Australian Story — "Schoolyard witnesses in mass UFO sighting demand answers" (ABC, 7 April 2026)

Source: ABC News In-depth (Australia), Australian Story, YouTube, 7 April 2026 (~30 min). https://youtu.be/IhKyQkhOfoM
Subject: the Westall 1966 mass daylight UFO sighting (Clayton South / Westall, Melbourne, 6 April 1966) — 60th-anniversary episode.
Transcript pulled 2026-05-30 via YouTube caption API (youtube_transcript.py). Lightly auto-formatted; speaker turns not individually attributed (documentary multi-voice).
Primary for ../../sources/westall-1966-mass-sighting.
Notable named voices: schoolyard witnesses; science teacher Andrew Greenwood (archival, now deceased); researcher Shane Ryan (FOIA campaign, 200+ witnesses); photographer James Kibble (2 April 1966 Polaroid); filmmaker James Fox; a historian/researcher with a defence background advancing the secret-R&D hypothesis.

[00:00:07.120] The footy season had just started.
[00:00:09.960] Me and all my mates were out on the
[00:00:11.440] oval.
[00:00:13.080] And all of a sudden, we all looked up
[00:00:15.160] and there's this object going slowly
[00:00:17.280] across the sky.
[00:00:20.560] I just shrieked, "There's a flying
[00:00:23.080] saucer.
[00:00:24.240] There's a flying saucer outside."
[00:00:26.200] [music]
[00:00:27.480] And pupils just stood up and off they
[00:00:29.840] went.
[00:00:32.279] And it was just humming. It was just
[00:00:33.520] sitting there
[00:00:34.715] >> [music]
[00:00:35.040] >> and humming. And I just I couldn't
[00:00:37.280] believe it.
[00:00:38.960] I was just transfixed cuz I'd never seen
[00:00:42.120] anything like that before. [music]
[00:00:43.840] It was amazing.
[00:00:45.800] And I thought, "No, it's not an
[00:00:47.720] airplane. No engines, nothing.
[00:00:51.120] It's just sitting above the power lines
[00:00:54.240] in the sky."
[00:00:56.520] I was mesmerized. I was just staring at
[00:00:58.720] them moving around.
[00:01:00.880] They were like [music] a shape of saucer
[00:01:03.000] and they flew.
[00:01:06.810] >> [music]
[00:01:07.000] >> The significance of the Westall case is
[00:01:09.960] the sheer volume of first-hand [music]
[00:01:12.040] eyewitnesses saying the same thing that
[00:01:14.320] they did 60 years ago. That's a very
[00:01:17.240] compelling case.
[00:01:18.880] What frustrates me and I think all the
[00:01:21.680] other pupils is the attempts of having
[00:01:24.320] it buried. Could we just find out what
[00:01:26.800] it was, please?
[00:01:28.720] That's all we want.
[00:01:34.320] This is what I saw.
[00:01:38.240] That's what I saw.
[00:02:00.000] You have all these elements to the
[00:02:01.920] Westall case that make it a true enigma
[00:02:05.080] and and a mystery 60 years later.
[00:02:08.399] And it it really just has so many
[00:02:11.039] interesting and fantastical facets to
[00:02:13.280] it. Why not?
[00:02:15.280] Every year we have an anniversary at the
[00:02:17.080] Grange and most of us go. Hi, everybody.
[00:02:19.440] Thanks for being here. Great to see
[00:02:21.640] people. Keep coming. It's a chance for
[00:02:24.400] us all to get together and uh talk
[00:02:26.920] about, you know, what we experienced
[00:02:28.760] that day. [music] It's in my head. I can
[00:02:31.600] never leave it. I don't care what anyone
[00:02:33.680] says. I have one question. Were you
[00:02:36.240] there? And they all say, "No." Well, I
[00:02:39.520] was and so were all these other
[00:02:41.280] witnesses. What have we got to lie
[00:02:43.320] about? Nothing. We want an answer.
[00:02:46.371] >> [applause]
[00:02:48.600] >> A lot of the witnesses really felt like
[00:02:50.760] they had been restrained over the years
[00:02:53.800] from talking about the story. It was
[00:02:55.760] something that couldn't be shared,
[00:02:57.600] couldn't be talked about. So, I've sort
[00:02:59.480] of kept it under wraps
[00:03:00.680] for quite a while cuz you don't you fear
[00:03:03.080] of being ridiculed. They got the message
[00:03:05.600] very clearly from the school authorities
[00:03:08.080] that this was a story that was to stay
[00:03:11.080] at Westall. We were just all told not to
[00:03:13.480] talk about it or we'd get detention.
