In 1967, the late James E McDonald visited Australia. During his time here, he interviewed dozens of Australians about their UAP sightings. Audio recordings of these interviews are archived in the Special Collections at the University of Arizona library, in the USA.
In order to listen to these recordings, it is necessary to purchase a copy of them. Purchasers are not permitted to pass on copies to other people. Due to these restrictions, few Australian UAP researchers have ever been able to listen to these original and useful set of recordings.
During the past few months, Sydney based researcher Anthony Clarke of UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated, and I have listened to 58 of these recordings and taken the time to make a summary of the contents of each. Anthony will shortly be making all the summaries available through the UFO Research (NSW) Incorporated website, for anyone to read.
My initiative, is to extract the more interesting and informative summaries, and present them on this blog. I have already commenced this by publishing the Moe, Victoria, sighting by Charles Brew.
An observation over Germany in 1945
At the time of the sighting Kit Francis Williams was an Acting Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force (RAF), England. Kit was in the 617 Bomber Squadron based at Woodall Spa, East Lincolnshire, England.
The sighting occurred on the 25 April 1945 while on a bombing mission for Bomber Command’s Special Duties Squadron. Kit was the pilot of the Avro Lancaster bomber, that was the wing finder in the flight group. This was the final bombing mission of the Squadron in the Second World War. The mission comprised 25 to 26 aircraft, and had been tasked to bomb, ‘Hitler’s hideout, Berchtesgaden,’ this was Hitler’s mountain retreat and headquarters at Obersalzberg, in the Bavarian Alps, Germany. These headquarters were also known as the Berghof (residence).
The UFO incident occurred at 9.45 GMT just after a turn near Kaiserslautern, Germany on the final approach to Berchtesgaden. The Lancaster was at an altitude of 16,500 feet (5030 metres), the sky was clear below and the there was a solid cloud cover at 18,500 feet (5640 metres). The nearest aircraft would have been two miles (three kilometres) to the port. The main bomber group, referred to as the, ‘Gaggle’ would have been ten to fifteen miles (16 to 24 kilometres) behind.
Kit, who was the pilot, witnessed, without warning, what he described as, ‘Like a great blanket, a woolly blanket,’ that may have been four to five miles wide (six to eight kilometres). Kit explained that it, ‘Seemed to fill the whole of the windscreen,’ and the colour was grey/brown like, ‘An old army type blanket.’
The object appeared to be moving in the vertical direction past the windscreen of the aircraft, and was gone, ‘In an instant.’
Lost bomb
Immediately following this sighting, the only bomb in the aircraft broke loose, from its mounting, and, ‘Crashed,’ through the bomb bay door and out of the aircraft. The bomb was a 12,000 pound (5443 kilograms) armour piercing type, known as a, ‘Tallboy.’ Kit could hear and feel the vibration of the bomb crashing through the bomb bay doors.
At the same time as the bomb loss, the electrical power in the aircraft failed. This resulted in the four propeller engines losing power and therefore the aircraft could not be properly trimmed from the lift
caused by the bomb’s weight loss. All four engine revolution counters started to drop and all other electrically powered instruments ceased to function.
Kit said during the interview that it was, ‘Obvious that my electrics had gone,’ and they were losing height.
The emergency action plan was commenced where the inboard port engine was, ‘Feathered,’ the other three engines continued, ‘Windmilling.’ The, ‘Feathered,’ engine was locked in its starting position and then started using the backup battery power system on the aircraft. The three other engines were successfully started using the same technique since, ’Windmilling,’ engines could not be started without first being, ‘Feathered.’ The aircraft had dropped 4000 feet (1220 metres) to an altitude of 12,000 feet (3658 metres) due to the power loss.
At the same time as Kit was working on starting the first engine when he, ‘Thought he had hit his head on something,’ and a, ‘Sudden sensation of a pounding headache,’ this sensation continued.
Due to the damage caused by the detached bomb, the bomb bay door could not be closed, apart from that there appeared to be no other damage to the aircraft. The other aircraft in the group continued with their bombing mission. Kit’s aircraft returned to the base in England, since they were now without a bomb. Another aircraft in the group apparently saw the bomb being dropped from Kit’s aircraft and the loss of altitude, they did not see anything else, such as, the unidentified object.
Since the headache occurred, Kit was having difficulty getting his reflexes working normally and having to think about an action before its execution. Kit noticed that the Engineer and the Bomber appeared to be having the same experience, of a headache. Kit commented that the Bomber, ‘Gave the impression that someone had walked up behind him, and slapped him hard, between the shoulder blades,’ adding that the Engineer had the same expression. After taking to all the crew he confirmed that they all had the same type of headache. The headaches were so debilitating that they were all taking a variety of pain relief medication that were in the emergency kits in the aircraft.
