2026 – a year of UFO UAP focus, history and ongoing research

30 years ago (1996) my book “The OZ Files – the Australian UFO story” was published, giving my personal take on the history of the UFO (now UAP) controversy in Australia and near territories.

 

During 2025 and 2026 two events that were featured prominently in my “OZ Files” history, namely the 1966 Tully “saucer nest” saga and the 1966 Westall affair, will be focuses of anniversary celebrations during 2026, which each in their own unique ways are extraordinary testaments and reflections of their respective 60 year legacies.

 

I will be a guest speaker at Australia’s only UFO festival – the Australian UFO Festival, Cardwell, Queensland, 6-9 August 2026, focusing on the Tully “saucer nest” incident.

With Albert Pennisi at the UFO Research Qld conference

For me Albert's presentation was the highlight

My reconstruction of Tully incident

featuring George Pedley's drawing & 

a contemporary photo of the famous "saucer nest"

Here is how I covered the Tully event 30 years ago:

 THE 1966 TULLY SAUCER ‘NEST’

 

1966 was a major year for UFO activity in Australia. The UFO landing at Horseshoe Lagoon near Tilly, far north Queensland, is one of the best known accounts of an apparent UFO landing report. It introduced the term UFO ‘nest’. The locality saw further UFO sightings for many years. The RAAF files describe the famous Tully incident in the following manner.

‘At about 9.00 a.m. on 19 January 1966, Mr George Pedley, a banana grower of Tully, Qld, observed a light grey non-reflecting dull object, reported to be about 25 feet long and eight feet deep, rise vertically then climb above marshland which was situated about 25 yards away. There was a hissing noise which decreased as the object rose. The apparent shape was described as “two saucers, face to face”, but no structural detail was observed. Pedley only saw the object for 15 seconds and it disappeared in mid-air whilst receding into the distance.

 

‘A clearly defined, near circular, depression remained in swamp grass at the point from which the object was seen rising, and measured about 32 feet long by 25 feet wide. The grass was flattened in clockwise curves to water level within the circle and the reeds had been uprooted from the mud. There was no scorching of grass or surrounding trees and the observer stated that there was no smell of combustion.’

 

The following details are from the police report which Pedley filled out with Sergeant Moylan of the local police. Because so many conflicting claims have been made about what Pedley said at the time, it is worth quoting the actual report.

 

‘Observer reported this matter to Tully Police at 7.30 p.m. on 19/1/66 and at 7 a.m. 20/1/66 went with me to the site of the depression in the swamp. His version then included the information that the object rose vertically, appeared to dip slightly and then went off in straight climbing path. He then said that there was no smell of combustion and no scorching of grass or trees visible; that the flattened grass or rushes was quite green when he first saw the depression; on his return that afternoon the grass had turned brown.

 

‘In this matter I formed the opinion that the depressed area in the swamp grass had been caused by a small helicopter and that the observer, in the early morning bright sunlight shining on the rotor may have mistaken the shape. His description of the takeoff lent some strength to my opinion. However, there was cleared land to the east for about 200 yards where such an aircraft could have more safely landed instead of the position indicated by the observer, close to trees. Later 1 was informed by Wallace Evans of Tully, an electrician, that he has seen similar markings in a swamp at Kurrumine Beach and is quite certain that it was caused by a whirlwind, sucking up water into a waterspout, uprooting the grass and laying it out in a similar pattern. At 3.30 p.m. 21/1/ 66 I took a sample of the grass at the site and have forwarded it under separate cover.’

 

According to the Secretary of the Department of Air, Mr A.B. McFarlane, on 11 February 1966: ‘Investigations of the area surrounding the reported “nests”, testing of samples taken from around them and interrogation of persons involved in the report failed to reveal anything of significance. However, during enquiries a number of local residents stated that the reported “nests” are fairly common during the onset of the “wet”. Furthermore, the University of Queensland stated that there was nothing unnatural in the samples submitted and assessed that the “nests” could have been the result of severe turbulence, which normally accompany line squalls and thunderstorms prevalent in North Queensland at that time of the year. There is no explanation for the visible phenomena reported but it could have been associated with or the result of “down draughts,” “willy willies” or “water spouts” that are known to occur in the area.

 

‘In January of this year a number of photographs taken from an airfield in the tropics offer a fine example of the type and growth of cloud formation occurring with a severe “down draught”. This whirling mass of tropical air associated with thunderstorm activity, may, on reaching the earth’s surface, dissipate and subside. Or it may persist, giving rise to dust eddies, water spouts, etc, and leaving a telltale circular pattern on the ground.

 

‘Should it occur over a swampy reed bed the effect would be to flatten the reeds with a circular pattern. Resultant photographs and investigations of the “nests” seem to fit in with this theory and is accepted as a possible cause of the phenomena.’

 

The Tully affair has been mentioned extensively in the UFO literature over the years, and many inaccuracies and misconceptions have developed. These problems became more critical when the incident became linked to the English ‘crop circle’ controversy. The prominent schools of thought on the crop circle formations adopted the Tully incident as a classic example of their perceived explanations for the circle complexes. For various reasons the comparison is invalid. These reasons are too complicated to be gone into here, but include obvious differences such as that the events at Tully occurred during the day, while the English crop circles are made at night.

 

For further detailed coverage of the Tully saga since this 1996 write up in “The OZ Files” book, look through my online blog “The OZ Files” at http://theozfiles.blogspot.com/

 

The 1966 Westall case will also get a lot of attention in 2026.  Shane Ryan tells me he should be getting his book on Westall ’66 out around the time of reunion and local library events during April, 2026. I hope to be able to make that event. The iconic ABC TV program “Australian Story” will be running their Westall ’66 story to coincide with the April 2026 60^th anniversary.  I participated in the program’s development.  Film maker Zev Howley includes coverage of the case in his documentary “The Man who saw them arrive – the Colin Cameron story”. 