[00:03:15.800] Um
[00:03:16.520] it's all rubbish.
[00:03:18.600] Some skeptics have suggested that what
[00:03:20.880] was responsible for Westall was just
[00:03:22.680] mass hysteria.
[00:03:24.520] I don't think it's something that be can
[00:03:26.720] be completely discounted, but it's clear
[00:03:30.080] they saw something. No matter what
[00:03:31.840] happens, I will never doubt what I saw.
[00:03:36.040] Of course something must have happened.
[00:03:38.360] It's just trying to find the most
[00:03:40.120] reasonable explanation without jumping
[00:03:42.320] to fantasy.
[00:03:44.040] Westall has been co-opted by the
[00:03:45.880] hardcore UFO believers as a classic case
[00:03:48.320] of alien visitation. Now, if aliens are
[00:03:50.640] visiting Earth, so be it. But great, you
[00:03:53.760] know, where are they?
[00:03:55.240] I hope what might come about from this
[00:03:57.200] 60th anniversary is some more official
[00:03:59.800] information. We'd all like to see that.
[00:04:08.240] In 1966, Westall was a fast-growing
[00:04:11.520] community on the southeastern edge of
[00:04:15.040] Melbourne.
[00:04:17.480] To cope with the fast-growing
[00:04:18.720] population, there were two newly founded
[00:04:21.720] schools, Westall High School and the
[00:04:24.480] adjacent primary school.
[00:04:32.280] The Westall incident actually happened
[00:04:34.240] on the second last day of term.
[00:04:40.998] >> [music]
[00:04:43.200] >> We were out in the field.
[00:04:47.640] I looked up into the sky and I saw a
[00:04:51.800] disc
[00:04:53.200] um
[00:04:54.640] flying around in a very strange
[00:04:58.360] movement.
[00:04:59.960] Kind of zigzagging. It was here one
[00:05:01.760] minute and then up there the next.
[00:05:05.640] That's when the commotion started.
[00:05:09.720] I was in science.
[00:05:13.000] It was coming up to morning recess and
[00:05:15.713] [music] all of a sudden this student
[00:05:17.920] flung the door open and said, "Mr.
[00:05:19.400] Greenwood, Mr. Greenwood, there's flying
[00:05:21.080] saucers in the sky. There's things in
[00:05:22.960] the sky." And then just took off. Well,
[00:05:26.080] we just all looked at each other and
[00:05:27.600] started laughing [music]
[00:05:29.320] cuz we thought, "Oh yeah, right."
[00:05:33.440] And I can remember walking out there and
[00:05:36.018] [music] standing and just looking up and
[00:05:37.680] all of a sudden I saw them.
[00:05:43.960] It wasn't particularly high up, maybe
[00:05:46.080] 1,000 ft. Hard to know exactly.
[00:05:49.240] It was large, easily visible, circular,
[00:05:51.960] silver, and clearly under some sort of
[00:05:54.640] control.
[00:05:57.720] It wasn't a helicopter.
[00:05:59.920] It didn't have wings. It wasn't an
[00:06:02.800] aircraft.
[00:06:04.720] It It was a flying disc, a a two-story
[00:06:10.200] kind of flying disc.
[00:06:13.400] I saw three, but some saw two, some saw
[00:06:16.880] one. It depended on where you were in
[00:06:19.000] the school.
[00:06:21.400] And they moved incredible speeds.
[00:06:26.000] Straight up in the air and you'd look
[00:06:28.200] and they would be there. And you'd look
[00:06:30.280] again and there's one there and there's
[00:06:31.800] one over there and oh my god, then
[00:06:33.440] they're over the power lines.
[00:06:37.120] I was working on the market garden.
[00:06:39.920] My back was feeling a bit sore, so I
[00:06:42.040] stood up.
[00:06:43.640] And right in front of me
[00:06:46.360] there was this object in the sky. It was
[00:06:49.040] just there.
[00:06:52.760] As I was looking at it, the coloring
[00:06:55.320] changed becoming translucent at the same
[00:06:58.640] time.
[00:07:00.880] I I didn't believe it because
[00:07:04.560] it couldn't be happening.
