"Westall '66 - the prehistory of its investigation leading up to the 2006 reunion"

“Westall ’66” – the prehistory of its investigation leading up to the 2006 reunion

by Bill Chalker (April 2026)

The author wrote “The OZ Files – the Australian UFO story” (1996), “Hair of the Alien – DNA and other forensic evidence for alien abductions” (2005), the Australian chapter author of the UFO History Group’s major study “UFOs and Government” (2012) and Australian content author for all editions of Jerome Clark’s “The UFO Encyclopedia” - the 3rd edition (2018) and 4th edition (2024) He has also been a long time column contributor - "The OZ Files" to the UK digital magazine "UFO Truth

Contact information: 

billozfiles@tpg.com.au 

Archived data posts:

https://theozfiles.blogspot.com/

Back on July 11, 2012 I gave a lecture to the UFO & Paranormal Research Society of Australia (UFO-PRSA) in Campbelltown entitled "WESTALL '66: The Sleeper Awakes."  In that presentation I focused on the investigations & research undertaken into the 1966 Westall school UFO case that preceded the more recent research of Shane Ryan which underpinned the impressive Rosie Jones "WESTALL '66: a suburban UFO mystery" documentary (2010).

This article focuses on that “prehistory” period.

Here I show the people associated with the then Victorian Flying Saucer Research society (now known as the Victorian UFO Research Society (VUFORS).

The brief bios show Judy Magee, Peter Norris and Paul Norman, who apparently undertook some investigations at Westall in the days that followed the Westall school UFO incident of April 1966.  Each of this bios comes from contemporary copies of the VFSRS magazine - The Australian Flying Saucer Review (Victorian edition). 

Some limited material that apparently emerged from their enquiries (of which little was ever published) is shown here in the form of a photo apparently taken by Judy Magee of one of alleged UFO landing sites, photo of a witness, a young girl (namely Joy Clarke (nee Tighe)), was also taken by VFSRS investigators. The final photo shows Westall researcher Shane Ryan flanked by Paul & Judy, both of whom sadly passed away in 2012.  The young girl was 12-year-old Joy Tighe and VFSRS had got her to fill out a UFO report form.

The VFSRS magazine also published the 1966 account by one of the students that appeared in the school magazine, "The Clayton Calendar", which was produced by pupils of grade 6C-5C:

"I was in class when the disturbance occurred outside. I didn't take any notice and when the bell went for morning recess my classmates and I went to our lockers and then walked out into the yard. we noticed that all the girls who were doing Physical Education were gathered right down near the end of our playing field. Suddenly the school came alive with excitement and everyone began running down towards where the girls were. I was among the surging mob. I had seen something that looked very unusual in the sky. 

"As I looked up I saw a dazzling, silvery object flying around some pine trees which grew on a ridge about a quarter of a mile directly behind the school. It then flew across some open paddocks also behind the school and returned to the pines. On the other side of the ridge there is a small field. The thing hovered over the pines and descended behind them and must have been directly over the field. I then lost sight of it because of the pines. 

"As the thing was out of sight I began to notice many private aircraft mainly Cessna, flying towards the pines. It was then, the thing reappeared and rose to the level of the approaching aircraft. This enabled me to get a rough idea of its size. It was a silvery object as long as one of the Cessnas, but very thin. 

"As the aircraft approached the thing tilted on about a 45 degree angle and started to move into the distance, gradually gaining height. The planes increased their speed and began to follow it, but the object streaked away leaving the planes far, far behind. The planes turned back, but we all stood hoping it would return but it didn't, so we all went into school, fifteen minutes late. 

"After school two friends and I went to the field where the object had descended. In a few minutes we were crawling

under a barb-wire fence which surrounded the field at a height of about four feet. We waded through the waist-high grass making for a gap in it. Suddenly we were there. We found ourselves standing in a spot where the grass had been utterly crushed against the earth. It was an area of about 25-30 feet in diameter. Cows could not have done it because the fence was barbed, and also cows would have left a track through the grass. There was no track. The object had descended over the field; could it have done this? It all leads back to the same question. What was the object? Some people say it was a weather balloon, but do weather balloons go up and down quickly, crush grass and fly across the skies faster than reasonably speedy aircraft? Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine." 