From the documentary description:

“In January 1968, the quiet life of Melbourne resident Colin Cameron was shattered following a mysterious encounter on Kew Boulevard. Obsessed with uncovering the truth, Colin documented strange phenomena and shared his experiences with those closest to him as the events grew increasingly intense and dangerous.

“Told through the eyes of his cousin Andrea, who honours a promise to share his story, The Man Who Saw Them Arrive recounts Colin’s journey, presents first-hand accounts of Australia’s most famous UFO sightings (including Westall 1966) and provides insights from leading UFO researchers. A haunting exploration of mystery, memory, and unanswered questions hidden in Melbourne’s backstreets.” “Starring Andrea Lee Stavrianos, Colin Cameron, Julie Ann Cameron, Bill Chalker, George Simpson, Dan Huebel, Michael O’Callaghan, Dion Voss.” 

I have watched the finalised version – It pivots around a fascinating but troubling vision of Colin Cameron’s strange encounter that would descend into very weird directions. The film’s first outing will be at the Melbourne Science Fiction Festival on March 5. From my files I supplied Zev with a copy of John Pinkney’s “The Outer Limits” column coverage in the Melbourne Truth 1979: “Saucer ring mystery”.  

I plan to write further on this very strange affair. I am advised the film will also be aired at the August Australian UFO Festival.

The drawing I made based on my on site visit 

with the late Victor Z

On site in 2005 (photo by George Simpson)

I wrote up the 1966 Westall events back in my 1996 book “The OZ Files” as follows:

 

THE WESTALL SCHOOL SENSATION

 

Two days after the Burkes Flat incident, Victoria was the setting of a UFO sensation. This time there were numerous witnesses and the sighting occurred in daylight. Despite the extraordinary nature of the incident only fragmentary details emerged and it has been suggested by some witnesses and researchers that there were attempts to prevent details of the case from being made public. At about 11 a.m. on 6 April 1966 numerous schoolchildren and some teachers at Westall High school, in Clayton, a Melbourne suburb, observed a UFO which landed nearby. An account by one of the students appeared in the school magazine, the Clayton Calendar.

 

‘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 pad- docks 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 Cessnas, flying towards the pines. 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, and we all stood hoping it would return but it didn’t, so we all went into school, 15 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 barbed-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 Dandenong Journal, a local newspaper, attributed the following information to Mr Greenwood, the school’s science teacher: ‘He said five 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 five 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) Greenwood looked away, and when he looked back it had disappeared.’

 

The paper reported that one pilot. Bob Ford, indicated he had been flying ‘somewhere in that area’ at the time, but did not see My thing 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’. Still another witness, Ms A, described to me how she had seen three UFOs that day. According to her, two of them had landed, and she had seen two large circles of flattened and burnt grass. She indicated their width was about 15 metres across. She recollected how the military had arrived at their house the next day. Her mother, and brother went in a truck with her to the landing site. They were told to stay in the truck while the military investigated. They took samples of earth. Ms A recollected overhearing a RAAF officer saying that the earth must have been subjected to extreme heat, as it had been burnt. The military were insistent that the family say nothing about what they had witnessed. While her mother has since died, her brother partially confirmed the story. He had been about three years younger than his sister, and was attending the adjacent primary school. A woman who was serving in the tuck shop at the time of the commotion also saw the UFOs.

A school prefect years later described to Dr Ian Gordon, who was then working in the Victorian Education Department curriculum development section, how he had been in a chemistry class during the incident. He and other students, and teachers, had seen through the windows what seemed to be a silver-blue object of a ‘classic flying saucer shape’, 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, including some of the teachers, took off in a south-west direction. According to the prefect, the thing had come down behind a group of pine trees, and everyone had run off in a mass evacuation of the school, all ‘after a flying saucer’. A large area of flattened grass was found there, perfectly circular in shape, about 10 metres in diameter, with three scorch marks. The grass was very dry, but it

hadn’t started a fire. 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’.

There were allegedly a couple of unmarked planes, aluminium coloured, seemingly silent, flying over the area at the time, very slowly. The prefect indicated that from the time of the thing coming down to when the school group arrived at the landing site had been little more than five minutes. It was gone when the group arrived. The prefect indicated there had been a secondary mark with no scorch marks to the south of the main site, which suggested that a second object may have landed. That object had been seen coming down very shortly after the first. The site was not flattened right down like the main one. It appeared to be just a swirled pattern in the grass in an anti-clockwise direction. Some students said they saw the object take off after it had come down, but most seem to have only seen something come down and later sighted the ground traces. There was apparently talk with some teachers, according to the prefect, that the craft must have been some sort of secret Air Force test weapon.

 

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 p.m. 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 10 metres 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 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.

 

Several other events are 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, trancelike 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. A 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 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 five 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 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 three ‘aircraft 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.’

 

There is little doubt that something of an extraordinary nature was seen over the Westall school area and that at least one of these objects appears to have landed and apparently left behind some physical traces. Numerous witnesses confirm these basic details. Other more exotic details vary in credibility, some seemingly complementing each other and some apparently contradicting the generally accepted story of events.

 

Beyond this 1996 coverage I have covered further development on my OZ Files blog.  Shane Ryan’s Facebook site “Westall Flying Saucer incident”: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1966westallflyingsaucerincident

It is a focus on the case for witnesses, researchers and interested people.

