A catalogue of the more interesting Australian UFO reports.

If anyone's bored over the holidays then there's some very interesting reading below taken from Australian researcher Keith Basterfield's updated catalogue of 'The More Interesting Australian UFO Reports' - the collection has been sourced from books, journals, Australian government files, FOIA requests etc.. and contains plenty of strange accounts of unidentified flying objects in the skies over Australia, some dating as far back as the 18th/19th century.

As the author states below some of the reports 'may yet be determined to have conventional explanations' but there are quite a few compelling historical pilot sightings describing 'disc shaped objects' as well as vehicle interference cases, physical trace cases and even a number of bizarre UFO occupant reports -also listed are incidents taken from Bill Chalker's chapter “The Australian Military and the Official Government Response” in the new book 'UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry'.

A CATALOGUE OF THE MORE INTERESTING AUSTRALIAN UFO REPORTS

Keith Basterfield

As at 6 December 2012

This is a subjective listing of UFO reports Keith regards this collection as a sampling of the more interesting cases, some of which may yet be determined to have conventional explanations or yield more information. He welcomes corrections and additions to this newly updated catalogue.

This catalogue has been prepared from a variety of sources; but mainly from the files, Newsletters and Journals of the many civilian Australian UFO organisations which have existed over the years. Entries have also been sourced from a number of books written on UAP by Australian authors; from copies of the MUFON Journal; the NICAP UFO Investigator and the APRO Bulletin. In addition, Australian government UAP files, as located in the National Archives of Australia, and via the Freedom of Information Act have been valuable sources of cases.

Project 1947 - Full List

Excerpts:

1933 Discovery Well, northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert,Western Australia.

In Gilroy’s account, the Aboriginal woman claimed her tribe had been frightened off from Discovery Well when a ‘large shiny egg’ suddenly came down out of the sky. In broad daylight the strange object flew low over them. Several beings, described as strange, grey-skinned and man-like came out of the ‘egg.’ The woman said she was stunned by one of the beings and then carried aboard. Inside the ‘egg’ the interior was glowing. She was strapped to a shining table and apparently ‘experimented with.’
Source: Gilroy, Rex. 1995. Mysterious Australia. Mapelton. Nexus Publishing. p20. Cited in Chalker, Bill The Oz Files. Duffy & Snellgrove. Potts Point, NSW. 1996. p.20.

1930's

In about 1989 John's father-in-law, an Aboriginal man, told him that when he was a young man in the 1930s, camping with his tribe before the white man took them off their land, they saw a green light spinning around in the sky. It landed behind trees. Lots of little men shining with green light came. They walked around the tribe, looking at them, and then walked back to the UFO, which took off.
Source: Chalker, Bill The Oz Files. Duffy & Snellgrove. Potts Point, NSW. 1996. p.22.

Feb 1951 Central Australia CE3

Members of the Unmatjera tribe of Aborigines reported seeing two shiny circular objects on the ground, some nine to fifteen metres across. A very small man-like creature wearing a shiny suit with bulbous head is said to have transferred from one object to the other. Both objects then took off making a buzzing sound.
Source: Edwards, F. (1966). Flying Saucers Serious Business. (FSSB) London. Mayflower. p169.

Nov 1967 St George-Mitchell QLD CE1 2030hrs Morris/Linden (28:03,148:35)

Two people were driving along when they saw an object four metres high by five metres long, hovering just off the ground in a nearby paddock. There was a doorway in front and a foldup hatchway which led to the ground. It was firstly a green/blue colour, then changed to a silver colour. As they drove close, it took off.
Source: UFOSH p120.

15 Nov 1967 Yerecoin WA CE1 1830hrs Pool CE1 (30:55, 116:23)

Alan Pool, aged 43, was in a vehicle 1.6km from his farmhouse, in a paddock, when he heard a loud humming/whirring noise. He then saw an object which he estimated as 0.8km away and 120m above the ground. It was approaching rapidly from the east. It then hovered next to his vehicle, only a few centimetres above the ground. In colour it was grey like metal. It was 3.6m in diameter, and 1.5m high. It had six “portholes” the two in the centre were square and the two on each side were round. There was no visible signs of propulsion. He partly opened his vehicle’s door, and the object departed rapidly. Looking up there was nothing visible. The grass was undisturbed where the object had hovered. There were no burn marks. There were no electromagnetic effects to his vehicle; and no reported after effects to him. It was reported to the police and the RAAF.
Source: 1. The West Australian newspaper 17 Nov, 1967 pp1 & 13. 2. APRO Bulletin Nov-Dec 1967 p5. 3. AFSR. No 8. p13.

