Westall '66 - UFO or HIBAL? The answer is perhaps not "blowing in the wind"

Like a lot of UFO researchers I have my own list of “best cases.”  The magazine “Fortean Times” got me to share part of that list back in 2007 for their “60 years of UFOs” special issue.  From a rough short list of about 100 cases I developed my “top 10 best cases” from the Australian region.  I periodically revisit that list reviewing each case but it remains the same today.

Here is my list with the reasons for each case being chosen in brackets:

1. 1954, August 31 – Sea Fury case, near Goulbourn, NSW, Australia (experienced naval pilot, radar visual confirmation, independent ground witnesses, apparent intelligent responses to witnesses’ thoughts about possible collision) 

2. 1992, July 23 – Peter Khoury “Hair of Alien” DNA case – Sydney, Australia (abduction type encounter with female Nordic blonde yields anomalous hair sample that suggests “hybrid origin” and unusual genetic profiles)

3. 1959, June 27 – Father Gill UFO entity sighting - Boianai, Papua New Guinea (credible multiple witness sighting of animate entities on UFO with intelligent interactions)

4. 1980, September 30 – George Blackwell’s Rosedale UFO landing physical trace case – Rosedale, Victoria Australia (compelling array of physical evidence – ground trace, missing water, effects on witness, other witness)

5. 1993, August 8 – Kelly Cahill’s abduction experience – Narre Warren North, Victoria, Australia (possible independent multiple witness UFO encounter with abduction dimensions and physical evidence)

6. 1966, January 19 – George Pedley’s Tully UFO nest encounter – Tully, Queensland, Australia (daylight close encounter with UFO take off leaving physical evidence – “UFO nest”)

7. 1966, April 4 – Ron Sullivan’s “bent headlight beam” experience – Burkes Flat, Victoria Australia (striking UFO encounter, physical traces, bent light beams, possible related fatality)

8. 1966, April 6 – Westall school daylight UFO “landing” encounter – Westall, Victoria, Australia (multiple witness daylight landing, physical traces, “cover-up” dimensions)

9. 1977-78 – Gisborne UFO abduction milieu – Gisborne New Zealand (complex and high strangeness UFO and abduction milieu – entities, multiple witnesses, multiple abductions)

10. 1973 May – August – Tyringham Dundurrabin intense UFO flap area, NSW, Australia (long term intense UFO flap, multiple witness, physical effects, paranormal dimensions)

In each case I have undertaken a lot of research and investigations that substantiates for me the reason why I regard them as impressive cases. Likewise I regularly review many of the other cases in my original rough short list of about 100 cases and others that have entered the fold to see if I should modify my list.  While many of these cases could easily qualify for inclusion my list remains the same as it was in 2007.

The following news story might make you think that I should reconsider the 1966 Westall school case as part of my top 10 list.  I’ll explain why I won’t be doing that based on my current assessment of the evidence, in spite of what is being called the HIBAL explanation for Westall.

Melbourne Herald Sun journalist Mark Dunn wrote the story which was published on-line on 6 August 2014 with the headline  “Westall ‘UFO’ incident was actuallygovernment radiation testing, reports reveal.”  A shorter version of the story appear in the hard copy of the paper the following day with the headline “UFO all hot air – “Westall” was a balloon.”  There is no evidence of any original research by the journalist and it is based entirely on research done by long time researcher Keith Basterfield.   Some things may have been lost in translation and I have therefore inserted a few comments in italics/brackets within my quoting of the article.  You can go to Keith’s web site for further details: ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com.au and search for his HIBAL entries.

 The story:

“AN almost 50-year-old mystery when more than 200 people believed they had a close encounter with a UFO landing in Clayton may have finally been solved after newly-unearthed government documents revealed a secret radiation-testing program.

(The HIBAL programme was not conducted in secret at the time of the Westall incident.  HIBAL was being openly reported in newspapers from at least 1965 and beyond 1966)

Although federal and state government agencies refused to comment about the 1966 ‘Westall’ incident at the time, it is now believed that, rather than a UFO, what landed was an errant high altitude balloon used to monitor radiation levels after the controversial Maralinga nuclear tests.