[00:07:08.720] I saw what I saw and so did all my
[00:07:10.960] school friends, hundreds of us.
[00:07:13.640] It was unidentified. It was flying and
[00:07:16.280] it was clearly an object. It wasn't a
[00:07:17.520] mirage. So, it got referred to as a UFO,
[00:07:20.960] an unidentified flying object cuz it met
[00:07:23.200] all those three criteria.
[00:07:27.320] A lady named Mrs. Robins, who was my
[00:07:29.360] science teacher, she came out with a
[00:07:30.880] camera and started taking photos.
[00:07:37.320] And all of a sudden all these little
[00:07:38.800] planes come flying through. We were used
[00:07:41.720] to planes because of being [music] so
[00:07:43.320] close to Moorabbin Airport. And anyway,
[00:07:46.000] they fly in and they get near the
[00:07:48.200] saucers. The saucer would just go
[00:07:50.240] straight up in the air and it was like
[00:07:52.120] they were playing cat and mouse with
[00:07:53.560] them, honestly.
[00:07:54.920] It was quite amazing to watch.
[00:07:58.440] A few of us girls were on the fence and
[00:08:01.440] we were crying thinking it was the end
[00:08:02.880] of the world. Total hysteria. It was
[00:08:05.360] just incredible. And then it
[00:08:07.800] it did a controlled descent down behind
[00:08:10.080] some pine trees.
[00:08:13.320] Now, the area was known to us kids as
[00:08:15.400] the Grange
[00:08:16.600] and it was a few blocks behind the
[00:08:18.000] school.
[00:08:19.360] That's when a lot of the kids jumped the
[00:08:21.000] fence and took off.
[00:08:25.680] I was teaching English,
[00:08:28.280] three lessons straight, dying to get a
[00:08:31.160] cup of tea and a smoke.
[00:08:34.479] I met Andrew Greenwood coming in.
[00:08:41.680] And the first words he said to me, I
[00:08:43.280] think, were something like, "Did Did you
[00:08:45.280] see it?
[00:08:46.440] Did you see it?" I missed out on it by
[00:08:48.560] minute. So, that's exercised my
[00:08:50.880] imagination for the last 60 years.
[00:08:55.800] Andrew told me that the kids gone over
[00:08:58.040] the fence to follow the the flying
[00:09:00.080] saucer. He said it had landed beyond the
[00:09:02.280] trees.
[00:09:04.080] I just ran in the direction of where
[00:09:05.960] this one appeared to go down.
[00:09:10.040] And there was this strange thing just
[00:09:12.280] sitting there hovering above the ground.
[00:09:15.200] Um quite big and I could hear a low
[00:09:17.760] buzzing sound.
[00:09:20.080] I could see two other girls that had
[00:09:21.920] gotten there before me. One was crying
[00:09:24.400] and quite hysterical, actually, and the
[00:09:26.400] other girl was just on the ground.
[00:09:30.680] And then as I was literally staring at
[00:09:32.280] it, it started to rise up very slowly.
[00:09:34.920] And then when it turned on that when it
[00:09:36.760] was in on that angle, it could go really
[00:09:39.440] fast.
[00:09:42.480] I never [music] saw the craft, the
[00:09:45.560] whatever you'd like to call it, on the
[00:09:47.240] ground.
[00:09:48.520] But by the time I arrived at the spot,
[00:09:51.880] the grass was flattened.
[00:10:00.320] >> I walked around to the other side of the
[00:10:02.600] school and I noticed these two jeeps.
[00:10:08.040] The jeeps would have arrived, I reckon
[00:10:09.920] probably 10 minutes after the craft had
[00:10:12.560] disappeared. It was very quick. And then
[00:10:14.640] the men get out and they've got
[00:10:15.880] clipboards and whatever. Now, they're
[00:10:17.200] all in green uniforms.
[00:10:19.400] But some of them were in camouflage.
[00:10:22.880] And then they jumped back in and took
[00:10:24.320] off and went obviously down to the
[00:10:26.160] ground.
[00:10:28.000] There are people who very clearly
[00:10:29.280] remember there being a military
[00:10:31.080] presence.
[00:10:32.840] I definitely had a line of sight. Yes, I
[00:10:35.040] saw everything that went on over there.
[00:10:37.800] One of the army guys came over and spoke
[00:10:40.760] to my boss. The guys all started looking
[00:10:44.040] at the ground, inspecting it.
