Hello and welcome to the program UFO Warning.
In this episode, we're talking about the West Hall UFO
encounter. That's correct, the West Hall
UFO encounter. And hey, while I'm at it, don't
forget to like, follow, subscribe doesn't cost a dime.
On the morning of April 6th, 1966, in the Melbourne suburb of
Clayton South, hundreds of students and teachers at West
Hall High School looked up to see something that would leave a
lasting mark on their lives. More than 200 people reported
witnessing one or more large silver grey saucer shaped craft
silently maneuvering in the sky. The objects, described as about
the size of two family cars placed side by side, moved with
an agility that defied conventional explanation,
descending into a nearby field, hovering for a time, then
suddenly darting away at great speed.
Some recall the craft changing direction sharply, unlike any
balloon or aircraft they had ever seen.
A group of students, braver or more curious than the rest,
spread it toward the paddock where the object appeared to
have landed. There they found strange
impressions on the grass, flattened circles that some
likened to crop circles. Soon after, men in uniforms
reportedly arrived, cordoned off the area and removed or obscured
the markings, leaving behind an air of mystery.
The atmosphere that followed was just as unsettling as the event
itself. Several students and teachers
later recall being sternly warned by authorities not to
talk about what they've seen. Some say they were threatened
with expulsion or professional repercussions if they spoke
publicly. Despite the large number of
witnesses, press coverage was brief and minimal, as if the
incident had been deliberately pushed aside.
The official explanation offered at the time was far more
ordinary. Authorities claimed that what
the children and staff had seen were simply experimental
meteorological balloons released from nearby facilities.
Balloons, after all, could catch the sunlight and appear bright
in the sky. They could drift, rise in,
eventually descend. At first, this seemed like a
tidy way to account for the reports.
Yet the balloon narrative quickly begins to unravel under
scrutiny because balloons do not hover low over fields, nor the
did, nor do they accelerate at high speed or change direction
abruptly. Witnesses consistently describe
the objects as solid and saucer shaped, not the translucent
fabric like appearances of a balloon.
Balloons could not have left behind the flattened impressions
in the grass that so many students swore they saw.
And perhaps most telling, it stretches belief to think that
over 200 people, including teachers, would mistake a
drifting water balloon for a structured craft performing
extraordinary maneuvers. The strong official presence
only deepens the doubts. Eyewitnesses recalled uniformed
personnel arriving swiftly, securing the site and
discouraging discussion. Such a heavy-handed reaction
seems excessive if balloons were truly to blame.
Even decades later, many witnesses remain adamant that
what they saw was no misidentification.
The intensity with which they recall the event, combined with
the unwillingness to accept the balloon explanation, suggests
something far more profound than a mundane atmospheric
experiment. From an open minded perspective,
the West Saw Counter remains one of the most puzzling and
compelling UFO cases on record. The sheer number of witnesses,
the detailed and consistent description and the secrecy that
followed. I'll point to the likelihood
that something extraordinary unfolded in that Melbourne
suburb in 1966. Something not as easily
dismissed as balloons drifting in the wind.
Wow, really something. And let's go ahead and get into
this a little bit deeper. So I want to get it into this a
little bit further. I found this article over from
the State Library of Victoria blog.
It says April 6th, 2024 Strange lights in the sky, The Westhall
UFO event 1966. It's got some original
illustrations of these flying saucers from back then from the
Clayton calendar. Cassette must have been the
newspaper says Westhall High School.
The Clayton calendar. Reprinted in Australian Flying
Saucer Review, June 1966, page 13 Permission to repent.
Reprint kindly granted by the Secretary of Victoria UFO
Research Society. According to newspapers and
reports of the time, on April 6th, 1966, something strange
happened at a patch of scrubby pine ringed bushland called The
Grange and Melbourne's sleepy southeastern suburbs.
The Grange is across the way from Westhall Secondary School,
then Westhall High School and backs into farmland.
In the 1960s, it was visited by farmers looking for a place to
graze your cattle and by kids and teens looking for a place to
explore. On April 6th, it was reportedly
the destination of some strange and unusual visitors.
Unidentified flying objects. The Dandenong Journal of 14
April leads with the evocative headlines.
Flying Saucer Mystery School silent as reports of the April
6th incident flooded in. With no official word from the
school, the team at Dandenong Journal attempted to piece the
story together. The Analog Journal April 14th,
1966 Page one. Permission to prevent.
Reprint kindly granted that it says.
Reports from eyewitnesses claim that just before morning recess,
a series of dazzling silvery objects appeared over over the
high school, moving toward the Grange.
