Academic throws light on 40-year-old UFO mystery

The Age, October 2, 2005

Just what did flash out of the sky and into the lives of hundreds that April day? Stephen Cauchi reports.

A Canberra academic is investigating one of Australia's most compelling UFO mysteries, a sighting by hundreds of people in the Melbourne suburb of Westall on April 6, 1966.

More than 200 students and staff from two schools watched as the object landed in a nearby paddock, lifted off and vanished.

Shane Ryan, an English lecturer at the University of Canberra, is interviewing dozens of witnesses for a book he hopes to publish on the 40th anniversary of the sighting.

Mr Ryan, 38, was alerted to the events in the 1980s by a housemate who was there. Unlike most UFO sightings, the Westall object had a large number of credible witnesses. It was viewed in daylight and attracted a forceful response from police and the RAAF.

"It had these rather interesting elements which indicated to me that, unlike some other so-called UFO stories, there was some substance to this," he told The Sunday Age.

"I knew the 40th anniversary was coming up next year, so I thought it was timely to do some research on it."

Mr Ryan has interviewed about 30 witnesses, mostly former staff and students from the Westall secondary and primary schools. He has tried obtaining police and RAAF reports, but so far with little luck. The story was covered then by Channel Nine, The Age and local newspapers.

On the UFO, everyone seems to agree, Mr Ryan says. It was a low-flying, silver/grey shining object, either of classical flying saucer shape or close to it, "a cup turned upside down on a saucer". The students were familiar with light aircraft because the schools were close to Moorabbin Airport. Although the UFO was of similar size, "everyone said straight away that they knew it was not a plane", Mr Ryan said, nor a weather balloon.

The object was in view for up to 20 minutes, and many saw it descend. Most agree it landed behind pine trees at the Grange Reserve. Dozens of students ran across what was then an open paddock to the reserve to investigate, but the object had lifted off and vanished.

Other details are sketchier. The UFO appears to have left a circle of scorched grass; others say several circles were left in paddocks bordering Grange Reserve.

Many witnesses, not all, report seeing aircraft, up to five, trailing the UFO. Some say it made no sound, others say it did.

Many reported that police/air force/military personnel inspected the site; some (not all) say the authorities burnt the site. The Dandenong Journal, for which the story was front-page news two weeks in a row, reported that "students and staff have been instructed to 'talk to no-one' about the incident". Nevertheless, one teacher, Andrew Greenwood, gave the paper a detailed account.

"It was silvery-grey and seemed to thicken at times," he said. "The thickening was similar to when a disc is turned a little to show the underside."

One of the closest witnesses was a boy whose family leased land at Grange Reserve for horses.

Shaun Matthews (not a student at Westall) was on holidays and spending time on the land.

"I saw the thing come across the horizon and drop down behind the pine trees," he told The Sunday Age this week. "I couldn't tell you what it was. It certainly wasn't a light aircraft or anything of the like …

"I saw the thing drop down behind the pine trees and saw it leave again. I couldn't tell you how long it was there for, it was such a long time ago."

Mr Matthews, 51 and now living in Greenvale, said the object "went up and off very very rapidly".

"I went over and there was a circle in the clearing. It looked like it had been cooked or boiled, not burnt as I remember," he said. "A heap of kids from Westall primary and high school came charging through to see what had happened — 'look at this, look at that, we saw it as well', that sort of thing. It was a bit of a talking point for a couple of days."

Mr Matthews said the object, about the size of "two family cars", passed him at a distance of about "four football fields". "It was silvery, but it had a sort-of purple hue to it, very bright, but not bright enough that you couldn't look at it," he said.

"I saw that it dropped down behind the trees, and I thought, 'hello, hang on'. A minute or so later, it went straight up, just gone."

He said police and other officials interviewed his mother. But he cannot remember them burning the landing site, as others have alleged. And he did not see any light aircraft trailing the object, as others did.

"The way this thing moved there is no way it could have been a weather balloon or a light aircraft," he said.

"A helicopter? No way — no noise, wrong shape, and it didn't move like it. It came out of the distance, stopped, and then just dropped.

"It didn't just sort of cruise and then slightly descend at an angle. It just stopped, dropped, and then went straight up."

