Thread: OK who believes in the little green men

Originally Posted by RonMcGr

Sorry, I don't buy that

Umm, which bit don't you buy?

• that UFO sightings are often just from one viewpoint and not others
• that cars in the distance can appear to hover above the road
• that film taken on a plane appeared to show a UFO
• that it was found to be a distortion caused by an imperfection in the window glass
• that other people have seen similar things through glass
• that I have seen that sort of distortion often
• that patches of different temperature air can create a primitive lens
• that some people immediately acknowledge that a "floating car" is an illusion but insist a floating UFO is real
• that people are bad at judging the size and distance of objects in the air
• that people have "floaties" on their eyeballs
• that the moon looks big on the horizon
• that the moon creates the same size image on the retina on the horizon as it does above
• that this sort of optical phenomenon could explain a lot of UFO sightings
• or all of the above

Here's an excerp you may find intereting reading. It was taken off someones elses post earlier.


UFO CASE REPORTOver 200 students witness saucer-shape object, physical traces left behind (Westall Incident)


Date
April 6, 1966
LocationWestall, Australia



Summary: More than 200 students and staff from two schools watched as the object landed in a nearby paddock, lifted off and vanished. It was a low-flying, silver/grey shining object, either of classical flying saucer shape or close to it, "a cup turned upside down on a saucer". The UFO appears to have left a circle of scorched grass.


Ring of mystery: Shaun Matthews revisits Grange Reserve where he witnessed the UFO. (The Age - Photo: Craig Sillitoe)


A sketch of the Westall object by one of the witnesses. (Credit: Bill Chalker)


Witnesses describing the incident (at a gathering of witnesses to the Westall incident, in April 2006). Joy and Jeff - witnesses to the Westall UFO incident. Jeff was the author of the student account in the Clayton Calendar - the Westall High School magazine (Credit: Bill Chalker)


Type of Case/Report: StandardCase
Hynek Classification: DD
Shape of Object(s): Disc
Number of Witnesses: Multiple
Special Features/Characteristics: Physical Trace, Group Sighting, Children, Witness Photo, Landing, Witness Sketch

More Articles on this Case


Close encounters of the suburban kind
Monitor Online (Newspaper of the University of Canberra), 25 October 2005English teacher Shane Ryan is researching one of the most puzzling events in Australia over the past 40 years - the alleged sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO) in a Melbourne suburb. R
Several eyewitness accounts of the Westall UFO Incident
Keith BasterfieldFrom Keith Basterfield: "I have located my sparse personal papers on this incident..."R
The Westall School Sensation
Bill ChalkerTwo days after the Burkes Flat incident Victoria was the setting of another UFO sensation. This time there were numerous witnesses and the sighting occurred in daylight. R
Schoolyard UFO witnesses reunite
Miguel D'Souza, News.com.au / Herald Sun (Australia), April 7, 1006About 200 people are said to have seen either a flying saucer or crop circles near Westall High School on April 6, 1966. Witnesses described the as silver, saucer-shaped and silent. Others who saw the object say they saw it drop behind trees at Westall's Grange Reserve, then rise vertically and leave. R

Full Report / Article


Source: The Age (Australia), October 2, 2005
Original Source

Academic throws light on 40-year-old UFO mystery

The Age
October 2, 2005

Just what did flash out of the sky and into the lives of hundreds that April day? Stephen Cauchi reports.

A CANBERRA academic is investigating one of Australia's most compelling UFO mysteries, a sighting by hundreds of people in the Melbourne suburb of Westall on April 6, 1966.

More than 200 students and staff from two schools watched as the object landed in a nearby paddock, lifted off and vanished.

Shane Ryan, an English lecturer at the University of Canberra, is interviewing dozens of witnesses for a book he hopes to publish on the 40th anniversary of the sighting.

Mr Ryan, 38, was alerted to the events in the 1980s by a housemate who was there. Unlike most UFO sightings, the Westall object had a large number of credible witnesses. It was viewed in daylight and attracted a forceful response from police and the RAAF.

"It had these rather interesting elements which indicated to me that, unlike some other so-called UFO stories, there was some substance to this," he told The Sunday Age.

