Westall ‘UFO’ landing [Australia, 1966] – a balloon?

The controversy addresses the still-open issue of how far eyewitness perceptions and memory might [or might not] diverge from original causative events. "Close Encounters" on the Discovery Science channel includes an episode entitled "School's Out", which is about the Westall Incident.

Westall ‘UFO’ incident was actually government radiation testing, reports reveal

www.heraldsun.com.au... k=4a799b1768a42b7b28e3b5627b848c7b

• by: Mark Dunn [email protected]
• From: Herald Sun
• August 06, 2014 9:13AM

AN almost 50-year-old mystery when more than 200 people believed they had a close encounter with a UFO landing in Clayton may have finally been solved after newly-unearthed government documents revealed a secret radiation-testing program.

Nice try Jim tell that to Lynn and Denise....they were there......and posted comments below your linked article.....
They certainly call BS on the balloon theory

It's a cover up come on !
Only kiddin , nice find !

Yet they cannot even prove that these balloons were in the air anyway?

But despite government archival records showing the results of numerous HIBAL test flights, the paperwork for the launches scheduled for the day before Westall appear to have been lost or destroyed.

Convenient.

a reply to: JimOberg

No Jim, not a balloon. You're outright embarrassing yourself this time.

Did that same article explain how that guys headlight beams "bent" towards the object, light, balloon or whatever?

That is a compelling "eye witness" report from that incident.

And by the way....would that balloon theory apply to the school full of children in Africa as well.....

originally posted by: stirling
And by the way....would that balloon theory apply to the school full of children in Africa as well.....

The African children saw the "balloon" in Australia?

Lets not mix apples with bowling balls please.

1966 to old to really be studied considering that time era was all psycodellic drugs and bad electronics a reply to: JimOberg

If there was any legitimacy to this claim - why not come forward and release this information when the news "Aliens are visiting Westall" came across the wire? Instead, they wait 50 years to produce the cover story, they were going to release to the public - what did it get misplaced? Or just misplaced until the right time? I guess sitting in a basement collecting dust, and waiting decades to surface just adds more validity to this cover story, doesn't it? Oh wait - no release dates. We don't even know if it's in the same time frame! I mean, if they'd come right out and said - "Oh, yeah, sorry but that was us. A balloon you see, like from Roswell, but ours didn't crash and explode, like the Americans. Heh heh." Would it have been any more believable coming out then?

It almost seems, they wanted the question of UFO/Aliens in the public eye. Seems, to me, releasing this information 50 years later, they want the public questioning conspiracy and cover-up, even more. It smacks of a cover up - even 50 years later. If these records are legitimate - then that says a lot about the government, and what they were willing to let other people believe. I remember in that story, a girl had come close to one of the "balloons" and had fainted and needed a paramedic. Other students reported that she was never heard or seen from again. They just took her away. So if these UFO's I mean balloons were radioactive, and she came too close - she may have received a lethal dose of radiation. Maybe that in itself was enough to perpetuate the UFO/Aliens are among us story - for fear of reprisal for a civilian, a child no less, getting hurt during a military exercise?

~ Cirque

a reply to: CirqueDeTruth

It's normal to wait 50 years before releasing classified documents. But way to go making a conspiracy out of a normality!

originally posted by: stirling
And by the way....would that balloon theory apply to the school full of children in Africa as well.....

This response is just silly.

The absence of documentation of such a stimulus makes the suggestion fall short, but even explicit documentation could be dismissed by anyone refusing to consider explanations.

Consideration of the fundamental question of the possible scale of any perceptual gap from stimulus to recollection still remains dominated by wish-based a priori imaginations, not illuminated by real evidence.

That's why i think it's important to find cases where the unusual stimulus IS better documented and the witness perceptions are also recorded.

a reply to: MarsIsRed

Hey, that's the fun of this site!

I just researched this case, and there are several oddities. The one story about the girl going missing was one of the ? area's I had about this case. The lights bending, was already mentioned above by another poster, was a strange feature.

