suBJEcT !Jn L cLvt1.//-1 lu d/ FILE No ~--I 3 j I 5 9 _ Folio Referred to I On lnilial Ff?liO Referred to I On I Jnitiab Folio Referred to I On Initial' and Dute No. Fiery objech were seen in the night aky over the Tanami, according to Rabbit Flat proprietor Bruce Fenancb. He said the sighUngs had been made by him. ~ well as statJon workers at Mongrel Downs and open- air pdcture theatre patrons at Ba.lgo Mission. j Mr. FBl'rands said at about 2 am on Saturday, June 7, he had seen a fta.sb ot light reftected on the wall or the roadhouse About three to five min- utes later he had heard a distant explosion and had telt. "rolling Vibr&Uon" or the gTOUnd. He had later hea.rd from Mongrel Downs workers that they bad seen a flame sha.ped like a "brtl- liant wblte ball" move In a souther!,. direction at low altitude. The object had disinte- grated south ot the Mong- rel Downs homesteacl and the workers had beard a concussion that IOI&nded like thunder. Mr Fa.rrancll said It ap- pea.red the object had gone down near Jtiatll&nd Rocks. Howe'f'er, a polce plane ctiftrted tram Docter River had failed to find any trace of tbe object during t. -roh of Iitie arw. on the ldzo Panands llai4 be ..... lndiDed to ttllnk the ob- ject bad been a meteorite. The lact of tn.oes could J)Osalbl)' be aplalDed bJ the dJIIntepation of the object before It hit t.be Mr Purancla said there were repan, tram Balco Mission that "a bright ball or wblte lllht" bad pusect over the open air theatre some time before 1a.st. Sun- People at Mongrel Downs had also aeen a fter}' object movlnJ In a south-wester- ly dl~n at about 10 pm on Wednesday '.aat C.QnifJ~ Aclv-occde Thing1lhal go fla1h in lhc nlghl LOOK ... UP IN THE SKY ... IT'S A BIRD ... IT'S A PLANE! DO YOU REMEHBER THE DAYS OF SUPERMAN-"STRANGE VISITOR FROM ANOTHER PLANET, WITH POWERS AND ABILITIES FAR BEYOND THOSE OF NORMAL MEN"? IT WAS GOOD CLEAN All-AMERICAN CEL- LULOID FANTASY THEN, BUT TODAY THE WORLD'S SKY-WATCHING HAS TAKEN A MORE SERIOUS ASPECT. SINCE THE 1950'S THE NUM- BER OF CLAIMED U.F.O. SIGHTINGS HAS ACCUMULATED A VERIT- ABLE MOUNTAIN OF PAPERWORK. AROUND 15 MILLION AMERICANS CLAIMED TO HAVE SEEN UFO'S IN A RECENT GALLOP POLL -EVEN PRESIDENT CARTER SAYS HE'S SEEN ONE. All of the scientists involved In the study of UFO's agree on one thing -that the overwhel ming major- Ity of reported sightings can be ex- plained in terms of natural phenom- enon. What they fai I to agree on are the small number of cases that ap- parently defy rational scierrtific explanation. The United States Air Force in- stituted the now famous Project Blue Book-a definitive attempt to com- pile data on reported sightings and to explain them as natural phenomena. all of the reports could be ex- plained away, however. In a joint study by the Battelle Memorial In - stitute and the United States Air Force of 2199 UFO reports its analy- s i s showed that the more reliable the report and the better the sight- ing conditions the more likely the eva I uat ion was to be "unknown". In it's "excellent" reliability cate- gory (where sightlngs had been made by such persons as airline pilots, radar operators and other profession- al people trained to be rei iable ob- servers) 33 per cent were "unknowns". It's a subject surrounded by a considerable amount of emotional hysteria - even evidenced by the phy- sicists, astronomers, physchologists and professors of various associated disciplines who are Involved in the study of the UFO phenomenom. Even these supremely rational creatures tend to be polarised in their "be- lief" or "disbelief' of UFO's. Ire- cently read a discussion of the UFO dilema which recounted the story of an Irish woman who was asked if she believed in fairies. "No," she said, "but they're there". It's the same with the UFO's-whether you believe In them or not Is not likely to make any difference to them. What we can do, though, Is sort out the natural meteorological optics which are so often confused with UFO's. There are quite a number of these and they account for ninety per cent of the "UFO" sight ings in Australia over the last fifteen years. The other ten per cent com- prises seven per cent which could not be followed up because of Insuf- ficient information and three per cent ~ich remained unidentified or unexplained. These figures show rough- ly the same proportions as studies in America and other countries. Lets have a look at some of these "Identified Flying Objects." as de- scribed by the Regional Director of S.A. Bureau of Meteorology, A.T. Ball Lightning: This is an electric- al