The proceeding statement by a male student, Jeff Ansell, at Westall High school, was released by the science teacher, Mr. Andrew Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood said of the student, "I taught him some years ago and found him intelligent and well balanced, and certainly not given to making irresponsible statements." 

Joy Clarke (nee Tighe) and Jeff Ansell - witnesses to the Westall UFO incident. Jeff was the author of the student account in the Clayton Calendar - the Westall High School magazine. (Image: Bill Chalker, 2006))

Joy's April 2006 drawing of the UFO she saw back in April 1966.

(Image: Bill Chalker, 2006)

Peter Norris the president of the VFSRS group back in 1966 did have a cameo in the Rosie Jones documentary but was not able to contribute substantially much detail about the Westall case.  When I spoke with him back in about 1980 he also recollected little about the case and didn't think it must have been an important case.  Peter had strong connections with the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation (APRO) based in Arizona USA run by Jim & Coral Lorenzen, and was often a source of Australian content in Coral Lorenzen's UFO books that appeared during the 1960s.  However, Westall was not amongst that content.  Similarly, Paul Norman had strong connections with the NICAP group, but in a bid to clarify if NICAP files any Westall data, I contacted Richard Hall.  This was one of the last things that Dick Hall and I communicated about.  However, he too, despite his deep knowledge of NICAP and UFO history had to report that for him and NICAP the April 1966 case had not been picked up on their radar.  His excellent study "Alien Invasion or Human Fantasy? The 1966-67 UFO wave" (a 146-page study) also missed the Westall case despite referencing my 1996 book "The OZ Files - the Australian UFO story" which devoted 6 pages to "The Westall School Sensation."  

Rebecca Latham, producer “The Westall UFO Mystery” (which aired on 6 April 2026 – the 60th anniversary) for “Australian Story”, an iconic ABC TV program, examined the weather balloon explanatory possibility.  Richard Saunders of the Australian Skeptics suggested that weather balloons were a possible explanation.  Rebecca Latham found that NOAA (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) had the old met balloon data sets on line.

In a report dated 23 April 2026 she wrote:

“Once you adjust for Greenwich mean time and the US dating process, I realised the data behind the actual balloon launch from Laverton that morning at 9am is available.  It gives us all the data... amazing... which is interesting and revealing... and it's possible to calculate the altitude and the speed and the whereabouts of the balloon in relation to Westall that morning.

“And the upshot - which can now be proved - is that it was too high and too far away to have anything to do with Westall.

“And of course winds at higher altitudes are very different to wind strength closer to the ground. It proves that by the time the balloon popped and descended it was around 170 kilometres away from Melbourne.  

“I've attached my written summary of the material and a non-animated track of the flight, plus the original NOAA dataset. You can look this up for yourselves as well.  I have an animated track of the flight arc as well, with the data for each point that balloon sensors noted…

“I had all the calculations checked by a couple of honours students studying pure maths and geoscience at USYD (University of Sydney – B.C.) and their findings concurred with mine.”

With the HIBAL explanation (launched from Mildura on April 5, 1966) I've been looking at HIBAL data, and while there is no definitive data that provides for certainty of a touchdown in the Westall area, the evidence available supports a relatively normal flight on the day before Westall (by virtue of the "typical" data set of monitor results) and the PM's secretary SECRET memo about 2 weeks later, reviewing insurance premiums etc, supports that there was no dramatic, hysteria inducing "touch down" in a metropolitan area, of either the balloon or its payload with parachute.  

So, weather balloon & HIBAL seem a very poor fit for the explaining the bulk of the witness testimony re Westall.

The Dandenong Journal April 14, 1966

The Dandenong Journal 21 April, 1966

Science Teacher Andrew Greenwood’s statement as described in the Dandenong Journal 21 April 1966:

"He said 5 light aircraft were circling the object and were flying at a relatively low altitude. The aircraft had played a 'cat & mouse' kind of game with the object. He described the object as like a thin beam of light, about half the length of a light aircraft. It was silvery-grey and seemed to thicken at times. 

"The thickening was similar to when a disc is turned a little to show the underside. The object was never really stationary. It seemed to move from side to side and up and down. 