The Victorian UFO Research Society investigated the incident. VUFORS secretary Tony Cook said Westall remained one of Australia's major unexplained UFO cases.

The top one was the case of Frederick Valentich, a 20-year-old Melbourne pilot whose light plane disappeared while flying over Bass Strait in 1978.

In the last minutes of radio communication, Valentich reported seeing a UFO hovering above his plane. He and his craft were never recovered.

"It's pretty well documented," Mr Cook said. "That's probably the most important one because it involves the disappearance of a person."

Mr Cook said the society's stance on UFOs was that, "there are people out there seeing unusual things in the sky at times and they can't be explained. But it's a very big leap to go from unexplained things in the sky to extraterrestrials."

Most witnesses, including Mr Matthews, say the UFO was not an aircraft or helicopter. But Westall is only six kilometres from Moorabbin Airport, and the object was roughly headed in that direction, travelling north to south.

"It sounds to me like some sort of experimental craft, very much Earth-based," Steve Roberts, of Australian Skeptics, said.

"It is an interesting event with lots of witnesses and what we now call a crop circle.

"Accounts are confused. Some have the object landing and taking off again, others say 'a paddock over which the object seemed to hover'."

As well, "if there was a whole swag of officials investigating it, there must be an official report in RAAF archives somewhere".

But Mr Ryan said that no one at the RAAF knew of the incident.

But given the history of the case — the way students and staff were told to keep quiet from the start — that was not surprising, he said.

"As I got a little bit older, I got a little more interested in the social and historical aspects of the story, how something like this could have happened and how it reflected society at the time, and how authorities responded to it," he said.

"There's been a layer of secrecy that was very, very prominent in this story from the beginning."

The internet discussion list of this incident is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Westallhighschoolufo/

But he had been traveling in a straight line all along and as a result, nearly side-swiped a large tree on the left hand side of the road. Only the headlight beams had ‘bent’ to the right as he drove past a particular point, before straightening up again.

I braked as hard as I could and glanced over to the right. In the middle of the paddock was a column of colored light about 25 feet/ 7.6m high and shaped like an ice-cream cone. [Ron Sullivan, Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne), Tuesday April 12, 1966, p.2]

At the same time as the car’s headlight beams were drawn to the right, Ron Sullivan felt ‘a tugging’ in his chest, he later told Ben Hurle of VUFOA, and thought ‘Holy Molly! What the heck’s going on here?’

By this time Ron Sullivan had slowed down considerably, and he looked to his right and saw the light in the field perform a remarkable maneuver.

The bottom of the light, a very bright milky light, came up and met the top — and "swoosh, straight up and out of sight at a tremendous speed, faster than the speed of sound, I’d say" Sullivan recalled.

I noticed the light didn’t cast shadows; the light was contained within this object and could not escape. It didn’t light up any trees. And off it went. Very strange. What it was, I do not know. [Ron Sullivan, 2013 VUFOA video documentary with Ben Hurle]

It must be emphasized that some of the previous quotes from Sullivan were made forty-seven years after the event. He was interviewed by Ben Hurle of Victorian Unidentified Flying Object Action  (VUFOA) for a video documentary in 2013, when he was 86-years-old.

Ron’s earlier description of these events were considerably more-colorful when quoted in his home-town newspaper, the Maryborough Advertiser, back in April 1966:

He said he looked across into the paddock, and, at what appeared to be a short distance from the fence, was a display of gaseous lights — "all the colors of the spectrum." He did not stop but glanced at the paddock as often as he could while driving, and the last he saw was the lights about 20 feet/6m from the ground. The lights appeared to move rapidly up and down in a narrow area. [Maryborough Advertiser, April 13,1966, p.5]

Ron Sullivan continued driving north, pausing only to check his headlights when he reached St Arnaud — 30 miles/48 km from Burkes Flat. Everything was working normally, so he drove on to Wycheproof and checked in at his motel. ‘I couldn't sleep that night,’ Ron said, ‘just wondering ‘what the heck was that?’

