Westall mass sighting in Melbourne
More than two hundred students and staff at Westall High School in suburban Melbourne report observing a low, disc-shaped object descend behind a stand of pine trees, then ascend rapidly. The case is widely cited as Australia's most-witnessed UAP event.
- Record type
- Sighting
- Primary source
- linked
- Named witnesses
- 0
- Media
- —
Around 11:00 a.m. local time on 6 April 1966, students and teachers at Westall High School and the adjacent Westall State School in suburban Melbourne reported observing one or more disc-shaped objects descend over an adjacent paddock known as the Grange Reserve, hover briefly, and ascend rapidly. Witnesses described the objects as silvery and the size of a small aircraft.
The Royal Australian Air Force investigated and attributed the events to high-altitude weather balloons launched from nearby Laverton, but contemporaneous and later interviews with hundreds of student witnesses produced descriptions inconsistent with that explanation. The State of Victoria erected a public memorial to the Westall sighting in 2013 — the first such government-funded UAP memorial in the country.
Published
- After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO PhenomenonGreg Eghigian · 2024
A historian's account, from Oxford University Press, of how the UFO phenomenon spread worldwide after 1947 — the sightings, the investigators and the governments that tried to manage them.
- UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the RecordLeslie Kean · 2010
Dossier compiling first-person accounts from senior government and military witnesses. Set the editorial standard for the modern record.
- In Plain Sight: An Investigation Into UFOs and Impossible ScienceRoss Coulthart · 2021
Long-form investigation by the Australian journalist who broke the David Grusch story two years later.
- The PhenomenonDocumentary · directed by James Fox · 2020
James Fox's survey of the record from 1947 to the Pentagon videos, told through on-camera interviews with witnesses and officials, among them former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
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