"At first there was one plane apparently observing the object. 

Later, Mr. Greenwood noticed 5 aircraft which attempted to follow the object as it Occasionally accelerated back and forth from east to west. Mr. Greenwood first saw the object when it rose into the air from behind pine trees near the school. After about 20 minutes (at about the end of morning recess) Mr. Greenwood looked away, and when he looked back it had disappeared." 

The Journal indicated that one pilot, Mr. Bob Ford, indicated he had been flying "somewhere in that area" at the time, but did not see anything unusual. No other pilots were found who indicated they had been in the area and saw something. 

Another student, Marilyn Eastwood, described the object as "round, with a hump on top and round things underneath."

Judy Magee had connections with the British Flying Saucer Review (FSR) and passed on the Dandenong Journal account which was published in FSR Vol. 12 No.4 1966:

The publication of the Dandenong Journal article in FSR probably led to the first mention of the Westall affair being mentioned in book form, namely in APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation) co-director Coral Lorenzen’s book “Flying Saucers – The Startling Evidence of the Invasion from Outer Space” (Signet paperback, October, 1966) on page 273:

“A round, gray object with a flat base and a hump on top was observed by science teacher Andrew Greenwood and students, while it hovered and maneuvered near the Westall School in Clayton, Australia, on April 6. The object was first spotted when it rose into the air from behind pine trees near the school.  Greenwood watched it, along with some of the students, for about twenty minutes, looked away for a few seconds and when he looked back it was gone.”

                                          

The following extract from Ann Druffel’s excellent book “Firestorm – Dr. James E. McDonald’s Fight for UFO science” (2003) recounts McDonald’s account of the Westall case, based on his interviews with Andrew Greenwood and Dr. Berson during his visit to Australia in 1967. The book misspells Westall, Moorabbin & Samblebe, which I have corrected:

“This case occurred on the morning of April 6,1966, at Westall High School in Melbourne. One of the primary witnesses was Andrew Greenwood, a teacher at Westall, who was later interviewed by McDonald. A child had run into his classroom to tell him that "flying saucers were outside!" Greenwood did not wish to break up his class, and he instructed the child to go back to her physical education class in the yard. Ten minutes later the morning recess bell rang, and Greenwood went outside. Half of the school, about 300 children between 11-15 years of age, were on the playground staring at an unidentified gray object in the blue sky. The object was cigar-shaped but at times "bulged" in the middle. Greenwood could not determine the cause of this shape change but had the impression that the object might be changing position in the sky, thereby presenting different aspects to the viewers. 

“The distance of the object varied from about 1000 yards to about 500 yards at its nearest approaches. It alternated between hovering motionless and accelerating almost out of sight, then returning to position. As Greenwood and the children watched, a Cessna came up and tried to get near the UFO. The object was about two-thirds the size of the Cessna. The object began to play "cat and mouse," and more Cessnas came, until there were five. Moorabbin Airport, about four miles away, was checked, but personnel there stated there were no planes from that airport in the air. "It was silly of them to deny it because there are almost always planes up," Greenwood told McDonald. 

“Greenwood and the children watched the object and the planes for 15 min- utes, until the object abruptly accelerated out of sight, leaving the planes still in the air. Greenwood questioned the other teachers. The physical education teacher, Jeanette Muir, confirmed she'd seen it but then "clammed up." Claude Miller, senior English master, saw the object near the end of the sighting. The Air Force came to the school, ostensibly to check out the report. They spoke with Head- master Frank Samblebe. McDonald's journal describes what happened: 

Somehow Samblebe got on edge. At the assembly that noon he spoke on it and said it was a lot of rubbish. Was his first year as Head [master], went by book, wanted to keep things on regulation. When Air Force came he refused to call Andrew Greenwood out of class to talk to them. A. G. thinks he sent them packing, and came out muttering 'what rot’. 

“Although several teachers and 300 students had seen a strange object pursued by Cessna aircraft for almost a half hour, the RAAF made no further follow-up, to anyone's knowledge. "What puzzles and amuses Greenwood most is [that] Moorabbin Airport claims that no planes were up," wrote McDonald. 