 

There are a lot more things that will attract my attention in 2026 – a year already steeped in UFO UAP matters that present themselves variously in the domains of UFO reality or UFO theatre. Which domain is in the eye of the beholder.

The UFO religion nexus

 

December 2025 (just pre-Christmas) saw the release of the first trailer for director Steven Spielberg’s UFO themed film “Disclosure Day”. It seemed heavily infused with religious and consciousness aspects, echoing in intriguing ways the trajectories of his classic “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977-78), “ET” (1982) and even more so with the “Taken” (2003) series which was tagged with the descriptor “3 families, 4 generations, 50 years of alien encounters”.  “Disclosure Day” seems to be Spielberg re-embracing an emotional return to “aliens” and the pivotal question of what if we were all, directly and simultaneously, faced with confronting evidence that “we are not alone”, even embracing the haunting child perspective of “Taken” alien abduction “screen memories” of “animals” – elks, racoons (? – Kary Mullis’ talking racoon revisited?) and the confronting impression of Emily Brunt’s TV weather girl seemingly “possessed” by “aliens” to perhaps convey widespread “disclosure”. Maybe this is not the intended trajectory, but we have to wait until 12 June 2026 for the film release.  Lines like “if you found out we weren’t alone would that frighten you?” and “Why would he make such a vast universe … yet save it only for us,” the latter delivered by a nun, suggest religious pivots.

 

Back in February 2025, I participated in a discussion about UFOs and religion on the Australian ABC radio program “God Forbid” hosted by James Carleton.

“Close Encounters of the religious kind: how God and UFOs have both begun religious movements”                                                                                                                             

From the shows site:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/godforbid/god-forbid/105871668

(The program is no longer present on the site, but I archived a copy to assist any further discussion, research and for educational purposes - As of February 2026 the program is back up - B.C)
“Looking towards the heavens for meaning doesn’t always mean looking to God. 

UFOs (and the modern moniker UAPs) have long been the food for thought of sceptics, theologians, and astrobiologists alike.  

“But what does belief in these mysterious phenomena have in common with religion? 

And what implications does life outside Earth have for the existence of God?” 

 

GUESTS:

• Bill Chalker, UFO researcher. Contributing editor, International UFO Reporter. Author of Hair of the Alien and The Oz Files: The Australian UFO Story. 
• Reverend Dr Tim Jenkins, Reader in Anthropology and Religion, Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge. Author of Images of Elsewhere 
• Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, Professor, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina Wilmington, specialising in UFO and UAP religions 

                                                        

While I have done a lot of research in this area I have tended to avoid getting deeply involved in religious aspects, particularly because there is so much historical baggage associated with case studies often associated with toxic and tragic events.  Additionally, I have been centrally driven by potential scientific and historical aspects of the UFO/UAP subjects, particularly the search for physical evidence.

 

Obviously Heaven’s gate comes to mind, but even Falun Gong, the Aetherius Society, Scientology, the Raelians and other religious movements have had their problematic episodes, sometimes associated with UFO connections of the wayward kind. I was even “cursed” once by an Aetherius spokesman, decades ago. That didn’t pan out to anything. Also, oddly enough, investigation into the alleged alien abduction from Gundiah Queensland back in October 2001, highlighted Scientology connections, but it appeared to be a hoax. See my book “Hair of the Alien” (2005) for details, rather than just the preliminary report I wrote with Diane Harrison, based on our field investigation.

 

Many worthwhile tomes have appeared in this contested space. Tim Jenkins and Diana Walsh Pasulka have both published interesting works in this area.

 

Tim Jenkins has had published a 6 volume series of extended essays - “Images of Elsewhere” – which he kindly sent to me. I recommend them for their scholarship and perspectives. Across these volumes Tim explores the following:

Volume 1: “Flying Saucers – An Introduction”

“Flying saucers emerged as objects of concern to an intelligence unit operating within the US Air Force in the early Cold War. This book tracks the progressive identification and conceptualization of the UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) through contemporary documents and traces the fate of the “interplanetary hypothesis”. This small-scale history relates to extraordinary developments in the period in both weapons and communications technologies, as powered rocket flight beyond the atmosphere became a possibility and home radar had to be expanded to detect and meet the threat of enemy missiles. In this context, sightings provoked increasing division among investigators as well as growing public interest in flying saucers, and official policy shifted focus from research to management of reactions to these objects. All the features of early UFO sightings have continued into the present with controversies over UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).”

Volume 2: “Religion and Science Fiction”

“Flying saucers display characteristic features, transmitted by an important strand of early science fiction, which express religious concerns entangled with new technologies and scientific discoveries. The extraordinary universe discovered by late nineteenth-century advances in the sciences, with its expansion in both space and time, was populated in spiritualist and other thought by intelligent beings attentive to and bound up with the progress of humankind. This book traces the appearance of these interplanetary guardians, active at every level from the atom to the Cosmos, and uses a pulp science fiction story from 1945 to describe how this theosophical worldview was expanded to explain important aspects of contemporary American wartime society, in this fashion preparing the landscape for the coming of the flying saucers.”

Volume 3: “Martian Linguistics”

“Ideas of «communication» and «information» are key to the project of seeking life on other planets. US Air Force encounters with flying saucers after 1945 and the search for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), pursued since 1960, both point to the necessity of composing and understanding interplanetary languages to allow meaningful exchange if contact were ever established. These themes are also explored in science fiction stories across the period to the present, responding to the changing understanding of the possibility of communication. This book traces the major questions that structure the search, together with the episodes raising (and dashing) hope of contact, the languages proposed as means of exchange, and some of the novels that explore this history. Taken together, these elements pose the question: can we ever cross the boundary between our and other minds?”

