VICTOR ZAKRUZNY AND THE 1966 WESTALL UFO – a tribute

I was shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Victor Zakruzny, when I saw Shane Ryan’s moving tribute on the “Westall Flying Saucer Incident” site posted on 26 June 2025 (my birthday of all things – sad news).

 

Rosie Jones, director of the documentary “Westall ’66 – a suburban UFO mystery” (2010) at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1966westallflyingsaucerincident

wrote, “Thank you, Shane for your heartfelt tribute to Victor. He was a lovely, warm and generous person and a great contributor to the Westall documentary. I’m very sad to hear of his passing. Sincere condolences to his friends and family. RIP Victor.”

 

I have quoted Shane’s tribute here:

“VALÉ VICTOR ZAKRUZNY. I am sad to report that Westall High School witness Victor Zakruzny has passed away. Victor was in Form 2 in 1966 and featured in Rosie Jones’ documentary “Westall ’66: A Suburban UFO Mystery”, and his story was re-created in the Discovery Channel Canada’s “Close Encounters” series’ episode on Westall. (The segment was called “School’s Out” – Shane and I were in Toronto Canada for filming of that episode – B.C.) 

“His daughter Jade informed me of his passing and gave me permission for me to post about it here. Victor had two sisters Anna and Maria who were Westall students but they were both home sick on the day of the incident, and his brother Peter was at another school.

“Victor’s sighting stood out for his stated proximity to two of the UFOs as they hovered above the paddock over the western fence of Westall High School. His story was that he jumped the fence and approached the UFOs, getting close enough to one to feel the heat coming off it, and then watched as they ascended and flew away in the direction of The Grange. Years later, when doing a walk-through at the school re-tracing the events of that day, he confided that he had later been called up to the headmaster’s office and warned about talking about what he had seen, with the headmaster saying that the Army had a way of finding out about things, and that they could destroy his plans to become an artist. 

“Victor did pursue his interests in art, and he kindly drew a picture of one of the UFOs he saw that day for Rosie’s documentary, from the side and from below, and UFO researcher Bill Chalker later created a picture of the same scene Victor witnessed after meeting with him in more recent years.

“It has sometimes been pointed out that no other witnesses have yet come forward to corroborate the scene Victor described, and that is true, despite my best efforts to record the accounts of other witnesses from Victor’s class and form. It is true to say, however, that I have been in contact with five other witnesses who do recall circles or marks in the grass in the paddock Victor described, two of whom also recalled actually seeing a UFO in that paddock, one from their nearby workplace and one from their front garden, and another who heard at the time that a UFO had landed there and that she could clearly see the circle in the grass where it had landed from her front garden as well.

“Whatever happened that day, it had moved Victor deeply, and stayed with him for the rest of his life. I am grateful to him for having the courage to come forward and share his story. Rest in peace Vic. Condolences to Jade, Anna, Maria and their families.”

I have adapted my blog post that featured my comments about Victor’s experience and my attempt to create a “forensic drawing” of his “close encounter of the second kind” (Dr. Allen Hynek’s term). The link to that fuller piece is: https://theozfiles.blogspot.com/search?q=Victor

 

Given that I had a long time focus on physical trace (UFO landing) accounts I was pleased to be able to eventually interview VictorZakruzny 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 Zakruzny.  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 Zakruzny 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 (to build a “billy-cart” – B.C.) 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 James Kibel)

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 Zakruzny'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 Zakruzny'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.  

 

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.

 

My sincere condolences to Victor's family and friends.