Initially, Ron didn’t discuss his experience very widely; but he did mention it to the building site overseer at Wycheproof the day after:

I said, ‘I had a bad night last night coming up [to Wycheproof], something strange happened. I don’t know what it was; it was just a strange light in a paddock. I could feel my body being tugged — like gravity or magnetic fields.’ [Ron Sullivan, 2013 VUFOA video documentary with Ben Hurle]

The next day, Wednesday, he drove home to Maryborough, arriving in the late afternoon. He told his wife of his experience at Burkes Flat, and they decided not to say any more about it as Ron might be subjected to ridicule.

Fate decided differently however, and Ron soon felt obliged to reveal his story publicly.

I heard on the radio — I think it was on the sixth or the seventh [of April] — a young boy was killed in a motor accident at Burkes Flat. I said to my wife ‘That’s strange, that’s where I had that experience.’ She said, ‘Well, you’d better tell someone about it.’ [Ron Sullivan, 2013 VUFOA video documentary with Ben Hurle]

Nineteen-year-old electrical engineer Gary Taylor of Carnegie, Melbourne struck a tree at Burkes Flat when he lost control of his Ford Zephyr and was killed. Following this news, Ron Sullivan felt obliged to speak to the local police.

Ron’s friend Hugh Hunter worked on the Maryborough Advertiser, so he called Hugh and enquired about the accident. Hugh asked Ron what he knew about it. Ron admitted, ‘Something strange happened that night I was there." When Ron explained what he’d seen and experienced at Burkes Flat on Monday night, Hugh said "Leave it with me, Ron, I’ll check with the police.’

Later, the pair agreed to visit to site together on Good Friday (April 8, 1966). ‘Do  you know where it is?’ Hugh asked. ‘I have a pretty good idea, it’ll be about 14 kms/8.6miles out of Moliagul,’ Ron assured him.

They found the site of Ron’s encounter without difficulty — about a mile passed a house with a dam beside it, as Ron had anticipated.

After parking their car Messrs Sullivan and Hunter decided to enter the paddock to see if there were any marks where he had seen the colored lights on the previous Monday night.

It was only then that it was found that the car was parked 20 feet/6m from a tree against which a car had crashed. This was the tree struck by a car driven by Gary Taylor, of Carnegie, on Thursday night. Taylor was killed in the crash. [Maryborough Advertiser, April 13, 1966, p.5]

This was the very same tree Ron Sullivan almost struck when correcting his steering after the headlights of his car ‘had been drawn to the right as though by magnet’ as he drove.

In view of coincidence the matter was reported to Bealiba police who were handling the accident investigations. [Maryborough Advertiser, April 13, 1966, p.5]

There was yet another surprise in store for the Maryborough men searching in the paddock on the right. "Hey, Ron," Hugh called out, ‘Come over here and have a look at this!’

He had found an impression in the ground. It was ‘a little over three feet [a meter] in diameter and only a few inches in depth’ and ‘looked odd’ in the fallowed ground. ‘There were no foot or paw prints around it — just a bare impression in the ploughed ground.’ The depression was scooped out of the sandy soil. Farming land described as ‘fallow’ has usually been ploughed and left unsown, allowing the soil fertility to recover.

Melbourne’s largest-circulating daily newspaper, The Sun News-Pictorial, featured a photograph of the incident site on page two of their April 12, 1966 edition, with a report from a journalist, Ian Livingstone, who traveled there with Ron Sullivan at dusk the previous afternoon:

A small dusty depression in a ploughed paddock is the only clue left in Maryborough’s ‘column of lights’ mystery. About 3ft/.9m. in diameter, and from 2 to 5 inches/9cm deep, the saucer-shaped depression is inside a paddock 50yds from the Dunolly to St Arnuad road.

Ron’s recall of this depression has grown over the intervening 47 years — he described it to Ben Hurle in 2013 as being ‘about nine or ten feet [about 3 meters) in diameter and about six or eight inches deep.’ Such inconsistencies are predictable considering the long period of time elapsed since the original event, and do not invalidate the significant elements of the experience.

The other Melbourne daily paper, The Age, ran a story on April 12 headed SAUCER NOT DEATH CAUSE on page 6:

Police do not believe there is any connection between a fatal accident near Maryborough on Thursday night and a reported flying saucer sighting at the same spot four days earlier…

Then followed a précis of the ‘mystery lights’ story, which concluded: News of Mr. Sullivan’s experience produced the theory that Gary Taylor might have met his death because his headlights were ‘diverted’ by a strange light object.