[00:10:51.077] >> [music]
[00:10:54.280] >> They had a little bit of trouble trying
[00:10:55.760] to get everybody back into class.
[00:11:00.520] It was later [music] that we had the
[00:11:02.000] assembly, the special assembly.
[00:11:06.797] >> [music]
[00:11:08.440] >> Mr. Sampleby, the headmaster, dictated
[00:11:11.480] to all the students that what we saw was
[00:11:14.000] probably just a weather balloon.
[00:11:16.360] Right? And that we are not to talk to
[00:11:18.360] the press or anybody else about what
[00:11:20.080] happened.
[00:11:21.120] Okay? And that if we did we would get
[00:11:24.080] into real strife with him.
[00:11:27.520] It seemed quite a normal thing of
[00:11:29.760] headmaster who doesn't want to see his
[00:11:31.560] school running amok.
[00:11:33.839] No one would have wanted their school to
[00:11:35.760] be
[00:11:37.240] the center of a UFO sighting. [music]
[00:11:41.240] I was taken by the principal to a little
[00:11:44.560] interview room where two gentlemen
[00:11:47.408] [music] were sitting.
[00:11:51.760] I was absolutely terrified.
[00:11:56.040] They [music] told me that what I had
[00:11:58.800] witnessed
[00:12:00.320] wasn't a balloon.
[00:12:03.280] Even at that young age, I disputed that
[00:12:06.280] fact.
[00:12:08.839] That's when they changed their tactic.
[00:12:13.280] They intimated that we don't want
[00:12:16.228] [music]
[00:12:16.920] this getting out there into the media.
[00:12:20.480] They They wore dark suits, white shirts,
[00:12:23.433] >> [music]
[00:12:23.560] >> and skinny ties.
[00:12:28.200] They made [music] me promise not to
[00:12:31.320] discuss it.
[00:12:33.320] I kept my [music] word to the point
[00:12:35.160] where I did not discuss it with my
[00:12:36.760] mother. I did not discuss it with
[00:12:39.080] anybody.
[00:12:43.083] >> [music]
[00:12:48.760] >> When school finished, Channel 9 news
[00:12:51.280] team was out the front. And they were
[00:12:53.240] asking students if they'd be
[00:12:54.560] interviewed.
[00:12:55.880] So we told them what we saw. And then
[00:12:57.600] this man appeared. He was a policeman.
[00:13:01.000] And he said to the cameraman and to the
[00:13:03.600] reporter,
[00:13:04.760] "You stop filming and you go away."
[00:13:11.400] We all watched the news at 6:00 and
[00:13:13.320] yeah, there I was pointing up into the
[00:13:15.120] sky telling us
[00:13:16.489] >> [laughter]
[00:13:17.680] >> telling my story.
[00:13:19.764] >> [music]
[00:13:23.720] >> After the Westall incident, it kind of
[00:13:25.960] fell off the map, it went dark. It
[00:13:28.120] wasn't talked about until many, many,
[00:13:30.360] many decades later where some
[00:13:32.520] researchers, Australian researchers,
[00:13:34.480] started asking questions.
[00:13:38.360] I was particularly curious about the
[00:13:39.920] Westall story because hardly anything
[00:13:42.440] had been written about it.
[00:13:43.999] >> [music]
[00:13:45.520] >> I presumed the story was, at least in
[00:13:47.960] part, urban legend. That there were
[00:13:50.960] elements of the story that had probably
[00:13:52.920] been embellished and added on to over
[00:13:55.720] time. But
[00:13:57.680] what I was interested in was, well, what
[00:13:59.760] was at the
[00:14:01.040] core of the story?
[00:14:02.760] There'd been a mushrooming of flying
[00:14:04.600] saucer clubs. Flying saucers were a big
[00:14:06.880] part of the culture when I was growing
[00:14:09.200] up. What do you think they are? They are
[00:14:11.400] real anyway. They come from the other
[00:14:13.640] planets.
[00:14:15.480] There were stories about flying saucers
[00:14:17.560] on TV, in the movies, comics. It was
[00:14:21.959] something that was very much part of the
[00:14:23.400] zeitgeist at the time. In the past
[00:14:25.520] decade, the mounting accumulation of
[00:14:27.200] evidence demands our attention.