There is also the fact that several sightings took place over many days. I sure wish they had the release dates of the balloons. It would do a lot more to corroborate the connection between the radiation balloon testing and the UFO event.

~ Cirque

originally posted by: JimOberg


Consideration of the fundamental question of the possible scale of any perceptual gap from stimulus to recollection still remains dominated by wish-based a priori imaginations, not illuminated by real evidence.

That's why i think it's important to find cases where the unusual stimulus IS better documented and the witness perceptions are also recorded.

Firstly, while you're correct that there is a paucity of actual evidence as to the possible scale of any perceptual gap from stimulus to perception, saying that people's speculation on the matter is "dominated by wish-based a priori imaginations" is simply belittling and unnecessary. I could just as easily - and incorrectly, I'm sure - assert that you are willing to extend this stimulus-perception gap indefinitely, so that a report of a large flying disk is just as likely as not to have been prompted by an observer witnessing a woman pushing a baby carriage across the street.

There's just no need for that kind of pomposity in this, or any, conversation.

Second, I agree with you that it's important to find cases where the stimulus is known and can be compared to the perception reported by the witness, but this doesn't appear to be one of those cases. The fact that you seem to be presenting it as such with such scant support makes me suspect you have too much time on your hands. Certainly there is some rocket booster re-entry happening somewhere that is more worthy of your attention?

That being said, thanks for bringing this up. These kinds of claims should be openly and frequently discussed and debated.

a reply to: Captobvious94

Ya back in 66 when spelling and grammar was taught.

'considering that time era was all psycodellic drugs and bad electronics' ... what do you base that opinion on?

Bad electronics? any examples? or do you just mean 'prior to the age of planned obsolescence'' ?

I agree with one of the comments on the linked article, LOL a balloon

Dear God a balloon ? well I guess it worked for Roswell, Man I love all the comments its great to see such passion over this this sighting from so long ago. anyway I don't believe there was 200 kids and teachers screaming my god look there's a Balloon coming down, and what about the second UFO that touchdown out the back of the grange, what a bunch of crap just tell us the truth.....please

originally posted by: JimOberg
Consideration of the fundamental question of the possible scale of any perceptual gap from stimulus to recollection still remains dominated by wish-based a priori imaginations....

That's addressed in the Condon Report, as I've pointed out to you before. I suspect you've long been aware of that anyway, so I'm not sure why you pretend that data doesn't exist. It shows that most people do a decent job of reporting what's there, and that only a small percentage of witnesses 'insert' UFO characteristics onto natural or man-made phenomena. Your hypothesis (that UFO witnesses report what they wish to have seen or what they imagine) appears to be unsupported by that data.

Oh, Thank goodness they have found out that mystery, and have the solution.

Its great to know they were doing atmospheric radiation readings from the Maralinga Nuclear bomb tests in 1966.

Especially considering the last nuclear bomb test at Maralinga (SA) was on October the 9th 1957!!

They did do some minor test of blowing up radioactive waste.....the last time in 1963.

Glad to see they were so concerned.....Oh and Melbourne is 1000+ miles away from Maralinga, as is Mildura where they launched the balloons....with the general wind currents blowing from west to east....the opposite direction to Maralinga.

Still, cant let specifics get in the way... yes it was a balloon or two or three.......

allshookup.org...

I was under the impression that eye witness reports were obtained shortly after the sighting?

The HIBAL programme was not conducted in secret at the time of the Westall incident. HIBAL was being openly reported in newspapers from at least 1965 and beyond 1966. Take that as you will in terms of explanations that were dismissed.

No official documents have been found as of the beginning of August 2014 that refer to any HIBAL launch being the explanation for the events at Westall in April 1966. No documents have been found that even confirm that the scheduled 5 April 1966 launch took place

Westall expert Bill Chalker from the Oz Files presents the case against it being HIBAL worth a read here : theozfiles.blogspot.com...