Exmouth, Western Australia- a sighting the day after the classic sighting at U.S. Navy base

Background

On the evening of Thursday 25 October 1973, there was a notable UAP sighting, reported by two independent witnesses, near Exmouth, Western Australia. The full story has been carried in previous blog posts, and may be read here.

Exmouth in relation to Perth, W.A.

Introduction

On 18 May 2021 I was contacted by a Perth, Western Australia, resident who related brief details of an observation made by himself and two friends, on Friday 26 October 1973, again from Exmouth. Although, this is now 48 years ago, I believe it is well worth documenting for the record. Here then, are the details obtained via phone and email.

The observation

On Friday 26 October 1973 the three witnesses, Adrian, aged 12; Stuart, and Paul,  were at the Exmouth drive-in theatre, which was, between 1967 and 1983, located on the corner of Murat Road, and Welch Street, Exmouth, where the Exmouth Escape Resort now sits. 

Courtesy Google maps

 

The drive-in http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/49242

Here is the story in Adrian's words:

Report by:  Adrian Arnold at time of sighting 12 years old. (Currently 60 years of age,)

Witnesses present at time of sightings

Adrian Arnold

Stuart  (deceased)

Paul 

Location: Drive-in movie cinema Murat Road, Exmouth, Northwest Cape.

Image courtesy of Adrian Arnold

On this particular evening, I had been dropped by my father, to watch the usual Friday night movie session.

This time of year, it was still quite cold, so we grouped together to share blankets. I was sitting with two friends, Stuart my neighbor and a school mate Paul.

As shown in the pictures, we sat in the deck chairs, to the front right side of the projection box.  There were several external horn speakers for sound,  with rows of linked deck chairs for guests and the usual format for a Friday night program was, first advertisements, followed by a series of cartoons then more advertisements, after this we usually had the first movie, traditionally a repeat or old 60s re-run.  We were sitting in the left-hand front seats of this block of chairs, several of us were on a blanket on the slopping ground in front.

Image courtesy of Adrian Arrnold

This was just a normal Friday night at the movies, we did not have TV, Radio, or computers, we were very aware of things around us, including the Friday night drags that used to get started at about this time, the first cars would blast past the drive-in, to bate, tease the local police, this really was another time in no other town like it in Australia.   A big bit of America in Australia.  One road in, one traffic cop, CB radios and locals and yanks with hot American and local cars on Friday night.

 I used to love listening to them go past, looking up at the stars, seeing the heavens and wishing one day, to be on an adrenalin buss too, we were into the early skateboarding craze, just modified old roller skates, made into boards, the start of the lords of dog town, Exmouth.

This was the land scape, we were dreamers, rebels and had slingshots and thought we were hot, 

Image courtesy of Adrian Arnold

So when looking up on that night, at first I thought I had seen double,  three bright lights in close formation off the coast side toward the north west,  this was actually behind us, we would normally have been looking at the screen, sadly the first films were rubbish, on seeing these lights, at first they were stationary, they suddenly moved, I yelled at Paul and Stuart to look where I had seen them, Paul saw them straight away as they moved again,  Stuart was slow to pick up where they were, in that time they moved in a angular position in a zig zag away, getting wider in pattern, stopping at each line end,  this was not a plane, not a balloon, made no noise, a long way away, there was a very slight green pulse of a very faint color in between them, just noticeable,  all three maintained a set pattern to each other but seemed to distort a little.  After the last stop, they moved first at the same speed then accelerated of into the west north westerly direction and disappeared out over the gulf.

To this day I have not seen any other object do this except the second sighting in September 1975,  as luck would have it, it was Stuart that first picked them out on this night,  unfortunately he has passed away and is unable to confirm this, but a almost identical pattern of lights, more green in the center and was stationary for longer periods, as if watching, but still took of in almost a identical speed and direction as the 73 sighting.  Please note, the town drive-in is located about 40km from the second sighting, which was west of the flaming head light house, on a beach towards the dunes beach, surfing beach, now a well-known location.  Please see attached map.

I have not until recently, last year, that I actually came across other people who were aware of these sightings, but back when these happened, it was talked about at school by quite a few people, a lot thought it was made up,  there was talk in the town about it and after the 75 sighting, both my parents and others in town were aware these had been seen north as far as Dampier and south as Carnarvon.

My interest in this was reignited when I worked with Stan Dayo in the late 1980s helping set up the Perth TAFE film school, in Aberdene Street, Stan was the author of the Cosmic conspiracy, was to be blunt very interested in my time in Exmouth, particularly As I was neighbors, lived next door to the house that all the US Navy Captains lived in,  we were very close to most of them,  particularly Captain Cunningham, I skateboarded with his son Mark.    

I am now becoming aware that this is not just a one off sighting,  I hope with Paul’s version, memory of this event, you will be able to add to the jigsaw of information that is painting a quite interesting picture, we may not be alone.

Comments

1. Exmouth is at latitude 21.93 degrees south and longitude 114.12 degrees east.

2. On 26 October 1973, the Sun, as seen from that location, set at 6.30pm local time (UTC + 8 hours.)

3. A check with Stellarium, an astronomical sky program found that the Sun had indeed set by 7.30pm and it would have been dark. The Moon was below the horizon at this time, so there was no Moonlight. The planet Venus was a bright object at 32 degrees elevation, azimuth 252 degrees (just south of West.) The lesser bright planet, Jupiter was also visible at 75 degreed elevation and azimuth 274 degrees (just north of west.)

4. A check of the nearest upper atmospheric soundings station, based at Learmonth, 31 kilometres south of Exmouth revealed that they did not keep records in 1973.

5. The freely available online Bureau of Meteorology weather records for Learmonth extend back only 13 months.