[00:14:31.814] >> [music]
[00:14:32.720] >> People see things all the time around
[00:14:34.560] the world. I mean, it's a global
[00:14:35.839] phenomenon.
[00:14:37.040] But to have a mass sighting in broad
[00:14:41.040] daylight, it's more rare, right? So,
[00:14:44.200] those, in my opinion, deserve a proper
[00:14:48.040] investigation, a deeper dive because
[00:14:51.200] what is it? Is it a mass hallucination?
[00:14:54.740] >> [music]
[00:15:00.600] >> This is the science room. So this is the
[00:15:03.160] room you were enjoying?
[00:15:04.120] >> Yeah.
[00:15:05.520] I've been in contact now with easily
[00:15:07.680] more than 200 people who were witnesses
[00:15:10.560] at Westall that day.
[00:15:12.680] This is what all started it all.
[00:15:14.000] >> Yeah, this is where it started.
[00:15:16.160] It's hard to know exactly how many
[00:15:17.680] people saw the UFO.
[00:15:19.480] But when I met Andrew Greenwood, the
[00:15:21.760] science teacher, who's now sadly passed
[00:15:24.360] away, he was very clear to me that when
[00:15:27.280] he went out onto the sports ground with
[00:15:29.120] his class,
[00:15:30.520] that there was something like more than
[00:15:32.079] half the student body seeing what he was
[00:15:35.160] seeing. And that was more than 300 kids.
[00:15:39.320] I was standing beside Andrew, Andrew
[00:15:41.320] Greenwood. He sort of looked at me as if
[00:15:43.560] to say, "Don't run and don't jump the
[00:15:45.959] fence like somebody else we know."
[00:15:48.450] >> [laughter]
[00:15:48.600] >> You lay it after we You'd already gone,
[00:15:50.880] I know. It's amazing to me that there is
[00:15:53.240] so much commonality across the witness
[00:15:55.720] testimonies. And this became very
[00:15:57.360] apparent to me very early on that people
[00:16:00.400] were and are telling the same story.
[00:16:03.800] So the big misconception is that we have
[00:16:06.079] good memories. We don't.
[00:16:08.440] Our brain reconstructs things,
[00:16:10.760] elaborates, forgets to include things.
[00:16:15.079] There's a very interesting thing when
[00:16:16.480] when people get together, there's a a
[00:16:18.240] group reinforcement of the common story.
[00:16:22.320] It's not malicious, it's just the way we
[00:16:24.520] are.
[00:16:29.640] I desperately wanted to track down that
[00:16:31.560] original Channel 9 news footage which
[00:16:33.959] aired that night and which had
[00:16:35.720] interviews apparently with the
[00:16:37.200] witnesses.
[00:16:38.959] And the film couldn't be found. It was
[00:16:42.040] an empty film canister.
[00:16:46.091] >> [music]
[00:16:47.640] >> Lots of people have memories of
[00:16:49.560] photographs being taken. So I tried very
[00:16:51.959] hard to find those photos.
[00:16:54.880] But those photographs have never been
[00:16:56.920] seen in public. We don't know what
[00:16:58.720] became of them.
[00:17:01.959] But there was a possible other photo
[00:17:04.120] taken 4 days before on the 2nd of April
[00:17:07.480] that may have had some connection to
[00:17:09.560] what happened at Westall, taken by a man
[00:17:12.439] called James Kibble.
[00:17:16.520] James Kibble had never spoken in public,
[00:17:19.600] on TV before.
[00:17:22.839] So this is
[00:17:25.160] a print
[00:17:26.047] >> [music]
[00:17:26.079] >> from the original photograph taken by
[00:17:28.040] James Kibble. This is his handwriting he
[00:17:30.360] sent to me.
[00:17:32.720] This was taken just a few kilometers
[00:17:34.200] away prior to the landing at the school.
[00:17:36.527] >> [music]
[00:17:39.800] >> James Fox, American filmmaker, was very
[00:17:41.720] interested in covering both the James
[00:17:43.520] Kibble story and the Westall story and
[00:17:45.840] the possible connections between the
[00:17:47.560] two.
[00:17:48.520] There was a tremendous flash of light
[00:17:50.120] and I looked up and I saw this object
[00:17:53.400] like
[00:17:54.160] full but I had a Polaroid camera and I
[00:17:55.960] pulled this up, hit myself on the face,
[00:17:58.440] and
[00:17:59.800] I took the picture and I took the
[00:18:01.160] photograph here.
