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Text of source material
Prepared by Keith Basterfield
Version dated 28 July 2012
[For background to the Westall Event, see Keith's posts at his blog:
http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com,
in particular, Westall - HIBAL - further information you may not know]
Object perhaps balloon
An unidentified flying object seen over the Clayton-Moorabbin area yesterday morning might have been a weather balloon.
Hundreds of children and a number of teachers at Westall School, Clayton, watched the object during morning break.
They said a number of small aeroplanes circled around it. However, a check later showed that no commercial, private or RAAF pilots had reported anything unusual in the area.
The Weather Bureau released a balloon at Laverton at 8.30am, and the westerly wind blowing at the time could have moved it into the area where the sighting was reported.”
This document is a report form of the Victorian Flying Saucer research Society, completed by (or in the name of) a student Joy Tighe.
Name: Joy Tighe )
Date 6 April 1966
Place: Westall high school
Time: 10.20am
Elevation: 45 deg
Appearance: Circular 2 UFOs flying in varying directions
Sound: Whirring noise
Shape: Round on top Flat on bottom
Colour: Silver
Any outstanding features: Flattened waist high grass for 10 yds diameter 600 yds from school
Speed: Faster than some light aircraft in vicinity
Direction: South
Duration: 15 mins
Weather Fine Yes
Shape (There is a sketch which shows an upright dome shape)
Witnesses: School staff and pupils Reaction: Excited Yes
Other remarks: UFO turned edge & disappeared fast
Signed J Tighe 12 years old Date 7/4/6
“Flying Saucer Mystery: School Silent What Was It?”
After more than a week of investigation, mystery still surrounds the reported sighting last Wednesday of a flying saucer near the Westall High School, Clayton.
Investigations of the report have been hampered by the reluctance of school authorities to permit interviews with eye witness students and staff members.’
Several children attending the school and at least one staff member are reported to have seen the unidentified flying object.
They are believed to have given corroborating descriptions of the object as “a round humped object with a flat base being circled by what appeared to be light aircraft.”
It was described as grey or silver grey in color, but it is not known whether the object appeared high or low in the sky or for how long it was observed.
One report said several children who saw the object collapsed and became ill with fright.
There have been a number of attempts to explain the sighting as a product of natural causes.
However, the Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society has taken the report so seriously that it has inserted an advertisement in a daily newspaper seeking descriptions from eye witnesses.
Vice-President of the Society, Mrs Judith Magee said yesterday that all attempts to obtain information from students or staff members at the school had failed.
“We only have second-hand reports of the sighting but we believe it could be an important one,” Mrs Magee said.
She said she and two other members of the society last Friday went to the scene of the sighting, and discovered “a couple of circular patches where the grass had been flattened.”
These could have been formed by an object landing or taking off.
Army report
However, Mrs Magee said strong winds had been blowing during the week, and these could have caused the grass to be flattened.
It was also reported that military personnel had been in the area on Saturday.
If this was the case, the area would have been heavily trampled, and further investigation of the flattened area would be useless.
An Army spokesman said yesterday there was no record of personnel in the area on Saturday.
Mrs Magee said she understood that children at the school had been instructed to talk to no one who asked questions about the sighting.
This was why the Society had made its independent appeal for eye-witness accounts.
She said she believed some of the children had also heard the sound of engines as what appeared to be light aircraft circled the object.
Department of Civil Aviation officials had checked for strange aircraft in the area, but none had been present.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Meteorology said a weather balloon equipped with a radar reflector and radiosond transmitter was released from Laverton last Wednesday morning.
Under the influence of strong winds, it could have drifted to the Clayton region.
This could have explained the reported sighting of a flying saucer, he said.
However, the Victorian Flying saucer research Society will continue its investigations.”
“Flying Saucer Mystery Deepens: Who were 5 pilots?”
Clayton - The Unidentified Flying Object reported over the Clayton area on April; 6 was almost certainly observed by the pilots of several light aircraft which flew close to and chased the object for a considerable time.
A detailed description of the object given by a science teacher at the Westall high School has discounted theories that the object was a weather balloon, an aircraft or a flock of birds.
Descriptions obtained from eye-witness students at the school and reports of sightings from other nearby locations have confirmed that an object or objects of inexplicable origin have appeared in the sky over this district in the past few weeks.
These facts have been uncovered by Journal reporters in their efforts to penetrate the wall of secrecy which was hastily thrown up after the sighting by students and staff at Westall High School on April 6.
‘Beam of light like a disc’
The Journal reported the sighting last week, but attempts to obtain detailed information were hampered by school authorities. Students and staff are understood to have been instructed to “talk to no-one” about the incident.
Last week the Journal was able to obtain only the information that the object sighted was “round and humped with a flat base, grey or silver-grey in color and being circled by what appeared to be light aircraft.”
It has now been reliably established that the object was in fact chased by five light aircraft, and that the pilots were obviously in a position to observe it.
However the absence of any record of this number of aircraft operating from airstrips in the vicinity at the time of the sighting, have deepened the mystery.
Officials at Moorabbin airport say a dozen aircraft took off from there on the morning of April 6, one of which was on a cross-country flight.
Other craft were on “circuits and bumps” training flights to the south-east of the strip. (The Westall School is three and a half miles to the north-east.)
The RAAF had no aircraft operating in the area at the time.
One plane piloted by Mr Bob Ford, of Smith St., Thornbury was flying “somewhere in that area” at the time of the sighting, but Mr Ford said he didn’t notice anything unusual in the air.
A science teacher at Westall High School, Mr Andrew Greenwood, who this week became one of the first to help break the silence surrounding the incident said he had observed the object clearly.
He said five light aircraft were circling the object and were flying at a relatively low altitude.
The aircraft had played a “cat and mouse” kind of game with the object, Mr Greenwood said.
He described the object being chased by the aircraft as: “Like a thin beam of light, about half the length of a light aircraft. It was silvery-grey and seemed to ‘thicken’ at times. The thickening was similar to when a disc is turned to show the underside.”
The object was never really stationary, Mr Greenwood said. It seemed to move from side to side and up and down.
At first there was one plane apparently observing the object. Mr Greenwood noticed five aircraft which attempted to follow the object as it occasionally accelerated back and forth from east to west.
Mr Greenwood first saw the object when it rose into the air from behind pine trees near the school. After about 20 minutes (at about the end of morning recess) Mr Greenwood looked away and when he looked back it had disappeared.
