Posted On: May 8, 2022

This is a compilation of eight UFO sightings over or near Australia from 1920 to 1973. Each incident is short and to the point.

ONE

1920: SS Amelia Disappeared in the Bass Strait

Official Australian investigation into unidentified flying objects goes back as far as 1920, according to researcher Paul Norman, when the ship S.S Amelia J. disappeared at a time when strange unexplained lights were being reported around the entrance to the Bass Strait. A search aircraft sent to investigate the lights also disappeared and never returned. The Bass Strait area has featured in a number of mysterious cases, most notably the disappearance of the young pilot Frederick Valentich in 1978.

TWO

1942: RAAF Pilot with UFO near Tasman

During the summer of 1942, when an R.A.A.F pilot was on flying patrol off the Tasman Peninsula late one afternoon, following reports by fishermen of strange lights on the sea at night in Bass Strait.

At 5:50 p.m. an unidentified object came out of a cloud bank, which the pilot described as "a singular airfoil of glistening bronze color," about 150 feet in length and 50 feet in diameter, with a dome on top that reflected sunlight.

The UFO flew alongside the plane for a few minutes, then suddenly turned away at "a hell of a pace."

It made another turn then dived straight into the ocean, throwing up "a regular whirlpool of waves."

THREE

1944: Beaufort Bomber and the UFO in the Bass Strait

The second sighting took place one night in February, 1944, when at around 2:30 a.m. a Beaufort bomber flying at 4500 feet over Bass Strait was joined by an unidentified object, described as a "dark shadow" with a flickering light and flame coming out of the rear.

The object appeared to be only 100 to 150 feet away, and stayed with the plane for 18 to 20 minutes, during which time both radio and direction-finding instruments failed.

Eventually the object shot off at about three times the speed of the bomber (235 mph at that time).

Reports indicate that no enemy action was ever confirmed in Bass Strait, although a total of seventeen aircraft went missing in that area during World War.

FOUR

1954: Navy Hawker Sea Fury and the UFOs

On August 31^st, 1954 a Navy Hawker Sea Fury aircraft was approached by two strange lights with vague shapes underneath, 5000 meters above Goulbum, New South Wales.

The pilot radioed Nowra Naval Air Station and was informed that the objects were tracked on radar. The lights shot past the Sea Fury "spinning at fantastic speed."

So sensitive was the security ban on the incident that not even the Minister for Navy was advised about it at the time.

Although UFO files were initially classified secret, this sighting was rated top secret, and details would never have been known for many years had the story not been leaked to the media five months after the incident.

That same year, the Minister for Air, William McMahon, contracted the R.A.A.F formally to investigate UFO reports.

FIVE

1957: The Maralinga Case In South Australia

An extraordinary eyewitness account of a UFO seen hovering over the former British nuclear test site at Maralinga, South Australia, was given to the British researcher Jenny Randles by a Royal Air Force corporal stationed there at the time.

Following nuclear detonations in September and October of 1957, an unidentified object was seen hovering over the airfield by the corporal and some colleagues.

Described as a "magnificent sight," the craft was of a silver-blue color, with a metallic luster.

The corporal said that the object had a line of "windows" or "portholes" along its edge, and that it was seen so distinctly that metallic plating could be made out on its surface.

An air traffic control officer is also alleged to have seen the object, and checks with Alice Springs and Edinburgh airfields revealed that there were no aircraft in the vicinity at the time.

No photographs were taken, the R.A.F corporal said, because the top security status of the base area meant that all cameras had to be locked away.

The UFO departed swiftly and silently after about fifteen minutes. "I swear to you as a practicing Christian this was no dream, no illusion, no fairy story, but a solid craft of metallic construction," the witness told Jenny Randles.

SIX

1960: USAF Pilot UFO Sighting near Tasmania

On November 15^th, 1960, about fifty kilometers from Cressy, Tasmania, a U.S Air Force RB57 aircraft operating out of R.A.A.F East Sale encountered a UFO, and the following is the pilot’s official report:

“Approximately 10:40 LCL while flying on a mission track 15 miles north of Launceston, my navigator called out an aircraft approaching to our left and slightly lower.