The HIBAL program was a joint US-Australian initiative to monitor atmospheric radiation levels using large silver balloons equipped with sensors between 1960 and 1969.

Documents held by the National Archives and former Department of Supply indicate one test balloon launched from Mildura may have been blown off course and came down in Clayton South in a paddock near Westall High School, alarming and baffling hundreds of eyewitnesses, including teachers and students.

(No official documents have been found as of the beginning of August 2014 that refer to any HIBAL launch being the explanation for the events at Westall in April 1966.  No documents have been found that even confirm that the scheduled 5 April 1966 launch took place.)

After hovering over the area, it landed at an area known as The Grange, behind a grove of pine trees, before taking off again and being pursued by several light aircraft in a sighting which lasted 20 minutes from 11am on April 6, 1966.

The event has ever since been shrouded in mystery.

But researcher Keith Basterfield, who has spent years investigating unexplained phenomenon in Australia, said a “runaway” balloon from the HIBAL (high altitude balloon) project was the likely answer.

Each test balloon lifted a 180kg payload consisting of an air sampling and telemetry unit in a gondola and was followed by a light aircraft tasked with tracking it and triggering its 12mtr parachute via radio signal.

Immediately after the Westall “UFO” sighting, reports emerged of Government men in suits converging on the area and asking school officials and other witnesses to not talk about the event.

A contemporary witness reported these “suits” stated what the students saw was part of a secret government exercise and that for national security reasons they were forbidden from discussing it.

“My hypothesis is that the incident involved not a UFO, but a high altitude balloon, it’s parachute and large payload,” Mr Basterfield said.

In a research paper completed this year, Mr Basterfield said a close review of all available documentation, including that searched through Freedom of Information laws, pointed to HIBAL flight number 292 as the real culprit.

“The Westall object was described as being a white/silver colour which could describe the colour of an HIBAL balloon or parachute.”

A witness account prior to the Westall sighting stated a flying object — trailing what appeared to be a long vacuum-like hose — was seen by a couple, whose surname was Frankie, near Smith’s Gully 40km north of Clayton South.

“HIBAL balloons were filled with gas through a thin tube which went to the top of the balloon and was left in place during the balloon flight,” Mr Basterfield said.

He said uncovered documents had also highlighted government concern about the potential damage if a heavy test balloon came down in a suburban area.

“The Department of External Affairs files on HIBAL reveal there was considerable discussion on possible damage to property or personnel by a HIBAL balloon,” Mr Basterfield said.

But despite government archival records showing the results of numerous HIBAL test flights, the paperwork for the launches scheduled for the day before Westall appear to have been lost or destroyed.

“What is strikingly missing is a memo reporting on the actual four launches for April 1966, one of which was scheduled for 5 April 1966, the day before Westall.

“So we have no (official) knowledge of where flight 292 went.””

(A more probable answer that does not require conspiratorial inferences for the absence of documentation about the scheduled flight 292 is that it may not have occurred at all.  There was a history of problems and cancelled flights, with the US connections even requesting that missed flights need not be made up for.)

A document in the Australian HIBAL files may actually point towards the fact that no dramatic HIBAL related touchdown occurred at Westall on 6 April 1966.    The Australian Prime Minister’s Secretary in a memo to the Secretary of the Department of Supply dated 6 May 1966 (that is only one month after the Westall incident) indicated, “The indemnity clause was inserted in the HIBAL agreement because of the real risk of injury from descending instrument packages.” However it tellingly does not refer to any HIBAL event of “descending instrument packages” coming down in populated areas let alone suburban Melbourne.  Secretary Bunting for the Prime Minister ended his memo with the following: “It may well be that the risks have been proved by operating experience to be negligible, or the provisions in Article VIII of the Agency Agreement are adequate.  However, this aspect should be examined most carefully.”   The absence of any reference to a HIBAL fall or crash leading to frightened school children and possible high risk of damage or injury to people and infrastructure in Westall – suburban Melbourne of all things – seems to me pretty telling and a powerful argument that a HIBAL event does not explained Westall ’66. 

The May 1966 Prime Minister's secretary letter re 

HIBAL risks that give no support to 

a HIBAL explanation for the Westall incident a month earlier.