“In his Australian journal, McDonald kept a list of a dozen physicists and astronomers, to whom he had been referred by Australian and American re- searchers. The list included Dr. F. A. Berson, a scientist with the Division of Meteorological Physics, CSIRO, Aspendale, with whom McDonald met personally. Dr. Berson had seen an anomalous red glowing object in the night sky in September 1963. It was large, about half lunar diameter, and later split into two sections and disappeared. A similar object, appearing across town at the same time and viewed by independent witnesses, was reported in the press. 

“Berson tracked down the witnesses and was able to make azimuth readings which demonstrated that the object was too large to be either a balloon or a hoax. 

“Dr. Berson had done his own investigation of the Westall High School sighting. He'd called Moorabbin Airport also, but had been told that he would have to call four separate companies in order to try to track down the source of the five Cessnas! He'd learned that students at Clayton School had also seen the object at the same time. He went to the Department of Air, but was given no information. There he was told by an aviation instructor, "We have a sub-chasing aircraft with very bright lights that can be misinterpreted." The Australian officials were reaching as far afield for "explanations" as Project Blue Book did. 

“Dr. Berson, together with another scientist, Professor of Theoretical Physics Stuart T. Butler of Sydney, quietly began their own study of Australian sightings, possibly encouraged by McDonald's example. 

"I would emphatically disassociate myself from the people who claim to have contacted flying saucers [contactees]. Their stories are so wildly improbable that it seems to me to involve the suspicion of mental unbalance of some sort," Dr. Butler was quoted. "At the same time, in view of the probable existence of some other intelligent race in the universe, I think we have to keep an open mind on the possibility of some UFOs being intelligently directed." 

Here is an extract of a 11 May 1967 letter by Dr. Andrzej F. Berson, principal research scientist of the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) Division of Meteorological Physics to Robert Low, the U.S. Condon committee UFO project coordinator that refers to the Department of Air (“D.A.”) and their interest in the Westall school case:

(courtesy of Jan Aldrich)

During 1977 Ray Fischer of the Victorian UFO Research Society revealed to me that they had interviewed a man who came on the scene at about 5 pm of the day of the sightings. He saw a "a perfect circle of flattened grass, flattened right down to ground level, in grass that was about two feet high. This man recollected that he thought the area was about 30 feet in diameter. He returned a few days later to find a team of "military or air force people" going over the site. A couple of technical looking vans were parked outside. He saw that people in uniform were examining the circle with what he took to be radiation detectors. Officials there told him he couldn't go into the field and to move on. This gentleman returned to the site a third time, only to find that the paddock had been burnt out. (see attached letter 26.2/1977)                                              

John Pinkney, who helped found the VFSRS back in 1957, also described the Westall affair in his book “Alien Honeycomb” (1980), which he co-wrote with Leonard Ryzman.  He also described the case in some of his columns.

Others parties have several other events that were alleged to have been related to this fascinating affair. Some witnesses described seeing a cow in the paddock, where the UFO came down. It was alleged to have been in such a distressed state that it eventually had to be put down. There have been persistent stories that one schoolgirl, the first student to arrive at the landing site, was found be in a dazed, trance like state, as if she was very shocked. There were unconfirmed rumours that this girl never fully recovered from this experience and spent some time in a hospital at Kew. The teacher who took photos of the site, was allegedly told by the headmaster that "if you want to keep on teaching you have to keep your mouth shut and we want the film." The film allegedly ended up in the hands of the RAAF or Army, but predictably there has been no confirmation of that detail. 

A woman claimed the UFO involved in the Westall school landing, had hovered over her house, above trees, before it landed behind the school. The UFO was allegedly above the trees for 5 or 10 minutes before it landed. The woman claimed the UFO "was trying to find a place to land." She states she followed it, but that "it started to get a bit spooky". She started to return home, but then went back, only to be allegedly turned away by police. 