Volume 4: “UFO Reports”

“UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) were originally the subject of military intelligence interest but quickly became transferred to the civilian sphere in the late 1940s. All the later possibilities discovered by investigations were hinted at in the military materials but expanded in new contexts. This book traces the earliest discussions of UFO reports from the civilian perspective through two case studies. The first concerns the detailed claim by a journalist that flying saucers are real, met by denial at each point by an expert with scientific credentials; the second gives the history of the first “contactee”, showing the development of the idea of the flying saucer in various regards, reporting close sightings and even repeated meetings with interplanetary visitors. Taken together, this trio of possibilities – claiming the literal truth, or identifying error, or imagining new forms of life – created the frame for later engagements with the problem.”

Volume 5: “Alien Sightings”

“For the last seventy years, members of the public have reported seeing piloted craft, thought to come from other planets, in the sky or on land. Their reasons for making such reports often remain obscure and hard to separate from the accounts of investigators of various kinds drawn to these events. More, these witnesses’ reports have varied over that time, moving from distant sightings at the beginning to include Close Encounters and then abductions, and the focus of the report likewise altered, from description of physical objects to a concern with psychological reactions and, later, with the recovery of hidden memories. This book reviews a series of well-known reports by contemporary journalists of these sightings, showing the order and patterns that underlie both the events themselves and their reception.”

Volume 6: “Images of Elsewhere”

“In the modern period, with understandings shaped by new technologies, we are bound to find something like flying saucers, with a range of properties that are both real and imaginary, which can act as relays between human groups, places and times, providing new resources and allowing innovation to happen. This book reviews the different scientific models that have been employed in making sense of sightings, showing the broader schemes in which they have been put to work, and indicating the different possibilities these schemes contain, running from realistic claims about sightings of objects to claims of encounters with interplanetary creatures which are both psychologically and technically far in advance of our times. It offers a comprehensive account of the features, puzzles, anomalies and paradoxes of flying saucer reports.”

 

Diana Walsh Pasulka (D.W. Pasulka as she is identified in her books) had published “American Cosmic – UFOs, Religion, Technology” (2019), “Encounters – Experiences with nonhuman intelligences – Explorations with UFOs, dreams, angels, AI, and other dimensions” (2023), and scheduled for late July 2026 her follow up book “The Others – UFOs, AI, and the secret forces guiding human Destiny,” for which we have the following description on Amazon:

 

“In the early 20th century, a censured Catholic visionary predicted that humanity would soon encounter a new form of intelligence―one that would appear alien, but was something far stranger. By the mid-20th century, other Catholic mystics and science fiction visionaries like Arthur C. Clarke echoed similar prophecies, naming the 21st century as the critical threshold.

“In The Others, acclaimed author and religious studies scholar D.W. Pasulka uncovers a hidden history of alleged contact between human and non-human intelligences―some framed as angels, others as UFOs/UAP―interwoven with the rise of artificial intelligence and the dream of immortality. Pasulka examines the science of life extension laboratories to the beliefs of UAP experiencers. She unveils a hidden architecture of belief and influence―one in which human consciousness is being reimagined and extended.

“Drawing on first-person interviews, suppressed histories, and access to insiders in science and tech, The Others explores a startling new terrain: where the sacred meets the synthetic, and where the next phase of human evolution may already be underway.”

 

The censured Catholic visionary Pasulka refers to is Teilhard De Chardin and his idea of a “cosmic vision of evolution”, suggests consciousness is the “axis of creation, along with “the Omega Point”, the “Noosphere, leading to the “ultra-human.”

 

In my contribution to the “God Forbid” discussion I was trying to take the host, James Carleton, beyond his focus on everything being merely anecdotal, and there was no compelling evidence for UFOs or UAP.

 

I brought to the discussion the example of Harry Turner, an Australian Defence scientist, who prepared a classified report to DAFI – Directorate of Air Force Intelligence – that concluded that some of their reports may involve “extraterrestrial” sources.  He also was the chief Health Physics officer at the British atomic bomb tests at Maralinga in South Australia, where he looked into UFO reports on the range, and in one case in 1954, radar confirmed a UFO shadowing a Canberra bomber, with the object leaving at some 5,000 kilometres per hour - that was something way beyond the anecdotal. I mentioned the UFO encounter on the Woomera Range just prior to a Black Knight launch, witnessed by range officers and scientists. See my article “Tommy Leader”: Tom Dalton-Morgan and the 3% UFO solution” in UFO Truth and on my blog:

http://theozfiles.blogspot.com/2024/06/tommy-leader-tom-dalton-morgan-and-3.html

 

I drew into the discussion, by way of events that go beyond the mere anecdotal, the experiences of 2 Anglican priests - Reverend William Gill in 1959 in then Australian territory, Papua-New Guinea, and Reverend Lionel Browning at Cressy Tasmania in 1960.  I knew Bill Gill and spoke with him on a number of occasions.  I stood at the Cressy rectory window where Reverend Browning had his sighting. In DAFI UFO files there was a report from a USAF pilot having a sighting at Cressy around the same time. Two men of religion who were not alone in their sightings.  While higher ups dismissed Browning’s sighting in an atmospheric vein, their investigator Commander Waller, was so impressed with the sighting, that he developed a UFO patent based on it.