Our altitude at this time was 40000 feet, T.A.S of 350 knots, heading of 340 degrees. I spotted the object and immediately commented to [the navigator] that it was not an aircraft, but looked more like a balloon.

We judged its altitude to be approximately 35000 feet, heading 140 degrees and its speed extremely high. From a previous experience I would say its closing rate would have been in excess of 800 knots.

We observed this object for five or seven seconds before it disappeared under the left wing.

Since it was unusual in appearance, I immediately banked to the left for another look, but neither of us could locate it.

The color of the object was nearly translucent somewhat like that of a "poached egg".

There were no sharp edges but rather fuzzy and undefined.

The size was approximately 70 feet in diameter and it did not appear to have any depth.

SEVEN

1965: Ansett-Ana Sighting near Brisbane

On May 28^th, 1965 at about 03:25 hours, an Ansett-ANA DC-6b airliner (registration VH-INH) was paced by an unidentified flying object during a flight from Brisbane to Port Moresby, New Guinea. Captain John Barker described the object as oblate in shape with exhaust gases emanating from it, and related that it paced the airliner for ten to fifteen minutes, witnessed by the co-pilot and a stewardess.

The sighting took place in the vicinity of Bougainville Reef, off the Queensland coast, and Captain Barker radioed details to Townsville Ground Control, adding that he was taking photographs of the object.

On landing at Port Moresby, Barker was informed that he was not to have the film processed in New Guinea but was to return with it to Australia. When he eventually arrived at Brisbane, Captain Barker was flown directly to Canberra, where both the film and the flight recorder were confiscated.

The source of this story is William Orr, Duty Officer of the Department of Civil Aviation at Townsville, who was in radio contact with Captain Barker when he relayed details of the sighting.

Orr passed on the information to John Meskell, a detective with the Criminal Investigation Branch who had been on duty at the Townsville Control Tower at the time. Meskell stated that Orr had been forbidden to discuss the incident, but added: "This latter part is only hearsay and came from Orr [who] then told me that the Chief of DCA [Department of Civil Aviation] came to Townsville and took the twelve-hour tapes from the DCA Control Tower with the full conversation between Orr and the pilot, and Orr was told to ‘shut his mouth’ about the whole thing, under threat of his job ."

The Directorate of Air Force Intelligence in Canberra denied in a letter to Peter Norris that any such incident had taken place: "This is the first information we have received of the reported sighting and therefore have no record of the incident. Perhaps you may care to follow the matter up with the Department of Civil Aviation, but as it is normal practice for that Department to refer all sightings to the RAAF it seems most unlikely that they had it reported."

Peter Norris accordingly wrote to the DCA and received the following reply:

"We asked our Brisbane office to check whether Air Traffic Control personnel at Townsville had any knowledge of the reported sightings on 28th May.

No persons on duty that day have any recollection of unusual communications and we have not received any formal incident report by any Airline Captain operating in the vicinity of Townsville that day. Unfortunately, our communications recording tapes are reused after a holding period of 90 days and we therefore cannot use this source to confirm belief that there were no unusual communications through Departmental facilities."

But according to Stan Seers, the distinguished researcher Dr. J. Allen Hynek obtained a copy of Captain Barker’s official statement to the Australian authorities from the US Air Force, via the Australian Department of Air, which states in part: "I had always scoffed at these reports, but I saw it. We all saw it. It was under intelligent control, and it was certainly no known aircraft."

There is no reference to this remarkable sighting in the R.A.A.F Summary of Unidentified Aerial

Sightings Reported to the Department of Air (1960-1965), a revealing omission indeed.

EIGHT

1973: UFO Incident at North West Cape

On October 25^th, 1973, two U.S Navy personnel observed a UFO hovering near the restricted Naval Communication Station at North West Cape, Western Australia, which is used by the National Security Agency (in conjunction with Australia’s Defense Signals Directorate).

