Introduction
Welcome to the new format of the Australian national level UAP sightings listings, by Keith Basterfield and Paul Dean.
As mentioned last month, Paul and I will no longer be bringing you a lengthy listing of un-investigated sightings. Instead we will bring you selected sightings which we have recently come across; give you the facts as we know them, and report on our own efforts to investigate them.
We hope you will find the new format of interest. If you read about a local sighting for which you already have additional information, especially of you have investigated it, then please send your data to keithbasterfield@yahoo.com.au and we will publish it here with full credit to you.
A sighting we'd like to know more about.
Kalbar, Queensland. 12 October 2015. 2000hrs."A farmer living on a 100 acre property became concerned when his dogs began barking, so he walked outside his home to investigate what was disturbing them.
He walked towards a visitor's car parked approximately 30 metres from where he stood but had difficulty seeing the car due to the emanation of the reflection of a light on the car. He described this as "blurring out" the car.
He initially thought he was having problems with his vision, but two seconds later he saw an object appear above the car which he described as looking just like the moon and luminous. It then moved straight up into the sky, changed course to a 45 degree angle, then 'shot off' disappearing from view. He called to his family to come outside to see the object but it had already disappeared. He described the object as not being mechanized, perfectly round and if it didn't move he could have sworn it was the moon...."
(Source: Facebook page for UFO Research Queensland. We hope that UFORQ will be able to further investigate this intriguing report and provide readers with a detailed investigation report in due course.)
Note 1: Alert blog readers will recall that Kalbar was the location where a weather camera is claimed to have photographed a UAP, in March 2015.
Note 2: For those readers who might like to know where the Moon was at 2000hrs 12 October, as seen from Kalbar. A quick check of an astronomical program indicates it was below the horizon.
Sightings
28 September 2015, Around sunset, Darwin, Northern Territory.
Quentin Theron, 40 and children Kylie, 14 and Georgia 8, were in a pool at their Coconut Grove home, Darwin, when they saw a bright ball of light travelling through the sky. The object had a thick and short tail. A video was taken, and is available to view at:
http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/only-in-the-territory/its-unidentified-flying-and-an-object-ufo-baffles-experts/story-fnk2tg5d-1227552608118
Paul Dean unsuccessfully attempted to contact witness Theron via both his Facebook page, and the NT News. No one responded. Paul also spoke to an air traffic controller, about the possibility that the video shows a fuel dump from a military aircraft. The controller did not believe it did. We would be interested to hear from anyone who has looked further into this matter.
2 October 2015, Early hours of the morning, Scotts Creek (Victoria?)
"We could see a very bright light across the paddocks from the house. Seemed yellow warm light compared to the cool blue stars. It seemed extremely close and large compared to anything that should be visible in the sky. I took several photos and video. This was in the north eastern sky about 1-2km above the horizon and seemed only the same distance away. We could hear a humming vibrating sound over our music and it seemed a different frequency as the music was initially loud.
Over the next three hours we watched it hover in the same spot before slowly moving off north once the daylight broke, but it was still visible when it was light at 6am. A farmer a few km away also saw it and captured a photo. On zooming in on photos it appears in different forms but always as bright triangle or bent line shape or in a circle. I know that camera pixels can change these shaped but this is unbelievable."
The above details appeared at http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/ufo-sightings-melbourne#.VhsT8a-hfIU
Comments:
This sighting appeared worthy of follow up. So, I:
a. Used an electronic contact form to send a message to the operators of "Only Melbourne" asking if they would send "Caz" my email address and message. An operator from the "Only Melbourne" responded and advised that they were unable to assist me.
b. I checked an Australian directory for locations named "Scotts Creek." There were a number listed. On the assumption that a person in Scotts Creek, Victoria might choose to forward their sighting to a Victorian website like "Only Melbourne" I looked for the nearest local paper to the Victorian Scotts Creek.This turned out to be the Warnambool Standard newspaper. I despatched an email to the editor outlining my interest in this sighting; and also submitted a similar item to the paper's Facebook page's visitor's comments. To date I have had no response to these efforts.
c. Again, on the assumption that "Caz" was in Scotts Creek, Victoria I obtained the weather details form the closest Bureau of Meteorology station which was station number 090186 at Warnambool, 54.1 km away. That day, the minimum temperature was 9.9 deg C; the maximum temperature was 23.8 deg C. At 0900hrs the wind was blowing from the north at 17km/hr.
d. Again, on the assumption we are looking at Scotts Creek, near Warnambool, Victoria (latitude 38.46 south and longitude 143.09 east) I found that the sun rose at 0549hrs. Astronomically, the planet Venus rose at 0404hrs. At that time, it was elevation zero, ie on the horizon; and at azimuth 77 degrees. By 0600 hrs it had mover northwards to elevation 21 deg, and azimuth 57 deg. North-east is azimuth 45 deg.
e. At this point, as no one to my knowledge, has interviewed "Caz" or anyone else in the area who saw the object, the identification of the cause of the sighting remains "unknown." However, given the presence of the bright (magnitude -4.4) planet Venus in the same general area, and the fact that "Caz" does not report seeing both their "UFO" and the brilliant planet Venus, there is the possibility, however remote, that the sighting is a misidentification of that planet. Only a thorough investigation, preferably on site, would tell. I have referred the case to VUFOA.