The media, both local and national, showed great interest in the ‘Bent Headlight Beams’ case with its colorful light display and the subsequent tragedy at the same spot.  Police at nearby Castlemaine, Maryborough, Bealiba and Newstead also received reports of flying saucers seen in their areas.

One reader wrote to the editor of the Maryborough Advertiser suggesting Ron Sullivan’s ‘colored lights’ might have been a meteor burning up fiercely after entering the earth’s atmosphere. The editor’s published response read, ‘There was no sign of any burning in the immediate area where Mr. Sullivan saw the lights… the depression which has received so much publicity gave no indication of burning.’ [Maryborough Advertiser, April 15, 1966 p.8]

Ron Sullivan had a few unexpected visitors shortly after the ‘bent headlight beams’ story made the national news. ‘Two chaps from the Air Force came to see me in the office at work one day,’ Ron recalled, ‘They introduced themselves, asked a few question, made some notes, and said good bye.’

A few weeks after the sighting, two more-interesting visitors telephoned to see whether Ron would be available to speak with them:

Two chaps in suits came up [to Maryborough] one day and introduced themselves. I just took it they were from some government department, because they looked pretty official.

They had a book, a black covered book, with diagrams of flying saucers [in it]. Of course, I didn’t believe in them [flying saucers] in those days, but I’m changing my mind a bit now [2013].

They turned a page over, ‘Is it this one?’ Another page, ‘Was it shaped like that?’

‘Did it look like this one?’ etc. …I asked, ‘Where did these pictures come from?’ ‘Oh, from all around the world.’ I did pinpoint the closest resemblance to the one I saw …the ice-cream cone, but when the bottom came up to meet the top, it just looked like a saucer with the dome underneath. [Ron Sullivan, 2013 VUFOA video documentary with Ben Hurle]

At the time of the initial investigation, the property’s owner said there was no ‘impression/landing patch’ in the ground when he ploughed and raked he area before leaving it fallow.

Twelve years after the event (March, 1978), Victorian ufologist Paul Norman located the landing patch and took photographs of it, saying it was ‘precisely in line with the tree the car hit’ (probably inferring it was at right angles to it in relation to the road.

The police report for the coronial inquiry into Gary Taylor’s death estimates his car hit the tree at 70mph/112kph after leaving a 70ft/21m skid mark.

A makeshift plaque, recognizing both Ron Sullivan’s UFO sighting and Gary Taylor’s death, was attached to a roadside tree on the Wimmera Highway opposite the 263km sign in 2013.

Gosford, Central Coast Australia, 1994

On early Christmas morning near the city of Gosford, Australia, the first sighting occurred. According to testimony from former Air Traffic Controller Lindsay Carter, it was a quiet morning as he headed north from Sydney. Peering out his front windshield, Carter saw about a half-mile away, a silver, metallic object in the sky. The object was crossing from South to North. Another eyewitness to the object was housewife June O'Hare, who saw the UFO move over the water. The object was surrounded by lights.

By New Year's Eve, numerous calls were made to local authorities reporting a UFO, according to Sgt. Bob Wenning. All of the callers reported a huge, ball-shaped object with bright lights on the bottom. Witnesses observed the UFO sucking up water from the lake.

Other witnesses claimed to have watched the unknown object move over the waters for as long as 15 minutes. They stated that they had never seen anything that looked like what they saw that day.

Eyewitness Margaret Howe watched the same object. She reported lights coming up out of the water, and the object moving over the water. She could hear the sound of rushing water as it was being sucked into the mysterious craft. After a moment or two, the UFO returned the object to the lake.

The "Weekly Sun" newspaper reported the incident. The article spawned numerous callers to phone the newspaper, saying that they too, had seen the UFO. The group of callers represented a vast cross section of the citizenry; lawyers, policemen, teachers, and more.

Some of the witnesses described several beams of light emitted from the craft's bottom to the water, with the surface of the water highly disturbed. Other callers reported being awakened by a loud sound, with their pets acting strangely. The police were baffled by the reports.