[00:18:01.840] >> This is the original Polaroid. That's
[00:18:04.240] it. This is all there is.
[00:18:07.360] It looked like it was made out of some
[00:18:08.760] form of metal and it was engineered. And
[00:18:11.440] being an engineer, I was sure it was.
[00:18:15.160] And that's when I took the photograph
[00:18:16.760] and it tipped around like I could see
[00:18:18.200] the bottom and it looked like it was
[00:18:19.520] rotating to me.
[00:18:21.280] That was it and then after that it sort
[00:18:23.000] of gave a bounce
[00:18:24.342] >> [snorts]
[00:18:24.760] >> and it rocketed away to the north very
[00:18:27.000] high speed.
[00:18:28.440] Can you describe the acceleration?
[00:18:30.840] It was like almost instantaneous. Like
[00:18:32.840] it'd been shot out of a gun.
[00:18:34.679] Bang, you know.
[00:18:41.960] When I look at this photo, I think,
[00:18:43.640] "Wow, it's a great photo." But of course
[00:18:46.480] you can look at it and think, "Well, is
[00:18:48.440] that a bicycle bell?
[00:18:51.040] Is it a hubcap?" And I don't know. I
[00:18:54.600] know what James Kibble told me.
[00:18:57.720] And
[00:18:59.240] I'm just not in a position to know, of
[00:19:00.919] course, one way or the other.
[00:19:06.918] >> [music]
[00:19:07.840] >> Even though the news footage doesn't
[00:19:09.480] exist anymore, there are actually
[00:19:11.560] newspaper articles that date from that
[00:19:13.480] time.
[00:19:17.400] There was a very small article in The
[00:19:19.040] Age newspaper the following day.
[00:19:23.120] And it should be just here somewhere.
[00:19:24.960] There it is.
[00:19:26.080] It was tiny [music]
[00:19:27.360] and really didn't give any
[00:19:30.280] extra details except to [music] say
[00:19:32.560] there'd been a weather balloon launched
[00:19:34.240] in Melbourne that morning. And [music]
[00:19:36.640] given the wind
[00:19:38.280] on that day, it's possible that the
[00:19:40.679] thing that was seen at Westall was that
[00:19:43.159] weather balloon.
[00:19:47.080] So that's a a weather balloon.
[00:19:49.560] It's definitely the wrong shape, isn't
[00:19:51.480] it? Yeah.
[00:19:55.280] It wasn't a weather balloon.
[00:19:57.120] It had some elements of the shape and
[00:19:58.720] color of a weather balloon and it was
[00:20:00.480] silver and and circular in looking up
[00:20:03.680] from underneath.
[00:20:05.200] But nothing hanging underneath it as a
[00:20:07.520] payload.
[00:20:09.520] Now if we were to invoke the principle
[00:20:11.920] of Occam's razor, which basically says
[00:20:14.840] the simpler explanation is often the
[00:20:17.360] best one to choose, then the weather
[00:20:19.960] balloon is a very likely candidate.
[00:20:23.040] But that's not to write off and discount
[00:20:25.480] what they're saying. It's just not
[00:20:26.800] enough for us to make a proper
[00:20:28.600] conclusion.
[00:20:30.560] There's no evidence that actually was a
[00:20:33.200] weather balloon. There's no mention of
[00:20:34.720] the weather balloon being collected
[00:20:35.999] [music] and being identified.
[00:20:39.080] When I looked into the weather data for
[00:20:40.800] that day, it actually didn't stack up at
[00:20:42.920] all. The winds as [music] predicted and
[00:20:45.520] as reported actually blew in the
[00:20:48.600] opposite direction.
[00:20:52.520] The Dandenong Journal was the only
[00:20:53.960] newspaper that covered the story. For
[00:20:56.280] me, I found that really surprising.
[00:20:58.880] So this is the first article, but it was
[00:21:00.920] really in the follow-up article that
[00:21:02.854] [music] we got a little bit more
[00:21:04.160] information about what happened. There
[00:21:06.080] were some interviews with a couple of
[00:21:08.360] the kids and Andrew Greenwood, the
[00:21:11.000] science teacher.
[00:21:14.080] He never spoke about it again publicly
[00:21:16.520] until James Fox and I and others were
[00:21:18.920] able to encourage him to speak on camera
[00:21:21.200] for the first time.