1970 Wortham Park Station, QLD 0300hrs 2M CE3

Two men were out camping at three in the morning and watched a light moving around. They flashed a spotlight on it, and it moved and came to rest two hundred metres away, only thirteen or so metres above the ground. One man approached it to within thirty metres. It was described as twenty metres wide by eight metres deep, with windows. Through the windows he said he could see a silhouette of a human form looking out. The man then retreated to his companion.
Source: UFO Research Far North Queensland. (UFORFNQ.) QB87011

Mod Note: All Caps – Please Review This Link.

8 Aug 1971 Kadina, SA 1835hrs (2-3mins) 1M/Boyce CE2 (33:58, 137:43)

A Mr Boyce, fifty one, left Wallaroo and was driving back to Kadina, alone in his car. About five kilometres out of town his surroundings were illuminated by an orange hue. Suddenly the engine stopped and the lights went out. The ignition light on the dashboard failed to come on, and despite efforts the engine could not be restarted. He steered the car to the side of the road and braked to a halt. Getting out he saw, at fifty metres altitude, an oval shape with three to four "windows". It was stationary, almost directly above the car. It remained motionless for two to three minutes with a continuous buzzing sound being audible. It then left to the south-east. Before it was completely out of sight, he got in the car and started the engine, with the lights then coming on.

22 Mar 1975 Nebo Qld 2230hrs multi wits NL/CE2 (21:42, 148:42)

A very unusual object was seen by several people in a gravel storage area. It was a row of flashing yellow/white lights on a box like mass, near to the ground, with a sphere on top. A loud bang was heard and their vehicle seemed to shake in response. They fled the scene. Unusual indentations consisting of three oval shaped areas were later discovered. The RAAF investigated the incident.
Source: 1. RAAF files. 2. ACOSB. No 10. p22.

June 1977 Oberon NSW 3M Night CE2 (33:42, 149:51)

Three men illegally fishing in a boat, one night, were three kilometres up river from the Oberon Dam near a peninsula called Crows Peak. A dark shape was initially seen on the shore. Five minutes later, something started to come around the bend of the river. It turned out to be an undefinable shape some three point six to four point six metres long by six metres wide, with a blue glow, three to six metres above the water surface. The phenomenon was silent. It crossed onto the peninsula and went out of sight. Next day all the grass and low hanging branches across the peninsular area where the phenomenon had passed appeared to have been "burnt" or browned off. Even weed under the water to a depth of fifteen to twenty centimetres was also browned off.
Source: See UFO Newsletter No 52 (UFOR(NSW) - now UFOIC, Nov 1977

Relevant ATS Threads:

Aboriginals: Their Flying Shiny Eggs and Moon-Man tales
The 1954 Sea Fury Incident
Aviation Pioneer, Sir Francis Chichester, Sights UFO
UFO Hovers Over NSA Base - Australia, October, 1973
The 1966 Westall UFO incident
The Bourkes Flat UFO Case

Nothing around Pine Gap. Maybe sightings are unlikely to be reported by people who work there or people who were snooping around in a restricted area.

reply to post by karl 12

Great job OP, it's going to make for an interesting read

Keith Basterfield is an exemplary researcher of UFO accounts and a great advocate of the release of previously classified information under the FOIA, whatever the subject may be.

Here's a prime example
ATS - Valentich Case Files Finally Released

I have a personal interest in this particular case and it fascinates me no end.

Originally posted by xpoq47
Nothing around Pine Gap. Maybe sightings are unlikely to be reported by people who work there or people who were snooping around in a restricted area.

Hey mate, I noticed that as well but there are some UFO sightings from the facility described below involving hunters, aircraft pilots, policemen, cartographers etc.. which make for an interesting read -

The vast empty territory of central and South Australia has always been an area of high UFO activity. The Woomers rocket -range and the nuclear test site at Maralinga seemed to be their focal points during the 1950's and early 1960's. However this changed somewhat when construction started at Pine Gap and later at Nurrunga. From the time the earth moving equipment moved in, there was a rapid rise in UFO sightings in Alice Springs and the surrounding area. The regular sightings have continued to this day and some of them could only be described as bizarre..

Australian Pine Gap

also looks like nearby Wycliffe Wells is a bit of a hotspot.

link

Cheers.

reply to post by karl 12


Bored over Xmas, very much so mate, how did you guess?

S+F and will have a good read through these

reply to post by Perhaps


He sure is mate and I've always wondered why this case didn't get more attention - kudos to Keith for compiling the reports though, fascinating stuff!