All details of interviews conducted by The Journal during its investigations of the Clayton sighting have been passed on to the Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society.
Members of the Society have cooperated in the investigations and are now studying much of the information obtained.
Although he interviews have helped to confirm the sighting of an unidentified flying object and to gain corroborative descriptions of it, there are still many unanswered questions.
Apart from the obvious puzzle of the origin of the unidentified object, the greatest mystery remaining is that of the five aircraft which were sighted flying around it. There is no doubt that the object was circled by light aircraft, but all attempts to obtain details of aircraft in the area or to trace the pilots, have failed.
The questions that need answers are:
WHERE did the aircraft take off and land?
WHY, if they were obviously chasing a strange object in the sky didn’t the pilots make an official report?
WHY, following publicity overt he incident hasn’t any of the pilots come to light with information?
These are the questions that may never be answered.
There was another article on page one of the 21 April 1966 The Dandenong Journal. The copy available however, has a vertical crease at the side of this article which makes some words unclear. The following text shows () where one word is unclear.
“MARILYN EASTWOOD (pictured) a () year student at Westall High School is () of the youngsters () watched the unidentified flying object () her school playground on April 6.
The object left a clear impression on Marilyn’s memory, and her description of it tallies () those given by () students and staff members who saw it.
() The Journal she () a sketch of the object reproduced above.
Marilyn described the () as “round with (hump?) on top and () things underneath.” Her sketch closely resembles sketches and photographs of other unidentified flying objects reported from many parts () the world.”
“Around Oakleigh with Damian.” (Column)
The question most people in this city are asking is why all the secrecy on the flying saucer episode at the Westall high School?
After all, we are only trying to ascertain what actually took place when this obscure object hovered over the school. I have endeavored to obtain more reliable information from children but they have all given me the same answer: “The head master said we are not to say anything.”
What most people are now asking is why the children are not permitted to talk. The current rumor is that the Government has clamped down via the Education department.
Most people are saying it is high time that some one higher than the head master came to the party and made a statement.
“Letters to the Editor”
(1) “Mystery solution?”
Sir, - Your flying saucer story is very interesting, if only for the quite accurate description of a normal air-to-air firing practice exercise which has been carried out by aircraft practically as long as there have been fighting aircraft.
One of the supposed “saucers” has been correctly identified as a meteorological radiosonee (sic) balloon.
The other - “like a thin beam of light about half the length of as light aircraft, silver grey in color” - is a reasonably accurate description of a target drogue towed by one aircraft on a few hundred yards of tow line so that other aircraft can practice what is termed air-to-air firing.
That is the rather complicated maneuvers required to shoot down a moving aircraft from another moving aircraft in the air.
The aircraft “apparently observing the object” was obviously the towing aircraft and the four other aircraft “playing a cat and mouse kind of game” with the “object” the aircraft practicing firing - probably with camera guns - at the drogue.
For the benefit of the writer of the article who has obviously never heard of a drogue or knows anything about aircraft maneuvers, a drogue is a long cylinder of fabric – silk or nylon – something like a wind sock seen on airfields, about half the length of a light aircraft, silver-grey in color, which moves up and down and side to side on the currents of air from the towing aircraft and is never stationary – until the towing aircraft lands, of course.
Why haven’t the five pilots reported the strange “object?” your article asks. Why should they? They were probably carrying out a normal air-to-air firing exercise and wouldn’t dream that anyone could take a drogue for a “flying saucer.”
Ex RAAF navigator 436150, Dandenong.
(2) There is a second letter but this relates no observations or comments directly related to Westall.
“Around Oakleigh with Damian.”
“Saucer worry”
Was having a yarn to Mr Sanbelebe, principal of Westall High School, and asked him about the flying saucers or whatever they were. He said he did not think he could comment on something he did not see, and I think this is fair enough.
Mr Sanbelebe said that the flood of callers and phone calls from the Air Force down to the Flying Saucer Association interrupts the children’s studies.
Officials of the Victorian Flying Saucer research Society (Peter Norris, President) of Australia were hard put to obtain information on the reported sighting of a UAO near the Westall School ion Clayton, on the 6th of April 1966. The known facts:
Mrs Judith Magee, who investigated, said that she understood that children at the school had been instructed to talk to no one who asked questions about the sighting. Finally, a science teacher at the school, Mr Andrew Greenwood gave a detailed description to the press which discounted theories that the object was weather balloon, an aircraft, or a flock of birds. The object was round, had a flat base and a hump on the top, grey or silver in color and while it hovered and maneuvered near the school, it was circled by light aircraft. Despite this information authorities deny the presence of the aircraft. Officials at Moorabbin airport said that a dozen aircraft took off from there on the morning of April 6, one of which was on a cross-country flight. Other light aircraft, were on training flights but to the southeast, while Westall is northwest of the field. The RAAF had no aircraft operating in the area at the time.
Greenwood said that five light aircraft were circling the object and were flying at a relatively low altitude. He first saw the object when it rose into the air from behind pine trees near the school. After about 20 minutes Greenwood looked away and when he looked back, the object was gone.
This was a newsletter produced by pupils of grade 6C-5C, S.S. 4747, Brown’s Road, Clayton
- Term One edition. Editors were Karen Ansell and Peter Farrell. As the cover and text is shown in the July 1966 edition of the AFSR it must have come out prior to then.
(On the files section of the Westall Yahhoo groups website, there is the following note “Article about Westall flying saucer in "The Clayton Calendar"; the article was written by a former Brown’s Road State School student, who was a Westall High School student in 1966; the state school teacher, Mr Waugh, apparently got into trouble for helping the Grade 5/6 students to publish this article. The author of the article is a list member, and still has clear memories of that day, and what he saw.) “I was in class when a disturbance occurred outside. I didn’t take any notice and when the bell went for morning recess my classmates and I went to our lockers and then walked out into the yard. We noticed that all the girls who were doing Physical Education were gathered right down near the end of our playing field.
Suddenly the school came alive with excitement and everybody began running down towards where the girls were. I was among the surging mob. I had seen something very unusual in the sky.
As I looked up I saw a dazzling silvery object flying around some pine trees which grew on a ridge about a quarter of a mile directly behind the school. It then flew across some open paddocks also behind the school and returned to the pines.
On the other side of the ridge there is a small field. The thing hovered over the pines and descended behind them and must have been directly over the field. I then lost sight of it because of the pines.