phenomenon, found in or near thunderstorms. It is not like con- ventional I ightning, but takes the from of an orange or reddish bat I a foot or so in diameter. This floats just above roofs or tree tops and ~een known to enter open win- dows. The bat 1 can disappear with an explosion which has caused loss of life under mysterious circumstanc- es. Ball lightning has been known to follow motor vehicles, due to some form of e lectrical attraction, but people are quite safe inside a closed vehicle. Lightning bat Is also left strange circular shapes on striking the g round. Our early settlers knew them as "balls of fire". In previous cen- turies there have been many case histories with descriptions which fitted bal 1 lightning phenomena but by Sue Mclolglln people ascribed them to ghosts or poltergeists. Lenticular clouds: These are lens- shaped or almond-shaped clouds which form under sped at cl rcumstances, mostly on the lee side of a mountain range. Air and droplets move through the cloud, but the cloud form re- mains stationary or nearly so for some time giving the Impression they are "hovering". St.Elmo's Fire: This is another el~ ectrlcal phenomenon which builds up the edges of objects moving through an electrical field. It ap- pears as a luminosity at the eKtreM- Itles of masts and aerials of ships as well as parts of aircraft and take the form of streamers or luminous globes colored from blue, green and violet to pure white. Haloes: A halo is a mutticolored circle caused by refraction of light through fine Ice crystal clouds and it is Identified by the red coloring being nearest the sun. It Is easy to recognIse ~1hen you can see the whole halo through cirro- status clouds, but small segments of the halo through scattered ice clouds are sometimes saucer-shaped. Corona: This is caused by the dif- fraction of I ight through clouds of fine water droplets and the red col- ouring is furthest from the sun.Seg- ments of a corona are saucer shaped are usually colored red or green; these are known as iridlscent Noctilucent Clouds: Are caused by reflection of sunlight from meteoric dust high in the stratosphere. They are bluish or silvery white, not visible in the daytime but stand out after sunset. A feature Is their ap- parent rapid movement as the sun gets further below the horizon. Green Flash: A brilliant coloration which flashes above the sun as it Is about to set. It requires special optical conditions for the f lash. to be seen. Hi rage: This is the corrmon form of optical illusion of apparently dis- torted or displaced objects. It is a refraction phenomenon caused by abnormal temperature distributions in the lower layers. Ships can be over the horizon and the sun or moon can be seen well after they have set. Auroras: Are caused by radiative e- mission from nitrogen and other mole- cules during magnetic storms. They variety of shapes and col - Continued from page 11 ours In the form of streamers, rays, arcs, draperies, crowns and bands. In Australina latitudes, auroras are relatively rare. Planets, Stars and Meteors are also often reported as UFOs. For ex- ample, the planet Venus can sometimes be seen in the daytime and if jet stream cirrus clouds are pasing, the planet seems to be moving quickly. Pulsation and changes of colour at night are other causes of misinter- pretation. Apart from these natural "IFO's" there are a nurrber of man-made ef- fects often suspected of being UFO's including satellites, balloons, and search! ights. AI 1 this is not to say, of course, that no UFO's exist and no super- human terrestrials are floating about our atmosphere, observing us for whatever reasons they have in mind. The important sightings are the ones which have been thorouqhly Investi- gated and still not yielded any reas- onable scientific answer. And there seem to be a sufficient number of these sightlngs to rule out the crackpot element as being the only UFOic.yists. It is unlikely that the UFO con- troversy can be settled by anything we "Terrestrials" can do, but per- haps you'd better make up your mind, when that unearthly voice booms over your shou I der "Take us to your leader", who you're going to send People report strange UFOs An. unidentifie d fiyfng viSible for three or four I obj ect was &igbted by sev-minutes at about 10.15 pm. eral local people late on he said Wednesday last week. A report was received They said two brigh t from some peopl e, lnclud- yellow objects trave lled in lng children who had seen a westerly direction over an uniden tified object the town at a hlgb. speed while camping