Time check for the North West Cape incident

Hi all,

In a previous post (click here) I presented the original data on the unusual UAP incident, which took place on the U.S. Navy base at North West Cape, near Exmouth, Western Australia, on 25 October 1973.

One part of the data was the time of the two observations by the U.S. Navy personnel. They gave the time of the incident as commencing at approximately 1920hrs and 1915hrs, respectively. One of the witnesses stated that he was "looking in the direction of the setting Sun" at the time of his observation. By the term "setting Sun" I take this to mean that the Sun was close to, but above, the horizon. If the witness meant to indicate that the Sun had already set, I would have expected his wording to be "in the direction where the Sun had (already) set."

In my post I noted that there was a problem with this timing, as an electronic Internet based star chart program showed that the Sun had set before (1915-1920)hrs. I subsequently wondered if the star chart program was in error.

However, some research I conducted today, reveals that the times given by at least one of the witnesses, possibly both the witnesses, do indeed appear incorrect!

The West Australian:

I visited the South Australian State Library and looked at copies of "The West Australian" newspaper for Thursday 25 October 1973. The paper records the time of sunset that night - as 1836hrs. Therefore there is a discrepancy in at least one of the elements presented by at least one of the two U.S. Navy personnel.

If the Sun set at 1836hrs that night, as both the newspaper and the Internet star chart suggests, then the one U.S. Navy individual could not have been looking at the "setting Sun" at 1920hrs.

This anomaly raises a number of issues, which cannot be resolved with the data to hand. It also raises a number of other questions in my mind, including whether any of the other points of data might be incorrect?

North West Cape and ASIO:

While at the State Library I checked issues of The West Australian dated between 24 October and 1 November 1973, to see if there were any UAP reported for that time frame. I failed to locate any, but I did find the following article, which reveals the then name of the Base commander for North West Cape. It may be possible to locate this individual and ask for any of their recollections of the incident.

The article was found on page 7 of the 27 October 1973 issue.

"US Navy: No inquiry on Latter.

The Commanding Officer of the US Navy Base at Exmouth yesterday denied a claim that the Navy had asked the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation for information about a WA trade union official.

Captain R Cunningham said there was no truth in the statement made on Thursday by Mr W S Latter, a vice-president of the WA Trades and Labour Council.

Mr Latter said he had learnt during a visit to Exmouth earlier this month that the US Navy had asked ASIO about his background.

He is a former member of the Communist Party.

(Security and the right of entry to the Exmouth Base are covered by the Australian Defence Special Undertakings Act. Australians must have a permit issued by Federal Authorities must have a permit issued by Federal Authorities before they can enter the base. Permits are issued in consultation with the Defence Department in Canberra.)

In conclusion:

I am surprised that no one since 1975 (when documents on the case emerged) has noted the timing anomaly mentioned in this blog post.

Assistance would be appreciated from blog readers in attempting to resolve this anomaly.