The Department of Defense (R.A.A.F) report relating to the incident was acquired a few years later by Bill Chalker, who was surprised that such a report was made available to a civilian researcher.

At about 19:15 hours that day, Lieutenant Commander M (USN) sighted a "large black, airborne object" approximately eight kilometers to the west at an estimated altitude of 600 meters.

"After about 20 to 25 seconds the craft accelerated at unbelievable speed and disappeared to the north," he reported. There was no noise or exhaust. The second witness, Fire Captain (USN) Bill L , described the sighting as follows:

"At 19:20 hours, I was called by the P.O.W. to close the Officers’ club. I proceeded toward the club in the Fire Department pick-up 488, when my attention was drawn to a large black object, which at first I took to be a small cloud formation, due west of Area "B" [the location of the high frequency transmitter]. On alighting from pick-up 488, I stood for several minutes and watched this black sphere hovering. The sky was clear and pale green-blue. No clouds were about whatsoever. The object was completely stationary except for a halo around the center, which appeared to be either revolving or pulsating.

After I had stood watching it for approx. 4 minutes, it suddenly took off at tremendous speed and disappeared in a northerly direction, in a few seconds. I consider this object to have been approx. 10 meters in diameter, hovering at 300 meters over the hills due west of the Base.

It was black, maybe due to my looking in the direction of the setting sun. No lights appeared on it at any time."

On the very same day that the UFO was seen. Bill Chalker reports, the North West Cape facility was communicating a full nuclear alert to the region, based on National Security Agency communications intelligence (COMINT) intercepts! The nuclear alert was originally due to an NSA misreading of a Syrian message to the USSR, which led the Americans to believe that Soviet troops might be sent to the Middle East (the Yom Kippur War had broken out on 11 October 1973).

My Take: These incidents are all pretty good. I see a trend here and have come to a conclusion. I will not be flying any aircraft over or near the Bass Strait anytime soon.

Resources: Above Top Secret, Timothy Good, 1988

Posted On: May 8, 2022

This is a compilation of eight UFO sightings over or near Australia from 1920 to 1973. Each incident is short and to the point.

ONE

1920: SS Amelia Disappeared in the Bass Strait

Official Australian investigation into unidentified flying objects goes back as far as 1920, according to researcher Paul Norman, when the ship S.S Amelia J. disappeared at a time when strange unexplained lights were being reported around the entrance to the Bass Strait. A search aircraft sent to investigate the lights also disappeared and never returned. The Bass Strait area has featured in a number of mysterious cases, most notably the disappearance of the young pilot Frederick Valentich in 1978.

TWO

1942: RAAF Pilot with UFO near Tasman

During the summer of 1942, when an R.A.A.F pilot was on flying patrol off the Tasman Peninsula late one afternoon, following reports by fishermen of strange lights on the sea at night in Bass Strait.

At 5:50 p.m. an unidentified object came out of a cloud bank, which the pilot described as "a singular airfoil of glistening bronze color," about 150 feet in length and 50 feet in diameter, with a dome on top that reflected sunlight.

The UFO flew alongside the plane for a few minutes, then suddenly turned away at "a hell of a pace."

It made another turn then dived straight into the ocean, throwing up "a regular whirlpool of waves."

THREE

1944: Beaufort Bomber and the UFO in the Bass Strait

The second sighting took place one night in February, 1944, when at around 2:30 a.m. a Beaufort bomber flying at 4500 feet over Bass Strait was joined by an unidentified object, described as a "dark shadow" with a flickering light and flame coming out of the rear.

The object appeared to be only 100 to 150 feet away, and stayed with the plane for 18 to 20 minutes, during which time both radio and direction-finding instruments failed.

Eventually the object shot off at about three times the speed of the bomber (235 mph at that time).

Reports indicate that no enemy action was ever confirmed in Bass Strait, although a total of seventeen aircraft went missing in that area during World War.