4 October 2015, (2130-2200)hrs, 4kms north of Yankalilla, South Australia, 4 minutes.
"We saw a bright orange light at about 25 degree elevation north of us. It came towards us for about four minutes, then when it was almost directly overhead it went straight up until it disappeared from view. My first thought was that it was a helicopter, although the colour of light was wrong, but it was absolutely silent!"
This sighting came to me as a comment on the Sydney Observatory "Lights in the sky" blog.
Comment:
a. I located the weather details for the nearest Bureau of Meteorology station which was station umber 023875 at Parawa, 13.4 kms away. At 1500hrs the wind was from the WNWW at 11 km/hr. Temperature was 22.7 deg C; relative humidly 36%; pressure 1022.9hPa.
At 2100hrs temp was 20.6 deg C; 28% rh; wind from NNW at 7km/hr.
At 2130hrs temp was 20.3 deg C; 28% rh; wind from NW at 6km/hr
At 2200hrs temp was 20.8 deg C; 29% rh; wind from NW at 6km/hr.
b. Given the colour of the light; the 4 minutes duration; and the movement roughly in the direction from which the wind was blowing at a low speed; I elected not to follow this report up any further as there is a high probability of a wind borne, hoax hot air balloon. See previous detailed investigation reports on similar lights at:
http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/preliminary-investigation-report.html
http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/report-from-cairns-queensland-17.html
http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/preliminary-investigation-report.html
9 October 2015, Ca. 2100hrs, Northfield, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, 2 minutes.
"I was coming home about 9pm up Grand Junction Road when I caught sight of a large horizontal bank of lights approx. 200 feet off the ground, to my right and level with Rowe Avenue. It was 9.02 when I first spotted it and I watched it for about 2 minutes.
At first I thought it was a construction site on the top floor of a block as it was too low for a plane and stationary. I'm used to seeing the planes coming in over the hills but they were nothing like that.
It was massive, very low, and as I say, appeared to be stationary. It looked like a row of lights on a gantry. I pulled over to see it better and as I stopped the car it appeared to rotate on the spot and moved off very slowly southwards.
I turned around at the next place I could and then went along Rowe Avenue but there was nothing in the sky, no tall buildings and no sign of a plane moving away toward the airport as you would normally see going into the distance.
Shortly after, at about 9.08 and 9.10 two planes came over the hills with landing lights on as normal, quite low but nowhere near as low as the first one. They were considerably smaller blocks of normal landing, flashing wing lights and cabin lights. It was a bit weird. Can't say anything about noise as I had loud music on the radio."
This report came to me via a mutual friend. Due to its unusual nature, ie bank of lights, initially stationary and then moving, I thought it worthy of a follow up. So, I:
a. Contacted the witness via our mutual friend and asked the following:
Q1. What colour were the bank of lights?
A1 White.
Q2 How many lights (approximately) were in the bank of lights?
A2 "There were 10-15 brilliant white lights along the length."
Q3. How big was the whole thing compared to the full moon on the horizon?
A3 "...about the same distance between the end of my thumb and the end of my smallest finger (20cm approx.) at arm's length..."
They witness also advised:
"The white lights were of varying intensity, some were bright like spotlights other less intense/pointing away from me at different angles. There was a blue solid light towards one end and a red solid light towards the other. These lights were considerably smaller than the white ones and nowhere near as bright.'
b. I obtained the weather details for the Adelaide office of the Bureau of Meteorology (10kms away).
2030hrs 25.7 deg c; 42% rh; wind was calm; pressure 1022.7hPa.
2100hrs 24.3 deg c; 50%rh; wind calm; pressure 1023.0hPa.
2130hrs 23.8 deg c; 50%rh; wind calm; pressure 1023.4hPa.
c. I checked Air Services Australia's WebTrak website the following are screen shots at various times relevant to the sighting:
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| A B77W aircraft flew over at 2101hrs |
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| 2110hrs showing the two aircraft the witness saw |
e. I visited the area concerned on 14 October and spent some time looking around the area
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| Looking across Grand Junction Road down Roe Avenue |
We welcome any feedback on this sighting.
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