One source indicated that 200 to 300 kids raced down to the fence where the UFO had landed. There was "some guy walking around in white overalls and he was telling everyone to keep back and another guy appeared and he had some sort of uniform Both men had overalls - one was fully white - the other had a dark uniform, but it had an emblem or a logo on it." According to that source, these men were normal looking, and seemed to be walking around the UFO on the ground. "One of the guys disappeared into the aircraft - the one on the ground - they didn't see where the other one went - the last they saw, he was around the other side of them. They disappeared." It was alleged by at least one source that the UFO had "sort of crash landed", that there were 3 "aircraft" above it, "hovering above it. They were white - they didn't have wings and they didn't have engines ... all they did was hum. The humming got louder, when they took off. Then within a few minutes this "flying saucer" took off." 

Much of the stranger details, described above, emerged from contact I had with a researcher named Ron Cameron, who had come to some prominence with claims of divers reporting they had discovered the Cessna involved in the disappearance of Frederick Valentich over Bass Strait in October 1978. Little of that story was confirmable.  I made contact with him in January 1984 and he told me that he had undertaken research into the Westall case, initially at the request of Dr. Ian Gordon, with a view to make a documentary. The documentary was not made, but he told me that the research had uncovered some interesting details about the Westall event:

1. At least 14 of the original witnesses had been interviewed, and all basically told the same story.

2. All the children had been told “to shut up about it.”

3. One of the teachers took some photos.  A lot of the children confirmed this.  The headmaster at the time told the teacher that “if you want to keep on teaching, you’ve got to keep your mouth shut and we want the film.” The film ostensibly ended up in the hands of the RAAF or Army.

4. One very young girl was apparently the first down to the site of the landing. His informants told him that “ever since after that she was never the same … she had a nervous breakdown … She spent sometime in a hospital over in Kew, but after that we don’t know where she is.”

5. One woman claimed the UFO had hovered over her house, above trees, before it landed behind the school.  Before it landed, the UFO was up above the trees for 5 or 10 minutes.  The woman said “it was trying to find a place to land.”  She followed it.  Everyone was telling her to get away.  She had a good look at it “but it started to get a bit spooky.”  She started to come back, then she decided to go back to the site again, but at that point police told her to go away.

6 & 7. (as per the above paragraph describing the men walking around the “aircraft” on the ground.)

8. The headmaster “was jumping up and down because all the kids were over there.  Next minute the police came & the army came … the army burnt the whole lot.”

9. “And I believe that Channel 9 were the first there to do a story and the film never went to air.  They interviewed some kids … Some one else said it would be to their benefit if it didn’t go to air.” 

10. The area where the UFO landed was near or on market gardens.  Where it “crash-landed” a sports building has been built in the last 2 years (1982-84?)

11.  There were “heaps” of “thick blackberry bushes” at the landing site.  “Where it landed they won’t grow again.”

12. All this information had been obtained during the last 5 years.  Much of the information is recorded in taped interviews.”

Ron Cameron told me he had “a large tea box of archives, tapes, etc.  Little of Ron Cameron’s evidence was confirmed.  He did supply me with the contact details of the Anderson family who had witnessed some of these events.  I was able to subsequently confirm some of this information via conversations with the Anderson children (Bobbie & Keith).  Back in 1976 I saw on a channel 9 current affair program an archive TV interview with one of the girls, along with a sketch of the UFO she had made. I felt that this was Marylin Eastwood based on my memory of sighting the original Dandenong Journal article.

Evidence confirms that Channel 9 did air a TV news story on the night of the Westall event.

In a February 1984 letter to Dr Ian Gordon, (former head of the Curriculum and Research branch of the Victorian Education, author of a number of books including “The Andronicus Tapes” (1983) and “Cosmic Communications from the Ogattans” (2013), that were informed by spiritualist type communications. Ian Gordon also practiced spiritual ministry). I wrote, “I was also intrigued to hear that you have a great deal of information about the famous 1966 Westall/Clayton landing adjacent to Westall High School and that one of the witnesses either worked with you or still does.  I would be most grateful if you could advise me of your findings about this important case.  I was surprised to learn that the event may have been more than a landing and take off and that some people observed “men” with the UFO on the ground.  This is not a situation I was familiar with until recently.  As I have long been interested in “physical trace” events, i.e. landings which leave behind marks, and following my access to the RAAF files during 1982, after which I have further researched the question of alleged “official coverups,” I would be most grateful to get copies of your documentation of this affair.”

