Whangamata beach figure report — January 1969

A married couple reportedly had an unsettling beach encounter at Whangamata, New Zealand, around 10 p.m. during January 1969. Keith Basterfield summarized the case in MUFON UFO Journal 177, citing Peter Dykes’s 1981 book Strangers in Our Skies, pages 40–46. The retrieved journal passage does not name the couple or supply an exact January day. While walking they noticed an uncanny silence and a feeling that something was wrong. Four to six tall figures allegedly floated down nearby sandhills and approached. The figures were covered completely in black, with no visible faces, arms or feet. A dense grey, balloon-like object with a flat base, approximately 1.2 metres across, suddenly appeared only about a metre away at eye level. The couple turned and ran. The imported entry simplifies the figures to five and enlarges the sphere to 1.5 metres. Some later retellings add further altered-awareness details which are absent from the retrieved MUFON abstract; they should not establish a journey or confinement. The plate shows five indistinct covered forms as a midpoint within the reported range, the small flat-bottomed sphere and two representative beachgoers. No uncovered alien anatomy or large mothership is supported.