Project Newsprint - Queensland - part three

Hi all,

(Continuing Sheryl Gottschall's report on Project Newsprint - Queensland.)

7. October 2014. Response from Noosa News.

"One evening in October 2014, a man observed 6 or so orange lights in the sky. They were brightening and dimming, then they would disappear and reappear then flare up and repeat their performance. He found it difficult to estimate distance or height, but was certain they were definitely not planes or helicopters. he observed them for nearly an hour.

8. Circa 1996. Cooran, near Noosa. Gympie Times.

"One night twenty years ago, about 6.30pm to 7pm a man observed a light shining in his back yard. He looked up and saw a huge, round object about 200 to 300 metres above , approximately the size of his house. It was yellow all over  with orange lights underneath. He watched it for 20 seconds then it took off in a south easterly direction leaving a trace behind it. This witness was ex-navy and worked on aircraft carriers during his time of service, so he had seen a lot of planes, but this was nothing he had ever seen before. he reported this event to the police who didn't ant to know about it. The wife of the witness also observed the incident."

9. Connondale. 1984/1985 1am Maleny Range news.

"A man reported seeing two lights about one kilometre from where he was siting with 2 other adults and 2 children. At that distance the objects appeared to be the size of small trucks, and were flying around a tree on a hill in a playful manner. They were blue white in colour and at times would hover then move from side to side. After 5 minutes they took off."

10. Oxenford. 2/3 January 2016. Gold Coast Bulletin.

"A woman arrived home after being interstate. She looked out her back window and saw a large, metallic, dull grey saucer shaped object hovering above the ground on its side near her gum trees. The object was as tall as one of her fully grown gum trees, dull grey and metallic. It hovered momentarily before taking off at high speed."

11. 20 Jan 2016 ABC Radio Capricornia- Rockhampton.

The following reports were called in while Sheryl was on air.

a. Capella 13 Jan 2016. 

James was hunting in the evening when he saw 2 lights travel across the sky from north to south. he has seen shooting stars before but these lights were the same size as stars and travelling information. He observed them for 10 to 15 seconds.

 b. Circa 1966.

Fifty years ago, late one night, "R" saw a massive light moving very fast, that lit up the clouds. It suddenly stopped for 3 to 4 seconds before taking off again. It disappeared as fats as it arrived.

13. Te Rapa, New Zealand. Gladstone Observer.

"A woman was living in New Zealand at the age of 20. One night she was driving home after her 4pm to midnight at work. As she got to the little town of Te Rapa she saw a white light in the distance approximately 5 to 10 kms from her location. Then it moved away very fast in a zig zag pattern towards her and within seconds it was 5o metres away from her vehicle. Her radio started crackling, then her car spluttered as she  pulled over to the side of the road, then her car just stopped.

She was shaking and terrified and wet herself from fear. She described the object as looking like the top of an old hills hoist clothes line, or the top of a child's spinning tip toy, but segmented with red, green and white lights all over it. Suddenly the object took off and her car started. She drove home and told her mother who took her to the police station the next day to report the event. She was informed by police that they had received other reports."

14. 1975-1977. Alexandra Headlands. Maroochy Weekly.

"Sometime between 1975 to 1977, a man was looking out towards Point Cartwight at dusk. he saw three or four shimmering stars with different colours, red and white, just above the horizon. The lights were close together in a pyramid shape. The witness watched them for about one minute before they all took off in different directions.

15. Sydney. Early 1950's. 7.30pm.

"It was a dark night so it must have been mid-year, The corner of Elizabeth and Market Street, Sydney. I was facing south. We had just left St James Theatre as we used to attend afternoons sessions because of public transport for me to get  home. With the crush of patrons going in both directions the  crowded footpath forced me to step down onto the road proper. This placed me in an amazing fantastic position to observe what was about to happen. "Hazel" was just behind my right shoulder because when I swung my arm through an arc following the craft she was standing clear of my arm. What attracted my vision I am not sure save that I felt I saw a flash of light or reflection to my left towards Hyde Park. My eyes swung upwards just at the exact moment as the craft passed directly overhead. Stunned at what I saw I yelled  "Look at that." By the time I managed to get this out the vessel had passed just over the top of David Jones Food fair  towards Glebe and the Western suburbs.