One of the objects was larger than the others, with witnesses
describing it as round with a hump on top and round things
underneath, or as an object that was silver Gray and seemed to
thicken. Sometimes the thickening was
similar to when a disk is turned a little slower to the under
side. Witnesses also described many
private aircraft, mainly Cessna, flying toward and around the
UFOs. A2 page.
Anonymous report from the Clayton calendar.
The W Ohio Journal, unfortunately not held by State
Library Victoria, goes into some detail about the craft and
speculates that they may have been military aircraft coming
from nearby Moribah Airport. The account was republished in
its entirety in the June 1966 issue of the Australian Flying
Saucer Review. The Victorian Flying Saucer
Research Society, later the Victorian UFO Research Society,
inspected the scene and interviewed a number of
witnesses, but at the time no exhaustive account was
published. The VFS Rs had members across
the state and one was based quite close to West Hall in the
southeastern suburb of Mormon, the site of another famous event
purportedly tied to the paranormal, the disappearance of
Frederick Valentek in 1978. Wow.
So a lot of weird stuff going on right around there.
Then it goes on down and says while the event was heavily
reported in the local news outlets, it also hit the
Melbourne papers. The small write up in The Age
Object. Perhaps balloons deposits.
The witnesses may have in fact seen merely a weather balloon,
noting the weather Bureau released a number at Laverton at
8:30 AM and the westerly wind could have moved it into the
area where the sighting was reported.
We may never know a certain date.
What happened in Westfall that April morning in 1966.
The stories remain and the conviction of the witness has
not wavered. What we can be sure of is that
there are often mysteries where we least expect them.
Perhaps there's one in your own backyard.
Yeah, just the whole thing seems to me like there was an instant
cover up on this. It just doesn't make any sense.
And the idea that these balloons were involved, that really
doesn't seem plausible to me at all.
I've got I've got another article I want to look at that
goes into this a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper and
where they actually interviewed some witnesses that.
So I found this pretty recent article here September 3rd from
news.com dot AU. It says Australia's Roswell
calls for fresh inquiry into 60 year old Westfall UFO mystery.
Was it aliens, a top secret government test ploon or just
hyped up kids Spreading a wild tale of a flying saucer.
This is written by Frank Chung begins by saying was it aliens,
a top secret government test ploon or just a hyped up kids
spreading a wild tale of flying saucers of a flying saucer
buzzing their playground. Nearly 60 years on from the
incident that has been dubbed Australia's Roswell, the federal
government is facing fresh calls to come clean on what it knows
about the world famous West All UFO mystery.
Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of the incident
known as Australia's largest mass UFO sighting.
It's been the subject of documentaries, books and
countless news articles and YouTube videos, with scores of
witnesses sharing their stories over the years.
But six decades on, the aging former students have never given
an official answer about what they saw or what they were told
to keep quiet. They just want to know what it
was and they were told to shut up about it, said UFO researcher
Grant Lavik, who has created a petition to Parliament for
calling an independent inquiry into the West Tall incident.
Well, good luck with that. On Wednesday, April 6th, 1966,
at around 11:00 AM, more than 200 students, teachers and
members of public observed 3 metallic disc or flying saucers
with no obvious markings moving silently through the sky over
Westhall High School and Westhall State School in Clayton
South, about 25 kilometers southeast of Melbourne CBD.
It was just before recess when a girl came running into the Year
9 science class of a young teacher, Andrew Greenwood, 20.
This student bolted into the classroom and said Mr.
Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood, there's a flying
saucer outside. The recessed bell rang and there
was a mass exodus of students onto the sports Oval, said Mr.
Levac. Witnesses claimed they watched
his One of the objects descended toward a wooded area about
kilometers South of the school, known as the Grange.
The object landed among the pine trees before quickly flying
away, leaving large circles of flat grass with well defined
discolored edges behind. Mr. Levac, who spoke to a number
of witnesses for a 2023 YouTube documentary, noted they that
what they saw was not a weather balloon but rather a classic
flying saucer in the shape of two saucers, upended and turned,
facing each other. Marilyn Eastwood was 13 at the
time. She watched the three objects as
she stood on the school sports Oval.
Kids were screaming and so forth.
Get out onto the Oval and there was a flying saucers, she told
Mr. Levac looked up in the air and there was one just hovering
in the playground. She said she was among a group
of kids who ran over to the Grange.
I saw it where it actually landed.
The grass was flattened in a circular area, she said.
The speed that these flying saucers moved at was incredible.
It was just unbelievable. Straight up and gone vertical,
horizontal gone. Just amazing.