 

In the early days of Australian ufology, an article on flying saucers and the activities of Edgar Jarrold’s pioneer UFO group the Australian Flying Saucer Bureau, had brought together our two Australian UFO pioneers – Edgar Jarrold and Andrew Tomas.  Jarrold was certain he was in on the biggest mystery of all time – the flying saucer mystery - and that he was fast tracking through its convoluted pathways to the ultimate answer.  Andrew Tomas, an accountant in his ordinary life, also felt he had the answers, or at least a deep insight into them.  His were rooted in the mysteries of the Orient and the cosmic super races that had the future of mankind in their hands.  Mankind was lost and it needed to be guided back into a golden space age mediated by cosmic law. 

 

Tomas decided to seek out Jarrold, with a view to joining the group, and better grounding himself in the world of flyting saucers then holding sway in the Western mind – the Occidental world. On Sunday January 10, 1954, the two met and discussed for hours the question of life on other planets. Tomas showed Jarrold a book he had written under his Russian name A. Boncza-Tomaszewski and published in Shanghai China way back in 1935, entitled “The Planetary Doctrine.”  He drew Jarrold’s attention to an intriguing passage about “strange shiny objects” in the sky, which facilitated “communication … from planet to planet.”  Clearly Tomas had been thinking about the question of beings from other worlds and their dominion over us long before the modern flying saucer/UFO era began with American pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sighting in 1947, and certainly before Edgar Jarrold started his interest.

 

The passage from Tomas’ 1935 book revealed the following prescient statement:

“Travellers and explorers often noticed in the heights of the Himalayas strange shiny objects or creatures soaring high above the mountain crests, which are an eternal puzzle to Europeans.  Whether these mysterious objects are vehicles belonging to supermen we dare not assert, although such an explanation is quite plausible.  Cannot the reader believe that by such means utilising unknown energies, communication is maintained from planet to planet?”

 

Andrew Tomas had come to Australia in 1948 by a path that had taken him via sojourns in Harbin and Shanghai in China. Originally from Russia, he came down under, as part of the stream of people fleeing the turmoil in China, a place he had spent considerable time in particularly exploring the mysteries of the orient.  In 1935 he met his spiritual mentor, a fellow Russian, the mystic artist and explorer Nicholas Roerich, in Shanghai. 

 

Roerich was no ordinary explorer.  Eight years earlier he was leading an expedition on a mission to find the legendary Shambhala and to bring about a re-envisioned solution to the Great Game – “the coming Shambhala war.” In Shanghai in 1935 Roerich was lecturing and it was his fascinating description of a strange experience in August 1927 in northeast Tibet that captured Tomas’ attention and anticipated an enduring obsession to come.  Andrew Tomas would return to this theme and the 1927 incident in some of the best selling books he would later write, particularly “Shambhala: Oasis of Light 

 

Roerich’s travel diary “Altai-Himalaya”, the chronicle of his 1924-1929 Asian expedition, describes what happened:

“On August 5^th – something remarkable! We were in our camp in the Kukunor district not far from the Humboldt Chain.  In the morning about half-past nine some of our caravaneers noticed a remarkably big black eagle flying above us.  Seven of us began to watch this unusual bird.  At this same moment another of our caravaneers remarked, “There is something far above the bird.” And he shouted in his astonishment.  We all saw, in a direction from north to south, something big and shiny reflecting the sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed.  Crossing our camp this thing changed in its direction from south to southwest.  And we saw how it disappeared in the intense blue sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite distinctly an oval form with a shiny surface, one side of which was brilliant from the sun.”

 

Roerich had no immediate explanation for what he and his fellow travellers had seen, but given his mystic sensibilities he would have ultimately seen it as a sign of Shambhala. His wife Helena who was also there wrote in her diary it must have been a craft with people from somewhere else and even suggested the existence of life on other planets.  Swedish Explorer Sven Hedin's expedition was in Inner Mongolia at the same time and was regularly launching weather balloons, but the distance between his party and Roerich’s expedition in Kukunor district in north east Tibet as well as the rapid movement of the object seems to preclude this remote possibility.

 

When Andrew Tomas met Roerich in Shanghai in 1935 he suggested the aerial object was an “aircraft or spacecraft from Shambhala”.  Shambhala was the hidden civilisation than Roerich, Tomas and many others spent much of their lives seeking – a place simplistically captured in the classic book “Lost Horizon” (1933) and the 1937 movie of the same name, which immortalised the myth of the hidden paradise of Shangri-La.

 

It was a very strange wrinkle in the great sweeping canvas of the Great Game – the race for empire in Asia.

 

In Sydney Australia in 1954 Jarrold appointed Andrew Tomas to the position of AFSB’s “official Sydney observer”, whose duty was to supply “all information offered in New South Wales about flying saucers”.  In a 1955 interview for People magazine, he described his role as addressing the “philosophical and theoretical side of saucers.”  In the same interviewed Tomas described his own sighting.

 

“My first sighting was at National Park, (Sydney) on 24^th March (1954).  I had no witnesses and didn’t have my camera with me … The object I saw was not less than 3000 ft and no more than 12,000 ft up.  The object was hovering about in the sky so I put up my hand and waved, and for a moment it was stationary – observing me I am quite certain – then a plane appeared and the object zoomed off, leaving a white vapour trail.”

