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UFO Documentary - Australia (2009) - Westall 1966: A Suburban UFO Mystery

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trainedobserver

trainedobserver

Paranormally Disenchanted
This is an outstanding case that I have never heard about before. It seems hard to attribute this sighting to radar phantoms, misidentification, or a hoax. It fits a classic pattern of an appearance of a UFO pursued by military aircraft followed up by evidence confiscating men in dark suits.

 
Sean Elifritz said:
From what I've heard that case sort of grew over time. What was initially reported wasn't nearly as sensational as what the claims eventually became.
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That is often the case with these things. I've never heard of it before myself. It seems to come with some supporting evidence that something strange was reported to have happened at the time. I think the pattern of the events in the story interesting regardless.
 
trainedobserver said:
That is often the case with these things. I've never heard of it before myself. It seems to come with some supporting evidence that something strange was reported to have happened at the time. I think the pattern of the events in the story interesting regardless.
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When I saw that documentary a few years ago I was immediately interested as I had never heard of the incident either. So I started scouring the net for articles about it and what I found squashed that interest.

When it was reported apparently there was only around one or two dozen witnesses. Yet somehow that number has ballooned to a few hundred decades after the fact. The original report wasn't terribly interesting, just an object seen in the distant sky twice, one time accompanied by aircraft. And there was some talk about a patch of grass in the area that they thought looked suspiciously pressed down. That was pretty much it.

Now here we are all these years later and we have a much more sensational Westell story; the one presented in that documentary. Where were all these claims in 1966? How did a handful of witnesses turn into a flood of them? Oh, you say you saw a saucer on the ground and military swarming the area? Why didn't you tell anyone at the time? It reminds me of the Roswell case where you've got an incident with a few dozen players involved and over time it evolves into a huge urban legend involving hundreds of me-toos.
 
I thought it was interesting that although it wasn't mentioned by the narrator, the illustrator (love that animation) throws a crop circle into the mix! All of the elements are there except an occupant, bigfoot, or some other apparition unless you want to count the MIBs as such.
 
As you might expect its a case well known to me since i live in Oz.

Westallhighschoolufo : Westall High School 1966 UFO incident

Westall UFOs still a mystery
PEOPLE who have seen flying saucers, and we can add Terry to the list.
In 1966, as a student at Westall High School, Terry was playing on the oval when he noticed some strange disk-shaped objects hovering above.
"One came down really low and appeared to land in The Grange reserve behind our school. I scrambled over the fence behind two other students and ran to where we saw it go down, and there on the ground was this large saucer-shaped silver object.
"One of the girls fainted, the other was crying and I was mesmerised.
"Suddenly, it lifted off the ground, then turned side-on and sped upwards at such a speed it was incredible. It joined two others and they just disappeared.
"This was one of the most prominent sightings in the world and was covered up by the powers that be?
"We were told never to talk about it. People came out and removed evidence and took away soil samples and the burnt grass.
"A documentary has been filmed about this Westall incident and screened on the Sci-Fi Channel.
"I, for one, would love to know what it was I saw."
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Later, uniformed men, thought to have been police and military personnel (airforce, according to some accounts), were seen attending the scene. After taking various measurements, some have reported that the paddock was then burnt or turned over by these uniformed men. Some witnesses reported being spoken to, or later visited by, these personnel. Some say that both students and staff were told not to discuss the incident, while some students reported being disciplined for speaking out. It has been estimated that about 200 people witnessed these events on that autumn day in Melbourne's (then) south-eastern fringe, including people at the adjacent Westall State School.
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I find the airforce's behaviour odd, the second world war was long over, why then did they burn off the paddock ?
Why were students told not to speak about it ?

If they were covering up an airforce project, i cant think what it might be.
"Top Secret" projects doent really seem to be a thing the Govt does here.
During War yes, and for obvious reasons things were done and kept secret, but in peace times the RAAF doesnt strike me as having the sorts of projects the US is famous for
 
Clearly something happened, that link in the post above has a newspaper article in it.
I find it strange also that the can of film in the TV stations archives was empty

Something was covered up.

The RAAF is interested in UFO's where i live is a bit of a hotspot for them, and so we have an RAAF base here, no planes, no choppers no runway, just a base with personel.
i remember a story as related to me by a co-owner of a local resturant with views of the megalong valley.
One night 3 RAAF officers and their wives were dining there, when a large ball of light came up out of the valley and then shot off to the horizon, within a minute their pagers went off, and they took off leaving the wives to finish the meal and settle the bill.

Soon after moving here, i had "old fred" a local character, described as "harmless" by the neighbours tell my wife all about the alien base in the huge national park which we live on the outskirts of.
I decided to contact the airforce and see if they had heard of his claims (one must get out of the armchair once in a while ;))

I finally got put through to the "UFO desk" and they knew all about him, informed me they had even sent a team up to the location with equipment including geiger counters etc to see if they could find his base..... That blew my mind.

I'd have thought they would have just written him off as a harmless crank, but they according to the officer i spoke with actually treked into the bush and investigated .

