UFO UAP encounters of the library kind

Libraries of all kinds hold a special fascination for me. Ah, yes, books … I’ll avoid a history of general literary delights, and here focus on some personal encounters of the library and book kind with UFOs and their current linguistic iteration – the UAP. While I am always motivated to do field investigations and direct enquiries into UFO UAP phenomena, I have encountered a lot of striking encounters of the library book kind.

 

It seems libraries and books have haunted my life, and continue to do so in fascinating, striking and delightful ways. 

 

For me personally one of my most amazing library discoveries was when I was apparently the first person to have examined in detail the “F.W. Birmingham Papers” in the University of Sydney Rare Books and Special Collections of Fisher Library on 2 August 2024, which had writing drawings and newspaper clippings gathered by 19^thcentury local surveyor, engineer and Parramatta council officer, Frederick William Birmingham, elaborating on the strange and remarkable experiences, I had first been alerted to way back in 1975. Birmingham had described seeing a mysterious flying “ark” landing in Parramatta Park, going inside the “machine to go through the air” with the apparent “ark” pilot – a “spirit” – being “like a neutral tint shade and the shape of a man in his usual frock dress”.  Further events followed, including an event seemingly described as actual day time witnessed observation of strange clouds with a strange aerial object in March, 1873. Other strange events like poltergeist and prophetic type incidents, were described, leading Birmingham to an obsession to learn the secret of “the aerial machine.”  It was an extraordinary moment for me to hold and examine Birmingham’s drawing of “the Rover”, his plan for a “flying machine” inspired by his “UFO vision” of 1868.  See my detailed account at 

https://theozfiles.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-birmingham-ufo-vision-manuscript.html

and UFO Truth e-magazine Issue 68 July/August 2024

 

Yet another wild UFO library momentum – “On the steps of a “magnificent obsession” – UFOs, UAP and the Mitchell Library” – “Here on the steps of a wonderful "magnificent obsession" is this group of people, many of whom have their own "magnificent obsession" with the UFO (UAP) subject.  The steps are the north western steps of the Mitchell Library in Sydney, located just to the right of the red arrow ("Mitchell Building entrance") on the State Library of NSW map. The date: Saturday 28 October 2023. In 2007 Brian Fletcher provide an excellent account of the story of the Mitchell Library, which was entitled "Magnificent Obsession."

“The group assembled on the Mitchell steps, had been there with a full house for the booked out Close Encounters Australia sponsored lecture event with Ross Coulthart, author of "In Plain Sight - An Investigation into UFOs and impossible science", now in a revised and updated edition (2 new chapters - "Lock your doors!" and "The Biggest Story Ever ...").

See my detailed account at

http://theozfiles.blogspot.com/2023/11/on-steps-of-magnificent-obsession-ufos.html

 

“This most recent excellent UFO event at the Mitchell reminded me of past visits to the Mitchell and NSW State Library. Back in 1996 1954 Sea Fury pilot/UFO witness joined me and supported my book launch of "The OZ Files" on "a dark and stormy night" at the Metcalf Auditorium at the Mitchell/State Library - one of the worse storms to hit Sydney for a while - a wild launch indeed. While spending long hours in the Mitchell reading old newspapers and micro film searching for historical UFO/UAP reports, I met a fellow Fortean researcher Paul Cropper and we became friends from that point on.  I did a lot of research into the 1868 Parramatta "UFO vision" of Frederick William Birmingham after confirming at the Mitchell he was a real resident of historical Parramatta and they had some of his survey maps. There were many other UFO related threads and plus the hard copy availability of material on my first Australian ancestor William Chalker led me to the Mitchell/State Library. 

“Many magnificent obsessions have been nourished at the Mitchell/State Library.” 

 

The Society for UAP Studies, for which I am an advisor, has begun community reading circles, focusing on “a careful reading of current UAP Studies works in conjunction with more traditional academic and scientific work that can put the texts in UAP Studies in proper context. As the science and scholarship on the subject of UAP and related phenomena increases in appeal and acceptance, it is important to keep grounded in works that help foster a wider critical - and historical - perspective.” While time zone differences are often a difficulty for me, I recommend this ongoing book calibration activity. 