FOUR

1954: Navy Hawker Sea Fury and the UFOs

On August 31^st, 1954 a Navy Hawker Sea Fury aircraft was approached by two strange lights with vague shapes underneath, 5000 meters above Goulbum, New South Wales.

The pilot radioed Nowra Naval Air Station and was informed that the objects were tracked on radar. The lights shot past the Sea Fury "spinning at fantastic speed."

So sensitive was the security ban on the incident that not even the Minister for Navy was advised about it at the time.

Although UFO files were initially classified secret, this sighting was rated top secret, and details would never have been known for many years had the story not been leaked to the media five months after the incident.

That same year, the Minister for Air, William McMahon, contracted the R.A.A.F formally to investigate UFO reports.

FIVE

1957: The Maralinga Case In South Australia

An extraordinary eyewitness account of a UFO seen hovering over the former British nuclear test site at Maralinga, South Australia, was given to the British researcher Jenny Randles by a Royal Air Force corporal stationed there at the time.

Following nuclear detonations in September and October of 1957, an unidentified object was seen hovering over the airfield by the corporal and some colleagues.

Described as a "magnificent sight," the craft was of a silver-blue color, with a metallic luster.

The corporal said that the object had a line of "windows" or "portholes" along its edge, and that it was seen so distinctly that metallic plating could be made out on its surface.

An air traffic control officer is also alleged to have seen the object, and checks with Alice Springs and Edinburgh airfields revealed that there were no aircraft in the vicinity at the time.

No photographs were taken, the R.A.F corporal said, because the top security status of the base area meant that all cameras had to be locked away.

The UFO departed swiftly and silently after about fifteen minutes. "I swear to you as a practicing Christian this was no dream, no illusion, no fairy story, but a solid craft of metallic construction," the witness told Jenny Randles.

SIX

1960: USAF Pilot UFO Sighting near Tasmania

On November 15^th, 1960, about fifty kilometers from Cressy, Tasmania, a U.S Air Force RB57 aircraft operating out of R.A.A.F East Sale encountered a UFO, and the following is the pilot’s official report:

“Approximately 10:40 LCL while flying on a mission track 15 miles north of Launceston, my navigator called out an aircraft approaching to our left and slightly lower.

Our altitude at this time was 40000 feet, T.A.S of 350 knots, heading of 340 degrees. I spotted the object and immediately commented to [the navigator] that it was not an aircraft, but looked more like a balloon.

We judged its altitude to be approximately 35000 feet, heading 140 degrees and its speed extremely high. From a previous experience I would say its closing rate would have been in excess of 800 knots.

We observed this object for five or seven seconds before it disappeared under the left wing.

Since it was unusual in appearance, I immediately banked to the left for another look, but neither of us could locate it.

The color of the object was nearly translucent somewhat like that of a "poached egg".

There were no sharp edges but rather fuzzy and undefined.

The size was approximately 70 feet in diameter and it did not appear to have any depth.

SEVEN

1965: Ansett-Ana Sighting near Brisbane

On May 28^th, 1965 at about 03:25 hours, an Ansett-ANA DC-6b airliner (registration VH-INH) was paced by an unidentified flying object during a flight from Brisbane to Port Moresby, New Guinea. Captain John Barker described the object as oblate in shape with exhaust gases emanating from it, and related that it paced the airliner for ten to fifteen minutes, witnessed by the co-pilot and a stewardess.

The sighting took place in the vicinity of Bougainville Reef, off the Queensland coast, and Captain Barker radioed details to Townsville Ground Control, adding that he was taking photographs of the object.

On landing at Port Moresby, Barker was informed that he was not to have the film processed in New Guinea but was to return with it to Australia. When he eventually arrived at Brisbane, Captain Barker was flown directly to Canberra, where both the film and the flight recorder were confiscated.

The source of this story is William Orr, Duty Officer of the Department of Civil Aviation at Townsville, who was in radio contact with Captain Barker when he relayed details of the sighting.