[00:21:23.080] But he didn't want his face to appear.
[00:21:25.600] Two older men, one in uniform, asked for
[00:21:28.200] my description of what I had seen. I was
[00:21:30.720] then told that I hadn't seen anything,
[00:21:33.080] that um
[00:21:34.080] I'd made it all up, possibly because I
[00:21:36.160] was drunk, and that they would have to
[00:21:38.520] report that fact to the education
[00:21:40.200] department and I would lose my job.
[00:21:43.240] I was told that I would be prosecuted
[00:21:46.640] and that I had to keep quiet about it.
[00:21:48.600] Why did I have to keep quiet?
[00:21:53.040] I I heard reports that he had been
[00:21:54.840] threatened and told that his reputation
[00:21:56.640] was on the line. He went very quiet.
[00:21:59.120] I think it cost him to say what he had
[00:22:00.720] to say.
[00:22:01.720] Others might have been more circumspect,
[00:22:03.520] but
[00:22:04.880] we knew he had seen something.
[00:22:09.679] So many witnesses had seen five planes.
[00:22:13.595] >> [music]
[00:22:15.600] >> In the Dandenong Journal's final
[00:22:17.200] article, they were going very hard
[00:22:19.960] trying to find the five pilots.
[00:22:24.600] The five [music] planes seem to be
[00:22:27.440] somehow connected to the UFOs.
[00:22:31.840] And they tried very hard to find those
[00:22:33.800] pilots, but never did.
[00:22:38.480] Basically, the newspaper was saying
[00:22:39.795] [music]
[00:22:40.560] the trail had gone cold. Nobody would
[00:22:43.200] talk to them.
[00:22:44.480] The school wouldn't talk. The Moorabbin
[00:22:47.080] Airport wouldn't talk and that they
[00:22:49.760] suspected that somebody had actually put
[00:22:53.280] pressure on the school.
[00:22:54.860] >> [music]
[00:22:55.720] >> The fact that the story seemed to have
[00:22:57.000] been shut down by somebody
[00:22:59.760] would make me think it's more likely to
[00:23:01.760] have been military involvement or
[00:23:03.480] government involvement.
[00:23:05.400] Do you know like where it came from?
[00:23:07.840] Well, I wish I did. Did it look new or
[00:23:10.280] did it look like a little rusty?
[00:23:13.200] Well, I thought it was pretty new
[00:23:14.760] looking.
[00:23:16.240] It was 1966.
[00:23:18.360] The Cold War was on. The space race was
[00:23:20.240] on. It was a time of rapid change.
[00:23:23.480] A day of wild excited scenes of welcome
[00:23:25.800] for President Johnson in Sydney.
[00:23:29.560] There were lots of theories for what had
[00:23:32.000] been [music] seen at Westall.
[00:23:34.679] 1966 was definitely a time of a very
[00:23:37.560] burgeoning relationship between
[00:23:39.600] Australia and the United States. We
[00:23:42.480] believe that it is right
[00:23:45.600] that the strong
[00:23:47.440] should help the weak
[00:23:49.400] defend their freedom.
[00:23:54.520] Our alliance with the Americans was a
[00:23:56.280] particularly strong one and we had a
[00:23:59.200] something of a dependent dependence on
[00:24:01.520] each other, not only in terms of
[00:24:03.480] personnel, but also in
[00:24:05.480] of equipment.
[00:24:09.480] Melbourne as a city was a very busy
[00:24:11.720] place in terms of government research
[00:24:13.960] and development and not very far away
[00:24:16.800] from Westall, there was the government
[00:24:19.280] aircraft factories and the aeronautical
[00:24:23.160] research laboratories.
[00:24:25.880] Both of those places were trying to
[00:24:28.000] progress experimentation with different
[00:24:30.840] sorts of aircraft.
[00:24:36.200] The threat of nuclear attack was very
[00:24:38.040] much on people's minds.
[00:24:41.840] There was a program called Highball and
[00:24:45.200] it was a cooperative program between the
[00:24:47.560] Australian government and the American
[00:24:49.840] government's atomic energy commission to
[00:24:53.040] send up these very large high altitude
[00:24:56.200] balloons to measure the presence of
[00:24:59.080] nuclear fallout.
[00:25:03.640] Some of those balloons got away.
[00:25:06.000] Did it happen that one of these
[00:25:08.400] sophisticated balloons drifted down to
[00:25:11.560] Melbourne?