The Prime Minister's secretary letter of 6 May 1966 is located in the Department of Defence file (originally classified Secret) "Stratosphere Monitoring for Radioactivity (ASHCAN) (HIBAL)" accessible digitally at the National Archives of Australia due to Keith Basterfield’s diligent research work (See NAA: A6456, R190/017).  Given the original SECRET classification of the file the absence of any reference to HIBAL initiated hazard or security concerns related to Westall during April 1966 suggests strongly that no such incident occurred. A number witnesses of the Westall incident report a heavy hand of what seemed like officially mediated coverup.   If it was at all HIBAL related matter the Defence file would have contained references to it or at the very least an escalation in the security and liability fallout.  Instead what is seen is a dense bureaucratic dialogue being slowly resolved to permit the HIBAL programme to continue with continual references to minimal risks.  No references to a crisis at Westall caused by a messy HIBAL containment and retrieval suggest a logical conclusion: There was no HIBAL event at Westall on 6 April 1966.

Examining the HIBAL Westall hypothesis is a worthwhile exercise, however careful consideration of context, detail and evidence should inform the debate.   Keith Basterfield’s research certainly told me a lot about the HIBAL project, but it confirmed for me, on the current information, that it may provide intriguing information about high altitude“UFO” sightings, but nothing about the Westall incident being caused by a HIBAL flight gone wrong.  

A scenario like the HIBAL hypothesis might take flight if you ignore or reject a lot of impressive eyewitness testimony or only utilise suggestive fragments of the fuller story rather than consider the general convergence or coherency of much of the Westall testimony, some of it revealed in 1966 and 1967, and much more since then, particularly in the last decade, primarily through Canberra researcher Shane Ryan’s focus of the Westall story.

Ken McCracken was involved in HIBAL as a scientist from Adelaide University from at least 1965 to 1968. In his memoir "Blast Off - Scientific adventures at the Dawn of the Space Age" (2008) Professor McCracken wrote a chapter entitled "Little Green Men and other Weird Tales" where he tells of "the most famous occasion" when flying saucers or UFOs factored into his scientific adventures. It was a HIBAL launch and it wasn't Westall in 1966.  In fact it was 1968 and Sydney was involved. This was only about sightings of a high level HIBAL balloon gone astray, certainly not the result of a low level sighting of HIBAL.

The Sunraysia Daily from Mildura with a 1965 story 

including a picture of Professor Ken McCracken on the right.

My point - if the events described at Westall in April 1966, even if we limit it to evidence gathered in 1966 and 1967, were due to a HIBAL balloon, payload or parachute (or variations of those combinations) we would have had a spectacular example of misinterpretation and hysterical contagion, that would have far outstripped the 1968 Sydney event as a contender for "the most famous occasion" of HIBAL "flying saucer" fallout.

The fact that Ken McCracken cites a high altitude HIBAL event as an example of HIBAL creating flying saucer hysteria is particularly telling, because I suggest that a low level HIBAL event, while possibly creating some hysteria, would have been obviously identifiable, not as a UFO but as an obvious IFO - identified then and not a big deal, other than containing it from causing injury, damage and retrieving the payload and its attachments. Photos of HIBAL parachute/payload configurations about to touch down make it pretty obvious that at low level people would easily confirm a parachute and payload. 

(left) HIBAL ascending (right) HIBAL at high altitude, looking rather "flying saucer" like - the stuff of Ken McCracken's "most famous occasion" that HIBAL spawned "flying saucer" sightings

(below) HIBAL in "close encounter"landing phase, looking decidely "parachute/payload" like 

- a poor inspiration for a striking UFO close encounter

(images: 1976 NRC document "The Use of Balloons for physics & astronomy")

What a HIBAL ground mishap might have looked like

 - Melbourne Sun 13 April 1961 - rather non-UFO like? 

Mind you the alternative, parachute and payload 

(the bottom half) is even less inspiring as a UFO imitator.