See: https://www.societyforuapstudies.org/community-reading-circle

 

I was pleased to see Bryce Zabel and Chrissy Newton started “a morning-show-style book club made for readers who want to explore the unknown with a hot drink in hand and curiosity on full blast” on 28 May 2025 with the 2021 book “The Believer – Alien Encounters, Hard Science and the Passion of John Mack” by Ralph Blumenthal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ORwjCiaL-Y

 

Back in 2021 I wrote about “The Believer” from personal, general and fascinated perspectives in a brief piece on my blog “The OZ Files” and in more detail in UFO Truth (48: March/April 2021 entitled “The Believer: a tale of 2 books & me”, stating: 

“Its unusual when 2 books come out about the same time, each with the same title, particularly when, in part, they share similar themes. In this case, we have: 

"The Believer - Encounters with love, death & faith" by Sarah Krasnostein (Scribe, Melbourne, Australia, 2021)

"The Believer - Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the passion of John Mack" by Ralph Blumenthal (High Road Books, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, USA, 2021)

 

I wrote, “What are the chances?” visiting American UFO
and Roswell researcher Don Schmitt was saying
to my friend George Simpson, a Melbourne based UFO researcher. George was on the way to Westall, in Melbourne with author Sarah Krasnostein along for the ride, the conversation and content for a book she was researching. George gives his passengers (Don and Sarah) the Westall ’66 UFO tour and story, describing the April 1966 Westall school UFO event. What drew Don Schmitt’s response, was what George was also telling him what Sarah Krasnostein would describe in her 2021 book "The Believer - Encounters with love, death & faith" as “one of the best stories I have ever heard.” See pages 225–229 of her book
“The Believer.” It’s a very strange story involving
a possible bizarre scenario that may have played out in the October 1978 disappearance of Frederick Valentich, while he was flying over Bass Strait. A South Australian farmer visiting Coonabarabran in NSW, who apparently had brought a property in the area, told a hardware store owner, that at his SA property back in October 1978 he had witnessed a UFO which had an apparently intact Cessna light aircraft Cessna attached to its side. 

 

“The story had the farmer scratching down the
call sign of the plane on his tractor. It allegedly matched the call sign of the Cessna Valentich was flying. Sarah Krasnostein quotes me in her book
as calling the account “extraordinarily bizarre
and unbelievable.” Frustratingly, the SA farmer’s account lacked a name, so no confirmation was possible. Unstated in “The Believers”, my research, assisted by George Simpson, found yet another farmer, who had an even more elaborate account, but one that was suppose to have happened on
his property in southern New South Wales. Similar elements were featured, making us wonder if he had somehow heard the original tale and made it his own. Yet another, ultimately frustrating story. 

 

“I described the story under the title “Strange days, strange tales – a Valentich connection?” in my UFO Truth column in the 3rd issue (September/October, 2013) and on my OZ Files site: https:// theozfiles.blogspot.com/search?q=Coonabarabran

 

Sarah Kranostein’s book had a much broader canvas than just UFOs and UAP. I wrote in 2021, “There is a broad brush of human experience - dying a good death, ghost investigations, creationists, a woman who murdered her abusive husband, a religious "cult" choir and UFOs. With the UFO aspect, Westall, the Valentich disappearance, Roswell and UFO believers are included.” 

 

Of Ralph Blumenthal’s “The Believer”, I wrote back in 2021, “In what could be seen as another “What are the chances?” moment”, another book with the same title by Ralph (co-author of the December 2017 New York Times UAP/UFO breakout story) came out in the United States
in a similar time frame: "The Believer - Alien encounters, hard science, and the passion of John Mack". I also have a small cameo in that book. Peter Khoury (the main subject of my 2005 book “Hair of the Alien”) and I got to know John personally and professionally during his visits to Australia. My My tribute to John Mack written in September 2004 - “John Mack’s Transpersonal Journey Continues” got into the question of seeking physical evidence:

“Like all of us I found the news of John Mack’s untimely passing very saddening.

While some of us might not have agreed with some of the directions John was taking the subject in, I think the field has been enriched by his involvement. When he was in Australia I supported his research into indigenous aboriginal abduction & UFO experiences — an area we both had a strong interest in, particularly its shamanic dimensions. On the hurdles he often encountered, particularly from mainstream academia, he once told me what he felt. Maybe his response was coloured by spending too much time in Australia, but clearly he enjoyed his time down down under. His response: “Fuck ‘em”. I smiled and wished him well. He was always a courageous and wonderful researcher. Full speed John on the rest of your transpersonal journey.”

 

My interest in UFOs developed as a young teenager growing up in the mid sixties with a strong interest in science and unexplained phenomena.  January 1966, saw my hometown, Grafton, in northern New South Wales, become the focus of widely reported UFO activity.  Many people, including local police, reported sightings. 

