A small structured object follows a car - Dargo, Victoria, 1976

Reading pleasure

I have recently had the pleasure of reading a great number of editions of the 'Australian UFO Bulletin' published by the Victorian UFO Research Society.

I picked up a few new pieces of information about the 1972 Frankston, Victoria,  Maurren Puddy case of which I had previously not been aware; some sightings I hadn't heard of before, and various other bits and pieces.

Car pace with small structured object

One of the sightings which intrigued me, was an example of a car pacing; but in this case, instead of a nocturnal light, the small object involved had some structure.  In the May 1976 edition of the 'Bulletin' there was detail about the sighting, investigated by Dan Haylock. The sighting took place at Dargo in Victoria. Dargo is a small Victorian town located 348 kilometers east of Melbourne, and is in the foothills of the Dargo Plains. Latitude 37deg 28mins south; longitude 147deg 13mins east.

Note the location of Melbourne and Bright

Note location of Bright and Dargo

The following is the text of the article from the 'Australian UFO Bulletin.'

'An encounter with a UFO by two occupants of a car has been investigated by Dan Haylock, of Paynesville. The incident took place about 11pm on Jan. 28, 1976, approximately three miles from Dargo in Gippsland, and the two witnesses were a young man and his cousin, a lady of middle age. Dan Haylock reports:

The witnesses to this sighting are farmers and at the time had a cucumber-gherkin paddock at the harvesting stage. After the pickers had finished each day,an irrigation pump was switched on, and switched off again about 11pm.

On this particular evening (dark, moon well in last quarter), they observed what they thought was a shooter's spotlight ahead, just outside the Dargo township area. When their car drew near to it, they found that it was not a shooter's spotlight, but a similar light floating in midair alongside the road. As their car drew alongside it, it began to pace their vehicle - at about 45 m.p.h. This continued for a mile until after their car entered a deep cutting. It wasn't seen again for the next mile.

They had to leave the main road and take a gravel track (Shortcut Road) which ran alongside a semi-cleared paddock on the side of a steep hill. After they started up the hill after crossing a little bridge, they saw the light coming across the paddock. It arrived at the top of the hill before them and waited above a gateway in the fence they were travelling alongside. The gateway is on the crest of the hill, and the roadway drops on down the other side past the gateway (not through it).

Note the location of Shortcut Road

As their car drew alongside, not stopping, the light was the colour of a full moon, about two foot in diameter, and had two projections about a foot long on each side horizontally, and two more the same length projecting from beneath at an angle of 45 degrees from the vertical.

It gave forth now a terrific glare of light that lit up everything for several hundred feet around, illuminating the inside of the car as bright as a midsummer's day, as the woman expressed it. They kept the car moving,downhill now, with a 30-40 foot bank on their right and a deep drop to their left.

The object kept pace, but above the trees on the right hand bank, still illuminating everything, although at least a hundred feet or more away. The road winds to the left and then the right until it reaches a cleared paddock with a dirt road crossing it. They had dropped downhill about 300 feet while the light had maintained its altitude, and it was now high up, but giving out less light. it looked just like a full moon n in the sky.

Satellite view showing the Dargo Road and Shortcut Road

They crossed the paddock, the woman having opened the gate, and the man apparently caught glimpses of it through the door window. They continued through the next gate and down to the pump, which is near some sheds and the light stopped apparently above them, but at a height. As they turned the car around to come back it was evident that the light intended to follow them. This made them very frightened, and they lost no time in getting out through the gates to the road. They sped across the paddock at about 60 m.p.h., through the last gate and back up the winding hill, over the top and down to the little bridge before joining the highway. Here the flying light gave another bright flash illuminating everything as before. As they joined the highway they met another vehicle, and when its lights had passed there was no sign of the flying light which was following.

Ten days later the family noticed a very bright glow over the crest of the mountain near their house which was there for some time.Nothing further eventuated. '

VUFOA video

Andrew Arnold and Ben Hurle from Victorian UFO Action, visited the scene in around 2015 and created an excellent video presentation of the case. 

This video takes you along the roads concerned,; allows you to see the landscape for yourself, and adds the ability to determine lines of sight between the witnesses and the object, at various stages of the encounter. There is also a short audio only interview with the woman witness.

A check of the astronomical sky for the date and time, revealed that the Moon was below the horizon, and out of the planets, only Mars was in the sky, at 21 degrees elevation, azimuth 330 degrees (NW.)