Orr passed on the information to John Meskell, a detective with the Criminal Investigation Branch who had been on duty at the Townsville Control Tower at the time. Meskell stated that Orr had been forbidden to discuss the incident, but added: "This latter part is only hearsay and came from Orr [who] then told me that the Chief of DCA [Department of Civil Aviation] came to Townsville and took the twelve-hour tapes from the DCA Control Tower with the full conversation between Orr and the pilot, and Orr was told to ‘shut his mouth’ about the whole thing, under threat of his job ."

The Directorate of Air Force Intelligence in Canberra denied in a letter to Peter Norris that any such incident had taken place: "This is the first information we have received of the reported sighting and therefore have no record of the incident. Perhaps you may care to follow the matter up with the Department of Civil Aviation, but as it is normal practice for that Department to refer all sightings to the RAAF it seems most unlikely that they had it reported."

Peter Norris accordingly wrote to the DCA and received the following reply:

"We asked our Brisbane office to check whether Air Traffic Control personnel at Townsville had any knowledge of the reported sightings on 28th May.

No persons on duty that day have any recollection of unusual communications and we have not received any formal incident report by any Airline Captain operating in the vicinity of Townsville that day. Unfortunately, our communications recording tapes are reused after a holding period of 90 days and we therefore cannot use this source to confirm belief that there were no unusual communications through Departmental facilities."

But according to Stan Seers, the distinguished researcher Dr. J. Allen Hynek obtained a copy of Captain Barker’s official statement to the Australian authorities from the US Air Force, via the Australian Department of Air, which states in part: "I had always scoffed at these reports, but I saw it. We all saw it. It was under intelligent control, and it was certainly no known aircraft."

There is no reference to this remarkable sighting in the R.A.A.F Summary of Unidentified Aerial

Sightings Reported to the Department of Air (1960-1965), a revealing omission indeed.

EIGHT

1973: UFO Incident at North West Cape

On October 25^th, 1973, two U.S Navy personnel observed a UFO hovering near the restricted Naval Communication Station at North West Cape, Western Australia, which is used by the National Security Agency (in conjunction with Australia’s Defense Signals Directorate).

The Department of Defense (R.A.A.F) report relating to the incident was acquired a few years later by Bill Chalker, who was surprised that such a report was made available to a civilian researcher.

At about 19:15 hours that day, Lieutenant Commander M (USN) sighted a "large black, airborne object" approximately eight kilometers to the west at an estimated altitude of 600 meters.

"After about 20 to 25 seconds the craft accelerated at unbelievable speed and disappeared to the north," he reported. There was no noise or exhaust. The second witness, Fire Captain (USN) Bill L , described the sighting as follows:

"At 19:20 hours, I was called by the P.O.W. to close the Officers’ club. I proceeded toward the club in the Fire Department pick-up 488, when my attention was drawn to a large black object, which at first I took to be a small cloud formation, due west of Area "B" [the location of the high frequency transmitter]. On alighting from pick-up 488, I stood for several minutes and watched this black sphere hovering. The sky was clear and pale green-blue. No clouds were about whatsoever. The object was completely stationary except for a halo around the center, which appeared to be either revolving or pulsating.

After I had stood watching it for approx. 4 minutes, it suddenly took off at tremendous speed and disappeared in a northerly direction, in a few seconds. I consider this object to have been approx. 10 meters in diameter, hovering at 300 meters over the hills due west of the Base.

It was black, maybe due to my looking in the direction of the setting sun. No lights appeared on it at any time."

On the very same day that the UFO was seen. Bill Chalker reports, the North West Cape facility was communicating a full nuclear alert to the region, based on National Security Agency communications intelligence (COMINT) intercepts! The nuclear alert was originally due to an NSA misreading of a Syrian message to the USSR, which led the Americans to believe that Soviet troops might be sent to the Middle East (the Yom Kippur War had broken out on 11 October 1973).

My Take: These incidents are all pretty good. I see a trend here and have come to a conclusion. I will not be flying any aircraft over or near the Bass Strait anytime soon.

Resources: Above Top Secret, Timothy Good, 1988