Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Have you seen the light?
We have, and several others are now reporting strange occurrences on the harbour in recent months – some sending in photos of unusual lights over the water and in the sky, all since the Sun's initial report last month.

These stories coming from readers have some similarities:
They're sane, sober, reliable people – not seeking publicity or particularly obsessed with alien spotting, and have spoken sensibly to our reporters, some reluctantly, on this series of unexplained events.

Here at RR we like to keep an open mind on things, especially strange and weird things, until there's some hard evidence. Visitors from outer space fall into that category. We've been conditioned by Hollywood to jump to the conclusion that the first sign of anything odd in the sky must be Mork from Ork or one of the other cheerful, some not so friendly, characters from other planets. For instance, if we found the Martians, or their vehicle, that would be convincing.

Such as this photo sent this week of a Martian car, thanks to Ken Wright of Lightwave Gallery.

Our hearts were sent racing when this headline beamed into the newsroom:
'Foreign Affairs Minister welcomes Martian Foreign Minister.”
On closer reading, we discover that it actually says:
'Mauritanian” foreign minister, Mr Hamadi Ould Baba Ould Hamadi. We welcome Ould Hamadi, send our regards to the young Hamadis and apologise for the brief confusion.
And to clarify, is there any chance he left his car parked outside Lightwave Gallery?
No sorry, that was not the Mauritanians, it was REALLY the Martians.

Then, we received this photo from an astute reader, of an alien who landed on their roof. Fortunately, the arrival of these aliens is well documented and the invader is about to be repelled from our shores. Whakamarama School's upcoming possum hunt will send them packing. We'll have more on this in coming weeks.

Hard evidence
We do not, then, have any hard evidence of space travellers. We do have a series of smudgy photos in bad light, but still a long stretch to say that spacepersons are hanging about.
However it does suggest that something unusual is happening. Unusual enough for sane, sober reliable folk to bother taking a photo.
Oddball sights in the sky and over the water aren't automatically aliens. There is most likely a logical, earthbound explanation for this.
Such as our navy, or someone else's, playing with new gizmos.
Our defence people say it's not them. Can you really trust them to come clean about their classified manoeuvres?

Just this week we found some hard evidence that the army was up to something. The whole army was on the road. We know it was the whole army, because they had both trucks and the quad bike.
They were belting along the open highway at a blistering 55km/h with a fair bit of traffic building up behind. Lucky we are not at war – we'd be late.

Manoeuvres
Then this thought: perhaps our army was still on the way to the Second World War, at that pace, they should make Dunkirk before the next rugby world cup. You can never tell with our armed forces.
Our only hope is that the enemy was still stuck in the traffic tailback.
And while we are slinging off at the military, it's likely they do some manoeuvres and don't tell us. That could explain some unusual sightings.

Remember, this is the same defence force that has unexploded devices washing ashore fairly regularly around the New Zealand coast, and doesn't find it necessary to explain until the dog digs one up; or an inquisitive farmhand decides to cut one open to see what's inside. Answer: Fire, lots of hot fire!
So here at RR we suspect there's something odd going on in our skies and over our harbour.
It may not be from another world, but we'd like to find out exactly what's up.

And, surprise surprise, this week our military announced plans to spend $600m on a 'cyber army” including remote control drones and robots.
So have they been test driving any of these fandangled flying machines lately? Over our harbour, by any chance? It's the best explanation available so far.
Watch this space.
Watch outer space.
Keep your cameras handy.
Thanks for your reports and photos, keep them coming: brian@thesun.co.nz

Parting thought:
This week the world marked International Self Esteem Day. I was going to celebrate, but didn't feel I was good enough.