, my armpits to prickle in a cold sweat and my mouth to go quite dry (symptoms similar to Post Traumatic Stress), and I suffered several nosebleeds over a period of days.  I felt startled all the time like a frightened rabbit but apart from feeling tired, my husband did not seem to suffer these effects.  Early the next morning, I recalled the bright light in the valley and tried to talk to my husband about what he thought it could have been.  He was apprehensive and did not want to discuss it at all, putting the incident in the ‘too-hard-basket’. 

This attitude actually left me feeling very alone in my need for an explanation.  For a long time after the incident, I replayed the drive from Gisborne and the strange event over and over in my mind.  I could recall the spot where we were panicking one minute with the light in front of us, and then the light had gone and we were calmly driving away.  There was clearly ‘something’ missing, the only indication being the somewhat incongruous and disjointed flow of events.  To make matters worse, I had experienced something very similar on a rural road near Hastings in 1975. 

The more I thought about all this, the more apprehensive I became.  I stopped going out fishing at night for quite some time.  Car lights shining on the windows of our house at night would send me running for cover, peering fearfully through a chink in the curtains to see what it was, even though my rational mind was telling me that it was only local farmers on their way to the pub after a hard days work! 

There are a number of factors about this experience that stand out as being incongruous:

1. We had several boxes of groceries in the car with us.  I can recall our brief conversation in the car, and wiping the inside of the windscreen, yet I cannot remember ever putting the groceries away! 
2. I have never been able to remember many details of the journey home from that spot, or our arrival at home, other than our brief conversation in the car and the fact that we drove away calmly and in silence.   
3. I had no memory of the ‘light’ actually either going out, or leaving the area if it was in fact a landed UFO (craft).
4. I have no memory of any other traffic - unusual for a main rural highway. 
5. The conversation that I recall – “The light’s gone”, “Shall we go now?”, “Okay,” seems very brief and understated for 2 people who have just witnessed such an unusual and frightening spectacle, and following this, we traveled the rest of the way home in silence!  There was no discussion, no peering down the valley as we passed, no scanning of the sky.  This was in stark contrast to the pandemonium that broke loose in the car when we first saw the light and the car stalled on the side of the road.  Even the frightened whispering to follow, was in stark contrast to a calm and peaceful journey home.
6. I could recall hearing the strange, deep buzzing sound, and from this time on, I became very jittery if I heard a sound that even vaguely resembled it.
7. I could also recall having felt dizzy and faint, with tingling, immovable limbs just prior to losing memory/consciousness – not a normal occurrence on your way home from shopping!

I thought about this incident frequently for years and, along with other incidents, it had a huge impact on my life.  Searching for a possible, rational explanation became important to me.

More lights.

1. January 1978, two Waimata Valley families watched a bright object that gave out a beam of light that lit up an entire valley during a UFO sighting that lasted over an hour from 9.30 pm.  The UFO repeated the manoeuvre several times.  The witnesses had never seen light like it in their lives.
2. April 1978, a teacher described how she had got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.  Looking out her living room windows, she saw what she thought was the most beautiful moonlight she had ever seen, shining down along the entire line of hills behind the house; very bright, white light, illuminating and defining every tree and rocky outcrop clearly.  There was some ‘movement’ or swirling of the light, which she thought was caused by wisps of cloud passing. She woke her husband to see this amazing moonlit sight, but he told her there was no moon that night.  She returned to the living room, noticing that all was now very dark and there was no moon.  She could think of no explanation for what she had witnessed.