The 2001 Gundiah Queensland UFO “abduction” of Amy Rylance

The 2001 Gundiah Queensland UFO “abduction” of Amy Rylance is an apparent hoax. Using it to support a theory of UFO explanation such as “time travellers” or “aliens” is inappropriate. Commentators who just use it as content fodder for their podcasts, posts, lectures, commentating and whatever, really need to rethink their investigative and research capacities and their credibility.  Using the case because it’s a “good story” is simply disappointing.  I utilised the case, after extensive investigation, field research and critical analysis, as a “case study” in what a forensic approach could yield. The case also contributes to the important need for care and critical quality control of the UFO data.  That’s why I continue to be impressed with the Peter Khoury experiences, the main focus of my book “Hair of the Alien”. 

It is sometimes not an easy or popular perspective in the complexities of UFO and UAP controversies. I know I would rather be basing my research in carefully calibrated data and information, not the vagaries of uncritical embrace of belief mediated enthusiasm.

Extracted from my 2005 book “Hair of the Alien” (Note: Endnotes 142 to 146)

 

When a “solid light” case involves a little physical evidence, a forensic approach can draw some metaphorical blood, as this … case clearly illustrates. 

 

The Abducted Gundiah Crime Scene 

 

In early October 2001 an alien abduction story involving a “solid light” made headlines throughout Australia and began attracting interest from around the world. The investigation of this controversial case followed a classic forensic “crime scene” approach involving three different police jurisdictions. The incident had occurred on Thursday, October 4, 2001, at a Gundiah property near Tiaro, in southern Queensland, and concluded in the early hours of Friday, October 5, 2001. The next day Diane Harrison, the well-respected director of the Australian UFO Research Network, called and filled me in on the rapidly unfolding events. Based near Brisbane, in southern Queensland, she had been talking to the key participants. Diane asked if I wanted to get involved in the investigation, and I quickly agreed. We knew it wouldn’t take long for the “UFO bandwagon” to uncritically embrace the Gundiah case as a cause célèbre. We were determined to try to unravel the events—whether fact or fiction. 

The three people involved in the alleged events behind this extraordinary tale of abduction, teleportation, time distortion, aliens, “solid light,” and physical traces were Keith Rylance, thirty-nine, his wife Amy, twenty-two, and their business partner, Petra Heller, thirty- five. Their Gundiah property was apparently being developed as the Whispering Winds winery, as well as a potential venue for motocross and other activities. The startling account that emerged from our interviews with them was fleshed out with primary source material such as TV interviews and a witness statement provided to police. This is the story they told. 

 

Thursday, October 4, 2001 

Keith Rylance told us that he had gone to sleep in the bedroom of his mobile home at about 9:30 p.m. Petra had retired to her bedroom in the annex of the mobile home. Amy stayed on a couch watching TV in the annex room they used as a lounge. These locations were in close proximity, separated by a window and wall respectively from the lounge. Petra’s room had a door leading to the lounge, which was left ajar. The door to the bedroom, where Keith was, was apparently open to the lounge. Amy apparently fell asleep on the couch. 

On this stormy night, at around 11:15 p.m., Petra was reportedly woken up. When she entered the adjacent lounge, she was confronted by an extraordinary sight, which allegedly quickly overwhelmed her. A bizarre rectangular beam of light was being projected through the open window of the lounge. This light beam appeared to be truncated at the end. Inside the beam, Petra claims to have seen Amy in a prone position, being carried out headfirst through the window. Underneath her, but still within the beam, were items that had been on the coffee table adjacent to the couch where Amy had been sleeping. Before fainting in shock, Petra noticed that the beam was coming from a disc-shaped UFO hovering just above the ground a short distance away, near a tree at the rear of a clear section of the property, immediately behind the mobile home annex. 

A short while later Petra regained consciousness and began screaming. The commotion woke Keith, who stepped into the lounge and was confronted by a highly agitated Petra. The items that were originally on the coffee table were now on the floor in front of the window. He told us that he then found that the window screen was torn both vertically and along the bottom of the window frame. Unable to get any sense out of Petra, Keith rushed outside, trying to locate Amy. She was nowhere to be found. Keith then managed to get Petra to tell him what had happened. He initially didn’t believe her. After a second search for his wife, Keith decided to call the police. 

Keith called the nearby Tiaro police around 11:40 p.m. reporting that his wife had been abducted and asked for help. Due to the short staff at that time of night, it took about an hour and a half after the initial call for Senior Constable Robert Maragna from Tiaro and an officer from Maryborough to arrive at the site of the incident. 

