by Eddie

When alien threads fell from the skies

itwasaliens

Now this is just plain weird. In 1961 ‘angel hair’ fell from twelve UFOs which were sighted near Meekatharra. A number of witnesses were able to verify the mysterious visitation.

On 5 August Edwin P., a 37-year-old shearer, was working in the shearing shed at Mt Hale Station, around 100km west of Meekatharra. At 8.20am, the owner of the station came into the shed to ask Edwin to take a look at objects in the sky.

They were round and coloured bright silver. Edwin estimated them to be around 2,500m altitude. They were travelling in pairs at immense speed, and in all twelve of them were seen, the last around 9.15am.

And this is where it gets stranger. ‘Angel hair’ used to be big in the 1950s and ’60s. Gossamer-like, it was an eerie substance emanating from UFOs. Sometimes it draped fences, utility lines, trees, and in a few cases, entire towns. Angel hair has been compared to ectoplasm, a substance made famous in the 1980s by Ghostbusters. (“He slimed me!”)

Just outside the shearing shed, fine mesh-like streamers began to descend from the sky. As it fell to the ground it took on various shapes. As soon as the astonished shearer touched this extra-terrestrial substance, it simply crumbled to dust in his hands.

By now a small crowd of farm hands had gathered, and all were later to swear that this extraordinary occurrence was all-too real.

When the incident was reported to the local police, Constable Jim Doyle checked with the authorities, but no aircraft were supposed to be in the area at the time. An official from the Air Force almost turned this into our Roswell when he announced to the media that this could be the breakthrough they had been waiting for in their UFO investigations.

It seems unlikely that this outspokenness was approved by his superiors, since this simply became another mysterious entry in WA’s very own Project Blue Book.

by Eddie

When UWA students were naughty

Not overstated at all. Not one bit.

Not overstated at all. Not one bit.

You may recall that a couple of years ago UWA students got into serious trouble for racist jokes in the guild newspaper, PROSH. Hardly the first time student humour was controversial. Won’t be the last either.

Today, we look back to 1931, when the student rag, then called Sruss Sruss, also managed to caused outrage. The editor was Griff Richards, who later went on to edit the West Australian. So it didn’t exactly destroy his career.

Unfortunately, the Dodgy Perth research team has not managed to uncover a copy of this infamous publication. UWA doesn’t appear to have one, and the State Library has lost theirs. There may not be any other copies left.

All we are left with is one joke about a Professor Ross, who taught physics and maths, not being able to have any more children because he’d lost the formula. Hysterical, eh?

And one rather weak poem:

She was only a sportsman’s daughter,
She lived besides the mill:
There were otters in the water,
But she was otter still.

Well, Prof Ross didn’t find these funny, and he rapidly became an enemy of the guild, Sruss Sruss, and its editor.

The week the newspaper was printed, UWA students had not helped their cause by going upstairs at His Majesty’s armed with rotten crayfish, eggs and vegetables. Then proceeded to throw these at the audience below, forcing the curtain to come down and the play to be abandoned.

At first, there was only a small piece in the West Australian about this scandal. But then the Sunday Times had a slow news week. Sruss Sruss, it decided, was the worst thing since Hitler would be a few years later, and it had to be stopped now.

The University authorities, backed by Prof Ross, panicked and fined everyone involved, and ordered every copy of the newspaper to be pulped. They also expelled Griff Richards for one year.

In fact, the Guild went further, and burnt every copy of Sruss Sruss they could lay their hands on.

Kids today, eh? Don’t know they’re born.

by Eddie

Something on the Internet is wrong

Not exactly, Master Jones

Not exactly right, Master Jones

Kids at Guildford Grammar School, next time a teacher tells you off for just cutting and pasting from the internet without checking your sources, tell them that the school has just done exactly that.

The above poster, near the Mt Lawley underpass, has an inspirational quote from Benjamin Franklin. Well, almost from Ben.

Or, to be more exact, it’s not a quote from Benjamin Franklin at all. He never said it. Or anything like it.

The closest thing to this quote is from a 1966 educational book, although some people like to find its origin with the Chinese Confucian philosopher Xunzi (312-230 BC). However, since Xunzi wasn’t translated into English until the 20th century, Mr Franklin could not have been familiar with it.

But, if you rely on brainyquote.com for your research, you will find it incorrectly attributed to Ben there.

So kids, now you know. Passing off a quick Google as research is fully approved by your teachers. Go for it.

UPDATE: The school responds here.

by Eddie

Above top secret

It's flying. It looks like a saucer. What shall we call it?

It’s flying. It looks like a saucer. What shall we call it?

In January 1953, the Daily News ran an amused, but very short, article on four Dalwallinu residents who saw a flying saucer. Well, it may have been amusing for the journo, but the authorities took it very seriously.