Gosford NSW multiple witness UFO sightings Dec 30/31 1995

reply to post by karl 12


Have you heard of this one near Katherine NT 21/9/2011
www.theufochronicles.com...

Another freak sighting of an unexplained light in the night sky above Katherine has been reported.

David Schuman, who photographed what he believes was a UFO at the Strongbala Men’s Health Centre last month, said he was washing dishes at the Centre on Thursday night, when he ran out of water and went outside to fill up the water tank.

“It was just on dark and I had just turned on the pump when I spotted a dullish, grey object in the sky over the highway,” he said.

“It was there for only a few moments when all of a sudden, it glowed like the sun in its strength in a bright light.

Originally posted by 12voltz

David Schuman, who photographed what he believes was a UFO at the Strongbala Men’s Health Centre last month, said he was washing dishes at the Centre on Thursday night, when he ran out of water and went outside to fill up the water tank.

“It was just on dark and I had just turned on the pump when I spotted a dullish, grey object in the sky over the highway,” he said.

“It was there for only a few moments when all of a sudden, it glowed like the sun in its strength in a bright light.

Hadn't heard of that one before mate, thanks for posting.

Maybe it was after the water in the tank, here's another freaky report from Victoria in 1980.

Rosedale Victoria - September 30, 1980

..At first he had thought it was an aircraft in distress, but when clearly in view by the silo,he saw there were no wings and no tail, and he described it as a domed object with a white top. It had orange and blue lights on its surface and he estimated its diameter at about 26 feet. Its height was given as about 15 feet. The object then progressed over a paddock, passed by a haystack and appeared to rest over a distant, open-topped, concrete 10,000 gallon water tank for an estimated minute before moving to a stationary position apparently on the ground to the left of the tank as viewed from the house.

Unusual reports of UFOs 'taking on water'

reply to post by Zcustosmorum


Ho ho Happy Christmas mate.

Lot of UFO phenomena in southern australia. those in Nullabor area are pretty scary, reminds me of the south american UFO entities in their agresiveness.

One of the phenomena supposedly make the car's light pulled into the phenomena , so that the driver in effect drove himself off the road thus inducing an accient. there was an incident of that with living witness and an accident at the same area different time with dead driver.

Lot of cases of UFO phenomena following lonely cars and also pulling cars above the road. Mostly at night (noctural lights). Pretty aggresive and their pattern are the same as other (Night, Lonely Driver, Isolated Area).

I have to dig up my FSR collection to remember all of these nullabor flap..

great thread as usual karl12, a refreshing thread to counter the fantasy tales spun by the lunatic fringe of ufology.

am i the only one to notice that serious UFO threads with historical cases always attract LESS interest in ATS FORUM while the sensational and fantasist thread always attracts way too many people in it ?

seriously, i was pulled into ATS because lot of my GOOGLE searches about classic UFO Cases always points to ATS's serious ufologist like Karls12's post. Little did i know that when i join Ats forum i see too many of the same old same old fantasy story propagated by lear/cooper/lazar/dean/etc and less of the classical investigator like hynek/vallee/keel/aime/etc.

Hey Karl12- another fascinating thread- much to read up on there. Thanks for putting this, and the links together. Was particularly interested in the 1950's 'Sea Fury' case, which was visual (fighter pilot) and radar observation, over a significant period of time, with the Sea Fury doing observable maneuvers to identify itself to the radar, and at a time where it would be difficult to claim a 'black project' due to the extreme flight characteristics of the objects. Thought it laughable that they still secretly investigated whether he had been drinking before flight!!!


milomilo, yes, we do notice that when a genuine, well informed and researched UFO post appears (often authored by karl!), then the debunkers stay away, as they have nothing to say. I for one enjoy their silence, as they they bring little to the discussion.

Originally posted by Thunda
milomilo, yes, we do notice that when a genuine, well informed and researched UFO post appears (often authored by karl!), then the debunkers stay away, as they have nothing to say. I for one enjoy their silence, as they they bring little to the discussion.

True.. i wish there is more focus on serious UFO investigation and desire to learn the phenomena for what it really do in terms of manifestation, physical traces and psychic aftermaths.

Here some link for Australian High Strangeness / UFO Phenomena PDFs

Sex and UFO
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...]

