The Austrailian Roswell incident, 1966 Westall, Over 200 Witnesses

The Westall '66 UFO. This is a UFO that was spotted in 1966 in Clayton South, Melbourne. But what was this Unidentified Flying Object? A new documentary comes out on it on the 4th of June on Foxtel, and Today Tonight gave a brief report on the 3rd.

This was also covered on the 1st of June by Brian Dunning on his podcast Skeptoid. The transcript and podcast can be found here -
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4208

Another interesting UFO case from Australia, this time a School in Victoria.

At approximately 11.00 am on Wednesday, 6 April 1966, a class of students and a teacher from Westall High School were just completing sports on the main oval when an object, described as being a grey saucer shaped craft, with a slight purple hue and being about twice the size of a family car, was sighted.

Witness descriptions were mixed: Andrew Greenwood, a science teacher, told "The Dandenong Journal" at the time that he saw a silvery-green disc. According to witnesses the object was descending and then crossed and overflew the high school's south-west corner, going in a south-easterly direction, before disappearing from sight as it descended behind a stand of trees and into a paddock at The Grange in front of the Westall State School.



After a short period (approximately 20 minutes) the object - with witnesses now numbering over 200 - then climbed at speed and departed towards the north-west. As the object gained altitude some accounts describe it as having been pursued from the scene by five unidentified aircraft which circled the object.

...Around 30 of the witnesses from that day were interviewed.

On the UFO, everyone seems to agree, Mr Ryan says. It was a low-flying, silver/grey shining object, either of classical flying saucer shape or close to it, "a cup turned upside down on a saucer". The students were familiar with light aircraft because the schools were close to Moorabbin Airport. Although the UFO was of similar size, "everyone said straight away that they knew it was not a plane", Mr Ryan said, nor a weather balloon.

The object was in view for up to 20 minutes, and many saw it descend. Most agree it landed behind pine trees at the Grange Reserve. Dozens of students ran across what was then an open paddock to the reserve to investigate, but the object had lifted off and vanished.

One of the closest witnesses was a boy whose family leased land at Grange Reserve for horses.

Shaun Matthews was on holidays and spending time on the land.

"I saw the thing come across the horizon and drop down behind the pine trees," he told The Sunday Age this week. "I couldn't tell you what it was. It certainly wasn't a light aircraft or anything of the like …

"I saw the thing drop down behind the pine trees and saw it leave again. I couldn't tell you how long it was there for, it was such a long time ago."

Mr Matthews, 51 and now living in Greenvale, said the object "went up and off very very rapidly".

"I went over and there was a circle in the clearing. It looked like it had been cooked or boiled, not burnt as I remember," he said. "A heap of kids from Westall primary and high school came charging through to see what had happened — 'look at this, look at that, we saw it as well', that sort of thing. It was a bit of a talking point for a couple of days."

Mr Matthews said the object, about the size of "two family cars", passed him at a distance of about "four football fields". "It was silvery, but it had a sort-of purple hue to it, very bright, but not bright enough that you couldn't look at it," he said.

"I saw that it dropped down behind the trees, and I thought, 'hello, hang on'. A minute or so later, it went straight up, just gone."

He said police and other officials interviewed his mother. But he cannot remember them burning the landing site, as others have alleged. And he did not see any light aircraft trailing the object, as others did.

"The way this thing moved there is no way it could have been a weather balloon or a light aircraft," he said.

"A helicopter? No way — no noise, wrong shape, and it didn't move like it. It came out of the distance, stopped, and then just dropped.

"It didn't just sort of cruise and then slightly descend at an angle. It just stopped, dropped, and then went straight up."

This is certainly an unusual case with multiple witnesses, military involvement and cover up (No reports have ever been released) and physical evidence.  ... - ats