Project Newsprint - stage one concludes

Hi all,

The initial stage of my year long project to collect sightings reports, from rural and remote Australia, is drawing to a close in Western Australia. It is now time to take a look at what I found in this state.

Courtesy Google maps.

Older sightings

Firstly, I collected a lot of older sightings in the time range 1890's  to 1997. A representative list follows:

Undated
“My family used to camp a lot and I remember dad saw a UFO. He actually reported it to the authorities. There were no reported planes in that area that night. Nothing ever came of it.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page 6 June 2014.

Undated
“My late bro in law used to see a lot of night activity at Waroora station. He saw the Min Min light a lot and other strange stuff early hours of the morning. Too weird to tell.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page 6 June 2014.

Undated
“My late brother Ray and wife Lorna didn’t believe in UFOs ... and had to drive a concrete mixer truck to Perth once for repair. Both went together and as they approached Three Springs about 2am they saw a light shining on the moonlit night from way up. It was a beam shining down on the cemetery in Three Springs that scared the life out of Ray and Lorna so much that he put his foot down on the truck and Lorna laid on the floor of the truck until they got out of town. They became believers of course.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page 6 June 2014.

1890's
An elderly lady recounted an observation of her father. “He was a bushman, his name was Jack. He worked in the north-western part of Australia and used to use a dray and four horses to cart things around. One day he was plodding along when he saw this light coming straight towards him, just before it reached him it separated into two  lights which flew separately either side of the horses. The horses were scared and started going out of control. He did not see what happened to the lights.”Source:  AUFORN compiled reports, issue 23, August 2001.

1960’s early 70’s
“My father and his friend travelled around Australia in his early years. He was in his late 20’s I think. He was able to get work at Exmouth setting up the communications, this is where he and about 200 people witnessed a craft directly above them. The Americans would set up an outside picture theatre for the staff every weekend and whilst they were watching the film the craft appeared above them. Left at an incredible pace. This is the story my father told me as a child. Would have been in the late 60’s I guess or early 70’s.” Source: Email from Kris to Keith Basterfield 2 Nov 2015.

NW Cape to Karratha - courtesy Google maps

1968-1973
“We saw many UFOs over the ranges and over the town in 1968-1973 looked like large golf shiny balls sitting on top of Charlie Knife Road we always saw them anytime any year.One night we went out to shoot a roo and came back as quick as we could when we saw something landing in the bush at night. We went flat strap back home.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page 3 June 2014.

1973
“In 1973 as a rigger on the towers, myself, ... saw a metallic object above the towers for more than an hour. We reported it to the Navy and never heard another thing about it.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page 20 Nov 2015

1974

“Geraldton to Exmouth. Early hours of morning. Driving a few kilometres after crossing Lyndon River. Unsealed road. Dad and I also out fishing one evening just on dusk and saw something much like Bill had seen. It was approximately 1974 as I remember being home from boarding school. It was at the light house beach. We were pretty excited. I remember dad calling the RAAF base to report the incident but no report of any aircraft in the area at the time.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page.

1975
“Interesting to read your post. I actually am still convinced to this day that I saw a UFO sitting on the Canyons. There was Kev, me and two others driving out to Kailis for the cockroach races. This was about 1975. I saw this huge thing sitting on top of the canyon. I mentioned it but they remarked it was the Moon. Wasn’t until we got to Kailis that I noticed the full Moon was actually over the opposite end of the gulf! I never mentioned it again.” Source: Exmouth Adventure Facebook page 6 June 2014.

1981.
While driving between Exmouth and the Naval Communication Station, an individual reported an unusual very bright light in the sky over a period of time. Source: http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/sightings-at-us-navcommsta-harold-e.html

1991.
“Don’t know if it’s the same incident but it would have been about 1991. I think we told what we’d seen – on a night mobile APS patrol, when departing HFR access road, we saw a stationary solid light to the south, “about 2000 feet up.” It paced us enroute to Exmouith, then veered off over Learmonth airfield. It stopped for about 30 seconds then it did a couple of passes over the field. Stopped after each pass (passes were in an instant) stopped, then went straight up till it was out of sight – again, in an instant.” Source: Exmouth Adventure facebook page 19 Nov 2015.

1992/1993
A spectacular nocturnal encounter involving a civilian and two Australian Federal Police officers. Source: http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/an-extraordinary-close-encounter-near.html



Satellite courtesy Google maps - NW Cape to Karratha.

Mid 1990's.

“I have seen some strange lights out by the VLF in the mid90’s.” Source: Exmouth Adventure facebook page 19 Nov 2015.

 

Newer sightings

Besides the older sightings, I also heard of a few, newer sightings. These included:

2007 near Roebourne. http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/sightings-from-north-west-australia.html

2010 Karratha. http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/encounter-at-karratha-western-australia.html

2012 Broome. http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/intriguing-report-from-broome-western.html

2012 Karratha. http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/sightings-from-nw-australia-part-two.html

 

WA newspaper websites

I took a look at a number of websites for Western Australian newspapers, and found that they had not carried many stories at all, from locations in WA,  about UAP. They carried pieces about sightings in other parts of Australia, but not local ones.

Donnybrook Bridgetown Mail 9 May 2012

 

In summary

 

1. My original aim for the Project was to investigate whether or not there existed, recent (say over the last ten years) interesting UAP reports in rural and remote Australia I believe that part one of the Project, in Western Australia shows that not only are there such reports, but that a large number of unknown older sighting reports have simply lain there waiting for someone like me to ask people to talk about them.

 

2. There is a definite shift in recent years, away from reporting sightings through newspaper to reporting through social media, particularly Facebook, as evidenced by the existence of such Facebook groups as "Pilbara UFO" and "Exmouth Adventure." No doubt there are other such pages which I didn't come across.

 

3. A concluding remark is, that I remain amazed that none of the state based UAP groups has undertaken this sort of Project that I have commenced upon.

 

4. The next state on my list is Victoria.