 

Andrew Tomas had made a request under the "Aliens Act 1947" for a name change from his Russian one in 1951 which was originally denied, but by 1954 he was using the name Andrew Tomas. It is ironic or something else to have this "Application by an alien for written consent to change surname", when one considers the following comment by Andrew at the end of an article he wrote for the last issue of Jarrold's Australian Flying Saucer Magazine, "Are you ready for a planetary Crash?", pg. 7 February 1955: "In the circles of the duly initiated Brethren of Space, fantastic stories are told of saucers, messages from space and cosmic decrees.  Perhaps I could tell you a science fiction story from my life how a saucer zoomed over the National Park in Sydney to say "Hello" to an incarnated spaceman.  But who would believe it? In these days of suspicion and witchhunts it is better to keep one's mouth shut.  Frankly, I am not too enthusiastic about a psychiatric test either.  Anyway, my cosmic friends tell me not to worry about what other people say, but just place this information before the public.  "It won't be long now," they say.  Jokes aside, let us think more of the stars.  Let us all become the children of Heaven.  Let us dream of an Utopia where there is no hatred and no wars.  But before we see that Utopia a red sign will flash in the skies, "Tighten your belts." As Ripley says, "believe it or not," but we are heading for a planetary crash."   Now was Andrew Tomas being tongue-in-cheek here, or trying to say something else.  He did have a UFO sighting at the National Park on March 24 1954.  An uninformed outsider might have read "a red sign" reference in an entirely different light.  Here I’m suggesting a paranoid member or informant of the intelligence community searching for evidence for “communist” infiltration.  But Tomas’ red thread was never that prosaic.

 

Tomas believed “that a War of Two Worlds is going on and that terrestrial and cosmic forces are arrayed for battle.”  “Saucers have been known in the East for thousands of years.   Their present appearance in mass has been foretold long, long ago.  They are only an effect, not the cause, and the cause is the great struggle between the Forces of Good, of Culture, of Enlightenment - and of Evil, of Hate, and Darkness”, wrote Tomas in a letter to Barker in 1956.   Tomas took such matters seriously enough that he made plans to respond to them.  In a letter to Frederick Phillips, a UFOIC co-worker, in 1957 Tomas revealed that he was planning to start up a business in the Queensland countryside with the President of the Queensland UFO group, Charles Middleborough.

 

“Besides in the bush there will be more scope for the realisation of Project Contact Space.  (Middleborough) had a UFO hovering right over his house already.  I wish you would materialise that plan about space contact you talked to me about.  This should have priority because (excuse me for talking like our mutual friend G.D.) I am absolutely certain of the approach of the cataclysm.  Confidentially, the friend in Queensland and myself have been working on a ‘saviour community’ for the last 2 years.  Not to save ourselves but some fruits of our culture.   There are at least 3 or 4 in America and a number in India and other countries.  Another one coming up in Sth. America.  All prefer to keep quiet about it.  Some have stocked up food for a year or more”, he wrote to Phillips.

 

By March, 1958, Andrew Tomas, as secretary and organiser of the International Organising Committee of the Planetary Pact, circulated a draft of the Pact to "top news agencies of the world." a draft for a PLANETARY PACT - “an international treaty for a planetary pool of natural resources, means of production, manpower and scientific genius.”  He was advocating “a planetary government for the Space Age”.  One of its ultimate aims was “to step up space projects once there is a Planetary Government to control the resources pooled by all the countries, and then to attempt contacts with other planets being prepared to find life on some of them.  From a narrow minded nationalist man will first become a planetary citizen and then a citizen of the Universe.” Tomas was optimistic that the pact would “concluded at the dawn of the space age so that people on this planet should live in peace and plenty building bridges to the stars.”  Tomas’ plans feel on deaf ears.  In the wake of the popularity of von Daniken’s book “Chariots of the Gods?” Tomas was able to get his own book out.  “We are not the first - Riddles of ancient science” was published in 1971.  It was dedicated the Count of Saint-Germain!  He followed it in quick succession with “Atlantis: From legend to discovery”, “Beyond the Time barrier”, “On the shores of Endless worlds” and his true passion, “Shambhala: Oasis of light” (1977), which included a revisiting of his old planetary peace pact ideas.  His lifetime of work in esoteric traditions had come full circle.  The UFO occult connections had taken him a long way.  

 

Jarrold’s journey was not quite so liberating.  Jarrold failed to see the shallowness and facile nature of much of the UFO occult claims.  Unlike Tomas, Jarrold could not readily see beyond it to avoid its inevitable pitfalls.  Harold Fulton's reaction to Gordon Deller was an entirely rational one.  Fulton was a New Zealand Air Force officer and his military pragmatic background rejected Deller's UFO vision steeped in spiritualism, "Oahspe - the Kosmon Bible", and sightings of mile long Etherian spaceships.   Deller even went into a trance transmitting purported messages from the Etherians to Fulton.  Deller indicated that Fulton and others (including Jarrold) had been specially chosen by the "Etherians" to prepare the ground for them.  Deller indicated he had see their ships but had only contacted the crew in trance.   Fulton could not accept these ideas at all.  He was only interested in factual sightings and not in any fantastic aspect of "explanations".   In short he thought Deller was a nut.   Occult diehards with UFO persuasions may cling to the claim that Fulton experienced an illness of 3 days duration following Deller's visit.  Coincidence is more likely as Fulton went on to provide a balanced and enduring legacy for New Zealand ufology through the 1950s.  Although old age slowed him down he was even representing MUFON during the 1970s.

 

 Whatever the original effects of Deller's theories, Edgar Jarrold was by the middle of 1954 experiencing the high point of his ufological career. He was moving into the centre of the Australian government’s uneasy embrace with the saucer problem. Jarrold had received an official invitation from the then Minister for Air, William McMahon (a future prime minister), for a meeting with Air Force Intelligence in Melbourne, on the subject of flying saucers.  The impetus for this was the coincidence of UFO sightings that seemed to confirm Jarrold's predictions of an increase in reports in June - July, 1954, during the closest approach of Mars to Earth.  Jarrold was not alone in support for this theory.  Even Harry Turner promoted it in the anonymous article he authored for the Melbourne Argus newspaper on June 26th, 1954.

