An Australian database?
Recently I was asked if there was a database of Australian UAP sightings, a sort of one-stop shop for these? I had to admit that there wasn't such a thing. Then I began to wonder where I would go to look for a comprehensive listing of sightings from my country? The answer became quite complex. Here are my thoughts.
National Archives
1. The National Archives of Australia's website has a search engine named RecordSearch. If you type in keywords such as "flying saucer," "UFO," "UFOs," and " Unusual aerial sightings," up pops a list of dozens of UAP related files, generated by a range of Australian government Departments and Agencies. Each file contains details of a variety of Australian sighting reports from 1951 to 1996 when the RAAF ceased its interest in the subject. In total there are many hundreds, if not thousands of reported sightings.
My catalogues
2. Over the years this author has compiled a number of UAP related catalogues which summarize Australian observations. Many of these catalogues are available on the website for Project 1947. These include:
* "Unusual aerial sightings: a search through the Australian government's records systems."
* "A catalogue of pre-24 June 1947 Australian Unidentified Aerial Phenomena."
* "A catalogue of Australian trace cases."
* Text source material for Westall High School UFO April 6, 1966."
* "A reference catalogue of UAP reported from the Nullarbor Plain region of southern Australia."
* "A catalogue of the more interesting Australian UFO reports."
* "A re-examination of the Zanthus, Western Australia aircraft encounter of 22 August 1968."
* " Listing of reports from Woomera, South Australia."
* "A catalogue of Australian abduction cases."
* "A catalogue of South Australian UFO reports."
Blogs
3. Three Australian blogs have carried reports, and often personal investigations. These are written by:
Bill Chalker; Paul Dean, and Keith Basterfield.
Books
4. Over the years, there have been a number of books written about UAP, by Australian authors. Many of these give details of Australian sightings. One of the more recent ones is "Australasian Encounter: UFOs Down Under-The files revisited," by Barry Watts, published by Pegasus Education Group, PO Box 223, McCrae, Victoria, 3938, 241pp. Another prolific Australian author is Moira McGhee of the Independent Network of UFO Researchers. Her books are listed on their website.
Civilian UAP organisations
5. Since the mid 1950's a number of Australian civilian UAP organisations have come and gone, in Australia. In the age of the internet, and with the ageing of their leadership, most have closed down. Two largish organizations continue, namely UFO Research (Queensland) and UFO Research (New South Wales,) UFO Research (NSW) maintains a website, which has a sub-section labelled "sightings" with details from 1958-2017.
6. There are several dozen UAP related Australian Facebook pages, with membership from single digits to many thousands, which daily report upon local sightings, including photographs and videos. In 2018, a survey was conducted to determine how many FB groups there were at that stage.
International databases
7. There are at least five international databases which input cases from Australia. These are:
* Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) - if you are a MUFON member then you can access the organization's Case Management System and read details of cases from Australia.
* National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) - in the USA. Go to the NUFORC database where there are thousands of global cases including ones from Australia.
* National Investigations Commitee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) - Check out the chronology tab for thousands of global cases which have been reported, including local cases from here.
* The PhenomAInon website also provides access to Australian MUFON and NUFORC cases; as does the UPDB database.
Periodicals
8. Quite importantly, the various civil UAP organizations published a range of periodical Newsletters, Journals and other publications. Thanks to the efforts of such individuals as Isaac Koi in the UK; Barry Greenwood in the USA, and a number of individuals here in Australia, including myself, digital copies of many Australian UAP periodicals have been preserved in the Archives for the Unexplained (AFU). Copies may be downloaded.
YouTube
9. A range of Australian events are included in videos on Youtube. Try keywords such as "Knowles family" for the 1988 Mundrabille car encounter; "Kelly Cahill" for her 1990's abduction events; or "Amy and Keith Rylance" for details on the 2001 hoaxed Queensland "abduction."
In summary
Due to the large number of places to which anyone can report a sighting from Australia; you can start to see why no one has the ability to compile a master listing of UAP sightings from anyone country, including Australia. Even if one did there would remain the fact that many of the sources cited above do not carry out any form of investigation as to the nature of what was seen, i.e. was it an identified object or an unidentified one? Thus, a database would be an unknown mix of IFOs and unknowns.
My own methodology has been to look at the original source of the details of the sighting; and conduct wherever possible, a virtual forensic investigation to determine IFO or UFO; or sometimes an in the field investigation. My various catalogues are the result of such diligent research, and I would recommend that blog readers who are interested in Australian material perhaps look at these catalogues as a first port of call. Then perhaps look for original material at AFU; or visit the NICAP website to see if PDFs of original documentation exist there.
Thanks Keith 👌
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