"I knew the 40th anniversary was coming up next year, so I thought it was timely to do some research on it."

Mr Ryan has interviewed about 30 witnesses, mostly former staff and students from the Westall secondary and primary schools. He has tried obtaining police and RAAF reports, but so far with little luck. The story was covered then by Channel Nine, The Age and local newspapers.

On the UFO, everyone seems to agree, Mr Ryan says. It was a low-flying, silver/grey shining object, either of classical flying saucer shape or close to it, "a cup turned upside down on a saucer". The students were familiar with light aircraft because the schools were close to Moorabbin Airport. Although the UFO was of similar size, "everyone said straight away that they knew it was not a plane", Mr Ryan said, nor a weather balloon.

The object was in view for up to 20 minutes, and many saw it descend. Most agree it landed behind pine trees at the Grange Reserve. Dozens of students ran across what was then an open paddock to the reserve to investigate, but the object had lifted off and vanished.

Other details are sketchier. The UFO appears to have left a circle of scorched grass; others say several circles were left in paddocks bordering Grange Reserve.

Many witnesses, not all, report seeing aircraft, up to five, trailing the UFO. Some say it made no sound, others say it did.

Many reported that police/air force/military personnel inspected the site; some (not all) say the authorities burnt the site. The Dandenong Journal, for which the story was front-page news two weeks in a row, reported that "students and staff have been instructed to 'talk to no-one' about the incident". Nevertheless, one teacher, Andrew Greenwood, gave the paper a detailed account.

"It was silvery-grey and seemed to thicken at times," he said. "The thickening was similar to when a disc is turned a little to show the underside."

One of the closest witnesses was a boy whose family leased land at Grange Reserve for horses.

Shaun Matthews (not a student at Westall) was on holidays and spending time on the land.

"I saw the thing come across the horizon and drop down behind the pine trees," he told The Sunday Age this week. "I couldn't tell you what it was. It certainly wasn't a light aircraft or anything of the like …

"I saw the thing drop down behind the pine trees and saw it leave again. I couldn't tell you how long it was there for, it was such a long time ago."

Mr Matthews, 51 and now living in Greenvale, said the object "went up and off very very rapidly".

"I went over and there was a circle in the clearing. It looked like it had been cooked or boiled, not burnt as I remember," he said. "A heap of kids from Westall primary and high school came charging through to see what had happened — 'look at this, look at that, we saw it as well', that sort of thing. It was a bit of a talking point for a couple of days."

Mr Matthews said the object, about the size of "two family cars", passed him at a distance of about "four football fields". "It was silvery, but it had a sort-of purple hue to it, very bright, but not bright enough that you couldn't look at it," he said.

"I saw that it dropped down behind the trees, and I thought, 'hello, hang on'. A minute or so later, it went straight up, just gone."

He said police and other officials interviewed his mother. But he cannot remember them burning the landing site, as others have alleged. And he did not see any light aircraft trailing the object, as others did.

"The way this thing moved there is no way it could have been a weather balloon or a light aircraft," he said.

"A helicopter? No way — no noise, wrong shape, and it didn't move like it. It came out of the distance, stopped, and then just dropped.

"It didn't just sort of cruise and then slightly descend at an angle. It just stopped, dropped, and then went straight up."

The Victorian UFO Research Society investigated the incident. VUFORS secretary Tony Cook said Westall remained one of Australia's major unexplained UFO cases.

The top one was the case of Frederick Valentich, a 20-year-old Melbourne pilot whose light plane disappeared while flying over Bass Strait in 1978.

In the last minutes of radio communication, Valentich reported seeing a UFO hovering above his plane. He and his craft were never recovered.

"It's pretty well documented," Mr Cook said. "That's probably the most important one because it involves the disappearance of a person."

Mr Cook said the society's stance on UFOs was that, "there are people out there seeing unusual things in the sky at times and they can't be explained. But it's a very big leap to go from unexplained things in the sky to extraterrestrials."

Most witnesses, including Mr Matthews, say the UFO was not an aircraft or helicopter. But Westall is only six kilometres from Moorabbin Airport, and the object was roughly headed in that direction, travelling north to south.