Jarrold would disappear from the Australian UFO scene, becoming fodder for Gray Barker’s over-the-top “They Knew too much about flying saucers” stories.

 

We can see from this wandering down early pathways of Australian ufology there were a lot of religious impulses of differing creeds. Given such impulses are still evident in the richness of todays UAP offerings, we can probably predict with some confidence that fictional offerings like the forthcoming “Disclosure Day” (subject to any name changes, as initial news referred to "Disclosure" & "Disclosure Party") will probably get a huge outing of popular responses. However, our UFO UAP community and the broader world communities seem to be unpredictable. So let’s see what 2026 brings to our UFO sensibilities writ large on the ever changing world stage.

 

"The Haunted Abductee" in context

In September 2025 the Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research (AIPR) published a special issue of its Australian Journal of Parapsychology – Volume 25, Supplement – which featured 2 main parts – “Haunt and Poltergeist Clearing in Australian Residences: A Retrospective Survey” by Lance Storm and Robb Tilley (originally published in the journal in 2020) and “Revisiting Haunt and Poltergeist Clearing in Australian Residences: Analyses of 30 Case Reports” (2025) by Robb Tilley.

Why should this be of interest to UFO/UAP witnesses, researchers and enthusiasts? Well, within what became known as “the clearing project” a very striking case emerged.  It was a powerful example of a complex dynamic where both UFO and paranormal aspects seemed heavily intertwined, featuring what seemed extraordinary physical evidence.

 

In a foreword, Dr Callum Cooper, of the University of Northampton, UK, wrote, “My compliments to Dr Lance Storm and Mr. Robb Tilley for their bravery in compiling this unique take on hauntings, poltergeists, and ‘clearing’ work…. Mr. Tilley proclaims his approach to be unique, or indeed the first when it comes to such documentation, and the quantitative documentation of such by Dr Lance Storm. Indeed, this may be true …. Presenting these ideas in a rigorous academic framework – especially those which may even seem ‘fringe’ for the most open-minded of parapsychologists – leads to healthy discussion and new learning.”

 

“Bravery”? The “clearing” efforts of Robb Tilley and his view of how and why it seems so successful, runs directly against the “mainstream” view of parapsychology of such things. Robb Tilley states that “the clearing of unwanted entities is done by spirits (non-physical beings”.  People like Robb Tilley, according to his position, are simply “intermediaries”, facilitators helping to bring about “communion” of “the spirits”.  This is very much a shamanic perspective.  To put it simply, “good spooks” versus “bad spooks. Robb Tilley points out the current prevailing parapsychological view: “the poltergeist is not a ghost or demon at all, but is caused by an unknown energy emanating from the subconscious mind of a person, usually female, who is deeply disturbed, frustrated, sexually repressed and often pubescent.”  He contends this position is based on weak evidence, and it seems there is a growing drift away from the “conventional” model.

 

Over 30 years Robb Tilley has been involved with more that 500 cases.  The case studies revealed are only of those who participated in the quantitative documentation and testing – a much smaller number of cases (30). Still, 30 is pretty good given the inherent difficulties of this sort of effort.

 

I got to know Robb Tilley, pretty much from the early parts of his “clearing efforts.”  He became my psychic muse, and me, I became his UFO and alien abduction muse.  Particularly since the 1970s I have seen that many, if not most, UFO close encounters seem to have a paranormal or psychic aspect. 

Robb participated in a number of my UFO investigations, but I only really was involved in 2 of his “clearing” cases. 

 

One was a “basic clearing” case, which didn’t make it into the 30 cases reporting. The people involved didn’t respond to the requests to participant in the formal questionnaires and study.  However, because I was curious I came along to see how “clearings” worked. Although possible subjective, I certainly notice that going in was certainly darker and disturbing than the end result – very positive and “clear” it seemed to me.  Despite that, it was still somewhat subjective for me.  As Robb was wrapping up, I sat with one of the daughters in a separate room of the house.

 

It was the Christmas season, and there was a large inflatable Santa in the room. So, just me, the daughter and nearby a large inflated “Santa”.  I was thinking, that while things were seemingly positively “cleared” it was still subjective, for me at least.  The daughter wasn’t really interacting with me.  Perhaps we were both deep in independent thought. Then, it the corner of my eye, I saw “Santa” arm rise up and down. I thought WTF, and as I was closest to it I jumped up and when straight over to it.  I lifted the arm up and it seemed too heavy to do what I saw, without assistance or some other lifting aid. Nothing was of that nature, plus no drafts, no strings, no assisted jumping or moving.  I was somewhat stunned, despite the absurdity of it all. Robb told me later, after I brought it up, that was “the good spirits” just giving me a “wink”, to nudge me along the spectrum of my scepticism, to a point where I was more open to his take on things. These days I’m more open to the possibilities. I am impressed with Robb’s “clearing” abilities, but I cannot shake the absurdist impact of when “Santa waved to me”, as Robb was in another part of the house bringing his “clearing” efforts to an end.

 

The other case I was involved in was much more compelling – the “haunted abductee” - and this was described in detail in Robb’s case study report.

 

The case of “the Haunted Abductee”

 

The Liverpool Sydney area case at first seemed a typical haunted house situation. For Robb things didn’t add up until the mother of the family finally disclosed, “I haven’t told you about the alien abductions.” That’s when Robb called me in. What followed was the revelation of one of the strangest and potentially most evidential cases we have worked on, revealing an extraordinary level of apparently parapsychological, paranormal and alien dimensions.

 

Robb and I investigated this case of a haunted house, but the “abduction” aspects revealed a possible “alien implant”, a possible “missing foetus”, seemingly powerful personal transformation and the psychic “multiverse”.