As the thing was out of sight I began to notice many private aircraft, mainly Cessnas, flying towards the pines. It was then the thing reappeared and rose to the level of the approaching aircraft. This enabled me to get a rough idea of its size. It was a silvery object as long as one of the Cessnas, but very thin.
As the aircraft approached the thing turned on about a 45 degree angle and started to move into the distance, gradually gaining height. The planes increased their speed and began to follow it, but the object streaked away leaving the planes far, far behind. The planes turned back, but we all stood hoping it would return but it didn’t. So we all went into school, fifteen minutes late.
After school two friends and I went to the field where the object had descended. In a few minutes we were crawling under a barb-wire fence, which surrounded the field at a height of about four feet. We waded through the waist-high grass making for a gap in it. Suddenly were there. We found ourselves standing in a spot where the grass had been utterly crushed against the earth. It was an area of about 25-30 feet in diameter.
Cows could not have done it because the fence was barbed, and also cows would have left a track through the grass. There was no track. The object that descended over the field; could it have done this? It all leads back to the same question. What was the object? Some people say it was a weather balloon, but do weather balloons go up and down quickly, crush grass and fly across the skies faster than a reasonably speedy aircraft? Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.
(The author wishes to remain anonymous. I taught him some years ago and I found him intelligent and well balanced, and certainly not given to making irresponsible statements. A.G.W.)
This two page article, starts on page 13 showing the front cover and text of the Clayton Calendar article, then on page 14 has the following text:
"The above story was written by a boy from the Westall High School which is situated in the Melbourne metropolitan area. The sighting occurred on April 6th, and as the result of an advertisement placed in a Melbourne daily newspaper, and our own investigations, we pieced together a jigsaw puzzle resembling the story above. Only some minor details were omitted, namely that the headmaster of the school stated several organisations had investigated the sighting from the Air Force to the Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society. Perhaps this accounted for the antgonistic attitude when we made our enquiries and for the detaining of some of the children after school for having spoken to the press. It is common knowledge that Air Force Intelligence Services almost the world over, prefer people to remain silent on the subject of U.F.O.'s Nevertheless the "saucers" remain with us and are becoming an increasing source of interest. Judith Magee."
AUSTRALIA
Clayton object and mystery “aircraft.
The Dandenong Journal of April 21, 1966, carries an account of a sighting by staff and students of Westall High School at Clayton, not far from Melbourne, which has puzzling aspects.
Last week the Journal was able to obtain only the information that the object sighted was ‘round and humped with a flat base, grey or silver-grey in color and being circled by what appeared to be light aircraft.”
It has now been reliably established that the object was in fact chased by five light aircraft, and that the pilots were obviously in a position to observe it.
However the absence of any record of this number of aircraft operating from airstrips in the vicinity at the time of the sighting, have deepened the mystery.
Officials at Moorabbin airport say a dozen aircraft took off from there on the morning of April 6, one of which was on a cross-country flight.
Other craft were on “circuits and bumps” training flights to the south-east of the strip. (The Westall School is three and a half miles to the north-east.)
The RAAF had no aircraft operating in the area at the time.
One plane piloted by Mr Bob Ford, of Smith St., Thornbury was flying “somewhere in that area” at the time of the sighting, but Mr Ford said he didn’t notice anything unusual in the air.
A science teacher at Westall High School, Mr Andrew Greenwood, who this week became one of the first to help break the silence surrounding the incident said he had observed the object clearly.
He said five light aircraft were circling the object and were flying at a relatively low altitude.
The aircraft had played a “cat and mouse” kind of game with the object, Mr Greenwood said.
He described the object being chased by the aircraft as: “Like a thin beam of light, about half the length of a light aircraft. It was silvery-grey and seemed to ‘thicken’ at times. The thickening was similar to when a disc is turned to show the underside.”
The object was never really stationary, Mr Greenwood said. It seemed to move from side to side and up and down.
At first there was one plane apparently observing the object. Mr Greenwood noticed five aircraft which attempted to follow the object as it occasionally accelerated back and forth from east to west.
Mr Greenwood first saw the object when it rose into the air from behind pine trees near the school. After about 20 minutes (at about the end of morning recess) Mr Greenwood looked away and when he looked back it had disappeared.
Credit Mrs Judith Magee, Victorian FSRS.)
Our greatest mystery - magazine
This is a three page article about UFOs. It contains the following on the Westall incident:
“Equally interesting is child’s eye-witness account of a flying object seen from the yard of the school at Westall, Victoria.
“Suddenly the school came alive with excitement and everybody began running down towards where the girls were. I had seen something very unusual in the sky.
“As I looked up I saw a dazzling silvery object flying around some pine trees which grew on a ridge about a quarter of a mile directly behind the school. It then flew across some open paddocks also behind the school and returned to the pines.
“On the other side of the ridge there is a small field. The thing hovered over the pines and descended behind them and must have been directly over the field. I then lost sight of it because of the pines.”
Commenting on this report written by a boy pupil of Westall High School in describing what he saw on April 6 of this year, Judith Magee, of the VFSRS says in “Australian Flying Saucer
Review” that the society encountered an “antagonistic attitude” when attempting to gain information at the school.
Some of the children were detained after school she says, “for having spoken to the press.”
The article headline read “The Strangers In Our Skies” and includes the following text relevant to Westall.
“The mysterious flying object sighted in the skies near Westall High School last April was not an isolated phenomenon.. .What makes the Westall sighting so arresting is the fact that another similar object was photographed over Balwyn, just four days earlier, and several other encounters occurred near Melbourne during that same week.”
This source is a copy of a taped interview between Dr James E McDonald and Andrew Greenwood conducted on 28 June 1967 in Melbourne.
• JEM had read material on the case, sent to him by Paul (Norman) and Peter (Norris)
• Andrew G did not recall the date of the incident and was prompted by JEM who said it was 6 April 1966
• JEM asked where was Westall? AG described the location and stated he was at the Westall High School at the time
• AG said that a girl student raced into class saying “Flying saucer outside”
• She left the room, then 5-10 minutes later it was morning recess time, so AG went outside to take a look. AG thought the girl wasn’t a fanciful type of girl
• The school had 500-600 students at he time, and more than half were on the school oval beside the school buildings
• The object was to the south of the school
• The object was airborne at all times
• Colour - it was gray against a blue-gray sky
• He couldn’t see the object at first due to the lack of contrast (the kids pointed it out to him)
• Size - 2/3rds the size of a “Cessna sized aircraft”
• Shape - cigar shaped, elliptical, but at times it ‘bulged’ in the middle, i.e. changed shape
• Distance - 300 yards from him to electricity pylons. So, object perhaps 1000 yards at the furtherest and 500 yards at the closest
• Motion - varied. Hovered at times. Would accelerate and disappear out of sight, then someone would see it in another part of the sky. Traveled through an arc of perhaps 30 degrees of arc. Came towards us at times. Did go up and down. In summary, it hovered, moved slowly and at times fast.