Joey Clark was 12 at the time and vividly remembers the events
of that day. I was in class when students
rushed in and told us the story she told news.com dot AU in
2016. We rushed down to the Oval and I
saw three flying saucers on that day.
My personal belief is they warned of this world.
They were definitely from somewhere else because I have
never seen anything like it at all, Miss Clark said the Army
and police then arrived. We were told we were hysterical
and it didn't happen. While Men in Black interviewed
some of the other kids, she said men in black.
Those are exact words, Men in black.
Terry Peck was playing cricket on the school Oval when she saw
the saucer and decided to chase it to the Grange.
I was about 6 meters away from it, she told the Herald Sun.
It was bigger than a car in circular.
I think I saw some lights underneath.
The girls were there before me. One was terribly upset and they
were pale, really white, ghostly white.
They just said they had passed out, fainted. 1 was taken to a
hospital in an ambulance. Now she's 20 feet away from this
thing and she says it's a flying saucer.
That doesn't sound like a balloon to me at all.
Every year on April 6th, a number of West Hall witnesses
gather for a reunion at the Grange.
They this is that pasture area. They were talking about what the
sinks landed at. They use it as an opportunity to
share memories and keep them alive, but also to voice their
frustration that the government has not provided an official
explanation for what they observed, Mr. Levac said.
Most importantly, they want to know why they were told to shut
up about it. In the hours after the sighting,
the area was flooded with the emergency services, military
personnel and media outlets. I mean, does that sound like a
response to some weather balloons?
I don't know. The Dandenong Journal ran with
coverage of the incident on its front page for consecutive
issues, and 9 News also reported the story on a six PM bulletin
speaking to the Greater Dandenong Leader in 2005.
Former 10 year student Ken Stallard described watching the
20m round craft fly over the school.
So you're talking about this things like 65 foot across or
something. So many of us saw it.
Mr. Stallard said. It never occurred to us that it
didn't happen or was an optical illusion.
If it was, it was a pretty good optical illusion.
It was 1966, the space race was at its best.
It was mysterious time. Witnesses have consistently
claimed they were told privately and collectively not to speak
about the incident. Now, why would you bother
telling people that? I mean, unless you were hiding
something. Shortly after the incident, an
ad hoc assembly was called and the headmaster told all the
students, you're not to say anything about this event,
you're not to talk about it, essentially saying shut up.
Mr. Lewak said that was reiterated individually to a
number of students. Individually by people they were
they thought were government officials or members of the
military. That has been a source of their
frustration for so long. Yeah, well-being abused by the
government and Australia is terrible about this.
I mean, they've confiscated guns.
They had the lockdowns during COVID.
I don't think of Australia as a free country.
And I think you can see this car back in 1966, not a free place
to live. Jacqueline Argent said she was
one of the first three kids over the fence to look for the UFO
landing site. Originally I thought it must
have been an experimental type aircraft but nothing has emerged
like that after all these years. She told their old son.
Miss Argent claims she was called into the headmaster's
office and interrogated by three men immediately following the
incident. They had good quality suits and
were well spoken, she said. They said I suppose you saw
little green men. I spoke to my parents about it
at the time and they were pretty outraged.
In 2021, Mr. Greenwood In 2021, Mr. Greenwood came forward
publicly for the first time, confirming he also witnessed the
objects and claiming he was threatened to keep quiet.
Now listen, 1966, the Australian government, the US government
doesn't have anything like this top secret.
If they do, it's pretty criminal.
So they're either we have a government that is so criminal
if they're hiding the Super top secret stuff from us and you
know, we're suffering because of it, or their inclusion with
whatever these things are telling us to be quiet about it.
In 2021, Mr. Green looking forward publicly for the first
time, confirming also witness the objects and claiming he was
threatened to keep quiet. I can remember running into the
Oval, looking into the sky and seeing these things and just
standing there absolutely transfixed, Mr. Greenwood told
the 7th Spotlight. I haven't seen anything in my
life like it before, haven't seen anything since.
However, Mr. Greenwood, who passed away earlier this year,
had a different regulation to the students.
It was a grey, almost cylindrical or cigar shaped
object which moved with some degree of precision in the sky,
he said. According to Mr. Greenwood, 2
weeks later he was visited by two senior Royal Australian Air
Force officers, one in a uniform and the other in a civilian
suit. He claimed the men threatened
his job if he spoke about what he saw.
Absolutely I was threatened, he said.
I was told that I should not say anything about it, Mr. Greenwood
said. It beggars belief for me and
Australia. We've never had an official
investigation and flatly I think there has been a cover up.
Of course there's been a cover up that are threatening people
to even talk about it. I think someone has buried the
Department of Supply report, which I know exists, he said.