From my “The Westall School Sensation” segment in my 1996 book “The OZ Files – the Australian UFO story”:

A school prefect (Graham Simmonds) years later described to Dr. Ian Gordon how he had been in a chemistry class during the incident. He had seen, out through the windows, along with many other students and some teachers, both inside and outside class rooms, what seemed to him to be an object of a "classic flying saucer shape", silver blue in colour, come down behind a group of pine trees in an undeveloped area, not more than 200 metres from Fairbank Road. There had been two objects according to what he had heard but he only saw what seems to have been the first of these. 

All of a sudden everyone in the sports class took off in a south west direction, including some of the teachers, like there was a mass evacuation of the school, all "after a flying saucer". According to the prefect the thing had come down behind a group of pine trees. A large area of flatten grass was found there, perfectly circular in shape, about 30 feet in diameter, with 3 scorch marks. The grass was very dry, but it hadn't started a fire. In a westerly direction from the site, a man approached the school group, and told them all "to piss off" because it was private property. The property had been standing idle for many years. The man walked through the area of flattened grass and seemed to "ignore its existence", according to the prefect. When he was told by numerous screaming children that a flying saucer had come down there, he said "bull shit" and various other things. The school children eventually returned to the school, accompanied by a number of teachers who had "followed the mass exodus". 

The prefect was berated by the school principal for being "irresponsible" in following the rest of the students (and teachers). Students were forbidden to talk to the press. Some students were interviewed in Rosebank Avenue, near the school. There was a phone call to the principal. He made an announcement that no such thing had been seen and put it down to "mass hysteria".

In 1984 Ian Gordon provided me with a copy of the interview he had done with Graham Simmonds, upon which the above account is based.  Ian began researching UFOs after a number of sightings, “contact” experiences, and then a deep embrace of spiritual ministry.

“Once Upon a Time in Westall” (20 April, 2006) –  https://theozfiles.blogspot.com

The morning started out like a moment out of the beginning of Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" - stepping off a isolated platform at what seemed to be an incongruously isolated train station for a suburban Melbourne stop. Westall suburbia was some distance removed and was found soon enough. Like the movie things soon got interesting.

The day was April 8, 2006, and I was in Westall for a strange reunion of sorts - 40 years after the extraordinary events of April 6, 1966 - the Westall School UFO sensation - where numerous school children from the high school and primary school, along with some teachers and others witnessed a UFO which apparently landed nearby among the pines and scrubs of the Grange area. Witnesses reported authorities such as the police and military turning up in short order and the landing area was soon subject to all sorts of attention.

After 40 years witnesses, researchers and interested parties had come together to try to draw the jig-saw puzzle pieces together of what really happened that day. As I concluded in my account of the events in my book "The OZ Files - the Australian UFO Story" (1996):

"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 ..."

For researchers like Canberra academic Shane Ryan, Melbourne UFO researcher George Simpson and myself the day was an extraordinary opportunity for learning a lot more about the events. Quite a number of witnesses to the events of the day turned up, making the reunion a satisfying occasion for witnesses, researchers and interested parties alike. The reunion certainly added to the momentum of recent efforts to unravel the 1966 Westall UFO mystery.

Photo: (B. Chalker 2006) Shane Ryan, George Simpson & Bill Chalker at the Westall reunion.

From my blog “Westall ’66 – a suburban UFO Mystery” 24 May, 2010 https://theozfiles.blogspot.com

The world premiere of a striking documentary about an extraordinary event takes place on the Australian SCI FI channel, Foxtel, 8.30 pm, Friday, 4th June, 2010. WESTALL '66 a suburban UFO mystery deserves a wide audience as it gives a fascinating picture of a haunting UFO incident that took place 44 years ago in the outer Melbourne suburb.

The press kit accompanying the release gives a potent one paragraph summary of the incident

"In 1966, in the Australian suburb of Westall, hundreds of students, teachers and local residents witnessed a UFO hover overhead for several minutes, land and take off again at incredible speed. Silenced by authorities at the time, and still angry about not being believed, they revisit the event as tenacious amateur sleuth Shane Ryan goes back to find an answer to the mystery. With an undercurrent of Cold War paranoia, and a burgeoning military alliance between Australia and America, their story has a deep resonance in the current cover-ups and lies delivered by governments in the interests of national security."

