4 April 2016
A Star News Group Publication
Covering Endeavour Hills,, Doveton & Hallam
TAFE tech school
Rays raise the cup
Property liftout
PAGE 3
SPORT
INSIDE
Monday, 4 April 2016
■ The truth is out there - somewhere...
UFO in the air By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS IF MOBILE phones had been in the hands of frenzied Westall High School students in 1966, who knows how Dandenong Journal reporter Des Carroll may have covered one of the world’s most enduring UFO mysteries? Fifty years on, Mr Carroll’s conspiratorial stories of up to three silver flying objects hovering and vanishing from the skies above a paddock beside the Clayton South school still ring true. The question of what more than 100 people saw in broad daylight on 6 April 1966 remains unanswered. There were, however, no photos or videos of the awesome event and nothing more elaborate than a hand drawing of a flying saucer shape graced the Journal’s front page at the time. The official explanation proffered was that it was just a weather balloon. But Mr Carroll extracted vivid eyewitness descriptions of these objects which pointed to something more strange – despite the media clampdown by defence department authorities and a “terrified” school principal. Teacher Andrew Greenwood described to Mr Carroll at the time that the saucer was playing “cat and mouse” with pursuing aircraft. Mr Carroll recalled: “The kids were excited – abuzz with excitement, not terrified. I could see what a big buzz it was for them.”
Researcher Shane Ryan at the Grange Reserve flying saucer playground. 111571 Picture: GARY SISSONS
The Journal’s first report of the Westall UFO mystery.
Mr Carroll, now 78 years old and living in Castlemaine, remembers getting the call-out to the high school after a tip-off from a Clayton stringer that day. He was led to a nearby grassed area where the objects allegedly landed. “The grass had been pressed down
in a large circle but it looked bloody impressive.” Theories flourished. Talk of a US military exercise or experiment probably stemmed from the increasing American defence presence on Australian soil and chatter of Communist threats, Mr Carroll said.
A former Air Force member in the Journal office thought the incident was just a military target practice exercise. “But I said to him there are no military airports anywhere nearby,” Mr Carroll recalls. “I didn’t really come out with any opinion at all.”
For many days afterwards, he found himself sidelined from the looming federal election. He often had to field interrogatory phone calls from a “mad Yank” from a Moordialloc UFO society. “It was a fun story to do.” Continued page 6
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