• It was on its own when he first saw it. Then he saw one aircraft approach it, then the object moved to another part of the sky very rapidly, and the aircraft followed it. It seemed to be playing cat and mouse with the plane. Altogether there were five aircraft. Moorabbin airport later said there were no aircraft up. Moorabbin is about 45 miles away. If you ever go to Moorabbin there are always aircraft in the sky
• At one stage the object disappeared behind a tall row of pine trees - 600 yards from AG
• Later, AG and another staff member (Claude Miller) went over to the trees but saw nothing unusual
• Duration - Girl at physical education class on the oval saw it 10 minutes before AG. AG then watched it for about 15 minutes. So, duration was at least 25 minutes.
• Silvery colour against the sky
• Lost sight as it vanished by accelerating away and was lost to view
• The aircraft were still there at this point
• Ratio of object - length to width? AG said it was finger-shaped. JEM suggested this would be a ratio of 4-5 to 1
• AG did not hear any sound associated with the object
• AG saw students go over the fence while he watched the object
• Time of event - It was definitely morning recess when AG saw it. AG calculated it as 9am plus two 40 minute teaching periods, thus 10.20am. However he then said 10.15am. Recess was 15 minutes long
• Who else saw it? The physical education mistress Jeanette Muir The senior English teacher Claude Miller (39) saw the very last part of it
• The head master of the school was Frank Sambleble
• The head master spoke to the students at one of the day’s assemblies on 6 April 1966
• The RAAF didn’t come to the school for about 2-3 days
• The head master told AG that an Air Force officer came to the school but that the head wouldn’t let him interview AG as AG was teaching a class
• AG understands the Air Force officer was only in the head’s room for a few minutes
• At the time of the interview AG was working at Haileybury College - teaching science
• AG’s home address was 395 Waverley Road, Mount Waverley 3149. Tel: 2773011 (hm)
• The age of the Westall High School students was 11-16 years
• Moorabbin airport was contacted by the Dandenong Journal . They interviewed dozens of people who lived in the area - found no-one who saw the object. If it wasn’t pointed out to you, you might not see it
• AG - “If people try and hide things I want to find out more about them. It must be my perverse nature.”
A three part series taking a serious look at UFOs included the following:
Other incidents are simply not mentioned at all officially. Schoolchildren in Moorabbin, Victoria, some time ago saw a silvery object descending behind a clump of trees nearby and later taking off again.
It was an interesting report. The children were familiar enough with aircraft - there is a light plane airfield nearby - not to confuse a crop-dusting plane, or a helicopter with a UFO.”
This issue carried an article titled “Nests” and “landing pads” written by Judith Magee. In part it read:
Other ‘nests’, some of doubtful origin made news headlines in 1966. One in particular, was of considerable interest to this Society although our attempts to gain detailed accounts of this sighting were hampered by school authorities, who had apparently been instructed no to mention the incident. The children, being more cooperative, were quite willing to fill us in on the details and show us the ‘landing pads’.
On the 6th April 1966, it was reported that a number of children and their science teacher had observed an unidentified flying object near the school at Westall, a suburb of Melbourne.
It was first seen by a class of girls who were having a physical education lesson. They noticed a silvery object flying around some pine trees about a quarter of a mile behind the school.
The girls ran down to the corner of the schoolyard to get a better view and it was not long before the rest of the children, during their recess period, were following.
One of the girls, Marilyn Eastwood, described the object as being round with a “hump on top and round things underneath.”
The science teacher, Mr Greenwood, stated that it appeared “like a thin beam of light, about half the length of a light aircraft.” “It was a silvery-grey and seemed to ‘thicken’ at times, similar to when a disc is turned a little to show the underside.” He said, “the object was never really stationary and seemed to move from side to side and up and down.”
At first there was one plane apparently observing the object but before long others joined it, totaling five in all. The small aircraft, which the children claimed were mostly Cessnas, tried to follow the object which would occasionally accelerate back and forth from east to west.
The Society made various inquiries at the Moorabbin airport (small ‘plane airport) only to discover that none of the pilots had reported anything out of the ordinary, yet they had played a ‘cat and mouse’ game with the UFO!
6 April 1966, Westall, Vic
School children and a teacher observed a dazzling, silver object flying near a school. It was aid that aircraft approached it , the thing tilted at a 45 deg angle and moved away. In a paddock over which the object seemed to hover, the grass was crushed in an area 8-10 metres across. (AFSR Vic Vol 5 pp13-14.)
Witness 1 Lyn
“As I recall we did see a large area of flattened grass which looked as though the grass had been flattened all the same way in a circular fashion. By memory it was about 20 feet across.
At the time we informed the teachers not much interest was shown, although I think a local newspaper came along-teachers were not impressed.”
(Source: Letter from Lyn to Keith Basterfield dated 14 May 1990.)
Witness 2 Ken (brother of witness 3)
“I was 17 years old and on my way home from Clayton tech with some friends. We would pass the kids coming home from Westall High. This night the conversation on everyone’s lips was the flying saucer incident. I remember it caused enough of a stir for the 4 of us to walk about a mile across to where the Westall kids had said the saucers had gone down behind the trees earlier in the day.
In 1966 Clayton and particularly Westall was almost country. The paddock the saucers landed in was remote from houses and surrounded by tall pines. The area had the grass flattened and “tufted” in circles about 60’ to 120’ diameter. The rest of the long grass was undisturbed. No circles overlapped. We thought and talked of ways you could make such circles, such as walking with a rope or a tractor and a slasher. They didn’t look like they were made by a method we could think of.
I remember the circles were like the circles pictured in the newspapers around this time of the saucer nest in Tully N.Q. I don’t know if this was before or after what we saw. I know time dulls memories. I am reminded of various incidents that vary in the way I and other people remember them.
One thing that does absolutely amaze me is the way the Westall incident is remembered. About a year ago, at a party, a girl I didn’t know asked if I was (his name).
