Tag / Air Force

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

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.