I still take his advice to this very day, that being if you walk down into that area, always take a dog, and when the dog refuses to go no further or starts acting odd, get out.
 
I walk my dogs there sometimes, never had had anything odd happen.

There was one incident thats quite funny in hindsight, as i said it was my wife he caught at the letterbox and told his story too.

So one night we are camped in a tent in a place called murphys glen.

During the night we saw strange lights.......

My wife freaked out and started screaming aliens lets get out of here (freds storys had sinister elements).
I couldnt believe my eyes either there were hundreds of tiny glowing orbs, and they were dancing all over the car, a dozen spiraled up and around the aerial, it looked like a spiral helix all lit up green.....

I have to say i was pretty freaked out, my wife was beside herself trying to find the keys to the car.
But a minute or so later we heard another camper say "oh look fireflys" and with that the spell was broken, the high strangness was gone.
Turns out its a well kept secret there are two colonys of very very rare bioluminescent insects here (one being in the glen), and the national parks and wildlife service dont adverstise it on any brochures or information boards because they dont want hoards of people in the parks on the rare nights they light up. i learned what we saw was an event that happens about 2 nights a year.

Blue Mountains Firefly - Australian Museum

they synchronise their flashes into a spectacular light show that may also serve to confuse potential predators.
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How do you think you would feel about that experience if that other camper had not snapped you out of it by telling you what you were seeing.
It makes you wonder how many strange encounters would not seem so strange.
 
I dont know, the very high strangeness of the moment did cause a good deal of confusion and apprehension. I suspect that as time lapsed without any actual harm, i would have eventually regained sufficient composure to actually investigate the phenomena.
But there was a definate deer in the headlights moment going on.

My wife was in flee mode, i was in freeze mode.

Armed with knowledge though and we were able to appreciate it for the rare treat it was
 
Thanks for the post trainedobserver. Very interesting. When I saw the fact that someone did take pictures of the UFO I was looking forward to seeing those, until we find out they were confiscated unfortunately. Sure looks like a cover up was involved and this may explain why more witnesses didn't come forward at the time. Also I wonder about the guy who gave up on the issue and killed himself or was it just the opposite? Certainly allot of mystery surrounding this incident.
 
GeoShift said:
Thanks for the post trainedobserver. Very interesting. When I saw the fact that someone did take pictures of the UFO I was looking forward to seeing those, until we find out they were confiscated unfortunately. Sure looks like a cover up was involved and this may explain why more witnesses didn't come forward at the time. Also I wonder about the guy who gave up on the issue and killed himself or was it just the opposite? Certainly allot of mystery surrounding this incident.
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It is an interesting case as it is presented in the documentary. There was a photo allegedly taken by someone in the weeks previous that supposedly looked similar. The bell shape seems a bit extreme in relationship to the one shown in the illustrations but maybe that is the result of throwing it in low gear and punching the gas.

australia1966.jpg
 
Another well documented local case,many witness's including Police , animals freaking out



The book 'The Gosford Files' details the 1995-96 flap where police officers are mentioned in several cases, in particular one incident where the local police were chasing a strange flying metallic craft back and forth across the bay all night.
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I remember this incident well, the Police were getting lots of calls, all consistant in the description and actions of the craft, when a car crew was dispatched....... they saw it too

On Saturday evening December 30 1995, all phones rang hot at Gosford Police Station as motorists called on their mobile phones to report a large craft hovering above Mooney-Mooney Bridge. Later, dozens of calls flooded in from distressed locals at home. Station Sergeant Bob Wenning states, “People were woken by an intense humming noise. They were genuinely frightened when they saw a huge cylindrical object hovering over the water. It had a polished, ball-like bottom, and as it hovered over the lake, its lights shone down into the water, apparently turning it in to steam”. Callers also reported a brilliant light which “turned night into day”, shining through their bedroom windows.

Patrol cars were sent out to investigate, but whenever police officers came to within 50 meters of it, or car headlights got close, the craft would turn off its own lights and shoot up skywards, out of sight. One police officer reported that it flew away “as if you had a torch beam and whipped it around.” Seasonal parties, previously well behaved, suddenly erupted into antisocial behaviour. Residents reported their animals cowered and hid, and many dogs howled for no apparent reason. Car patrols were dispatched from one spot to another as the object moved back and forth over the area. All callers gave the same account of a saucer-shaped craft, 20 to 30 meters across, surrounded by bright white light, and with intense shafts of light that penetrated the foaming water below, or when away from the water, once the shafts of white light were off, underneath was a red glow or flashing red-orange lights.

The event largely died out around dawn at 5am, after Police units had been dispatched on over 35 calls, one officer relating that the evening reminded him of a night of “Moon Madness”, that phenomenon known to police whereby civil unrest increases during the full moon.
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Police UFO .com - Australian Police UFO Witnesses 1990-2009

This incident is near bottom of page, it is a pity that in those days mobile phones didnt have cameras built in

Its a classic case, lots of witness's including police. Multiple locations same description of craft and its interaction with the water, animals freaking out.
 
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