Abduction (Chalker)
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Abduction (Basterfield)
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Effect on Animals
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Abduction Research
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Basterfield Catalogue of abductions
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Wierd Markings in Australia
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Crop Circles in Australia (Magee)
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Crop Circles in Australia (Norman)
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

Home Link to UFOLOGIA
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

The family of four were travelling by car and observed lights in the sky, before arriving home later than they thought they should have arrived. Next day, all four suffered from cold-like symptoms with Mrs L experiencing a sore left ovary, a sore throat and a bleeding vagina.

After contacting a UFO researcher, the two adults under hypnosis, recalled aliens removing them from their car. Mr L recalled finding himself naked on a table somewhere, where a medical examination was conducted. The space, in which the table was located, had windows to it, out of which he could see tall buildings. Suddenly he found himself back in his vehicle.
2-2.3m tall creatures with a wrinkled appearance and long necks were present. They communicated telepathically with him.

Mrs L's recollections were "vague and blurred" compared to Mr L's. She recalled being on a table with 8-10 figures around her. She had no recall of a physical examination or communication between herself and the beings. Articles about the event appeared in local NSW papers and numerous television and radio stations, both on a local and national level carried the story. (2)

In April 1991 a married, Melbourne woman related a series of events extending back some 14 months from that time. These included her six-year-old son reporting that five to six little men entered his bedroom and shone a "torch" at him. He felt paralysed and whilst there the men telepathically told him they would not hurt him, but examined him and pushed something up his nose.

He described them as having grey skin, big heads and big black eyes. The woman recalled an episode where something tried to physically pull her out of bed during the night. She also recalled an episode at age seven, which she thought was a dream, where three pixies entered her room and abducted her.

Another typically excellent thread that I've come to expect from you K12.

You should compile these threads in to a book and look for a publisher, the quality is better than many books already published on the subject.

Maybe ATS should think about going in to the publishing biz???? There is genuine talent here on the site. May be a way for ATS and contributors to make a few more $$$ and help the ailing US economy!!!!

Originally posted by milomilo

Lot of UFO phenomena in southern australia. those in Nullabor area are pretty scary, reminds me of the south american UFO entities in their agresiveness.

Yes, read quite a few freaky reports from the Nullarbor plane and there's a case below from Keith Basterfield's list involving the Knowles family in 1988 which sounds very strange (and aggressive) - have heard it said before on ATS that the case has been 'debunked' but can't seem to find any more info other than this rather threadbare piece about meteor showers - can anyone help out with any links?

News Archive

''We were a little bit skeptical at first,'' said Sgt. Jim Furnell of Ceduna Police in the state of South Australia. ''But after investigating, we are treating the reports very seriously.''

Originally posted by milomilo

am i the only one to notice that serious UFO threads with historical cases always attract LESS interest in ATS FORUM while the sensational and fantasist thread always attracts way too many people in it ?

Thanks for posting the links mate and there are some more Australian compilations found below - and no, you're definitely not the only one to notice.


PROJECT 1947 Keith Basterfield's Catalogues


Cheers.

------------ EVERYONE PLEASE READ IVE GOT SOME WTFERY HERE....

New guy here cant create a new thread cause im under 20 posts, need to freakn post this somewhere and get some ideas as to wth i saw last night;

4 of us last night witnessed the strangest thing imaginable, this wasnt some ordanary ufo sighting, oh no, ive seen plenty of those in the past... this was much bigger than anything ive ever even heard of. Before any of you ask we used stationary reference points, no drugs were taken, and i (not the others) had 2 beers.

Standing outside Adelaide, Australia about 24 hours ago. (11pm) look up and notice all the stars are moving at the same speed across the sky, from the northen horizion up untill they reached directly above us, where they slowed right down to normal speed.

Ive seen "stars" move on their own before thats nothing crazy but the entire spectrum of stars that i could see was moving alot faster than normal. example: if you were to take a video of the night sky watch some stars move from horizion to directly above you, that video would take half the night... but if you sped that video up so that one star you're watching took 10 minutes to comlete that journey accross the sky, thats how fast they were moving.

I'm not bull#ting we saw this, and to any of you guys fimilar with Val Valerian (matrix series) in the 3rd from the top update on his website trufax.com at the bottom of the home page "events that will occur" a video by Pane Andov is linked
www.youtube.com...
If you skip to 1:04:30 you can see him talking about a crack over Adelaide (my city) which i didnt discover untill last night after we came in by complete acident... i think this is definatly tied in somehow and yeah i dont know what else to say other than wtf..

anyone got any ideas?

Originally posted by Krusty the Klown

You should compile these threads in to a book and look for a publisher, the quality is better than many books already published on the subject.