 

Friday, October 5, 2001 

The police officers initially suspected foul play, perhaps even murder, until the bizarre circumstances of the alleged events came into focus. The two people, Keith and Petra, claimed that their companion, Amy Rylance, had been abducted by a “spaceship”! As the officers struggled to keep an open mind, they were joined by the officer in charge of the Tiaro police, Sergeant John Bosnjak, who had been asleep when the police called him to assist in the investigation. 

The three officers then investigated the site. They had found Keith Rylance and Petra Heller in an agitated state. There was no sign of Amy Rylance. They examined the torn screen. The right side of a flowering bush, commonly known as “yesterday, today, tomorrow,” located to the left side of the window with the torn screen, looked as if it had been affected by heat. The police took samples for possible later testing. 

While the police were at the property, the phone rang and was picked up by Keith. A woman was calling to say that she had taken a somewhat distressed and apparently dehydrated young woman from a BP gas station on the northern outskirts of the central Queensland city of Mackay, some 790 kilometers by road to the north of the Gundiah-Tiaro area. The young woman turned out to be Amy Rylance, and the female caller explained that Amy was apparently all right, and was at the Mackay hospital, where a doctor had examined her. Keith handed the phone to Senior Constable Maragna. 

Given these extraordinary circumstances, Mackay police were called in, making a total of three police stations involved in the investigation— Tiaro, Maryborough, and Mackay. 

Keith Rylance gave the police the keys to the property, packed up a substantial amount of their business and personal gear into a van, and set off for Mackay with Petra. 

Meanwhile, at Mackay, Constable J. A. Hansen, of Mackay police, interviewed Amy Rylance, around 2:30 Friday morning. Amy completed a written statement, notarized with a Justice Act, attesting that the statement was true to the best of her knowledge and belief, and that if admitted as evidence, she would be liable to prosecution if she had indicated anything in it that she knew was false. 

This statement indicated that her last recollection was of lying on the couch at the Gundiah property. She had no awareness of the events that Petra described, but claimed her next awareness was of waking up lying on a bench in a strange rectangular room. Illumination came from the walls and the ceiling. She was alone. She indicated she called out and heard what seemed to be a male voice, asking her to be calm and that everything would be all right and that she would not be harmed. Soon an opening appeared in the wall and a slender “guy” about six feet tall and covered in a full bodysuit walked into the room. He appeared to have a black mask on his face, with a hole for his eyes, nose, and mouth. He repeated his calming assurances. Amy felt she had been there awhile. The “guy” told her they were returning her to a place not far from where they took her, because the lights were wrong at the property and it wasn’t safe. 

The next thing she recollects is waking up on the ground with trees around her. She felt disoriented. She could smell the ocean. She was not sure how long she tumbled through bushland—it seemed to be a long time—but she felt she wasn’t making much progress. She then came out onto a road that looked like a highway and saw a light from a gas station. She walked into the station, where the staff, seeing her state, offered assistance. She accepted some water, as she felt somewhat dehydrated. Initially she was unable to answer questions, and didn’t know where she was. She was also asked if she had been drinking or was on drugs, to which she said no. Amy indicated she felt tired, sore, drained, and lethargic. She asked a woman at the service station to take her to the hospital, as she didn’t know where else to go. The woman and her friend took Amy to the hospital. 

Later Amy spoke with two police officers and also spoke with her husband Keith from the hospital. She then went to Mackay police station where she gave her statement. Amy also indicated that this sort of thing had never happened to her before, but when she was in the fifth year of school she had seen a large UFO surrounded by smaller objects. 

The police arranged to put Amy in a motel pending the arrival of her husband. He and Petra arrived during the day and spent considerable time with Amy discussing what happened. They reportedly took extensive notes as well as photographs of a triangular arrangement of marks on her inner right thigh, marks on each heel, and the growing out of her hair, which she had dyed earlier in the week. Her hair had apparently started to show its former color, suggesting that considerable time had passed, certainly more than a few hours. Her body hair had allegedly also become somewhat more pronounced than would otherwise be apparent for the short time involved. 

Keith Rylance said he then began to learn about the UFO subject on the internet at a café and bought a copy of Australasian Ufologist magazine in Mackay. He then contacted the Australian UFO Research Network number mentioned in the magazine. Diane Harrison took the call and for the next hour or so listened to the story that Keith and Amy told. Petra was apparently sleeping at the time. 