In this petition Mr. Levoque writes the allegations of a
government cover up including the rapid responsive military
personnel, confiscation of evidence, witness intimidation
and non disclosure of a comprehensive report compiled by
then Department of Supply warrant investigation.
Despite the risk posed to people, property and safety of
flight, no official explanation has ever been provided by the
government as to the source, identity and a tent of what was
observed at West Hall, he writes.
Article Gozano says he has called on the RAF to revisit its
long held position since 1996. That it sees no scientific or
other compelling reason to investigate or collect reports
of UFOs now refer to you as unidentified anomalous
phenomena. As this continues to be the
official position of the Department of Defence today, an
investigation may help inform a formal view of this long held
position, he writes. The petition has attracted more
than 350 signatures. If a petition reaches more than
50 signatures, it is usually forwarded to the relevant
minister for a response. Defence Minister Richard
Murray's has been contacted for comment.
Hazel Edwards was an English and math teacher at West Hall on the
day of the incident and believes it has been blown out of
proportion. The self-proclaimed skeptic
suggests overly excited kids made-up the story and were
responsible for the media hype. I think there were a lot of kids
that were hyped up. She told thenews.com in 2016.
Look at the so-called evidence. Most of it is just hearsay.
Well, I hate to tell you, but it's called eyewitness account.
Although federal and state government agencies refused to
comment about the incident at the time, government documents
unearthed in 2014 offer an explanation for the sighting.
Now here you go with the parallel narrative.
The documents revealed a secret radiation testing project known
as Hibal HIBAL L Program, a joint US Australian initiative
developed to monitor atmospheric radiation levels using large
silver balloons equipped with sensors between 1960 and 1969.
Each balloon was equipped with a 180 kilogram payload, So what
about 4 lbs, And was followed by a light aircraft tasked with
tracking it and triggering its 12m parachute via radio signal.
UFO researcher Kenneth Basterfield said examinations of
the documents held by the National Archives and former
Department of Supply indicate the mysterious flying object may
have been a test balloon that was blown off course after being
launched from Mildura. My hypothesis is that the
incident involved not a UFO but a high altitude balloon, it's
parachute and large payload, he told News Corp in 2016.
The Westfall object was described as being a white
silver color, which could describe the color of the he
ball, balloon or parachute. Of course that doesn't describe
how these things moved. The one eyewitness, remember she
said that they moved at very high speed.
Mitchell Vox said that explanation were true.
Surely it's classified 60 years later that is now not the case.
And if it's prosaic, however, it was a high altitude balloon or
some other technology that was being tested.
Why doesn't the government come out and admit?
What it was, he said, if it was something that was maybe not
prosaic, it's a compelling reason for the RAF to consider
diverting resources to the investigation and reporting UAP.
Well, this is this classic. I mean, you have this UFO lands
in this pasture, A bunch of kids see it, a bunch of teachers see
it. They see it land, they see it
take off. Not really sure what's going on
with these things. There's multiple ones and then
they get visits. They get visits from military
people, they get visits from men in black, they get visits from
guys in suits told to shut up and not say anything, basically
trying to intimidate them. But it was a little bit late
because the story I already got now.
So what do you have to do? Well, you have to create a
parallel narrative. That's what you do with all
these things to try to plant, to try to plant seeds of doubts,
whether it's three years later or 30 years later or 70 years
later. Like with Roswell, you always
have to keep generating more lies to try to cover up the
truth because the truth never changes.
And right now this has been 60 years.
They're just waiting for these people to die off and hoping
that the next one doesn't come along too soon, that they have
to lie about it. But I think this is overall a
good case and it shows that doesn't matter if it's the US or
Australia or wherever. You have this classic cover up
that goes on with these things, whether it's flying saucers
landing in the United States or Australia or or or face peelers
in Peru. It seems like no matter what
happens, you have a observation and a counter attack on local
people. They talk about it, they report
the facts. Then you have the skeptics come
in. They think that their opinion is
so much more important than anybody else's.
I guess it gets so tired of them.
They're just so annoying. And then you have the
government. Sometimes what you actually come
in and try to bully people, intimidate people and threaten
people. But it just goes to show that no
matter how hard you try, body always rises to the top man.
The people are always found out. And I think with some of these
long held UFO cases that have been, that have been maybe
happened 40506070 years ago that had become part of the UFO lore,
that as time goes on, the people that were so actively trying to
keep this stuff under wraps, they're losing power, they're
dying off. So maybe some of the stuff will
actually come to the surface. We can see what really happened.
In my opinion, I think we can almost assume the worst.
Until next time. UFO warning over and out.