The Plympton, South Australia, entity case of 29 Feb 1964 - Cold case investigation

Hi all,

Introduction:

An entity case which was reported to have occurred four years before I arrived here in Adelaide, South Australia, has always fascinated me. I carried the following summary of the event in my 1981 book.

"29 February 1964, 1400hrs, Plympton, SA, Mathlin/Jensen.
A young boy reportedly saw a large oval saucer descending into a paddock, in a busy suburb in broad daylight. A tall figure emerged from it and walked around for a while before reentering the object. The object took off, observed by the initial witness and another boy."

I had some contact with one of the eye witnesses, Mathlin, in the late 1960's, and filed the case away as just another interesting entity case. I never came across a contemporary investigation report of the incident. at that time.

Magazine article:

Just a few days ago, while browsing issues of the UFOPIA group's magazine "Panorama" for 1964, in the State Library of South Australia, I came across an excellent article on the event, which has made me re-think my conclusion on the reported incident.

Page 18 of volume 3, number 4 of Panorama carries the following:

" The Plympton sighting 29th Feb 1964.

This case does not appear on the surface to be as authentic as that above although it is hard to doubt the sincerity of the witnesses who were scouts and swore on their honor and were prepared to take an oath  that the story they related was true in every detail.

The facts are that they were playing on a sports oval, known as  the Wiegal Oval, which lies about 4 miles on the west of Adelaide (author's note - this oval is still there in 2012.) They claim they saw a saucer land on the oval, as described in drawings given and that a man got out dressed almost similarly to the one in the Northern case, (author's note - the magazine carries an account and drawings of a case from 19 Feb 1964 near Clare, South Australia) except that the gauntlets were similar and more like mittens, otherwise the cape and the buttons were the same, duration was about 3 mins.

They admitted they were scared but no approach was made by either party to contact the other. The man got out, walked around and then got back into the craft which disappeared into the sky in a flash. They reported this to their parents on the following Monday and the police were notified and investigators sent down to investigate the lads.

The investigators felt that the lads were telling the truth by their corroboration of independent evidence, and their obvious sincerity.

There are however facts which should be placed before our readers which should be considered in that a TV interview was given by one of the investigators the night before Friday in which he related the northern case, and showed a drawing of the "man" as given by this lady as well as craft of the saucer variety. If the boys saw that TV show it could have influenced their story somewhat.

Also the investigators questioned neighbours nearby, some of whose houses faced the oval. One man who claimed he was  out in his garden and never "saw a thing." Also the time factor which was supposed to be at 2.30 in the afternoon in broad daylight. As this oval is closely adjacent to two main highways upon which large streams of traffic flow, especially on a Saturday afternoon and no one reported seeing an object of this kind in the sky, rising, hovering? Or crossing the horizon, and as one of the highways runs east to west and the other north to south it would hardly be possible that at least it would have been able to cross either direction in its ascent without being seen by at least some driver on either road.

This does not however prove the lads story as a hoax or even some flight of vivid imagination, for it is hard to make 4 lads tell the same story without tripping up somewhere in details.

Considering the "mat and demat" behaviour of some saucers the above could well be that the other people did not see anything, although it would be certainly unusual and hard to convince a very material public in such a case.

One thing which does make the story weak is that they waited till Monday to report it, a lapse of two days. It is not known if the investigators examined the ground of the oval in the particular site of the landing for marks of any kind, so no confirmation can be given on that score. However, the editor makes the report and leaves it to the readers to evaluate it for themselves. With more detail the case could be possibly proved either way, but until this is possible it is left to you to decide for yourselves."

Comments:

1. The sketch of the "man" reported in the 19 Feb 1964 near Clare case; and the sketch of the Plympton "man" are almost identical. Note that the Clare event was reported on television before the Plympton case was reported.

2. The Australian UFO Research Association received an email, some time ago,  from a source stating they were related to one of the prime witnesses. This email alleged that the entire episode was a hoax.