A letter was immediately sent from Air Force high command to the Commissioner of Police demanding that the cops immediately interrogate the witnesses. The letter also stated that the matter was top secret and that the four individuals must not know it was the Air Force investigating their story.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to the original sighting.

Richard H. and Keith M. were foxhunting just northeast of Dalwallinu. A strange object appeared in the sky, surrounded by a ring of white light. It travelled north for a while, before changing direction to the west.

Richard and Keith were able to watch the alien craft for more than twenty minutes before it finally disappeared from view.

In Dalwallinu itself, Les A. and Kenneth J. also saw something weird, this time around 9.30pm. The flying saucer was once again surrounded by a halo, but even after the craft itself had disappeared the ring of light remained in the sky for several minutes.

Les was an excellent witness, because he was an ex-RAAF pilot, and very familiar with estimating speeds and altitudes of flying things.

Just another mysterious entry in WA’s very own Project Blue Book file.

by Eddie

The truth is out there, near Bridgetown

alien-ship

You really don’t want to know what’s in there

Charles B. was a sober sort of man.* An inspector with the Lands and Surveys Department at Bridgetown, he was definitely not the sort of person to simply make up a UFO for the attention it would bring him. Yet report an alien ship he certainly did.

On 28 November 1951, at 11.03pm he was sitting in his station wagon in Chowerup, some 60 km east of Bridgetown, listening to the ABC news broadcast. Suddenly Charles saw what he initially thought was an aircraft at about 600m altitude. It didn’t take him long to realise that this was definitely no plane.

It had no wings, but did have orange lights on the port side, with green lights on the other. Five portholes on the left glowed an eerie orange. It was impossible to say if there was a tail.

Charles first saw the mysterious object in the east and it was travelling as fast as any jet plane. Yet it made no noise

He got out of the station wagon to get a better look when it suddenly gained altitude and disappeared from view. Its lights were quickly switched off, as if the occupants didn’t want to be observed.

Being a good government employee, Charles reported this enigmatic object to the police. Remember this was the beginning of Cold War paranoia and enemy attacks could be expected any day.

The police referred the issue to the Air Force, who were very, very fascinated by what Charles had seen. They sent a list of sixteen questions that the witness needed to answer immediately. Whether or not this list had been created just for UFOs, or whether it was adapted from a document from WWII is not currently known.

Charles B. has, therefore, the honour of being the first Western Australian to be interrogated by the authorities about flying saucers.

Surely this deserves some kind of plaque out at Chowerup.

* We know Charles’ surname, but have chosen to obscure it here. If you really, really need to know, ask the Men in Black sitting outside our offices right now.

by Eddie

Can you handle the truth?

We are going to need a lot more of these soon

We are going to need a lot more of these soon

In a dark alley, just near Perth Station, Dodgy Perth researchers were slipped a top secret copy of Western Australia’s own Project Blue Book. Our Deep Throats (get your mind out of the gutter and learn some history!) need to remain anonymous for their own well-being, so we will use code names and refer to them only by their initials, S., R. & O.

Over the coming weeks we will be exposing some of the sensational evidence that aliens have repeatedly visited Western Australia. First contact can only be hours away.

But, as a teaser, today Dodgy Perth is privileged to offer the first chance the world has had to see hard-core confirmation of ET and his quest for a reasonably priced coffee in Perth.

Just look at the amazing life-like sketches presented here. It’s almost as if they were photographs. If these don’t silence the sceptics, we don’t know what will.

All of them are taken from the WA Blue Book, all mid-1970s, and often made into a Stat Dec by a local JP. The Truth is out there, sheeples, and we can no longer ignore these sworn testimonies.*

Whether lizard, squid, or tribble, we at Dodgy Perth welcome our new overlords.

UFO_2

UFO_1

UFO_3*Note we have pixilated the names on these documents for the protection of the innocent against evil corporations and Colin Barnett.

by Eddie

The red under our bed

Findlay MacKay the red biker

Findlay MacKay the red biker

Schools have become hotbeds for extremists wishing to corrupt our youth. We refer, of course, to the leaflet handed out on James Street to schoolkids encouraging them to see a lantern slide about Soviet sporting culture. Thrilling it was too. Maybe.

Bloody Communists. No wonder 1933 never came back into fashion.

Anyway, it turns out that a James Street shop had been converted into the headquarters and clubhouse for the local branch of the Communist Party.

And in 1931, WA’s first ever Communist candidate for the federal senate was Findlay MacKay (pictured above), an engineer who lived in Gwenyfred Street, South Perth.

It is clear that the clean-cut young Commie was much better than the current Socialist Alliance lot who could do with a shower, a barber, and a job. (We are looking at you Alex Bainbridge.)