Appreciate the comments Krusty and that idea could certainly apply to quite a few other members on here as well, a monthly edition book of threads was originaly toyed with back in 2008 but I don't know if it's still ongoing on Scribdoc.


Announcing The ATS Book of Threads


One book I would have love to have read was the one described below by Atmospherical Physicist Dr James E. Mcdonald - too bad he died before he could write it.

"McDonald decided to write a book which would tell the history of scientific UFO research and present the best evidence-documented physical aspects such as radar-visual; cases, power outages, car ignition failure and other EM interference resulting from UFO passage. He was confident that such a book would be well received in the scientific community because of his good reputation and his many contributions to atmospheric sciences." (p.369.) The book was never written.

The scientist did visit Australia though and the link below goes into more detail about specific UFO cases and the book 'Firestorm' by Anne Druffel (Kandinsky has also linked a great interview with Tim Binnall).

Dr James Mcdonald with John Pearce - Sydney, June 26th, 1967.

I was specifically interested in chapter 8, "Forays Into Other Lands" which describes his 1967 trip to both New Zealand and Australia.

For those readers who haven't taken a look into this era of Australian UFOlogy, it is well worth the look. UFO groups were organisationally large public bodies, with several hundred members each. One of the largest was the Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society.

Chapter 8 of the book covers quite a bit of Australian UFOlogy for this era. While here, McDonald "...consulted with numerous veteran researchers, including Peter Norris, Ian McLaren, Roy Russell and Stan Seers among others..

"McDonald was always on the lookout for cases where some type of possible physical evidence had been obtained. " (p.173.) The chapter provides concise details of cases such as the 5 Mar 1967 Coyle photographs; the 23 August 1953 T. Drury movie film; the 2 Apr 1966 James J. Kibel Melbourne photograph; the 6 Apr 1966 Westall High School incident; the 26/27 June 1959 Gill CE3 at Boianai; and the 19 January 1966 Tully "nest" case.

James E McDonald in Australia

Cheers.

Great thread good reading.

My observation of these phenomenon across the world by reading the UFO Cases , i found out certain coincidences / things that keep popping out :

- These phenomena seems to "inhabit" deserted lands (lands with very very little to no human population)
- These phenomena seems to harras human enroachment to their territory but they cannot resist human expansion, their only course is to terrorize and harrass individual humans
- These phenomena will move away after human settlement moved in and grow, they will move to another wilderness.

These happens in south america back then, where UFO phenomena in the wild terrorize people.. and to Australian wilderness too, also happens in other parts of the world where there still lack of population. They dont seem to be able to live with humans around (as if its their nature to avoid human civilizations).

in these cases it matches well with some reverend kirk's observation about these kind of entities. basically they are psychical entities that can manifest themselves physically for limited time and are liars and deceivers. every information from these entities should be taken as a disinformation piece, whether its from their contactee, from mediums, from RVer or any other psychic sources everything are tainted.

The way UFOLOGIST today look at these phenomena are not effective because they tend to favor either physical / material UFO entities (extraterrestrial hypothesis) that cannot be proven OR they tend to move deeply into the psychic explanation of these entities (extradimensional hypothesis). Both cannot explain these phenomena since these entities are projecting what human want them to see, in other words SOMEONE are manipulating humanity's perception of UFO phenomena.

Thanks for the replies and I don't know about origin of UFOs but there does appear to be repeating patterns of behaviour involved - in the link above about Dr James Mcdonald's Australian research there are some intriguing comments made about how the scientist may have found out what was actually behind the phenomena.. but sadly he died before he could share it.

Mystery surrounds some aspects of McDonald's research. "About a month before he was due to testify in March, top-level government officials reportedly got in touch with McDonald." (p.491.)

In February 1971, McDonald was in conversation with Dr Robert M Wood (a physicist who worked for McDonnell-Douglas.) Although Druffel reports that Wood doesn't recall the exact words used by McDonald, he recalls McDonald saying something along the lines "I think I've got the answer;" "I found out what's behind it;" "I just can't tell you right now;" "You won't believe it! I've got to pin it down a little bit more, and then I'll come out." (p.492.)

In 1973, Wood said "I think he found the trail to the classified work...and some documentation that made it pretty clear that there was a cover up going on, that this was the most classified program in the country." (p.492.)

Unfortunately, the UFO research community was not to find out just what McDonald had meant, as he died, by his own hand, on 13 Jun 1971.

Whatever the case it's a fascinating subject with plenty of unexplained cases - here's another good collection from AUFORN citing 42 editions of Australian UFO Reports and Experiences.


AUFORN, Australian UFO Reports and Experiences