 

The afternoon Sydney “Sun” newspaper of June 5, 1966 carried the story:

“FOLLOW THAT SAUCER! 2 police in Grafton chase …”

“Two police constables “chased” a flying saucer around Grafton last night.  The object, which they said changed its colour from white to red, led the two men in a police vehicle all over the district for about two hours.  It then disappeared southwest of the city.

“Constables E. Mercer and P. Woodman were sitting in Grafton police Station at 8 p.m. when a man called, saying there was a “funny looking” thing in the sky.  The two policemen went outside and saw the bright object hoveringover Grafton.  They trained binoculars on the object, which had begun moving to the south of the city at slow speed.  By this stage, the police switchboard was jammed with calls from people who said they had seen the object.  The constables got into a police car and began following it across the city.  As it moved about 1500 ft above the ground its colour changed from white to red and then back to white.

“The policemen described the object as “just a large light without any apparent centre.”  They called their station and reported that they would keep on the mystery objects trail in case it landed.  After two hours, the object moved off at high speed and disappeared.  Constable K. Crossingham said today a similar object had been seen off Harwood Island, about 30 miles north-east of Grafton, last week.”

 

I can recollect that there was a great deal of excitement and interest locally.  Alas I was not among the witnesses, but the events did encourage more interest.  Long duration night time sightings often turned out to have some sort of astronomical explanation but in this case the usual suspects Venus, Jupiter and Sirius were not present in the night sky at the times and directions described.  The extent of the movements described, also seem to preclude an astronomical explanation.  Other possibilities such as balloons and other prosaic identifications also are difficult fits.  So it seems it was a mystery.  Other police in areas like Lismore and Casino figured in nocturnal UFO chases in the weeks and months that followed during what seemed an intense localized UFO flap.

 

My town had borne witness to the UFO mystery.  Through deepening research, I was just starting to learn of the scale of the UFO mystery.  

 

Within a few years I seemed to be bearing witness to a funeral – the death of the UFO mystery.  Looming towards that destination, I was devouring everything I could find on the UFO subject.  

 

I had found intriguing sources of UFO information in my high school library.  One day Mrs. Colleen Haigh, the Grafton High School librarian, noting my growing reading obsession, asked me what I was focusing on. I showed her that I was particularly reading through all the “Science & Mechanics” magazine articles that were running UFO and flying saucer articles many by writer Lloyd Mallan.  Much of this material was brought together in a 1968 paperback book “The Official Guide to UFOs”.  Within days, Mrs. Haigh called me over to her librarian desk. She gave me a book to keep, her own hardback copy of “Flying Saucers have Landed” by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski.  I was not much impressed by George Adamski’s tales of meeting spacemen, but Desmond Leslie’s eccentric accounts of flying saucers in centuries past intrigued me. I just had to check the original sources for his contribution to UFO history before 1947 and his embroidered ancient alien and flying saucer stories. I still have the school librarian’s gift in my own library.  During 2010 in a class of 1970 reunion visit to Grafton High School, former students were given a nostalgic tour, by the retiring principal and some current school students.  In the new library I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of my 1996 book “The OZ Files – the Australian UFO story.” I was photographed with the principal signing my own book, to perhaps increase its readership among current students. 

 

During the late 1960s and the beginning of the the 1970s, the Grafton town library was often my second home. It was there in 1969 that I encountered a hard back book copy of the “tombstone” of the UFO “funeral” – “The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects” – the notorious Condon committee report.  I read through it many times, cover to cover.  Instead of finding a massive ode to a funeral for the UFO mystery, I was stunned to find that the body of case data and the conclusions seemed remarkably inconsistent.  About a third of the cases studied by the Condon committee were unexplained.  That didn’t stop the project’s director Dr. Edward Condon from concluding that there was nothing of scientific merit in the UFO problem.  Dr. Condon even argued for discouraging students from studying the subject.

 

I was by then a UFO student, developing a growing passion for science, who concluded the Condon report was bad science.  Some good data, but some troubling, skewed conclusions. Instead of discouraging me, it made me want to engage with the UFO subject more deeply.  I wanted to try to understand the extraordinary disconnection between massive worldwide human experience and this manifestation of mainstream science declaring that the UFO mystery had no merit. 

 

What I was starting to understand through all this early literature and case research was that this was no funeral I was witnessing.  Rather, this was a massive suppression of worldwide human experience of something extraordinary.

