Date:
April 6, 1966
Location: Westall, Australia
More
than 200 students and staff from two schools watched as
the object landed in a nearby paddock, lifted off and
vanished. 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
UFO appears to have left a circle of scorched grass.
Ring of mystery: Shaun Matthews revisits Grange Reserve
where he witnessed the UFO. (The Age - Photo: Craig Sillitoe)
A sketch of the Westall object by one of the witnesses.
(Credit: Bill Chalker)
Witnesses describing the incident (at a gathering of witnesses
to the Westall incident, in
April 2006). Joy and Jeff - witnesses to the Westall UFO
incident. Jeff was the author of the
student account in the Clayton Calendar - the Westall
High School magazine (Credit: Bill Chalker)
Source:
The Age (Australia), October 2, 2005
[go
to original source]
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."
Sources:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case591.htm
Victoria_Australia_-_April_6_1966.html