I put a call through to Keith at the motel, securing permission to record the conversation. Once again Petra was not available to talk about her part in the alleged events. Keith Rylance went into considerable detail about the events, referring often to the notes they had apparently compiled during the day. The details described covered the events Petra had witnessed, what Keith had experienced, and what Amy told them had happened to her during her experience. Finally, I spoke with Amy, mainly about the events before and after the claimed onboard experiences, because Keith had already gone into considerable detail about the latter. 

Keith Rylance seemed to want to control how both media and investigators would get involved. His desire to contact the media promptly led both Diane and me to suggest that he should think very carefully about the possible ramifications of doing so. Keith seemed to feel that it was important to get the story out, as it would come out 

anyway and this way he could control the way it did. He was also trying to restrict the way the investigators could or should look into their experience. He claimed they didn’t need to prove the experience. While he didn’t directly witness the experiences, he now believed both Amy and Petra. I explained to Keith that we wanted to look into the situation very thoroughly. I also explained how certain basic sampling procedures we could do with Amy’s marks would be important in verifying their story. 

Since the story seemed destined to be a big one, Diane and I decided to undertake a detailed on-site investigation. Keith Rylance had told us that the three of them would wait for us to come to Mackay, as they were in no apparent hurry to return to Gundiah. They gave us permission to visit the property in Gundiah on the way. 

 

Tuesday, October 9, 2001 

Diane and I traveled to Gundiah, arriving at the Whispering Winds winery property, just after 10 p.m. Because of the late hour, we obtained permission from the witnesses to stay there overnight. The next day we continued our investigation. Keith had arranged for a neighbor to regularly check on the two pets left behind, namely a parrot and a kelpie dog. He indicated to us that it would be okay to let the dog off for a run. When we let the dog off, we observed its behavior. At one point it jumped up on the window with the damaged screen. This gave some support to the possibility that at least some, if not all, of the damage, could have been caused by the dog, and closer inspection confirmed this. We also inspected the damaged plant and found a possible prosaic cause for it as well—simple heat stress from hot sunlight. A healthy flowering bush of the same species at Mt. Bassett cemetery in Mackay revealed similar damage. We also spoke to the police about the case. 

 

Wednesday, October 10, 2001 

In Mackay, we focused our attention on the area where Amy Rylance returned and tried to reconstruct the circumstances of Amy’s return. We spoke with the BP gas service station staff that turned over surveillance videotape that might contain Amy’s visit. The more we investigated the case, the more questions we had about it. Keith Rylance indicated to us he would be available for questions when we got to Mackay, but it became clear to us early on the first day of our investigations there that this was probably not going to be the case. When we contacted the motel where they had been the night before, their third motel in Mackay, we learned they had already checked out that morning. 

 

Thursday, October 11, 2001 

We left messages on Keith’s mobile phone but didn’t hear from him until early in the afternoon of our second day, as we were leaving Mackay. He apologized for not being available, but indicated they had relocated to an unspecified location after having fled the area following a kind of “men in black” experience. Keith reported being pursued by a high-powered, dark brown four-wheel truck, which they managed to evade. We never managed to sample Amy’s marks. Keith fell back on his mantra that this sort of evidence was not necessary to prove their case. 

 

Monday, October 15, 2001 

We heard from Keith Rylance again, but we were largely unsuccessful in getting him to answer some of the questions and issues raised in our investigation. We made him aware that Tiaro police would like to hear from him. Our preliminary investigation report, which was completed by October 14, was circulated on the Internet and published in the Australasian Ufologist. 142

 

Thursday, October 18, 2001 

I spoke with Keith Rylance again. He recanted his men-in-black experience, which he had told me had caused them to flee Mackay. Keith also told me he had spoken with the Maryborough police, but I responded that all investigation had been handed back to Tiaro police, the original investigating station. I suggested again that they would like to speak with him. 

 

Friday, October 19, 2001 

Keith Rylance called. He was clearly angry about the preliminary report Diane and I had written. He said that we had got it wrong and cited errors, namely, we had given his age as 40 (he was 39) and Petra’s age as 39 (she was 35). Petra said, “I forgive you.” I said we had gleaned that information from media reports, but that the actual case data was accurately reported, given our limited access. Keith then mellowed a bit and agreed to answer my questions by e-mail so we could move on and start talking about the events, that is, the craft, the alien, and so on. We had hoped to speak with Amy and Petra separately and privately, in much more detail, but Keith was omnipresent as the primary source of information. 

 

November 2001 

The mass-circulation women’s magazine New Idea came out with a four- page story on the affair, which revealed many of the details Keith and Amy Rylance had conveyed to us. In the article Amy was quoted as saying, “I didn’t do this to grab media attention. I know it sounds far- fetched, but I know it’s real and that’s all that matters.” 

