Thursday, September 26, 2013

Australia's Roswell: The Day the Earth Stood Still in Clayton South






Some people reported five light aircraft following or chasing the object.

Academic throws light on 40-year-old UFO mystery










































From 4/2006










Clayton South residents remember the 1966 day they saw flying objects


It couldn't happen here?

Most people would say it couldn't happen anywhere!








But locals remember it vividly, saying it lasted days.


He says time is running out for them to come clean.




Others recall school threats of detention for UFO talk.

But talk there was, and coverage.


















Click for video 1

Click for video 2

New Light Shed On Australia s Westall UFO Incident


Revisting the Westall UFO Incident

By Jewel Topsfield - On April 6, 1966, students from Westall High School and Westall State School claimed to have seen a mysterious metallic flying object hover above them before descending behind trees in Clayton South.

Many more say they later saw the perimeter of a perfect circle singed into the grass at the Grange Reserve near Westall State School.

The Age reported the next day that hundreds of children and a number of teachers saw the unidentified flying object, which the paper said might have been a weather balloon.

The article said witnesses had seen a number of small planes circle around the object - however, a check later showed that no commercial, private or RAAF pilots had reported anything unusual in the area.

But despite the many witnesses, exactly what happened at 11am that day in Cold War-era Melbourne suburbia has remained a mystery.

Suzanne Savage, who was in form 2 at Westall High in 1966, recalls principal Frank Samblebe holding a special assembly after she and her science class saw a ''classic saucer-shaped object'' descend into Grange Reserve and then disappear into the sky.

''He said he didn't want to hear any more about this nonsense. We were not to discuss it ever again - and so I didn't,'' Ms Savage told The Saturday Age.

Ian Cochrane, who was in form 3 at Westall High in 1966, also believes the bizarre occurrence was covered up.

Mr Cochrane recalls returning to Grange Reserve the following Saturday to show his mates the perfect circle of flattened grass, only to discover the site had been dug up.

''If you talked about it you'd get nutbags to contend with, or people who couldn't cope, so you just didn't talk about it,'' Mr Cochrane said.

What did the students see? Was it a UFO from outer space, a secret military aircraft, a meteorological oddity or an example of a psychological phenomenon, where people were influenced by each other to believe in something they did not really see?

Forty-five years later Shane Ryan is still searching for answers. The English teacher has spent the past six years investigating the flying saucer enigma, which he believes ranks alongside the daylight school-based UFO sightings in Broad Haven in Wales in 1974 and Ruwa in Zimbabwe in 1994.

''It's obvious to me people saw something very strange and unusual and somebody in the government didn't really want the story to get out,'' he said.

Mr Ryan has interviewed more than 300 people connected to the case, 89 of whom claim they saw a flying saucer and 138 who saw the circle. He said several witnesses told of police and men in military uniforms who cordoned off the landing site and interviewed some students.

However, despite extensive searches, Mr Ryan has been unable to find police or military personnel who attended on the day or locate documents that may be held by state and federal government agencies.

''I'm so frustrated that after all these years I can't get an official answer about why the powers that be were there that day and why they didn't want the students to talk about what they saw,'' he said.

Mr Ryan's search for the truth is the subject of the documentary Westall 66: A Suburban UFO Mystery, directed by Rosie Jones, which will screen at 8.30pm on Tuesday on the Sci Fi Channel on Foxtel and Austar.

The Australian Teachers of Media have also created a study guide around the event, which can be used in the national history curriculum.

The study guide says Westall 66 reflects a fascinating and pivotal period in world history. ''With its undercurrent of Cold War paranoia, secret US airbases and a strong military relationship between Australia and America, this story raises questions about the acceptability of cover-ups and untruths delivered by governments in the interests of national security,'' it says.

Study guide co-writer Lee Burton says these are themes that have repercussions today. ''This is an example of how we can help students understand an historical event within a local community that occurred in living memory,'' she said. ''My guess is it will be very popular.'' - theage

Ring of mystery: Shaun Matthews revisits Grange Reserve where he witnessed the UFO

Website: Westall '66: The Suburban UFO Mystery

NOTE: to save space, several personal eyewitness accounts can be found at - Several eyewitness accounts of the Westall UFO Incident as well as Bill Chalker's report - The Westall School Sensation

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