UFO researcher Moira McGhee launched an investigation with eyewitness reports, and calls to any and all possible launching sites for airplanes, helicopters, or any flying craft. These inquiries brought no evidence as to the origin of the UFO.

The appearance of a UFO moving over the waters near Gosford in 1994 has never been explained.

The Willow Grove Close Encounter

Date: February 15, 1963, Location: Near Moe, Australia

Charles Brew, with his 20 year-old son Trevor, was at work in the milking shed on their farm, 'Willow Grove', when he saw a strange object appear and descend very slowly towards the milk shed, to a height of about 30 metres. The object was metallic grey, measured 8 meters in diameter, and had a transparent dome with a 2-meter mast or aerial. After hovering for a few seconds the object began climbed away into the clouds.

At 7 a.m. on 15 February 1963 Charles Brew bore witness to a classic close encounter. With his 20 year-old son, Trevor, Brew was at work in the milking shed on their farm, 'Willow Grove', near Moe, Victoria. It was light, but rain clouds lay overhead. Charles Brew was standing in an open area, with a full view ot the eastern sky. It was from that direction that he saw a strange object appear and descend very slowly towards the milk shed. The object's approach was coincident with the cattle and a pony reacting violently. The two farm dogs fled. A local newspaper even reported that the cows turned somersaults, a suggestion the Brews later denied. 

The UFO descended to a height of about 30 metres, hovering over a stringy-bark tree. It was about eight metres in diameter and three metres high. The top section appeared to be a transparent dome of a glass-like material, from which protruded a two metre high mast or aerial. The 'aerial' appeared to be as thick as a broom and resembled bright chrome. The top portion of the disc itself was battleship grey in colour and appeared to be of metallic lustre. The base or underside section glowed with a pale blue colour and had 'scoop-like protuberances around the outside edge'. This section rotated slowly at about one revolution per second. This spinning motion apparently caused the protuberances to generate a swishing noise, somewhat like a turbine noise, that was clearly audible not only to Brew but also to his son Trevor, who was located inside the shed near the operating diesel-powered milking machine units. 

Charles Brew felt his eyes were drawn towards the object 'as though beams of magnetic current' were between it and him. He also experienced a peculiar headache which came on with the approach of the object. After hovering for a few seconds the object began to climb, continuing on its westward course and passing up into the cloud deck again. Trevor did not see the UFO, but confirmed the unusual sound, like a didgeridoo or bull-roarer—aboriginal artefacts which can produce pulsating, wind-rushing noise. 

Flight Lieutenant N. Hudson and Squadron Leader A.F. Javes of the RAAF interviewed Brew. While impressed with his credibility, the weather at the time of the sighting—heavy continuous rain with very low cloud and poor visibility, and with a fresh wind in an easterly direction—seems to have led them to focus on weather-related explanations. Their report describes the basis of their somewhat extraordinary 'explanation' for the incident: 'On 6 March Dr Berson and Mr Clark, Commonwealth meteorologists, were interviewed to see if clouds give this type of phenomenon. They agreed that a tornado condition could give this effect. The direction of rotation of Brew's report of the object was consistent with known facts for the Southern Hemisphere. The blue-ish colouring has been reported previously and is probably due to electric discharge and there would be a smell of ozone. The only difference in Brew's report was that the object moved from east to west, because all their previous reports of this nature have been from west to east. Mr Brew stated that the wind was fresh from an easterly direction. However, a meteorological report states that wind was westerly at eight knots.' 

The report notes that the meteorological report was from a Yallourn observer, about 20 kilometres away, therefore local variations in the weather would not have been unusual. Despite this lack of rigour in determining how relevant their hypothesis was, the RAAF officers' report concluded, 'There is little doubt that Brew did witness something, and it is most likely that it was a natural phenomenon. The phenomenon was probably a tornado. There was no reported damage along its path, therefore one could assume that it was weak in nature.' 