The author of the article wrote: “[We] were in contact with Keith and Amy and even slept at their Gundiah house. Bill, considered one of the best researchers in his field, spoke to Keith about his desire to take DNA and blood samples from Amy. He argues that obtaining biological 

evidence is crucial to support her claims the triangular puncture marks on her thigh are evidence of alien experimentation. However, Amy, Keith and Petra then fled Gundiah, and the UFO investigators haven’t been able to complete their research.” The writer then quoted Diane as describing the case as “extraordinary and controversial,” and saying, “There are too many unanswered questions to draw any real conclusions. We want to keep an open, objective mind before we conclude one way or the other.” 143 

 

December 2001 

Keith Rylance’s contact details, mobile phone and e-mail, were no longer functional. Diane and I were resigned to the fact that we would probably never get any responses or answers to the numerous issues and questions we had. We were now highly dubious of the case. 

 

October 2002 

On the anniversary of the alleged event, the Fraser Coast Chronicle newspaper asked, “Why did they do it?” The story argued that the affair had been a hoax and highlighted some of the numerous forensic issues we and the police had found back in October 2001, and had unsuccessfully been seeking answers to from the trio. 

The Tiaro police were not so circumspect: “The police file remains open and Sergeant Robert Maragna [of Tiaro police] would love to talk to Amy, Keith and Petra and give them the bill for the hours of police time that went into investigating the alien abduction. ‘There were too many inconsistencies in their story for it to be true,’ said Sergeant Robert Maragna. During a search of the property police found black hair dye, paper towels and the burnt out remains of two flood lights and electrical wiring in an incinerator about 20 meters from the annex. ‘The most damning evidence are the phone records,’ said Sergeant Maragna.” Calls came from a motel in Rockhampton, which is between Gundiah and Mackay, to the Gundiah home the day before. The police scenario had Amy already on her way to Mackay via the Rockhampton motel, with the black dye being used by Petra later to play the blond Amy. The newspaper also quoted the Tiaro mayor John Horrex, however, who still believed the trio’s story of an alien abduction.144 

 

March 2003 

We were contacted by an overseas source who suggested the saga had more to do with some misguided secret Scientology “mission” to find a buried spaceship, as described in the Mission Earth science fiction series by Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The scenario seemed unbelievable, but the source claimed intimate knowledge of the incident. However, when we were at the Tiaro police station back in October 2001, we were shown a notebook, apparently owned by Petra, which the police had removed from the Gundiah property. The police were suspicious, as it seemed to have some strange content they thought might be connected to the weird story under investigation. I recognized some of its content as being related to Scientology, the words “Thetan” and “clearing,” for example, and then thought that it probably wasn’t relevant to our inquiries.145But given this new information, maybe it was. Recalling that the Gundiah property was called Whispering Winds, Diane mentioned that Hubbard, lived out his last years on a remote property in the United States— “It is a quiet place, a perfect place to hide.” 146It’s name? Whispering Winds! 

____________________________________________________________________

 

142 “The Gundiah Mackay Abduction Milieu” by Bill Chalker and Diane Harrison, Australasian Ufologist, Vol. 5 No. 4 2001, pp. 26–28. 

143 “The UFO Report—I Was Abducted by Aliens” by “Kate Johns,” New Idea, November 17, 2001, pp. 32–35. 

144 The “Fraser Coast Chronicle” series by Kevin Corcoran was published on October 11–12, 2002, with the following headlines: “Why did they do it?” “And where are they now? Beam of light carries woman through window to 1.8 m alien” “If a hoax—police say it was—what reason?” “Mayor reckons affair certainly was no hoax” and “Researchers find story did not add up.” 

145 Years before I had read Christopher Evans book Cults of Unreason (1973). 

146 See Bare Faced Messiah by Russell Miller (1987), 372. 

 

Note: Further enquiries indicated that the affair may have been some misguided or bizarre scientology mediated saga, which seemed more convoluted and unbelievable than the suspect UFO story. So much of the information we had gathered, some with the assistance of police, pointed towards a hoax.  None of our many critical questions and queries were satisfactorily responded to. Information gathered later increased our certainty that our final conclusion was that the case was a hoax.  A wider family connection with Keith Rylance indicated that he had told them it had been a hoax.  Some prominent UFO researchers, commentators and theorists have uncritically accepted the case as impressive and solid, some basing their positions largely on our initial preliminary report. None of these people actually investigated the case. Nor have they approach us for an update or our opinion.