Westall UFO 1966 mass sighting
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| The Report in the Dandenon Journal |
- In Australia way back in 1966 apparently a UFO appeared in full view of 200 school children and teachers at Westall School in Clayton Melbourne. The chemistry teacher Barbara Robbins did in fact take photographs but both her camera as well as the film was later inexplicably confiscated.
- It happened almost 50 years ago since the event took place an amateur investigator Shane Ryan shot a video in 2005 in which he interviewed about 30 of the original witnesses in an attempt to find some tangible evidence for the siting.
- There were reports from some witnesses that the largest craft flew over and along some large Electricity Pylons near the school before landing.
- Claude Miller was on yard duty that day he tells that the children arrived in the school yard just in time to see the craft lift off and was about 50 feet in the air, Andrew Greenwood came up to Claude him and asked him if he had “seen it”. The craft then set down further ahead and then it was said some small planes came in the area and the craft lifted straight up and took off at a breathtaking speed. It went across to an area called “the Grange” a smaller wooded area a short distance away behind the School. The students all took off and ran after it towards this wooded area
This is taken from a brilliant video made by illustrator Lee Whitmore
- It was further reported that there were two other smaller craft of similar design that had hovered over ( but not landed on and only hovered above ) the dirt roadway at the front of the school.
- One student a girl called Tanya had ran to the craft and had touched it apparently, she was found passed out, she was taken to Hospital and in another strange twist she never came back to School , her parents moved out from their home and they were never seen by anybody in the area again. Students rang up newspapers and TV and reporters were dispatched. The Police were called as well as the local RAAF base.
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| A Drawing made of the strange craft from a witness |
- The incident was reported on television news that night and in the local newspapers. But despite the evidence, that day at Westall High School, the headmaster called a special assembly. He told students and staff that they had not seen a flying saucer – in fact, they hadn’t seen anything at all. And they were not to talk about it to anybody.
- Afraid of being ridiculed or punished, many witnesses kept the secret of that day. Some are still angry about not being believed. Others say the incident has affected their lives and continues to haunt them today.
Shane Ryan
In 2010, researcher Shane Ryan presented his documentary - Westall '66 - about his investigation of the incident, based on exhaustive research over a five year period.
Through a public appeal, Ryan was able to uncover many previously unknown witnesses to the event and many from the surrounding area beyond the school grounds. In an interview given to the The Age in 2010, Ryan expressed his certainty that all those witnesses had seen... something:
- Forty-four years after the event, Shane Ryan inspired by a deep sense of injustice at how the students were treated, tracking down former students and staff and searching for the authorities that presided over the day.
- Canberra academic Shane Ryan , who organised a 40th anniversary reunion for eyewitnesses in 2006, has claimed GTV 9 news footage was pulled after Federal Government intervention.
- On his documentary he describes how he was Told GTV channel 9 television ran a report and interviewed a student. But when he went to the station to ask for the tape, it had mysteriously disappeared.
- Channel Nine Journalist, who told him a Government minister had requested that owner, Sir Frank Packer, based in Sydney, remove the footage from the news archives.
Missing Film
- Channel Nine didn’t confirm or deny the story. An archivist at the Melbourne station said the film could not be found for a story on the April reunion. She said it could have been lost through the vagaries of an old system of cataloguing or deliberately removed. The film was filed under a card system, and keyword searches such as “UFO” were unsuccessful. She said the Sydney station could not find the footage either.
- Mr. Ryan said he’d searched all publicity accessible records on UFOs at the National Archives, but there was no mention of the Westall High School incident.
- He said he was pursuing the mystery because of the passion of the eyewitnesses to know what had happened. “If it was an official secret then surely it can be spoken about now.A Department of Defence spokesman said the air force was responsible for responding to reports of “unusual aerial sightings” at the time, “the air force has been unable to access any information relating to this incident within the timeframe available.”
- Here is a case with multiple witnesses, military involvement and cover up (No reports have ever been released) and physical evidence there is no film or even a photograph but the sheer number of witnesses is cause for some credibility.
- Article from: ”http://thearrowsoftruth.com/tag/shane-ryan/
Excerpt from original report
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Westallhighschoolufo/conversations/topics/30
An account by one of the students appeared in the school
magazine, "The Clayton Calendar", which was produced by pupils of
grade 6C-5C:
"I was in class when the disturbance occurred outside. I didn't
take any notice and when the bell went for morning recess my classmates and I went to our lockers and then walked out into the yard. we noticed that all the girls who were doing Physical Education
were gathered right down near the end of our playing field. Suddenly
the school came alive with excitement and everyone began running down towards where the girls were. I was among the surging mob. I had seen something that looked very unusual in the sky.
"As I looked up I saw a dazzling, silvery object flying around
some pine trees which grew on a ridge about a quarter of a mile
directly behind the school. It then flew across some open paddocks
also behind the school and returned to the pines. On the other side
of the ridge there is a small field. The thing hovered over the pines
and descended behind them and must have been directly over the field.
I then lost sight of it because of the pines.
"As the thing was out of sight I began to notice many private
aircraft mainly Cessna, flying towards the pines. It was then, the
thing reappeared and rose to the level of the approaching aircraft.
This enabled me to get a rough idea of its size. It was a silvery
object as long as one of the Cessnas, but very thin.
"As the aircraft approached the thing tilted on about a 45 degree
angle and started to move into the distance, gradually gaining height.
The planes increased their speed and began to follow it, but the
object streaked away leaving the planes far, far behind. The planes
turned back, but we all stood hoping it would return but it didn't, so
we all went into school, fifteen minutes late.
"After school two friends and I went to the field where the
object had descended. In a few minutes we were crawling under a
barb-wire fence which surrounded the field at a height of about four
feet. We waded through the waist-high grass making for a gap in it.
Suddenly we were there. We found ourselves standing in a spot where the grass had been utterly crushed against the earth. It was an area of about 25-30 feet in diameter. Cows could not have done it because the fence was barbed, and also cows would have left a track through the grass. There was no track. The object had descended over the field; could it have done this? It all leads back to the same question. What was the object? Some people say it was a weather balloon, but do weather balloons go up and down quickly, crush grass and fly across the skies faster than reasonably speedy aircraft? Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine."
The proceeding statement by a male student at Westall High school was
released by the science teacher, Mr. Andrew Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood said of the student, "I taught him some years ago and found him intelligent and well balanced, and certainly not given to making irresponsible statements."
Andrew Greenwood
The teacher who saw the craft, who was a science teacher at the time, Andrew Greenwood, says that two Air Force officers visited him at home and threatened him with destruction of his reputation and career if he continued to talk about what he had seen. In the word of Shane Ryan, who spent four years looking into the incident:
“He didn’t put any spin on it, he didn’t give nay particular interpretation, he wasn’t saying what the objects were because he didn’t know.”
Witness Reports Today
Joy Clarke, now 60,
For years and years we were made fun of. You got told: ‘How crazy were you? What drugs were you on?’ For God’s sake, I was 12 and a half and at school. I wasn’t dropping LSD.
For years and years we were made fun of. You got told: ‘How crazy were you? What drugs were you on?’ For God’s sake, I was 12 and a half and at school. I wasn’t dropping LSD.
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