She said she had gone to Westall with my sister Kris. She remembered the saucers and described it the same way Kris does. She knew of many of her friends that remembered it. She asked if Kris still remembered it. They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for 20 years.
Regarding the Army, Police etc. I heard the stories about them coming checking and taking a camera. I didn’t see any of this myself. I didn’t see the saucers myself. I did see the circles.”
(Source: Letter from Ken to Keith Basterfield 11 May 1990.)
Witness 3 Kris (sister of witness 2)
I was in the second intake of students at Westall High and in 1966 was in my third year there. The school had been built on vacant land approximately 19km south-east of Melbourne. Westall was a new suburb in an industrial area. Moorabbin Airport is perhaps 7km away.
During the morning tea break one of the kids told us that there were flying saucers down at the oval. My friends and I raced to the far corner of the oval, and by this time there were quite a lot of other kids there. We didn’t see them immediately as they were quite high-and apart from hat we didn’t expect to see anything! What I saw was several objects that appeared as one saucer inverted on another, they were perhaps white or shiny in colour and maybe there were about 7 of them.
It was difficult to tell how big they were as I had no way of knowing how high they were, but they were whizzing back and forward across the sky at a rapid pace.
The UFOs appeared to come down behind some trees not too far from the school ground and some of the children climbed the fence top go over there, I didn’t. perhaps they appeared to come down then up again-I find that part hard to remember.
I think we may have had a twenty minute break for morning tea and we saw the UFOs soon after the break began. We watched them until the bell to return to class had sounded. Some of the children returned to class immediately, but I stayed for probably another ten minutes-by this time the teachers were rounding up the kids. The teacher we had (for Library) was intent on telling us we had made the lot up, stop the nonsense and get into class!
When the lunch break arrived I immediately looked skyward but saw nothing. There was talk of reporters being at the gate but teachers on duty told all the children to keep away. After lunch a special assembly was called where the principal informed the children hat they had seen nothing and to talk to no-one about it! I couldn’t believe it-there were so many children that did see this event.
When I returned from school I told my mother about the day’s events and she mentioned that my brother, Ken, had ridden on his bike somewhere over near Westall High. When he returned much later he told of the flattened grass circles and of the Army and Air Force taking photos, there were lights set up and a lot of personnel. They were trying to keep onlookers away.
That night there was a short article on the evening news. I think there may have been some film of the school-taken at lunchtime-I’m not sure.
Every time I was outside for days after I looked for these UFOs but saw nothing until the following Saturday when my girlfriend and I were at the local park at the end of our street. The park was alongside a railway line and in a direct line from our homes to the school.
We looked toward the direction of our school, but a little to the right and again saw the same type of UFO moving rapidly back and forward in the sky. We watched for only a few minutes before racing back to my friend’s house to get her father-who had been very skeptical. They only lived a few hundred metres from the park, and when he saw them he scratched his head and agreed they were not planes and that he had no idea what they were-he wouldn’t admit they could be UFOs.. ..The UFOs did not stay around for long but I remember when they went it was extremely quickly. That was the last time I saw them.”
“Some information that could be of value is:
Principal: Mr Samblebe Form teacher: Ms I J Brown.”
(Source: Letter from Kris to Keith Basterfield 1 May 1990.)
Westall / Clayton South 3169
7/2/90
Mr Kevin Arnett C/o New Idea.
Regarding a Mystery Object
Dear sir,
I do not have a personal momentous discovery to bring to your attention, but rather a question to which I hope you may be able to help me find an answer, as this has puzzled me for some time. You have achieved some measure of popularity and fame on the subject of UFO’s and similar phenomena.
My first contact with you and your subject was a number of years ago on the Channel 9 Network when “Tonight Shows” were in vogue, when Don Lane, Bert Newton, and other personable comperes were the hosts to your segment on each of their shows.
When reviewing psychic phenomena, UFO’s, or other such “unexplainable happenings” on these occasions, I have waited in vain for you to bring out the one piece of film which I know is somewhere in the archives of GTV Nine’s black and white news library.
I can remember quite clearly the news item regarding a UFO sighting in Westall / Clayton South, being introduced by the late Sir Eric Pierce, or as he was then known, Mr. Eric Pierce.
The footage shows not a UFO, but a circular shaped area of flattened grass, approximately 30 feet or more across its diameter, with the flattened grass looking discoloured or bleached, with slight burn marks in some areas.
This, I think, occurred on a Thursday or Friday, as it was on the evening’s news service, but the date and year has escaped me with the passing of time. The relevance of all this to myself is as follows:
On that particular day, our young son came home from school with news that ‘something silver’ had been seen to descend out of the sky, behind the SEC high voltage transmission lines, disappearing down among the pine trees.
Rumours were rife, with many varied stories encountered, all with one thing in common. A great number of people had definitely witnessed something and the general direction of its disappearance toward the earth.
Our house is only a short distance from both the Westall Primary School, and the Westall Secondary College, who both share common boundaries. Close by to the south west of Fairbank Road is an area known locally as “The Grange Reserve”, now considerably reduced in area by development. The area consists mainly of remnant native vegetation, including the last vestige of Cheltenham Heath, among over stories of pine trees and other native species.
It was into “The Pines” area adjacent to “The Grange” that this mystery object was said to have landed. Being home from work on the Saturday, and being home from work and after seeing the TV news report, I was determined to see for myself if there was any evidence to be found. Feeling rather foolish and self conscious, I mounted my bicycle for a silent approach and headed off to “The Grange,” not knowing what to expect, but fully resolved to witness the aftermath of this mystery no matter what.
It must have been during Autumn, as I remember that the air was quite sharp and cold at 8 am on that Saturday morning. As I rode down the narrow foot track (the local short cut), the tall pine trees seem to close in overhead even though it was daylight, but very overcast. I must mention that I had never previously visited this area before, even though our house was not all that far away, I began to wonder if I had done the right thing by going there by myself, as there were not many houses around at that time.
Then, at the bottom of the track which sloped down and ran away in a westerly direction to the right, was an opening among the trees, that became a large clearing. At the centre of the clearing was a circle of flattened grass at least 30 feet across, as I have already described, with scorch marks and bleaching of the flattened grass, which was twisted around in an anti clockwise direction, within the confines of the circular shape.
Out side the boundary of the circle were a lot of wheel marks and foot prints which I suppose were made by the TV camera crew, and goodness knows who else. Taking bearings, I could see the top of one of the distant SEC high tension power transmission towers, noting its position in relation to the mystery circle, so as to have some data available to me should a later enquiry take place.
