Plane left standing by UFO

Hi all,

I have just finished combing through the vast collection of newspaper clippings on the website of UFO Research (New South Wales) (click here.) This post takes a look at an intriguing report carried in an uncited newspaper dated Friday 8 Aug 1980. It reads:

"Darwin plane 'left standing' by UFO.

The crew of a TAA DC-9 says the plane was outpaced by an unidentified flying object over Queensland. So the RAAF immediately began an urgent investigation into the report.

The TAA crew said they made the UFO sighting near Cairns on Thursday when they were flying to Darwin, they said.

The UFO left a vapour trail and was so fast it quickly outdistanced the DC-9 the crew said.

Defence authorities and meteorological experts yesterday could give no explanation of the incident.

A Transport Department spokesman said no civil aircraft was in the area at the time.

An RAAF spokesman said "It was not a Canberra bomber. They can fly high and there was no F-111 fighter there either.

The relieving Air Advisor at the US Embassy, Captain D Estele, said no B-52 bomber was in Australian airspace on Thursday.

Investigators have been told by the TAA crew that the DC-9 was flying at 9,445 (31,000ft). They estimated that the UFO, directly above them, was flying at 15,223m (50,000ft.)"

Comments:

1. There are no RAAF UAP files available for 1980 in the National Archives of Australia (NAA), so it is not possible to check this report via this source.

2. I have never come across this report in any other agency files held by the NAA.

3. The incident is not recorded in the RAAF Base Darwin's UFO files. See my previous post (click here.)

4. It is possible it is buried somewhere on a file belonging to one of the RAAF bases in Queensland on a file we are not yet aware of.