Poor Findlay not only lost his deposit—reds not being all that popular here in the 1930s—but also got fined for holding an unauthorised rally in Bunbury.

Long a motorcycle enthusiast, it was as a result of his bike colliding with a bus in Vic Park in 1942, that Findlay sadly lost his life.

Biker, Commie, and agitator on the streets of Bunbury. What’s not to like?

by Eddie

The first decent coffee in Perth

Site of the Devonshire Arms Hotel

Site of the Devonshire Arms Hotel

Here in the Dodgy Perth office we have blood type Coffee+. So it’s no surprise we’re excited to hear about the impending launch of a café dedicated to Perth’s first ever bean roaster, Mr Henry Saw.

But in 1852, Henry only sold the roasted beans. He didn’t actually make any coffee. Which for the lazy types in our office is no use at all.

So, the question we asked ourselves was: where was the first decent coffee shop in Perth?

Surprisingly, there wasn’t one until October 1883, when Mrs Woods became manager of the ‘Burnett Coffee Rooms’ in the former Devonshire Arms Hotel. This was on the corner of Hay and Barrack, where the Connor-Quinlan building now stands, currently best known as the home of pen retailer, T. Sharp.

It was no coincidence that a former pub was converted to a coffee palace. This was one of the heights of the temperance movement, and anything that could stop working men drinking was considered a good thing.

Matthew Burnett was a controversial temperance enthusiast. His critics said he was a con man, who got other people to build coffee shops for him in the name of religion, without him having to pay a cent. His followers thought him the man to save Australia from the demon drink.

In either case, Mattie has the honour of opening the first decent coffee shop in Perth.

Mmmm… coffee.

by Eddie

(Racially) pure football

AFL Rd 14 - Sydney v Port Adelaide

Why is there a controversy over West Coast fans booing an Aboriginal player at Subiaco Oval? We know it wasn’t racist, because that kind of thing doesn’t go on anymore in Western Australia.

So let’s look back to a time when football was an even kinder, gentler, more tolerant sport. In this case, in the South West in 1910.

Jack Johnson had just defeated Jim Jefferies in one of the most important boxing matches in history, making Johnson the first black heavyweight champion of the world. The victor, by the way, was vilified in his native America from coast to coast for the impudence of beating a white man.

When news of this momentous triumph reached Western Australia, every pub was alive with debates about which was really the best sporting race: black or white.

Footballers living around Busselton did not wish to experiment with this debate on the field, so as a consequence announced that no local teams could include Aborigines, nor would they play a team which did.

A handful of brave footballers, probably mindful that some of the Aborigines were among their best players, refused to play until the race bar was lifted. As it happens, one of the best players in the area was Coolbung, who also worked alongside the white players in the bush.

And so it was that the Busselton team took to the field in August 1910 minus two or three of their best men, determined that racial purity should triumph over merely winning a game.

It’s easy to see we have moved on from then. Except, it seems, at Subiaco Oval.

by Eddie

When blacking up was controversial

Young Australia League under construction, 1924

Young Australia League under construction, 1924

Above is the Young Australia League building on Murray Street. The Dodgy Perth team remembers it as a place to drinking absinthe cocktails during Goth nights there some years back. Not that we remember much after the fourth such beverage.

Founded in 1905 by ‘Boss’ Simons, the YAL was intended to promote patriotism, health and education among young Western Australians. So far, so good.

Before we continue, Dodgy Perth warns readers that the following contains racially charged language. Still here? Then we’ll continue.

For several decades, to raise money for the League, the boys would tour WA with a ‘nigger minstrel show’. In other words, they would do blackface and perform humorous sketches and songs. In other words, they mocked African Americans. To use their words, they did ‘clever coon impersonations’.

In the 1910s, these tours were immensely popular on the Goldfields and, for some strange reason, in Bunbury. They formed a major source of income for the League.

Unsurprisingly, they were also extremely controversial. But not for the reason you think.

Mr C. James of Cottesloe was outraged about such blackface. He noted the YAL’s motto was ‘Australia First’ and that they preached White Australia to their members.

So why were they doing an American form of entertainment? Why were good white Australian boys using burnt cork to pretending to be Negroes, complete with plantation songs and ‘nigger jabber’? Surely representing African Americans as a source of fun was contrary to the nationalistic ideals of the YAL.

But Mr James’ criticism was mild compared to that of Mr N. F. G. Wilson of South Fremantle.

He was sickened by seeing forty or fifty youngsters imitating a class of humanity that should be erased from the face of the Earth, if we were to remain true to our White Australia principals.

How can young Aussie lads, with their impressionable minds, honour their race when they are encouraged to dress up as “sons of Ham”? Boss Simons should realise that kids can never grow up to love their country and everything Australian if they are blacking up for fun.

And that, dear reader, is why the Young Australia League was controversial. Un-freaking-believable.