All of this may well have been around 24 years ago, given the present ages of our children, reckoning back to their age and their class at school. Sorry I cannot be more specific with dates, but maybe the Channel 9 computer may be of more help. Given your association with the NINE network, you should be able to have access to this news footage as it would obviously be of some interest to your subject.
I simply say, Kevin, can you answer my question? My interest was re-awakened when reading your article in the New Idea 6/1/90 “UFO’s, Fact or Fiction”.
In the past, I had been a healthy skeptic, but since taking the initiative to go and see for myself what had been left behind after all the fuss had died down, I now keep an open mind on the subject.
Yours Sincerely
Norman John Bury
(This letter was written in February 1990 to the late Kevin Arnett, after reading an article by him about UFOs in the “New Idea” magazine.)
The Westall school sensation.
“Two days after the Burkes Flat incident, Victoria was the setting of a UFO sensation. This time there were numerous witnesses and the sighting occurred in daylight. Despite the extraordinary nature of the incident only fragmentary details emerged and it has been suggested by some witnesses and researchers that there were attempts to prevent details of the case being made public.
At about 11a.m. on 6 April 1966 numerous schoolchildren and some teachers at Westall high school, in Clayton, a Melbourne suburb , observed a UFO which landed nearby. An account by one of the students appeared in the school magazine,the Clayton Calendar.
“I was in class when a disturbance occurred outside. I didn’t take any notice and when the bell went for morning recess my classmates and I went to our lockers and then walked out into the yard. We noticed that all the girls who were doing Physical Education were gathered right down near the end of our playing field.
Suddenly the school came alive with excitement and everybody began running down towards where the girls were. I was among the surging mob. I had seen something very unusual in the sky.
As I looked up I saw a dazzling silvery object flying around some pine trees which grew on a ridge about a quarter of a mile directly behind the school. It then flew across some open paddocks also behind the school and returned to the pines.
On the other side of the ridge there is a small field. The thing hovered over the pines and descended behind them and must have been directly over the field. I then lost sight of it because of the pines.
As the thing was out of sight I began to notice many private aircraft, mainly Cessnas, flying towards the pines. It was then the thing reappeared and rose to the level of the approaching aircraft. This enabled me to get a rough idea of its size. It was a silvery object as long as one of the Cessnas, but very thin.
As the aircraft approached the thing turned on about a 45 degree angle and started to move into the distance, gradually gaining height. The planes increased their speed and began to follow it, but the object streaked away leaving the planes far, far behind. The planes turned back, but we all stood hoping it would return but it didn’t. So we all went into school, fifteen minutes late.
After school two friends and I went to the field where the object had descended. In a few minutes we were crawling under a barb-wire fence, which surrounded the field at a height of about four feet. We waded through the waist-high grass making for a gap in it. Suddenly were there. We found ourselves standing in a spot where the grass had been utterly crushed against the earth. It was an area of about 25-30 feet in diameter.
Cows could not have done it because the fence was barbed, and also cows would have left a track through the grass. There was no track. The object that descended over the field; could it have done this? It all leads back to the same question. What was the object? Some people say it was a weather balloon, but do weather balloons go up and down quickly, crush grass and fly across the skies faster than a reasonably speedy aircraft? Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.”
The Dandenong Journal, a local newspaper, attributed the following information to Mr. Greenwood, the school’s science teacher: “He said five light aircraft were circling the object and were flying at a relatively low altitude. The aircraft had played a “cat & mouse” kind of game with the object. He described the object as like a thin beam of light, about half the length of a light aircraft. It was silvery-grey and seemed to thicken at times.
“The thickening was similar to when a disc is turned a little to show the underside. The object was never really stationary. It seemed to move from side to side and up and down.
‘At first there was one plane apparently observing the object. Later, Mr Greenwood noticed five aircraft which attempted to follow the object as it occasionally accelerated back and forth from east to west. Mr Greenwood first saw the object when it rose into the air from behind pine trees near the school. After about 20 minutes (at the end of morning recess) Greenwood looked away, and when he looked back it had disappeared.’
The paper reported that one pilot, Bob Ford, indicated he had been flying ‘somewhere in that area’ at the time, but did not see anything unusual. No other pilots were found who indicated they had been in the area and saw something. Another student Marilyn Eastwood described the object as ‘round, with a hump on top and round things underneath.’
Still another witness, Ms A described to me how she had seen three UFOs that day. According to her, two of them had landed, and she had seen two large circles of flattened and burnt grass. She indicated their width was about 15 metres across. She recollected how the military had arrived at their house the next day. Her mother, and brother went in a truck with her to the landing site. They were told to stay in the truck while the military investigated. They took samples of earth.
Ms A recollected overhearing a RAAF officer saying that the earth must have been subjected to extreme heat, as it had been burnt. The military were insistent that the family say nothing about what they had witnessed. While her mother has since died, her brother partially confirmed the story. He had been about three years younger than his sister, and was attending the adjacent primary school. A woman serving in the tuck shop at the time of the commotion also saw the UFOs.
A school prefect years later described to Dr Ian Gordon, who was then working in the Victorians Education Department curriculum development section, how he had been in a chemistry class during the incident. He and other students , and teachers had sent though the windows what seemed to be a silver-blue object of a ‘classic flying saucer shape,’ come down behind a group of pine trees in an undeveloped area, not more than 200 metres from Fairbank Road. There had been two objects according to what he had heard but he only saw what seems to have been he first of these.
All of a sudden everyone in the sports class, including some of the teachers, took off in a south-west direction. According to the prefect, the thing had come down behind a group of pine trees, and everyone had run off in a mass evacuation of the school all ‘after a flying saucer.’ A large area of flattened grass was found there, perfectly circular in shape, about 10 metres in diameter, with three scorch mark. The grass was very dry, but it hadn’t started a fire. A man approached the school group and told them all ‘to piss off’ because it was private property. The property had been standing idle for many years. The man walked through the area of flattened grass and seemed to ‘ignore its existence’ according to the prefect. When he was told by numerous screaming children that a flying saucer had come down there, he dais ‘bull shit’ and various other things. The school children eventually returned to the school, accompanied by a number of teachers who had ‘followed the mass exodus.’