"It sounds to me like some sort of experimental craft, very much Earth-based," Steve Roberts, of Australian Skeptics, said.

"It is an interesting event with lots of witnesses and what we now call a crop circle.

"Accounts are confused. Some have the object landing and taking off again, others say 'a paddock over which the object seemed to hover'."

As well, "if there was a whole swag of officials investigating it, there must be an official report in RAAF archives somewhere".

But Mr Ryan said that no one at the RAAF knew of the incident.

But given the history of the case — the way students and staff were told to keep quiet from the start — that was not surprising, he said.

"As I got a little bit older, I got a little more interested in the social and historical aspects of the story, how something like this could have happened and how it reflected society at the time, and how authorities responded to it," he said.

"There's been a layer of secrecy that was very, very prominent in this story from the beginning."

The internet discussion list of this incident is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Westallhighschoolufo/

What ever way you look at it, it's quite interesting.
You have to make up your own mind. Was looking on a UFO site the other day, and boy, or or boy, some of them seem a bit wacko. One bloke posted having a mutant alian living his his house, another saw an alian in the kitche. Some of the tales would have you in stitches. Yep, I reckno it's c dase of people believing what they want to believe.

Case ID: 591



edit: 591



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Originally Posted by RonMcGr

Of course it is hard to believe some of the things that get around.

This story IS interesting.

Philip Schneider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Message from ex-wife of Phil Schneider

YouTube - The Ufo lecture by Philip Schneider that got him murdered

Just another view

Interesting reading, but just another good example of how easy it is to create the notion of a conspiracy.

Just because each separate fact in the story is true, doesn't make the conclusion true.

Are you aware of the problem posed to life on earth by DHMO?

If not, read the following.
Mysterious Killer Chemical - Great Moments in Science - The Lab

Originally Posted by Numpty's Missus

Interesting that I happened to be reading about this recently ( was it in Australian geographic) where the moon is not really big but the human eye perceives it as such and that if you take a photo it will appear normal size....which is true because many at time I have thought how the moon looks impressive but am disappointed by the photos I took

Thanks NM. That confirms one of the 12 points. Now I just need someone else to corroborate the other 11.

That article in AG was the first time I have seen that newest explanation. I'm sure that over the years I have seen quite a few other suggestions, now discredited, about the cause, including in some reasonably reputable publications.

Originally Posted by vnx205

Thanks NM. That confirms one of the 12 points. Now I just need someone else to corroborate the other 11.

That article in AG was the first time I have seen that newest explanation. I'm sure that over the years I have seen quite a few other suggestions, now discredited, about the cause, including in some reasonably reputable publications.

Allan,
There is nothing like an open mind, is there
Seeing that you have all the answers and everything is a figment of their imagination, maybe you can tell me why I have had bladder cancer and leukemia?

Now I was told the bladder caner came from the daptsone anti malarial tablets that the US and AU Governments trialed during the Vietnam conflict. The Leukemia was supposed to be from Agent Orange that I also came in contact with.

Now I know this has SFO to do with aliens, but is it my imagination that I have these cancers?
If so, what book can I read to take them away?
The phenomenon from both has not been good so far.
If it is all in my mind, please let me know

Well, I guess to answer the original thread question, yes I do think theres is life elsewhere. From what has been said about the universe, why would anyone in their mind think there wouldnt be any other life? I try not to think of explanations, sometimes you just got to accept that MAYBE somethings cannot be explained. It baffles me that in this modern day, with technology advances that people still find it hard to grasp on some basic priciples, even if you look at it from a probability point of view.

So love the non believers . they will throw as much as they can to prove it doesn't exist . I'm a non believer because i think the bible was something mad up in a pub by a couple of drunk clowns that wanted a good laugh ..... but i don't force it down the necks of the believers that it's not real .

Originally Posted by wannalandy

So love the non believers . they will throw as much as they can to prove it doesn't exist . I'm a non believer because i think the bible was something mad up in a pub by a couple of drunk clowns that wanted a good laugh ..... but i don't force it down the necks of the believers that it's not real .

That must of been a HUGE tab then