The UFOIC publishing record, including my own with the group

Here is an outline of part of the publishing record of the group UFOIC, including my own publications through my association with the group:
http://ufoicaustralia.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/ufoic-publishing-record.html

UFOs and Government now available as an e-book

Excellent news. As of August 2016 the massive work by the UFO History group (Michael Swords, Robert Powell, Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Barry Greenwood, Richard Thieme, Jan Aldrich, Steve Purcell and me) "UFOs and Government - A History Inquiry" is available as an e-book through multiple outlets including Amazon.

Michael Swords

Robert Powell

Clas Svahn

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos

Barry Greenwood

Richard Thieme

Jan Aldrich

Steve Purcell

Bill Chalker
I was very pleased to participate in this book as the author of the Australian chapter. Although I'm biased I highly recommend this excellent book. Thanks to Patrick Huyghe and Anomalist Books.
It is also available through Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble Nook and Kobo.
It is also available as a laminated hardcover and as a trade paperback.

UFO HIGH IMPACT - Westall & the amazing wave of 1966 revisited" - my recent Paracon lecture "captured", well sort of?

(after my lecture)

(The ruby look - the camera? - a nice trio - Larraine Cilia, me & Damien Nott)

(Here I am surrounded by some of the interesting ladies of Australian ufology - Larraine Cilia, Mariana Flynn & Mary Rodwell)
I just discovered a rather shaky video taken by someone of my recent Paracon lecture "UFO HIGH IMPACT: Westall & the Amazing wave of 1966 revisited" and posted soon after on the UFO Research (NSW) You Tube channel. I wish I had known that the videoing was being done as I'm sure we could have organised a much better video arrangement. However, despite the poor camera work the video at least is okay for audio and when it focuses on the Powerpoint slides, rather than me and the nice guy who is doing his best to stay awake. I think I did a sterling effort staying awake in my own lecture :-)Paracon is great for socialising, meeting up with friends and connecting, and I did rather "burn the candle both ends" particularly the evening before my lecture, so I'm really impressed that I made a passable imitation of being awake and delivering what I hope was a reasonably sensible and articulate lecture. 

Don't judge the lecture on the video quality. I was tasked to deliver a lecture focusing on one year - 1966 - the 50th anniversary. 




By way of introduction I rapidly went through various years that were of significance to the Australian UFO story and my own research & investigation activities, 






then covered the year 1966 focusing on the Tully UFO "nest" incident, 



the extraordinary trilogy of cases in Victoria - the Balwyn UFO photo, the Burkes Flat "bent headlight beams" event and the Westall School UFO sensation, 










and quickly finishing off with UFOs seen by police in my old home town of Grafton 

and a brief account of an alien abduction milieu in Belfield Sydney in 1966 (which had an amazing circular linkage to the 1868 Frederick Birmingham experience at Parramatta I began the lecture with). 

I closed with some Katoomba based "flying saucer" memories from 1950 and 1947, the latter featuring a possible "UFO" (??) in a motion picture filmed at Katoomba in 1947 with iconic Australian actor Chips Rafferty in frame. 



Enjoy. Thanks to the anonymous video camera person and UFOR(NSW) for at least capturing the essence of the lecture event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hz9cvpPadc

The Kettering Incident - fact and fiction in the service of intelligent drama?

"I went out to the hazel wood, 
Because a fire was in my head ...
And when white moths were on the wing, 
And moth-like stars were flickering out ...
It had become a glimmering girl ...
And faded through the brightening air ...
I will find out where she has gone ...
These quotes from W B Yeats 1899 poem inform the strange trajectory of Foxtel Showcase series "The Kettering Incident".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUT6mS0eY8
The poem is read by Dr. Anna Macy (compellingly played by Elizabeth Debicki) to her young patient Molly in a London hospital. Molly is running out of time, but Anna Macy own experience of time and place is heavily fractured. Her poem reading is interrupted by a nose bleed. She is victim to disturbing turmoil, perhaps post traumatic stress disorder or worse - perhaps madness, all relating to a disturbing experience she was a part of 15 years earlier. Anna and her younger companion Gillian Baxter disappear in the wake of an encounter with strange lights on Mother Sullivans Ridge. Anna turns up after being missing for an hour unable to shed light on what happened, but Gillian remains missing. This is the Kettering incident at the heart of this striking gothic like mystery thriller.
This review is based on my viewing of the first 2 episodes and if the rest of the 8 part series maintains the impact and quality of its strong and compelling opening, then you are in for a great show, irrespective of how the story plays out, whether its a UFO/alien abduction mystery, psychological thriller, crime drama or something else entirely. The show's creators/writers Victoria Madden and Vincent Sheehan deliver a story that provides striking gothic resonances with such shows as "Twin Peaks", "The X-Files", "Broadchurch", "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and "Locusts and Wild Honey."
"The Kettering Incident" is of course fiction, fiction well delivered. "Locusts and Wild Honey" (1980) was heavily informed by the 1978 disappearance of Cessna pilot Frederick Valentich over Bass Strait - one of Australian's premier aviation mysteries and a striking UFO mystery. The Valentich mystery is a subtle touchstone for the Kettering Incident. 
My own 1996 book "The OZ Files - the Australian UFO Story" describes the Valentich story and in fact mentions a striking 1976 UFO landing event at the small Tasmanian town of Kettering. But this real Kettering event does not get any recognisable airing at least in the first 2 episodes. 

The TUFOIC investigation at Kettering

Instead what informs the narrative is a bizarre Fortean mix of things including disappearing people, dead birds (a feature in some real UFO narratives such as Warminster in England and even in our own Blue Mountains), strange lights, hints of alien abduction, or some sort of crime - murder perhaps. Brooding undercurrents and conflicts abound - fractured families, realities and rifts and timber cutting conflicts - are played out.
Its great to see, at least in the first 2 episodes, that the mantra of the crazy ufologist is not played out. Dominque Harrold is presented as a scientist trying to figure out what is going on using instrumented field monitoring and cautious discussions with what seems an ad hoc alien abduction support group. Here's hoping this more intelligent "ufologist" trope is maintained to the end.
"The Kettering Incident", based on my take of the first 2 episodes, appears to be delivering an intelligent, mature and well crafted drama that plays with high strangeness. Enjoy the ride and check it out.
"The Kettering Incident" debuts on Foxtel Showcase on July 4.
Some screen grabs from the first 2 episodes - including some interesting snow globes (I want one! ), conflicting "evidence" and a great cast of characters.