The suggestion, for example, that Westall school student Joy Tighe’s 1966 description of 2 separate circular UFOs (shaped like “upright domes”) “flying in varying directions” “faster than some light aircraft in vicinity” then turning on edge and disappearing fast, recorded on a Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society report form in 1966, supports a sighting of a parachute connected to a heavy payload, weighing up to 200 kg seems like an incredible force-fit to me.  Even with some wind about it is a big stretch to suggest that winds were causing a HIBAL parachute and payload to come down low then go in varying directions, at times faster than light aircraft in the area, then turn and disappear fast.  That’s a pretty impressive performance for a balloon and payload at low altitude. In this forced scenario it would be a wonder that the school children and teachers would be able to stand upright in the wind conditions needed to keep the balloon/payload up in the air, defying the forces of gravity, and gyrating around the sky low over Westall school, and still at times fly faster than light aircraft despite being at a low altitude. 

I was able to do a video interview with Joy (Tighe) Clarke at the 2006 Westall reunion event.  I found her to be a compelling witness.  I also videoed her 2006 drawing of the UFOs she saw.  I was left with the same general impression with all the Westall witnesses I met at the reunion.  They told their stories of their recollections and didn’t seem to be embellishing their narratives. 

Joy and Jeff at the 2006 Westall '66 reunion.  

Jeff was the author of the student account 

in the Westall High school magazine.

Joys 2006 drawing of what she recollects seeing at Westall in 1966

(photos: Bill Chalker)

Sure, there are problems with testimony gathered decades after an event, but I was impressed with the general coherency and consistency of the individual stories I heard.  Collectively they appeared to support an event that goes way beyond what a HIBAL incursion might have generated. 

Given that I had a long time focus on physical trace (UFO landing) accounts I was pleased to be able to eventually interview Victor Zakry who described witnessing, as a Westall school student, 2 identical objects, like Joy did, but strikingly initially at ground level, that were connected directly with ground traces.  The reports of ground traces did not get the careful attention they deserved at the time.  There are accounts of clandestine attention, but nothing has surfaced, other than witness descriptions and a Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society photo of a grassed area suggestive of a trace, but also may have been due to prosaic factors.  We just don’t have certainty in that area, but there are plenty of speculations.

On 5 July 2008 I was able to undertake an on site detailed investigation and interview at Westall in Melbourne with Victor Zakry.  I videoed the interview and got him to do a rough layout map of the events he witnessed.  His account was consistent with a number of interviews he had given to others and to me.

Victor Zakry with his rough on site sketches 

during our 2008 meeting at Westall

(Photo: Bill Chalker)

Victor indicated he was able to walk up close to one of the objects, while 3 other students stood around in close proximity to the other object. A teacher and at least a dozen other students crowded along the high fence to get a view. Victor contemplated touching the object but thought better of it.  The two objects suddenly rose up from the grass and took off, one to the west, the other flew up and orbited a small plane before flying down to the south west Grange reserve area, with students in pursuit.   The UFOs were described as about 1.5 metres in height and approximately 5.4 metres in width. They left behind two circles of burnt grass.

Victor went home for lunch straight after this extraordinary experience which swept up much of the rest of his school. This initially to me seemed a strange thing to do given the unfolding events, but he explained that at the time he felt  he didn’t need to see any more that day (6 April 1966) because he had seen the exact same object a few years earlier.  He was trying to take a wooden pallet from a factory site near the Westall Grange area during the early hours of the morning. His escapade was interrupted when a UFO flew over. It was the same looking object he would see during daylight at Westall in 1966 along with many in his school, but it was flying on edge – an appearance captured in the polaroid photo taken at the nearby suburb of Balwyn only 4 days before the Westall incident.  There were other similar encounters during this period of the 1960s in the area around Westall and neighbouring isolated suburbs of Melbourne, which in those days was the outer edge of the city. Pockets of this area still have something of an isolated, almost country, feel to them.

 The Balwyn UFO - 2 April 1966

(Photo: courtesy of the witness)

Victor also impressed me as a compelling witness giving consistent testimony.  While like Joy, he spoke of seeing 2 objects, Victor saw them at ground level and then watched them take off and go off in different directions.  Like Joy he described one of them flying faster than a light plane.  Indeed he described it as orbiting the plane, then taking off and apparently heading down to the Grange area. 