The prefect was berated by the school principal for being ‘irresponsible’ in following the rest of the students and teachers. Students were forbidden to talk to the press. Some students were interviewed in Rosebank Avenue, near the school. There was a phone call to the principal. He made an announcement that no such thing had been seen and put it down to ‘mass hysteria.’
There were allegedly a couple of unmarked planes, aluminum coloured, seemingly silent, flying over the area at the time, very slowly. The prefect indicated that from the time of the thing coming down to when the school group arrived at the landing site had been little more than five minutes. It had gone when the group arrived. The prefect indicated there had been a secondary mark with no scorch marks to the south of the main site, which suggested that a second object may have landed. The object had been seen coming down very shortly after the first. The site was not flattened right down like the main one,. It appeared to be just a swirled pattern in the grass in an ant-clockwise direction. Some students said they saw the object take off after it had come down, but most seem to have only seen something come down and later sighted the ground traces. There was apparently talk with some teachers, according to the prefect, that the craft must have been some sort of secret Air Force test weapon.
Ray Fischer of the Victorian UFO Research Society, revealed to me that they had interviewed a man who came on the scene at about 5p.m. of the day of the sightings. Hew saw ‘a perfect circle of flattened grass, flattened right down to ground level, in grass that was about two foot high.’ This man recollected that he thought the area was about 10 metres in diameter. He returned a few days later to find a team of ‘military or Air Force people’ going over the site. A couple of technical-looking vans were parked outside. He saw that people in uniforms were examining the circle with radiation detectors. Officials there told him he couldn’t go into the field and to move on. This gentleman returned to the site a third time, only to find that the paddock had been burnt out.
Several other events are alleged to have been related to this fascinating affair. Some witnesses described seeing a cow in the paddock, where the UFO came down. It was alleged to have been n such a distressed state that it eventually had to be put down. There have been persistent stories that one schoolgirl, the first student to arrive at the landing site, was found to be in a dazed, trancelike state, as if she was very shocked. There were unconfirmed rumours that this girl never fully recovered from this experience and spent some time in a hospital in Kat Kew. A teacher who took photos of the site was allegedly told by the headmaster that ‘if you want to keep on teaching you have to keep your mouth shut and we want the film.’ The film allegedly ended up in the hands of the RAAF or Army, but there has been no confirmation of that detail.
A woman claimed the UFO involved in the Westall school landing had hovered over her house, above trees, before it landed behind the school. The UFO was allegedly above the trees for five or 10 minutes before it landed. The woman claimed the UFO ‘was trying to find a place to land.’ She states she followed it, but that ‘it started to get a bit spooky.” She started to return home, but then went back, only to be turned away by police. One source indicated that 200 to 300 kids raced down to the fence where the UFO had landed. There was ‘some guy walking around in white overalls and he was telling everyone to keep back and another guy appeared and he had some sort of uniform. Both men had overalls -one was fully white -the other had a dark uniform, but it had an emblem or a logo on it.’ According to that source , the men were normal looking, and seemed to be walking around t he UFO on the ground. ‘One of the guys disappeared into the aircraft -the one on the ground - they didn’t see where the other one went -the last they saw, he was around the other side of them. They disappeared.’
It was alleged by at least one source that the UFO had ‘sort of crash landed,’ that there were three ‘aircraft hovering above it. They were white - they didn’t have wings and they didn’t have engines - all they did was hum. The humming got louder when they took off. Then within a few minutes, this “flying saucer” took off.’
There is little doubt that something of an extraordinary nature was seen over the Westall school area and that at least one of these objects appears to have landed and apparently left behind some physical traces. Numerous witnesses confirm these basic details. Other more exotic details vary in credibility, some seemingly complementing each other and some apparently contradicting the generally accepted story of events.”
“Witnesses say that in April 1966 the Australian Army set fire to a paddock adjoining Westall High School in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. The alleged burn-off occurred hours after members of the school’s staff and most of the student population watched a domed craft descend, apparently to land briefly in the grass.
The case of the Westall High landing was headlined internationally. The UFO was first seen at morning recess by the school’s science teacher, Andrew Greenwood. Round, grey, flat-based and domed it rose up from behind pine trees. Mr Greenwood would later describe the object as resembling a thin lightbeam that seemed to thicken occasionally, like a disc tilting to show its underside.
For twenty minutes, more than 200 students and staff watched, thunderstruck, as first one plane, then five (most of them Cessnas) chased the darting object around the sky. Student Marilyn Eastwood described the UFO as being ‘round, with a hump on top and ro und things underneath.’ Another female student aged 15, whose account Mr Greenwood released to investigators, wrote:
“I was in a class when a disturbance occurred outside. I didn’t take any notice, and when the bell went for morning recess my classmates and I went to our lockers and then walked out into the yard. We noticed that all the girls who were doing Physical Education were gathered right down near the end of our playing field.
Suddenly the school came alive with excitement. Everybody began running down towards where the girls were. I was among the surging mob. I had seen something that looked very unusual in the sky.
As I looked up, I saw a dazzling silvery object around some pine trees which grew on a ridge about a quarter mile (400metres) directly behind the school. It then flew across some open paddocks also behind the school and returned to the pines.
On the other side of the ridge there is a small field. The thing hovered and descended behind them and must have been directly over the field. I then lost sight of it because of the pines.
As the thing was out of sight I began to notice many private aircraft flying towards the pines. It was then the thing reappeared and rose to the level of the approaching aircraft. This enabled me to get a rough idea of its size. It was a silvery object as long as one of the planes , but very thin.
As the aircraft approached, the thing tilted on about a 45 degree angle and started to move into the distance, gradually gaining height. The planes increased their speed and began to follow it, but the object streaked away leaving the planes far, far behind.
Behind the pine trees, students subsequently found a perfect circle in flattened grass, where something appeared to have landed. One student, described by Mr Gr eenwood as ‘intelligent and well-balanced’ wrote.
After school, two friends and I went to the field where the object had descended. In a few minutes we were crawling under a barb-wire fence, which surrounded the field at a height of about a metre. We waded through the waist-high grass making for a gap in it. Suddenly were there. We found ourselves standing in a spot where the grass had been utterly crushed against the earth. It was an area of about 25-30 feet (8 to 9 metres) in diameter.
Cows could not have done it because the fence was barbed, and also cows would have left a track through the grass. There was no track. The object that descended over the field; could it have done this?
It all leads back to this - some people say it was a weather balloon, but do weather balloons go up and down quickly, crush grass andfly across the skies faster than a reasonably speedy aircraft?
