Zanthus sighting newspaper article located

During my interview with Walter Gardin, one of the pilot witnesses to the 22 August 1968, Zanthus, Western Australia, aircraft encounter, he mentioned he thought that there had been press coverage of the sighting. This morning, I visited the South Australian State Library newspaper collection to see if I could locate any press coverage. In fact, I found an article.

It appeared in The West Australian newspaper, Saturday 24 August 1968 on page 13. It was headed "Check on sighting." The text reads:

"The sighting of an unidentified flying object by two commercial pilots near Kalgoorlie on Thursday will be investigated by the R.A.A.F.

Mr Gordon Smith of Tuart Hill and Mr Walter Gardin of South Perth, made full reports of the sighting to Department of Aviation officials in Kalgoorlie.

Mr Smith said yesterday that he retained an open mind on what he had seen. He was sure it was not an aircraft or a satellite.

He said that a big white object had flown on a collision course with their Piper Navijo aircraft for 20 minutes before speeding out of sight. It appeared to emit several big-dish-like objects which kept within a few miles of the main object then merged with it again."

I have never seen this newspaper article cited in any UFO literature in connection with the Zanthus event. So, you read it here for the first time in 43 years.