The Department of Air responded to a civilian UFO group enquiry about the incident with the following statement, 'Our investigation and enquiries reveal that there are scientific records of certain tornado-like meteorological manifestations which have a similar appearance in many ways to whatever was seen by Mr Brew. The information available is such, however, that while we accept this is a possibility, we are unable to come to any firm conclusion as to the nature of the object or manifestation reported.' The official sighting summaries removed any such doubt. By then the 'possible cause' was listed as a 'tornado-like meteorological manifestation.' 

Dr. Berson and an associate visited Brew at the Willow Grove property. According to Brew, Dr Berson was interested in the headache that he had, and indicated that Berson had said that it tied in with his theory of a possible electromagnetic nature of the incident. What the Department of Air referred to as a 'tornado-like meteorological manifestation' elicited the following comment from Charles Brew. He said, 'I wished it would come again. It was beautiful. I could feel the life pulsating from it.' 

Dr. James McDonald visited Charles Brew during his 1967 Australian trip interviewing him at the site of the 1963 incident. McDonald concluded, "like that of many other UFO witnesses, it is extremely difficult to explain in present-day scientific or technological terms." 

Despite the extraordinary nature of the Willow Grove incident and the high level of official interest in it, the sighting was listed in a subsequently released "Summary of Unidentified Aerial Sightings reported to Department of Air, Canberra, ACT, from 1960" as having a possible cause of "tornado like meteorological manifestation."

Source: Bill Chalker (1996)

On going ashore a few minutes later, it was told to a crayfisherman and his wife (...) and on pointing out the direction a small object was again sighted looking like an aircraft a long way off; this gradually came towards us and then stopped, distance would be hard to estimate but would say 5 to 10 miles away and possibly 20,000 ft. high. While looking at this again more objects like aircraft in the distance were noticed. They increased in size and when on a level with the larger object they stopped coming. All these objects stayed for at least 5 minutes then gradually went back into the distance, the larger object being the last to fade away. While discussing this sighting, 5 to 10 minutes later on an object was again noticed in the distance and coming towards us, this sighting was as before with the smaller objects appearing soon after. On each of the three sightings the six smaller objects were in different formation. The three sightings were made over a period of approximately 30 minutes.

Objects as seen on each occasion at nearest point and approximate comparison in sizes. Note that this is just a schematic drawing, not a realistic rendering of the shape and outline of the objects (which, according to the report, "had the appearance of a burst of shell fire"). [From : Australian Flying Saucer Review 10th Anniversary Edition.]

My own feelings were that the large object had it been close overhead would have been very large.

These objects appeared as if they were observing the coast and left one with a feeling of fright. There was no noise, light or smoke from any of the objects.

Comment - The witness compares the aspect of the smaller objects to "a burst of shell fire". This is exactly how the objects seen in the 1954 Labrador case were described (Capt. HOWARD: "The whole set-up looked, at first glance, like a cluster of flak-bursts such as I had encountered several times over Europe during World War II"). The comparison with the shape of an approaching aircraft is also a returning element in a number of Dark Blob reports.

All "movements" seem to have occurred in the line of sight, which is compatible with a size-changing mirage image. A horizontal symmetry is also respected, which might suggest a double mirage in which secondary, often mirrored images appear on top of the miraged object. However, there are no islands or rock formations SW of Green Head, and with the Sun in the WSW and still quite high in the sky at 6:30 p.m. (10°), backlit cloud tops don't qualify very well as possible targets for a mirage. An alternative explanation would be distant lee wave clouds consecutively forming and dissipating in the tops of standing waves. But with no mountains anywhere near the indicated position of the objects, that idea too seems to fall short.

Source: https://www.caelestia.be/darkblob11.html

Chris Beacham 

Hi all, I have been interested to read the posts here on UFO sightings. For almost 5 years I have witnessed unusual activity in the local skies here in Sydney, and I am presently involved in researching the activity. I have even seen a hovering 'disc shaped object' disappear in front of my eyes. some of my images are online:

Chris Beacham 

In most cases I am the only witness, and in some of my pics I have used Photoshop to try to cut through the 'light,smoke and field'. Early in the sightings I detected an 'arrival pattern' around sunrise time, and that is why I have witnessed many sightings....

https://weirdaustralia.com/2013/02/01/australias-most-intriguing-ufo-cases/

http://www.project1947.com/kbcat/kbmoreintoz.htm

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread911552/pg1