Director Rosie Jones came across the story via a story in the Melbourne Age which connected her to the efforts of Canberra academic Shane Ryan to get to the bottom of the enigmatic events. After 3 years of solid research, filming and editing we now have the opportunity to view the fascinating result of all those efforts.

                              

(The Sci-Fi channel copies includes my Westall drawing on their disks)

I watched the documentary on May 24 and was immediately impressed by the style of the film. Shane Ryan's investigation is used as the connecting vehicle for revealing the story, but it is the witnesses' stories that tellingly describe the impact and haunting nature of the affair.

It is a powerful narrative of a reality denied by authority but revealed in compelling ways through the words of the witnesses and the wonderfully inspired decision to use the charcoal drawings and animations of animator Lee Whitmore. Anyone who has seen the film "The Safe House" (which gives an extraordinary perspective on the Petrov affair) will be immediately attracted to this documentary, as it uses Lee Whitmore's artistic skills to great effect. The black and white renderings of the key 1966 Westall events hauntingly evoke the 1960s era and the visions of the impossible witnessed mainly by school children. There were adult witnesses who also share their stories.

It is impossible to tell the full Westall UFO story in one documentary but WESTALL '66 certainly captures the essence of the events and powerfully shows why we should take notice of this story and demand to know what really happened that day - 6 April 1966. I think the documentary will be a powerful catalyst towards achieving that objective.

I should reveal that this is a biased review. I too have been haunted by what happened at Westall in 1966. 1966 was a pivotal year for me as it marked my embrace of the subject in a personal way - my home town of Grafton had a police UFO chase that gained media prominence. It wasn't long before my teenage interests in the UFO subject started to give me glimpses of the 1966 Westall mystery, but the astonishing magnitude of the saga was a slowly revealed thing, mainly because of the effectiveness of the cover-up that clearly took place. It captured my attention even further when it was apparent that the events even feature physical evidence - ground traces - an aspect of the UFO phenomenon that became a central interest for me. It was a case that I returned to many times as leads turned up. By the early 1980s a number of witnesses were starting to create a critical mass of interest. I devoted a lot of pages in my Australian UFO history "The OZ Files" to the Westall affair as I recognised it as a very strong case. But it wasn't until the Internet allowed for a greater communication among researchers and witnesses that the momentum developed into a great tide of information. Shane Ryan was instrumental in drawing these more recently revealed factors together and his persistence has been rewarded with a rich picture of the events. I closely followed the efforts of Shane Ryan, Rosie Jones and her documentary team, assisting where I could.

It is the witnesses though that have told the story and I hope they feel that their extraordinary experiences back in April 1966 have been well served by these efforts and the documentary. The profile of the events will be further enhanced and I hope it will bring further evidence to the surface, particularly the elusive details of the heavy hidden hand that originally supressed the extraordinary events.

Watching WESTALL '66 you will be entertained, intrigued and struck by the realisation that something quite extraordinary took place in Westall on April 6, 1966. I hope it gets you enthralled with the possibilities it reveals. Hoax or hysteria - I don't think so. Experimental aircraft - maybe, but the totality of what occurred there seems to argue for the more extraordinary possibility - that something that wasn't ours intruded into our world. I know I'm not alone wanting to know what happened. WESTALL '66 - a suburban UFO mystery - is a powerful evocation of the mystery. 

The Westall events have been described in numerous articles, podcasts, documentaries and other special events.  The most prominent of these have been Rosie Jone’s 2010 “Westall ’66 – a suburban UFO mystery” (featuring Shane Ryan as he began his long focused investigation of the events), Zev Howley’s “The Man who saw them arrive”, Grant Lavac’s “Westall 60 years on”, the 60th anniversary reunion at the Grange, the iconic ABC Australian Story show episode “The Westall UFO mystery” (aired on 6 April 2026, the exact 60th anniversary), and the 12 April 2026 Westall Library event (which featured a panel of Westall witnesses) and Shane Ryan’s detailed presentation and announcement of his forthcoming book “In broad daylight – the day UFOs arrived over Melbourne – the story of the 1966 Westall UFO Incident.”