at Hamll- and apparently at low al-I ton Downs the same night. t itude. Inquiries with fllght The objects were descrlb-senice of the Department ed as "quite large" and sil-of Transport have esta.b- ent. lished there were no air- One person said he sa.w craft in the area at these them at 10 pm, and anoth-times. at 11 pm. The Met.eorological Bur- Brady King, 19, said he eau reported that they had was at the drive-in theat-no weather ba.l'oons in the re on Wednesday night area on Wednesday n ight. he saw an oval-shap-An informed source sug- ed object about 2000 metres gests the objects may have him Oylng across the been a low-orbiting satel- top of the drl~e-in screen. lite hitting the atmosphere, f ames appeared burning up and breaking to come out of the back of into pieces as 1L came in at the object and he then a low angle. saw two smaller ones be-Poli~e said they had re- bind it. The objects were ceived no reports of UFOs. Several peoplt' reported seeing an unidentified flying objt>cl over Dar- win last night. The Air Force Traffic Controller at Darwin Air- port said last night he had about six telephone calls from people v. ho said they had. seen a fly- Ing saucer. Mrs Audrey Gough rang the News with a re- ported sighting. She said her familY and neighbors saw a of red and while flashing Ughts lh the eastern sky at 7.15 pm Mrs Gough said she had seen a similar group of flashing lights !rom her home in Hall Cres- cent, Alawa. on five other occasions. The lights moved rap- Idly from east to west at 609tn (2000 ft) before dis appearing she said. And despite traffic controller's ex- planation that the lights Mrs Gough saw were from a DClO Jetliner flying via Darwin to No- umea she insisted It wasn't a plane. "It wasn't anything like a plane, she said. "I was watching a plane when I saw this other thing out or the corner of my eye on te horizon." "The red and while lights were !lashing on and off like morse code." Bureau of Metero- logy spokesman said there was nothing in the sky that could ha\'e been mistaken as a UFO. The RAAF's Orderly Officer said Mrs Gough could have mistaken a plane landing for a UFO. He said planes approa- ching Darwin airport came from the same dir- ection that Mrs Gough bad seen the lights in. JVEt/5 1/ J/Jf Somf' ground -IC\'f'l 'iJ>uat proo! or the nnl- drnt;fled rlyinr o!_.jert O\Cr C"tc;uarina "as re- ported ye~tcrday. A News reader reportl.'d, a "flying ll!!Ucer nest" in Rnp d Creek. The "nest" L~ sllRbtl~ off to t.he left or a short- ('lit path through grass at tht> comer of Sabhe anci Robinson It tr. sl!ghtly under 1.800 metre!! csix feetl in diameter and the grass i.s flattened in a circular clock" i<;e pattern. 1~ ap~ to be dead. An ~ewitness who ms to Lake the short- cut. every day on his wav to the local hotel said it \\"IS not tht>re before W:>dnesday afternoon at However, a rt'porter got chat: ing with youngsters mar~e site. 1'\f'f. mentioned that for more than a week one bolJlad been spinning his mo,tOr b ke aroun~ and around, the front wheel stationary and the rear \\heel circling. that patch looked This is the UFO over Cuuarif!a in recent ni,hts, recorded by News photographer Beat Erismann. The object shone with a bright white light and hild a distinct halo. There wu no moon the night the picture was taken -Tuesday at 5 .30 am. Cnuarina shoppinq centre lies behind the street lights. The photograph, in which the object has been blown up to give a better p icture, was talten with a Nikon, with lO.second exposure at F2.8 using a SOmm lens. by GENE JAMES The mysterious object seen in the skies above Casuarina over the course of the last few nights been photographed. At least & dozen people have &een the object, t v'l or them police of- firer~. since it wa~ first sighted a Wei>k ago by two v.elbre officer:;. The r;lghtlngs began on Wtdnesday, February Two welfart connected wit sav. two bright obJects at approximately 3.30 am -a cros~-shapcd light and a half-moon lying tt.s back. Tt obfect..; appenr~d to be just above the south-eastt>rly section of the RAAP base. The objects wt>re ob- ~erved by welfare of- fleers VIvienne Dallen and Ton y Mu~hnt for more than three hours. nurlng that time the objects moved from sldf' fadt'd to pin- ligh t and then again . r;ettJed a nt.arb y of trt>es -permeat- Ing the area with a brigh t white light, and then again rose up Into The slghtings con- tlnul'd for the next four 'lts and the cross- ~hapt'd object obsened by a do7.t'n peoplt'. On Monday niihl News photographtr Beat Erlsmann spent the night at the home of Charmame and R oelf Hart tn Goodman St. Casuarina. The Harts h&d seen the contlnuln~r pheno- menon from their back \'erandah. At. 5.30 am Tuesdav Beat sav. a very bright white llght In the sky. 