The Westall school sighting is a classic in UFO research. More than 200 witnesses broadly agree about what they had seen, including the fact that five aircraft gave chase. And there was, according to three serious young witnesses, physical evidence of a landing.
I discussed this case with maths teacher Ray Fischer, a committee member of the Victorian UFO Research Society. He said he had evidence that the Army had burned the paddock where the UFO had reportedly landed. ‘Our first informant was a local man who went to the paddock to look at the circular patch,’ said ray. “The place was swarming with military personnel. He returned shortly afterward to find the paddock completely burned out.’
The provenance of the five planes which chased the darting saucer around the sky was to remain a mystery. Despite intensive investigations, Melbourne newspapers were never able to discover where the aircraft, seen by hundreds of people, had taken off from or landed.”
“Students punished -for discussing the Westall UFO” pp 119-120.
In 1987, twenty-one years after the Westall High School incident, I received a letter from a woman who had witnessed the chase and the landing - and three of whose friends had been punished for speaking publicly about it! Mrs B.A. of reservoir, Victoria, wrote:
‘I was fascinated by your recent article about the flying saucer chased by planes above Westall High School. I was one of the many students and teachers in the grounds when that silvery disc rose from behind pine trees.
But the full story of this remarkable sighting has never been told. One teacher was so angry at three students who described their sighting to Chanel 9 news team that he gave them a detention. The UFO was no student prank. After the sighting, I went into the paddock next to the school and saw two huge circles in the dry grass.
Next day representatives of all three armed services called at my parents’ house to ask if I could take them to the landing spot. When we got there, with my mother and brother, they told us to stay in the truck. But I heard one RAAF man say there must have been extreme heat, because the earth was burned. The cow in that paddock was in such a distressed state it had to be destroyed.
The RAAF men were very insistent that we said nothing of what we’d seen. But I don’t suppose it can hurt now, because houses have been built over that paddock.
My main memory of the Westall incident is how angry we all were that particular master wouldn’t believe that a UFOP had hovered over the school. But it was he who was in error. How could so many kids and a handful of teachers - as well as the pilots of the five pursuit planes - all be wrong?”
2000. Source 23 Australian Bulletin December 2000 p2“On the UFO trail” by Paul Norman
As an example, I understand there is someone claiming to have been a student at the Westall School in Clayton in Victoria, who is spreading the claim that there were entities peering from the dome of the object which was earlier reported by a lady in the area to have risen from a vacant block of land about two blocks away from the school ground.
The claimant also stated that entities with fingers - long and slim - could be seen moving around inside the dome. We believe this claimant has been reading too many reports and has them extremely confused, since we have a much later witness who was at the school that day, observed the object and stated IT DID NOT LAND IN THE SCHOOL GROUND.
The documented fact is that Judy Magee photographed the area standing facing the paddock and affected area. The building seen in the back ground of the photo was a small house. I personally went to that house opposite the landing spot, in search of other witnesses, and found an elderly, disabled gentleman, who said he saw students standing around, but did not learn until later that they had observed an object.
The day in April 1966 was the Good Friday holiday, when we interviewed students. Although the school was closed, several students were present discussing the sighting, when they learned we were UFO researchers, they were eager to tell us what happened and what they saw in detail. There were no occupants associated with the incident!”
The article includes one black and white photograph with the following text. “ Centre of the photo is the area affected by the landed craft. A child can be seen there. Small house in left background. The Westall School is approx. two city blocks to the right.”
“While McDonald was still in Australia, he learned of a July 8th sighting of multiple UFOs being pursued by several light planes, similar to the Andrew Greenwood case, an older Australian case which had been thoroughly researched. In this case the object and planes had been viewed by a school yard filled with children and also had been witnessed by several teachers. In this case, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the RAAF was aware of the incident but showed little overt interest in it.
This case occurred on the morning of April 6 1966, at Westall High School in Melbourne. One of the primary witnesses was Andrew greenwood, a teacher at Westall, who was later interviewed by McDonald. A child had run into his class to tell him that “flying saucers were outside!” Greenwood did not wish tio break up his class, and he instructed the child to go back to her physical education class in the yard. Ten minutes later the morning recess bell rang, and Greenwood went outside. Half of the school, about 300 children between 11-15 years of age, were on the playground staring at an unidentified gray object in the blue sky. The object was cigar-shaped but at times “bulged” in the middle. Greenwood could not determine the cause of this shape change but had the impression that the object might be changing position in the sky, thereby presenting different aspects to the viewers.
The distance of the object varied from about 1000 yards to about 500 yards at its nearest approaches. It alternated between hovering motionless and accelerating out of sight, then returning to position. As Greenwood and the children watched, a Cessna came up and tried to get near the UFO. The object was about two-thirds the size of the Cessna. The object began to play “cat and mouse,” and more Cessnas came, until there were five. Moorabbin Airport, about four miles away, was checked, but personnel there stated there were no planes from that airport in the air. “It was silly of them to deny it because there are almost always planes up,” Greenwood told McDonald.
Greenwood and the children watched the object and the planes for 15 minutes, until the object abruptly accelerated out of sight, leaving the planes still in the air. Greenwood questioned the other teachers. The physical education teacher Jeanette Muir, confirmed s he’d seen it but then “clammed up.” Claude Miller, senior English master, saw the object near the end of the sighting. The Air Force came to the school, ostensibly to check out the report. They spoke with headmaster Frank Sambleble. McDonald’s journal described what happened:
Somehow Sambleble got on edge. At the assembly that noon he spoke on it and said it was a lot of rubbish. Was his first eyar as head[master], went by book, wanted to keep things on regulation. When Air Force came he refused to call Andrew greenwood out of class to talk to them. A.G. thinks he sent them packing, and came out muttering ‘what rot.’
Although several teachers and 300 students had seen a strange object pursued by Cessna aircraft for almost half an hour, the RAAF made no further follow-up to anyone’s knowledge. “What puzzles and amuses Greenwood most is [that] Moorabbin Airport claims no planes were up,” wrote McDonald.”
Dr Berson had done his own investigation of the Westall High School sighting. He’d called Moorabbin Airport also, but had been told that he would have to call four separate companies in order to track down the source of the five Cessnas! He’d learned that students at Clayton School had also seen the object at the same time. He went to the department of Air, but was given no information. There he was told by an aviation instructor, “We have a sub-chasing aircraft with very bright lights that can be misinterpreted.”
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