[00:25:13.120] It could have. Why not?
[00:25:15.560] Uh
[00:25:17.040] it would explain possibly the appearance
[00:25:19.840] of government officials at the school.
[00:25:21.720] There hasn't been any supporting
[00:25:22.960] evidence to
[00:25:24.440] confirm that hypothesis to date, but
[00:25:26.840] that's one that's been put forward.
[00:25:37.480] I had never heard of what had happened
[00:25:39.040] at Westall until a journalist approached
[00:25:41.760] me and asked me as a as a historian and
[00:25:44.400] a researcher to see what I could find,
[00:25:46.360] particularly with my defense background.
[00:25:49.520] I don't really know, of course, what
[00:25:53.000] those three UFOs were.
[00:25:56.800] I have a high degree of confidence,
[00:25:58.240] however, that they were part of a
[00:26:00.040] research and development project which
[00:26:01.760] was underway in Australia.
[00:26:05.240] I personally believe it could have been
[00:26:07.880] a United States project which they were
[00:26:11.440] developing here in conjunction with us
[00:26:13.560] using our
[00:26:14.800] expertise.
[00:26:16.960] I am reasonably confident that what
[00:26:18.840] happened at Westall on that day was that
[00:26:21.679] something certainly went went wrong.
[00:26:24.760] That would account for the rapidity,
[00:26:27.280] incredible rapidity, of the troops, if I
[00:26:30.760] can call them that, who responded you
[00:26:32.800] know within the hour on that day.
[00:26:36.679] I don't discount that it could have been
[00:26:39.520] top secret military technology that was
[00:26:41.720] being tested or trialed and an operation
[00:26:46.600] went uh
[00:26:48.480] not according to plan. But again,
[00:26:50.320] where's the evidence to support that?
[00:26:52.000] That's what we're trying to find.
[00:26:56.720] So I've submitted many many Freedom of
[00:26:58.840] Information Act requests trying to get
[00:27:01.000] some documentary evidence, but
[00:27:02.920] unfortunately, there has been no
[00:27:04.600] explanation provided by the Australian
[00:27:06.560] government or the Australian Department
[00:27:07.960] of Defense as to what was responsible
[00:27:10.200] for what was seen in the skies above
[00:27:12.960] Westall High School.
[00:27:17.280] I guess I'm lucky to have had the chance
[00:27:18.679] to see it, but you know, bit of a
[00:27:20.440] sliding doors moment. Didn't affect me
[00:27:22.160] in any way. You know, no one came and
[00:27:24.440] beamed me up.
[00:27:25.960] Certainly, there's ongoing interest in
[00:27:27.720] the story from people who were there cuz
[00:27:29.760] it's pretty unusual, I guess, looking
[00:27:31.120] back from 60 years later.
[00:27:34.549] >> [music]
[00:27:34.760] >> It's okay to talk about it now. You
[00:27:37.280] know, saying, "Look, we saw something
[00:27:39.440] that was so different all those years
[00:27:41.880] ago."
[00:27:43.720] At my age now, it doesn't matter if
[00:27:46.920] somebody thinks that I'm a little bit
[00:27:49.040] loony. It It It has no relevance. I know
[00:27:52.000] what I saw.
[00:27:54.280] We're all telling the [music] truth.
[00:27:59.560] I know what I saw and you know, end of
[00:28:02.400] story. And I'm
[00:28:03.840] not accountable to anybody but myself.
[00:28:15.240] So where we are now is the UFO
[00:28:16.920] playground at The Grange.
[00:28:20.679] I actually suggested to the local
[00:28:23.480] council that it might be a good idea to
[00:28:26.159] put something here, some sort of
[00:28:27.679] commemoration of what had happened all
[00:28:30.120] those years ago.
[00:28:35.320] History is something that's really
[00:28:36.560] fragile. And so having something
[00:28:38.280] physical here then creates an
[00:28:40.560] opportunity for people who have come
[00:28:42.600] afterwards to know that something
[00:28:44.679] happened that day, something mysterious,
[00:28:47.320] something real.
[00:28:50.040] And like all the witnesses who were here
[00:28:51.800] that day, I too just want to know
[00:28:55.400] if there's a truth [music] to be
[00:28:56.520] revealed, I think it's time to reveal it
[00:28:59.400] and I think we as the public can handle
[00:29:02.520] it.