'It slov.lv grew In Brat said, "brlghlt'l than an\'thtn&' else in the sky. I then took my photograph. "ShorUv afterwards the objt"Ct movrd slowly rrcedlng as It did so u ntil It became In visible." An officer with the Weather Bureau at the airport :;tatrd that. at !i.30 am on Tuesday Vlsibilil\' v.as 20 m iles. No moon IUS vlslblr. Offict'rs at the RAAF ba.~t' declined to com- ment on the photograph and report until lnve~tl ptlons were carr ied out. But they admitted Mthere was definitely somethin g there. They will hlteniew t he witn esses Ir.volved a nd the reports com- plied forwar ded to Can- The Bureau of Mete- orology also agrePd ''that there \\a<~ ~orne thing tht're, all nght." Tht'y stated that no v.eather balloon '1\ ere aloft at that time TheM people witnessed stranAe objects in the Darwin pre-dawn skies on four successive nights. From left to riqht: To ny Muschat, Vivienne Dallen, R-lf Hart and Charmaine Hart. ,u leul a dcnen ~ople, lnehadlnr two police-. laae wll- n-4 anklenllllable IIJlnc oltjKt. The slrhtin&ll began laa~ Wednesday mom- In' when two weltare omc .. rs connected with the h011tel m McM1llana Rd uw two brlcht ob- jects at approximately l .30 am- a cro &-shaped hchL and a halt-moon lyinc on Its back. The objects appeared to be Just above the IOUth-eut...rly aediOn of the RAAP' bue. we observed the phenoaumon for rouch- ly three hours,' said welfare omcer Tony "Durtnc that time thev moved from de to aide faded t.o pm- pric:tll oc IIcht and then srew large acam. aellled C.J-'ll oehind the trees -p~meating the ar.-a with a bri~JhL white light, then acaln rose up into the aky." Has companion and welfare co-worker. VIvi- enne Dallen, went on: "We ran1 one of our fellow -wockers. RoeiC Hart. who we knew w lnterf'sled in aucb ''He and hla wife went om onto Uatoir ~ell: verandah and also w.tneud the llchta or whatever they were/" Ton) Muschtlt ad~ : "As the cww tnlnc objects rose up Mat.he sky a beam of~rht abone 'doWll, UtumiM- Un& an area about the sla oC a tenma ceurt fairly cl~ to where we at()C)([. "'n\ere was a aeeond. brtrht beam or llrht coming rrom the top arm or the cross and h!s oplnlon It cerlalnly pomtlnc immediate ly was not a star.' skyward~. Once again U1e object 'Ti n bo h object~ !added to the size of a ~>f a t a very fast ].In-prick after hurtlin( rate until they were upward at great speed. little more than pm-Tbe same object was of light m the SC('n by plumber Peter slty.' Vallance and his wife, Tho following nt~h't. Greta. of 49 Dripstone Thursday. the Harts Rd. Casuarina. (Roelf and wife. Char-"I ranc the RAAP malnel were ready. about It at appronm- So. too. was ately 5.30 on T'nui'ICt.y Brown. 11 mornln&.'' said Mrs e~tdlnc the Vallance. tbem. ..""~-~-"Whoever I spoke At approximately with told me that, he am the crou -~ too, could ~e It and Iicht waa aptn teen, that they had It under ...,.rently boftrinc observation " o"er the Cuulna The croea-ahaped olt- ahopplnc centre. -. ject appeared at 5 am Our JOUft( cuest be-on Friday. came "ery fncbtened," Tblll time the Barta, aa!cl lln Channatne the Vallancea and near- Hart," 10 we aent her oppo&ite nei(hbeurs back to !ted and ranc David and Manne c .... rtna pollee. Richardson, who live ''Two olllcers came ill Truacotl St. Caauar- arot.IJ'd. Ina saw the UPO. "ODe of them admltt-As ~fore. It diMP- ecl that It was like peared at great apeed, notftlnr he had e~r travelling upward at seen bfore and that In an angle ol 45 decrees. THIS ITEM HAS BEEN DIGITISED IN SECTIONS Speculation about UFO' (Unidentified Flying Objects) continues throuahout the world, which despite ridicule nd scepticism, never quite seems to ao away. of nB.tu.raJ physical phen- It is this category, the unknown UFO infiames the imagina.tlon. ion will be at a minimum despite the controversy. research ot this phen- omena claim that UPO slghtings around the world fall into deflnite By Pa1l Arlndel an Joe Zi1as. 1111111bers of the UFO R-rcll Sec- tion in the Astronomical Society of Central Australia. Newsppers, mgu ines nd books all the world tell of numerous slghtlngs of Unidentirled Flying Objects, by mny of people, These include, meter- ological boJioons, se.telites marsh gas, rocket met- eorites, lightning, high flying a.trcrafts, unusual abnospheric conditions and the planet Venus. Much confusion and controvesy exists over what constitutes a valid explanation for a UFO