Victor later told me that he had a meeting with the school headmaster, who encouraged him not to talk of the event because it might hurt his future chances of a career in art.  The headmaster gave him that advice because he himself had witnessed something similar during the war and he had experienced the pressure of being told not to talk about such things.  Victor followed the headmaster’s advice, but with the growing tide of witnesses coming forward since 2006 he now felt more comfortable with reporting his own experience.  His artistic abilities also provided us with some striking drawings of the objects he saw.

 Victor Zakry's drawings of the UFO 

he had an extremely close encounter with

His drawings and our site interview and reconstruction of the scene allowed me to generate a “forensic” style drawing of his experience.

My "forensic" drawing of Victor Zakry's recollection

 of his 1966 Westall UFO encounter, 

based on our onsite reconstruction during 2008

(drawing: Bill Chalker)

While Victor’s story has only been revealed recently he still impressed me as a witness telling a consistent story. 

I don’t think the evidence that witnesses like Victor share with us, should be diminished simply because they were described decades after the original event. Instead, when they are told with apparent compelling conviction of witnesses like Victor and Joy, we should accept them for what they seemed to be – genuine attempts at recollections of past events - and try to see how they fit into the daunting jig-saw puzzle that the large body of testimony of Westall ’66 testimony represents.  There is a measure of coherency but many aspects remain confusing. 

It’s the kind of situation that fits in with Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “black swan” concept.  I wrote about this perspective back in 2009.  Its an interesting way of looking at things.

“I am interested in how to live in a world we don’t understand very well –in other words, while most human thought (particularly since the enlightenment) has focused us on how to turn knowledge into decisions, I am interested in how to turn lack of information, lack of understanding, and lack of “knowledge” into decisions –how not to be a “turkey”. My last book The Black Swan drew a map of

what we don’t understand; my current work focuses on how to domesticate the unknown,” writes Taleb.

It could also be used to help understand and address the UFO mystery.  The UFO mystery we know so little about and have so little control over, is like one of Taleb “Black Swans”, a thing that “lies outside the realm of regular expectations”, “it carries an extreme impact” and “human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.” These are key attributes of Taleb’s “black swans”, events of rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective predictability.

It is with the third attribute that mainstream science and media have let us down. They tried to explain the whole phenomenon away, but it is exactly the phenomenon’s ability to remain highly improbable to mainstream perceptions, but to have high impact in incredibly mysterious and profound ways, which should guide us. We have to learn to “expect the unexpected” and learn to understand it and learn from it.

The HIBAL parachute/payload combination seems an unlikely explanation for the events at Westall in April 1966.  There is no clear documented evidence of one coming down in the Melbourne on 6 April 1966 to date.

There is sufficient counter evidence (the Prime Minister’s Secretary memo of May 1966 and a key scientist involved in the HIBAL programme both before and after April 1966 not citing the Westall event as "the most famous occasion" of HIBAL "flying saucer" fallout) to conclude that the HIBAL explanation is a non-starter. 

The collective testimony gathered over decades powerfully argues that the Westall incident may well be a legitimate UFO mystery.

Back in 1996 I concluded in my account of the events in my book "The OZ Files - the Australian UFO Story": "There is little doubt that something of an extraordinary nature was seen over the Westall school area and that at least one (UFO) appears to have landed and apparently left behind some physical traces. Numerous witnesses confirm these basic details. Other more exotic details vary in credibility ..."

DVDs of the excellent documentary

"Westall '66 - a suburban UFO mystery"

(Rosie Jones (director) & Carmel McAloon (producer))

http://www.westall66ufo.com.au/westall66ufo/

Skeptical and debunking players may uncritically embrace a HIBAL explanation for the Westall mystery but the impressive nature of much of the Westall testimony deserves far better.  I don’t think the answer for Westall ’66 is blowing in the wind.  I suspect it may be providing us with an extraordinary insight into the impact and nature of the UFO mystery if we have the skills, determination and insights to go beyond the curtains of the UFO theatre and reveal the real UFO mystery being played out in our little place in the cosmos.

Thank you to all the Westall witnesses who have had the courage and interest to share their experiences and recollections.  Thanks also to all the researchers, investigators and people, trying to understand the mystery.  It all helps stir this fascinating melting pot that is the UFO mystery and might yield great insights.

Reseachers Shane Ryan, George Simpson & Bill Chalker

in Westall for the 2006 reunion