Interview Request for Student Magazine Project
Mark Honeychurch - 28th October 2025
We recently received a request from a student to answer some questions about UFOs and other unexplained phenomena. After reading the email, it looked likely that this project will approach these topics from a somewhat credulous angle:
I’m currently studying Graphic Design. As part of a course project, I’m curating and designing a small magazine that explores UFO sightings, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theories, and life beyond Earth.
I’m reaching out to ask if you might be open to answering a few questions about your work and thoughts around these topics. Your insights would be an amazing addition to the project. If you’re open to it, I’d be happy to send the questions over by email.
Thanks so much for your time, and I hope to hear from you soon!
I put my hand up to take the time to answer the student’s questions, and received them a few days later. Sure enough, they were the kinds of questions you’d expect to be asked of a True Believer. I took on the challenge of answering them as best I could from a skeptical perspective, and hopefully I haven’t inadvertently created any soundbites that can be taken out of context to suggest that Skeptics believe in visiting aliens, ghosts or psychic powers. Here are the questions, along with my answers:
Can you tell me a bit about how you got started in this line of work or interest?
I’ve been fascinated by mysteries ever since I was a kid, reading books on topics such as cryptids, UFOs and amazing coincidences. But the more I learned through my continued education about the importance of evidence, the limits of what’s possible according to science, and how imperfect our brains can be, the more I realised that most supernatural claims are both scientifically nonsensical and lack any credible, reliable evidence.
What first inspired you to start investigating [UFOs / paranormal phenomena / life beyond Earth]?
I first joined the New Zealand Skeptics in 2013, after becoming tired of reading one too many implausible claims being uncritically reported on in the media. I wanted to be part of a group that actively challenges people who make these kinds of claims. It’s been great to have spent the last decade or more investigating the people who make paranormal and supernatural claims, and I’m looking forward to continuing this work for a long time yet.
What is one of the most compelling cases or experiences you’ve come across during your research relating to these topics?
Given that most claims are supernatural in nature, and are therefore outside of the laws of physics, most cases that we hear in New Zealand (such as haunted houses or psychic abilities) are easy to dismiss. The alternative, of believing these claims, entails discarding much of what we’ve learned about the world over the last few hundred years through the process of scientific discovery. I’m much more inclined to accept the entirety of our massive body of knowledge about matter, energy, space and time that we’ve painstakingly figured out through an incredible process of trial and error, than I am to think that some of this knowledge is wrong simply because I want to believe that my grandma is hanging around my house in incorporeal form, leaving subtle hints for me that she’s persisted after death.
So, by a process of elimination, the most compelling cases are the ones that don’t defy our scientific understanding of the world. However this is not to say that they’re very compelling, as they still need to get over the second hurdle of having credible evidence to back them up. So, for example, claims of extinct animals like the moa surviving to today may be plausible as far as physics is concerned, but sadly there’s a lack of good quality evidence that these claims are true. And until we have that evidence they will remain nothing more than wishful thinking. And, of course, the longer we don’t manage to find any evidence for their existence, the less likely it is that they’re still out there, hiding somewhere in the bush.
What is the most credible UFO sighting or alien encounter you’ve researched or reported on, and why does it stand out?
Given the massive time and energy requirements required for aliens to travel interstellar distances, it seems vanishingly unlikely that any extraterrestrial species or technology would ever visit earth - so the baseline credibility for any UFO sighting or alien encounter is very low. None of the cases I’ve read about have been anywhere near compelling enough to counter this low probability, and so even the most credible of them is really not very credible at all. Sadly the “evidence” seems to be a smorgasbord of unreliable personal anecdotes and blurry photos that have perfectly reasonable, and natural, explanations that are much more compelling.
How do you differentiate between hoaxes and genuinely unexplained UFO phenomena?
Hoaxes appear to be relatively rare in the UFO community. There are some people who are well-known for creating UFO hoaxes - faked photos, made-up stories of personal encounters, claims of abductions, etc - but these seem to be a minority of UFO claims.
That’s not to say that everything that’s not a hoax is aliens - far from it! A UFO sighting is, as its name says, simply an instance of someone seeing something in the sky they can’t identify - and there are many, many of these events occurring around the world every single day. We already know from every UFO sighting that has been eventually identified that none of them have ever turned out to be alien in origin - it’s always been a mixture of people seeing planets, stars, satellites, weather balloons, clouds, aeroplanes, lens aberrations in their camera equipment, etc. So, given that every UFO mystery that has been solved turns out to have a non-alien explanation, it seems reasonable to expect that most or all of the unsolved UFO sightings would also have an explanation that is similarly natural. Many sightings will forever be unexplained, but this doesn’t mean it’s okay to jump the gun and claim it’s aliens - an unknown natural or man-made cause will always be a much more likely scenario.
Have you ever spoken to someone who claims to have been abducted? What made their story believable (or not)?
Sadly not. Although I’ve talked to people who have had a variety of supposedly paranormal experiences, none of them has ever claimed to have been abducted by aliens - so far. I would love to sit down and talk with someone one day who does believe this, as I think it would be fascinating to hear them talk about their experience.
From your experience, what locations or regions seem to have the most intense or frequent paranormal activity?
As a skeptic I don’t think that anywhere in New Zealand has any paranormal activity - but there are certain parts of the country that seem to have a far higher than average percentage of people who believe in things that don’t have good evidence for them. When it comes to UFO sightings, Auckland seems to be the most active region in the country - but that is easily explained by the fact that it’s our largest city. Auckland not only has a lot of things in the sky at night with flashing lights on them, such as aeroplanes, buildings and drones, but it also has a lot more people looking at the sky and taking pictures of things they see when they’re not sure what they are.
In your opinion, how open is New Zealand society to topics like UFOs, ghosts, or the paranormal?
This might be controversial, but I think New Zealand is far too open to the idea of UFOs, ghosts and the paranormal! Although some of these beliefs are benign, they can also lead to people losing money - for example by paying a psychic to “talk” to a dead relative, or having a house spiritually “cleansed”. It would be great if more people learned about the basics of critical thinking, and then applied those skills to any fringe beliefs they hold. It’s those areas of our life where we really want something that’s implausible to be true that we’re most likely to let down our guard and lower our requirement for good quality evidence.
Do you believe the government or other agencies know more than they’re letting on when it comes to UFOs or unexplained phenomena? Why or why not?
It’s conceivable that some unexplained phenomena could turn out to be related to state secrets, such as classified weapons or technology - but this is unlikely to go any further than instances of unexplained lights in the sky where there’s no public record of any overhead flights, satellites, etc. It certainly seems very unlikely that ghosts, psychic powers or anti-gravity technology are real, for example, with knowledge of them being suppressed by the government.
How do you usually investigate or verify reports or phenomena?
The NZ Skeptics offer a $100,000 prize to people in New Zealand who have made supernatural or paranormal claims - although our prize is by invite only, and not open to everyone who thinks they have a special ability. We try to restrict our challenge to people who already have a public profile, as we don’t want to be responsible for inadvertently promoting relatively unknown people who are making fantastical claims. Sadly none of the people we’ve challenged so far have taken us up on our offer, but if anyone ever agrees to take our challenge we have a process in place. Through this process we would work with the claimant to create a protocol designed to test their claim thoroughly enough that we could all be confident we’re seeing a real effect, and not a result of either trickery or misunderstanding.