On 13 January 1965, the crew of Qantas Flight 363 reported an unusual trail formation over the Tasman Sea while flying from Christchurch towards Sydney. Military and civil aviation staff sought further information, radar operators searched for possible aircraft, and a maritime aircraft examined an area associated with a separate radar report. The released records preserve these strands distinctly. They do not establish that seven unknown aircraft were tracked on radar.
Approximate area: the map marks the aircraft’s reported position of 41° south, 167° east, as given in the principal interview signal. These are whole-degree coordinates, not a surveyed point. Other notes give a different longitude. The marker is an offshore reference for the observation, not the position of the trails, the later radar contacts or a recovered object.
The crew’s account in the Australian file
The released RAAF file A703, 580/1/1 Part 4 contains a two-page HQ Operational Command signal recording information obtained from an interview with Captain Shannon. In the downloaded file used here, it appears on PDF pages 147–148. The signal dates the observation to 0845 UTC on 13 January, shortly after sunset, with the aircraft at 20,000 feet and heading approximately west.
A single vapour-like trail appeared to the northwest, travelling east. It developed into seven distinct trails, interpreted at the time as possibly produced by large aircraft in loose formation. Their apparent elevation was about thirty degrees above the observers. Estimated height and speed were included, but the record contains no independently measured distance to establish either quantity.
The signal says crew members observed from different parts of the aircraft and agreed substantially on the appearance. It also says the trail dissipated from the rear. These details support a shared visual observation. They do not show that the observers resolved seven solid aircraft bodies, or that the estimated formation and speed were instrumentally verified.
Why the radar accounts need separating
The same signal records an earlier observation by the second pilot on a Sydney–Wellington flight that morning. Near longitude 166° east, he had seen returns on his radar which he considered a group of eleven ships. This was not a radar lock on the seven trails during Flight 363. It occurred on another journey, at another time, and concerned apparent surface contacts.
A further paragraph reports Wellington and Ohakea surveillance radar findings. No relevant high-altitude aircraft had been established; the exceptional returns were described as radar angels south of Wellington, moving at roughly one hundred knots. The term refers here to uncertain returns discussed by operators, not a visual identification of extraordinary craft.
The distinction is essential because the combined file can look impressive when reduced to aircraft witnesses plus multiple radar contacts. The original signal instead links different observations through an investigation. To count them as independent measurements of the same moving object would require matching times, bearings and positions that this record does not supply.
The Wellington response
The released New Zealand AIR 244/10/1 Volume 1 provides the civil aviation response in more detail. Its public page-by-page transcription, pages 100–105, includes the report of air traffic control officer P. L. McDermott, the radar log and maritime search messages. These released texts were examined alongside the Australian scans; a complete independent audit of the whole New Zealand file has not been undertaken.
McDermott’s report describes radar being returned to operational use after maintenance work, with senior officers arriving to coordinate the search. Captain Shannon confirmed that the crew had reported condensation trails. The operators continued to examine returns, but McDermott recorded no aircraft echoes. A departing DC-3 asked to check a radar contact visually saw nothing.
The radar log records slow-moving echoes and explicitly marks suspected angels. This is evidence of an active response and uncertain returns, rather than evidence that a formation of fast aircraft approached Wellington. The report also records an instruction to describe the sighting publicly as a peculiar cloud formation associated with a jet stream. That was an official interpretation communicated during the response, not a recovered object or a demonstrated reconstruction.
The maritime search and follow-up interview
The RNZAF follow-up message, preserved on PDF page 146 of the Australian file, says a maritime aircraft searched on 14 January because of the earlier ship-like radar returns. It found an unusually large number of dense cloud contacts, with multiple returns visible at ranges up to seventy nautical miles. No group of ships was located.
The same message records another interview with Shannon at Wellington on the evening of 14 January. He expanded his account but added nothing considered significant. Unless more information emerged, RNZAF headquarters proposed dropping the matter. That administrative decision indicates the limits of the inquiry; it does not establish a single physical cause for every observation in the file.
The later meteor proposal
In a 2010 original review, updated in 2015, Keith Basterfield suggested a breaking-up meteor if a tentative ten-second duration belonged to the crew’s observation. Astronomer Ted Molczan later reported finding no correlating known satellite re-entry and also considered a fragmenting meteor possible, while retaining the possibility of an uncatalogued re-entry. Neither proposal was an identification of a recovered or independently tracked object.
The duration needs care. The released New Zealand transcription places the ten-second note under a Stokes Valley heading on a page following a handwritten flight message. Its relationship to the aircrew report is therefore uncertain and has not been treated here as a firm flight measurement. A conditional explanation should not become a conclusive result through repetition of a later article’s headline.
Assessment
The outcome is Insufficient evidence. The contemporary documents establish an aircrew trail report, official interviews and searches, with cloud contacts found during the maritime follow-up. They also show why separate visual and radar episodes cannot be combined into one confirmed formation. Weather and meteor proposals deserve attribution, but neither the administrative closure nor the available later analysis independently settles the visible event.