If one said they saw a flying saucer in those times one was a candidate for a mental examination as well as public harassment so I just shut up. The staggering thing is the wonder of one's eyes and brain  to absorb so much detail in split seconds with the brain to retain all the data after all this time.

It had a curved metallic polished surface as the Sydney lights reflected in shades of dull red and blue. This occurred as it passed over David Jones, Food hall, market Street and Castlereagh Street about 30 metres across. Height: just clearing radio antenna on David Jones store. 4o to 50 metres maximum.

The "exhaust" visible trail or propulsion movement appeared to be a solid block of royal blue light about 1 metre across with 3 spherical balls contained along it length. Two were similar in size and solid blue around 1.5 metres but the middle  ball's diameter would have been I estimate 2.5 metres, which revolved clearly visible as an orange and blue segments almost like the old barber's pole and large marbles but not quite the  same. These were positioned about 5 meters apart commencing with the first bubble 1/3rd along the trail. It is extremely difficult to describe satisfactorily. If one could locate some old marbles with built in designs it could be demonstrated or even some of the new water features with  spinning globes.

There was absolutely no sound that I could ascertain due to the heavy Saturday tram and vehicle movements. There were no flight paths for Air Traffic ever that flew down Market Street. The path of this craft would have been say 90 degrees to the approach  to Sydney, Mascot Airport. I have only recently seen a report of a UFO with a trail or tail so I have decide to place this on full record with drawings and comment for support.

I am a non drinker or smoker just for the record. I am still capable of reading newspapers without glasses if necessary. To say I was astounded even today would be an  understatement but what I saw at such close range beggars belief. Especially when there were hundreds and hundreds of people surrounding Hazel and myself but none of them was looking upward. I do not know if even one responded to my alarm. I do not recall if Hazel caught a glimpse of the craft.

Another officially reported sighting. I was advised by a man  who was serving in the Militia and their vehicle broke down around Gatton, from memory, and they observed an  illuminated object suspended for an extended period, "over half an hour," which then flew south at an incredible speed. There is more to this story to be reported but it maybe on  record already."

16. Mt Isa. Early 1970's. Mt Isa News.

"The sighting was in the early 1970's during the period of the construction of Lake Julius dam. The company I worked for designed the dam, along with all the necessary infrastructure. As such, our company also carried out supervision, of all the construction work in relation to the dam.

During this period, my mother visited me from Melbourne. During one of her visits, I took her out to have a look at the dam, and pipeline construction. On our return from the dam site, we stopped at one of our supervision camps, which was on the Paroo River, for afternoon tea.

Not long after we left the camp site, we were on the pipeline access road, heading towards Mt Isa, when my mother  noticed what appeared to be a silver sphere out to the west. I told my mother it was probably a weather balloon, or over flying aircraft. However, the object stayed in the one place for the whole time of travel back to Mt Isa which was about  40 minutes.  When we arrived back on the outskirts of Mt Isa we stopped the car and got our for a look. We could only have been stoped for about half a minute when then object  just disappeared in a flash. Mother and I just looked at each other  and we both said in unison "bloody flying saucer." We didn't mention it to others, thinking we would be ridiculed. But, we would often mention it to each other., "wonder what that thing was in the sky that day." Unfortunately, my mother has passed away since that time so I have no one to back up this story."

Sheryl comments:

"Surprisingly many of these reports are up to 50 years old, and upon questioning it was revealed that almost all witnesses had  never reported their experience for fear of ridicule. Although the ridicule factor is lower today, I continually find the fear of  ridicule remains a driving force for the public to remain quiet about UFO incidents, particularly in people around 50 years of age and over. While I continue to receive reports which will be published in future, I can only wonder how many people have and will go to their graves never having  told anyone about their experiences.

Contacting newspapers and receiving stories form the public, with many follow-up contacts has proved quite time consuming. However, I believe that Project Newsprint has been a worthwhile pursuit as we would never have known about these events otherwise. Organisations like  UFO Research Queensland received, document and investigate UFO incidents and to this end we have over 5000 reports stored in  our archive since 1956, but it's apparent we could easily double or triple this amount of reports ion our archives if we actively pursue their collection.

This report can also be found on the UFO Research Queensland website at www.uforq.asn.au "