 

For Robb Tilley it was one of the longest, most complex and compelling haunting histories he had been made aware of. A lot of the “haunting” aspects were related to the woman’s adult daughter from her first marriage. The woman’s first husband is deceased, shot by a hitchhiker.

The “haunted house” aspects appear to be brought to an end through Robb Tilley’s “house clearing” protocols, but hidden within this complex life long, multi-generational, multi-witnessed situation was a very powerful history of complex and confronting UFO experiences.

 

All sorts of strange and bizarre events had occurred, but most disturbing for the woman was the possibility that she and her daughter and perhaps other members of her family may have experienced alien abduction experiences. The woman did not want publicity that would identify her, but she also wanted these experiences to end, but also she wanted to assist serious researchers in understanding what is going on.

 

Barium Swallow Ultrascans had been taken in support of the assessment of the causal factors of a troubling throat condition, which was affecting the woman’s ability to comfortably breath and swallow. The onset of the condition coincided with a possible abduction episode.

 

The woman went to a medical specialist who shocked her when he asked her had she had some strange experiences that might have been associated with the item in her throat. She didn’t dare mention the possibility of alien abductions, but he shocked her when he said he had seen this sort of thing in people who have alien abduction experiences! He felt it should be examined more closely in a follow-up scan and gave her a C/T imaging referral – one of the most unusual I’ve come across: “Examination required: CT sinuses + neck. Clinical Notes: ?F/B neck. No H/O surgery. Nice lady but history of “alien abduction.” See Barium Swallow.”

 

She had an ultrasound scan after confirming a well developed unexpected pregnancy, apparently around 3 month’s term. The paradox is she was ending her marriage and both her former husband and her new partner had vasectomies. The scans confirm the presence of a foetus. At about 6 months into the pregnancy the woman had a possible abduction episode wherein she may have lost the foetus. She was on her back on the bed, her partner beside her, who would not response to her attempts to wake him. She felt there was something in the room and there was a peculiar swirling effect. Something was going on at the foot of the bed and her legs were being drawn apart. She recollects little else. The next morning it seemed like her water broke, there was some bleeding with only thin stringy umbilical cord like material being expelled. After a hospital check-up it was confirmed she was no longer pregnant, and that there had been a foot-long blood clot mass, which she attributes to being forced to lie down immobile for a long time in the hospital.

 

This case has been one of the strangest and potentially most evidential cases we have worked on together, revealing an extraordinary level of apparently parapsychological, paranormal and alien dimensions – a most unusual AIPR/UFOIC collaboration.

 

Our investigation had to be put on a long term hold, because of changes of circumstances and other issues with the witnesses.  We had to let the family deal with their situation without the added burden of a continuing complex and demanding research and investigation effort.  More recently the mother has had further contact with Robb Tilley.  We hope to be able to revisit the case.

 

The AIPR “clearing study” with its fuller context revealed in detail with the September 2025

publication of the Australian Journal of Parapsychology, allows us to re-examine the case in a fuller context.  We hope that will also involve opportunities to revisit this fascinating case.

 

Robb Tilley and I pretty much agree that with many UFO/UAP close encounters there is a distinct “psychic fallout”.  If the witnesses were already “psychic”, they were more likely to experience a wider range of psychic experiences after the encounters.

 

With the 21^st century, the new UFO/UAP researchers seemed to have “rediscovered” the apparent paranormal psychic aspects of the encounter experience. Examining what research and experiencers found in the second half of the 20^th century would certainly help with bringing certainty and confirmations to these latter day UFO/UAP research/experience “discoveries.” Maybe they will realise and confirm that others have beaten this path long before themselves. That would be something to see in the current world of UFO/UAP posturing. There is much for them to discover.

 

By way of personal background, from 1971 to 1974 I completed a degree in Science majoring in Chemistry and Mathematics. During that time, I was chairman of “the ghost and poltergeist subcommittee” of the University of New England (UNE) Psychic Phenomena Society 1972-1973, which allowed me to investigate and research a broad range of events that seemed to fall into the broad categories of UFO and paranormal phenomena. After relocating to Sydney in 1975, to begin working as an industrial chemist, I began working with the Sydney based UFO Investigation Centre (UFOIC).  I began writing about UFOs and possible paranormal connections for the Australian magazine "Psychic Australian." My first article was a 2-part article - “UFOs – the psychic connection” (published in December 1976 and January 1977).

 

Throughout my decades long UFO investigation and research career, from the 1970s through to now, many close encounter cases I examined, often featured what seemed paranormal, psychic or parapsychological linkages. Such features often seemed to be more apparent in intense highly localised UFO flap areas. It was during the 1970s that I had an intense “baptism of fire” with UFO flaps (or “UFO hot zones” – which included direct personal observations and experiences) at a number of specific locations, such as the Australian localities Tyringham-Dundurrabin, Mount Butler and Kempsey.  What seemed like “psychic storms” also featured in some “alien abduction” situations. 

 

I have noted that Robb Tilley’s perspective on “haunted house clearings” echoes a shamanic approach.  Again, by way of background, I have also explored possible shamanic perspectives in UFO and “alien abduction” experiences since the 1970s. More recently I expanded on these perspectives in a 2-part article, “Exploring the Shamanism-Alien Abduction Connection” covering decades of research: 

https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/ufos-unexplained-phenomena/exploring-the-shamanism-alien-abduction-connection-part-1

https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/ufos-unexplained-phenomena/exploring-the-shamanism-alien-abduction-connection-part-2

I have found it to be a remarkable ongoing journey that compliments and expands my primary focus of scientific and historical research into the UFO/UAP subject.