 

Given all this library and book interactions it is hardly surprising that I have developed a rather large library of my own, with a significant part of it being taken up by the mystery of UFOs and related matters.  I prefer the presence of actual books, rather than the digital book, but when space, availability and budgetary issues intrude, I’ve accumulated a large digital library.

 

I was asked to do a podcast interview for a local Sydney person James Caulfield during this month of June 2025.  His new developing podcast – The Caulfield - was not focused on UFOs, but seems to be like the average guy tracking down folks who are singularly focused on specific interests his first 2 guests were covering different things: 

Professor Geraint Lewis is a Cosmologist at The University of Sydneydiscussing stuff beyond Earth, but was of the “Rare Earth” school, namely we on Earth are it, in terms of intelligent life in the universe, a position I don’t agree with.  The idea that we are the most intelligent life form in the universe is problematic and somewhat depressing.

Professor Gigi Foster is an award winning economist, author, and outspoken public intellectual known for her work in behavioural economics and her commentary on public policy, education, and COVID-19 responses. The interview dives into her views on lockdowns, vaccines, society, and the role of critical thinking in public debate.

I gather our interview will be up during July 2025. Worth a look for diverse subject matters and different view points.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheCaulfieldPod

 

To get an idea of his format I watched the first interviews, which I found interesting.  I thought, to drive our interview along, I would bring along a small focused part of my library.  Take a look at that mini-view of my library and where the interview goes.  I had fun.

 

The library book thing reared it head again, providing a good resource when I was finding it difficult to get a full copy of the special UAP (UFO) issue of the journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences 2025, Volume 156 – off to Macquarie University and their relatively new Waranara Library.  Despite not being directly affiliated, the library enabled my direct digital access to the whole journal, wading my way through what is a great “shot across the bow” to mainstream research – hey guys and girls, here is a scientific problem worth you focus, that you have largely ignored or marginalised.  Here-in are a huge array of sources to enable some serious catching up – a serious turning point in mainstream science and the need to really focus on the UFO UAP problem.  Time to get serious. I’ve been suggesting that now for 5 decades – what took you so long. The journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences 2025, Volume 156

Here are just 2 articles from of that UAP dedicated special issue:

“The New science of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena (UAP)” by Kevin Knuth et.al (meaning there are a lot of authors and a huge resource in data and digital referencing)

 

“Estimates of radiative energy values in ground-level observations of an unidentified aerial phenomenon: New physical data”
Jacques F. Vallée, Luc Dini, Geoffrey Mestchersky They have re-examined a case from the Condon Report.  Here is the abstract: 


"An exceptional observation of an anomalous object, recorded as ‘unidentified’ by the US Air Force and in the1969 final report of the University of Colorado (“Condon”) study of UAPs, has been re-examined by a Franco-American scientific team.

The observation took place on the evening of December 30, 1966, on an isolated highway traversing a forest near Haynesville, Louisiana. Early in 1967 the main witness, a professor of atomic physics named Louie A. Galloway, reported the case to Project Blue Book of the USAF. Pro-active investigation by one of the authors (JV) brought it to the attention of Professor Edward Condon, himself a noted atomist who had worked under Project Manhattan. Dr. Condon and his team had just begun an official re-examination of UFO (UAP) phenomena under funding of the US Air Force.

The case, which centered on a well-defined luminous object at ground level, led to energy estimates from 500 to 1400 MW, in the range of a small modern nuclear power plant. Significantly, it was one of a number of cases carried as ‘Unidentified’ in Dr. Condon's final report to the National Academy of Sciences in 1969.

Subsequent to that Academy report, significant work was continued at the site by civilian investigators who confirmed the data, augmented by night photography flights. The team returned to the area with the primary witness, located the exact place of observation and gathered new data, notably about the nature of burns evidenced on the trees, which had not been available to Dr. Condon and his assistants.

Samples of the burned and intact bark were obtained by our own team, and they were preserved until it became possible to properly analyze the material.

The burn analysis data presented here was obtained at the laboratories of the French Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay, France. We present our results with the understanding that the study will benefit from further discussion within the larger scientific community."

 

Ah, a UFO (UAP) physical trace case from 1966 – the year for UFO landings, such as Tully, Westall and Burkes Flat, and these are just some of the good ones from Australia – a focus I had been documenting and publicising for many decades. Good to see that mainstream science might actually be catching up.  The journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences 2025, Volume 156 special UAP issue will be a game changer, I think.