Because of the condition caused by the headache, Kit had not been able to land the aircraft successfully and ran off the runway at the end, and onto a grass verge. After landing their Lancaster in England an ambulance was waiting for them.
At the time of the incident, Kit was 19 years old, the eldest of the flight crew, the Navigator, was 26 years old.
After effects
Kit told McDonald that after landing the crew and himself were taken for medical treatment and interrogation, over a period of eleven days. They were first transferred to the base hospital then to Wokingham, England. Following this, to the ‘Guinea Pigs,’ hospital at Rauceby RAF, where all the medical specialists were located. They were finally moved to High Wycombe, Bomber Command headquarters and then to the MI9 Enemy Intelligence and Interrogation Centre. The medical treatment consisted of various tests and the taking of medications to mitigate the headache, none of these treatments were successful. Kit commented that he was in a poor state of health because of the incident.
Kit said on the eleventh day is, ‘When the headache dispersed.’ Kit had found out that all the air crew, except the rear gunner, had ceased having headaches on the same day, within 12 hours of each other. The Rear Gunner took three weeks for the headache to dissipate.
The seven crew in the Lancaster were all different physical builds, and apparently that they were all equally effected by the headache. Kit commented to McDonald that he suspected that the unidentified object had caused the power loss in the aircraft, the headaches and loss of physical co-ordination.
Kit explained to McDonald that he knew of a similar event that occurred just after Christmas 1944 when a Hawker Tempest, piloted by John Dunk, lost power over the English Channel. The pilot had bailed out of the aircraft. Another similar event occurred in Nine Squadron during August 1944, when an aircraft lost power and the crew bailed out in the same area as Kit had lost power.
Kit claimed that there were other bomber crews at High Wycombe Bomber Command, at the same time he was there. He noticed that these crews were taken to the same sections in the Command buildings and he therefore speculated that they may have been there because they had similar experiences while flying.
Kit witnesses one other sighting on the 1 January 1955 in the central highlands of Malaysia. He, ‘Was advised that there was a peculiar aircraft flying around the area.’ Therefore, he climbed, with others, at ‘Frasers Hill,’ to observe the unidentified object. He was the Field Security Officer. He did not initially notice anything, but the Tamil who had seen the object previously, climbed a tree to get a better view. Kit said that the Tamil, ‘Right out of the blue he started screaming has head off,’ and came down the tree to point, and he observed, ‘There was a puff, looked like a puff of green like smoke, like you would see from a smoke bomb.’ The, ‘Puff,’ was six to seven hundred feet (180 to 210 metres) above the tops of the mountains.
As it expanded Kit took several photographs until it dispersed over a period of six or seven minutes. The colour of the, ‘Puff,’ was described by Kit as being, ‘Bright sea green.’ Apparently, the Tamil has seen a flash of light before the, ‘Puff.’ At that time, he had the same feeling that the headache may reoccur, like the one he had in 1945. This discomfort lasted for about an hour and then dissipated. The Tamil had previously sighted the, ‘Peculiar aircraft,’ and described it as being like a flat shinny ball and without any noise.
Kit told Mc Donald that he resided at, Ortolan Avenue, Broadmeadows, Victoria. His telephone number was 309 2468.
Kit said that he had no lasting disability because of the incident in 1944. After leaving the hospital he commenced flying two weeks later with a doctor and another pilot on board to access his ability for flying. He later joined the Tiger Force, in Burma, and after that he worked at London University. He went to Japan after their surrender, at the end of the Second World War, and eventually moved to Australia.
When he had the second headache in 1955 he, ‘Had the impression that one was around,’ referring to the unidentified object.
Kit thought, at the meetings with other air crew, that talk of UFO activity is, ‘Conspicuous by absence.’ He also claimed that religious people are not comfortable with discussing the reality of UFOs.
Update: 5 February 2021
Thanks to research by Graeme Rendall of the United Kingdom we now know that:
* Although nominally with 617 bomber squadron; at the time Williams was with the Number 9 Squadron.
* Rendall located the April 1945 records for No. 9 Sqdn and found that there was a Flying Officer A. F. Williams and he was on that actual raid.
* Rendall wrote me that "The details about the Tallboy bomb breaking free of its shackles and falling through the bomb bay doors are listed in the Operational Record Book; it is put down to 'suspected electrical failure' after selecting and fusing the weapon."
* Original file is AIR 27/129/8.
Wow, that's a great report
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