Incident at New Brighton Pier – Christchurch - 10.15PM on a summer evening in1956

The following incident was related to me some years ago by a woman who, being a local artist, was able to sketch the main details of her experience. While she could not recall the exact date of the encounter, she believes it was in the summer of 1956. Oddly enough, she remembered the time, 10.15 at night.

She was in a car full of friends, stopped in the small car park overlooking the dunes, next to the old New Brighton Pier – a wooden structure in those days – that was replaced by a concrete structure in the late 1990s. Her first recollection was seeing what she thought was a small boat tied up at the end of the pier, with two people working to fix some part of it.
However, the more she studied the craft, the more she realised it wasn’t anything she’d seen before. It had a rounded top, of which a segment had been opened, and she observed two shadowy figures working on something inside it.
“Estimating the size of the people would be difficult. But considering the distance to the end of the pier at high tide, I would say they would be seven feet tall, or even bigger. The pier was approximately 15 feet above the high tide – this is at best a guess, as I have the recollection of over 20 years ago.” (ed: I would agree with this estimate, having seen the pier on many occasions myself)
“But the sight of the craft is as vivid now as it was then. I have told only close friends of the sighting, but most think I’m a little touched to have thought I saw something. The others (five of us) in the car deny they saw anything, the next day. But at the time they were frightened out of their wits!
“I have since read quite a few books on the subject but have never found a craft to correspond with mine. The nearest I have seen to humanoids was a photo a man took of his daughter on some cliffs in Cornwall, I think, which when developed revealed a man in a tight fitting uniform standing behind her. He had a crested head, just like I had seen.
“As we watched the craft, the open top closed down and it moved inshore towards us. It seemed to tip its leading edge revealing the underneath of the craft, showing lights that seemed to revolve around the base. It was then we realised it could not possibly be a yacht. We could see the water glow underneath the craft as it came towards us. The craft looked to be 18 – 20 feet in diameter and definitely saucer shaped. It hovered at the high tide mark for what seemed like many minutes and I had the overwhelming urge to get out of the car and walk towards the craft. When it was clear I was not going to do so, the craft rapidly ascended from tide and vanished into the night sky.”