Part Three - Chapter Ten
Southern Sightings -
UFOs over the Far West
Despite official denials, often at the highest Government Department levels, UFOs [Unidentified Flying Objects] have been around for a very, very long time. Accounts of them are to be found in the writings of ancient civilisations thousands of years old, and these accounts continue into modern times. hus they have been seen, and they are continuing to be seen, and despite the best efforts of the authorities to suppress the evidence, they are not going to go away. Whatever their origins – and they must originate from more than one super-civilisation somewhere in the Cosmos – their very presence in the heavens around our Earth, is to many believers a sign that WE are not the only intelligent life form in the Universe.
One interesting alternative theory which has persisted for some time now, is that some UFOs could be the flying craft of our own kind from the future, who have mastered the technology of time-travel, and have been returning to the past to study their forebears. This theory, to some investigators, could explain accounts by some “alien abductees” why many supposed extra-terrestrials look exactly like us.
Be this as it may, the fact is that extra-terrestrial intelligent life forms, depending upon whatever direction the evolutionary process may follow on any given life-supporting planet, could take a great many different forms, and therefore may not necessarily resemble the human form.
We shall encounter some of these beings, humanoid or whatever, in the course of the following chapters…
The year 1979 was a remarkable one for the number of UFO reports gathered by Heather and I from throughout Australia’s western half. Among these were the following two accounts. One dark, moonless, hot January night on Dave and Rita Turner’s [real names withheld on request] lonely cattle station on the Kimberley Plateau north of Halls Creek, Western Australia, Dave decided to drive to a neighbouring property owner for a short meeting, while Rita stayed home and watched television.As she watched, the screen flickered badly. At the same time the cattle dogs began barking wildly. Rita could hear the cattle, horses and fowls going mad in their enclosures out behind the farmhouse. Leaving the lounge room to investigate the disturbance, she could hear a high-pitched humming sound coming from outside the house. As she emerged from the back door she found the whole farmyard lit up by an ionized blue glow coming from above.
As she looked up she was shocked to see a large circular object, at least 20m across, emitting the glow while hovering directly over the farmhouse barely 30m above the roof. Then as she stood speechless, the humming sound faded along with the glow. The eerie craft grew dark and rose silently into the sky to be lost from sight. Regaining her senses, Rita phoned up the neighbour and asked Don to come home at once.
She also phoned the police. By the time they arrived the next day, many other property owners over a wide area of the Kimberley had reported seeing the same mystery craft that night. Dave was mystified by the whole incident when Rita related her experience to the two startled constables who visited the station.
A week later she received an explanation from the authorities. The RAAFs conclusion? What Rita Turner had seen was nothing more than the “flashing blue light of a police car!” Obviously Rita had been visited by the flying squad!And then there was the experience of Andy Quirk and his girlfriend Sandra in his four-wheel drive Land Rover. During February that year they were driving one night about 10pm toward Derby WA, when their peaceful journey was interrupted by an ionized blue glow and accompanying high-pitched humming sound. Andy then lost control of his Land Rover as it rose from the road to become airborne a good two feet off the ground. Terrified, Sandra began screaming; Andy began panicking. Suddenly the glow and sound faded. The Land Rover hit the road with a thud, its occupants too shaken at first to move. As they recovered from their frightening experience, they could see in the distance in the moonlight, high up in the sky, a dark object flying off at great speed to the south.
Weird mutilations of cattle and horses were reported over a wide area of the Kimberley and coastal districts of Western Australia, all the way down to Port Headland between 1977 and 1980. The animals appeared to have been systematically dissected as if for scientific purposes. Numerous “flying saucer” reports were also made in these districts throughout this period.
Several geologists exploring likely mineral deposits in the Ord River district east of Wyndham in mid-1982 claimed to have seen, in broad daylight, no less than six shining silver saucer-shaped craft flying in formation inland from the coast heading south at a phenomenal speed.
Several 10m wide, circular deep-burnt depressions were found in the South Esk Tableland area south of Halls Creek in July 1982. Was there a link between these ‘saucer depressions’ and the Ord River sighting?The Northern Territory continues to be the scene of many UFO reports, including the “close encounter” of Terry Downs, a part-time stockman, dingo-shooter and prospector. One day in 1982 Terry, then 39 years old, was camped in the Giles Creek area near Victoria River, south of Victoria River Downs, when he saw a blinding silver shining object appear at low level from behind hills and land rapidly with a deafening roaring sound about 200m from his four wheel drive Land Rover. Rocks and dust seemed to explode in all directions as it landed.
Terry had been fossicking some distance from his vehicle. Panicking, he threw aside his gold dish and tools and ran for the cover of nearby rocks. When he next looked, the craft had become airborne a few yards above the ground and had moved to hover above his vehicle. The craft was about 10m across and as he could see by now, saucer-shaped. Before he knew it, the craft was hovering right above him, enveloping him in a hot draught.
“I was too dazed to make out any markings or features if any, and the craft then picked up speed and flew off across the countryside to the northwest at low-level, vanishing into the hills,” he said later. A few weeks after this incident, many townspeople saw two bright, silvery, glowing objects flying high over Tennant Creek from west to east around midnight.