UFO sightings on outback highway as man disappears
A road worker is seemingly plucked off his steam roller in an isolated spot known for strange lights in the sky. The engine is still running. There are no tracks in the red dust. Forty years to the day, can this mystery finally be solved?
Cold Cases
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Forty years ago, on a red dust road which would become Australia’s longest highway, a man went to work with his road gang and their steam roller and vanished.
Desmond Carr had no known enemies or money troubles, was not into drugs and had a loving family he was close to, but from 3pm August 2, 1979 Des was never seen again, his disappearance gnawing at his family that has never given up hope someone will come forward with information.
Des disappeared leaving behind his road steam roller engine still running, in the same position he was seen working just one hour earlier by a crew moving further up the line on the then deserted stretch of road.
“There were no tracks around … his manager said it’s like something just plucked him off, not stairs, someone’s just come down and pulled him up,” his sister 75-year-old Shirley Carr recalls.
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There were several reports at the time of UFOs and strange lights in the sky about where the men were working, police would later find blood stains on his pillow back at his camp, there was a theory he may have become disorientated in the searing outback temperatures and he got lost in the desert.
Then there was the hand-drawn map that emerged five years ago, 35 years after Des disappeared and the discovery of a sock.
It all sounds incredible but what is clear is his family has now turned to 21st Century tools, including social media and a new true crime podcast being released today that they hope will help jolt memories.
Next week is National Missing Persons Week, created to find signs of the 2500 long-term missing people in this country, and police are reviewing Des’ cold case file for clues that may have been missed over the years.
“Any story always has a beginning, a middle and an end … this story unfortunately cannot end until we have some answers,” a Carr family spokesman said yesterday.
“Des is still on the Australian Missing person register, his disappearance was investigated by the police, Department of Main Roads and even a few private detectives that my pop and grandma hired and nothing ever found. My family appeared in newspapers and TV shows to talk about Des and his disappearance but to no avail. … there are over 2500 long term missing persons in Australia, multiply that number by parents, siblings, friends, workmates who wake up every morning without an answer.”
Des grew up in York in Western Australia, loved his parents Frank and Dolly, his three sisters and his football. His father worked for the Main Roads Department and Des would follow his dad into that career path.
In 1979 he was based at an outpost called Thangoo, 80kms south of Broome working on sealing what would become the Great Northern Highway, at 3200km Australia’s longest highway, a lifeblood road from Perth to Wyndham.
He was working on a roller to flatten a 50km stretch of road before another crew would come in behind him to lay down asphalt. Crews would be bussed out along the line then at the end of the shift collected to camp back at Thangoo station.
“So this particular day they dropped Des off at the certain place that he had to go to,” Shirley, who was 35 at the time, recalled. “He had his water, he had is food, he had these boots and that on and they dropped him off, went down further and dropped other people off. You know, they do that … I think it’s one or two people but Des was the only one by himself. When they came to pick Des up that afternoon he was nowhere to be found. Just like someone plucked him up, you know? The steamroller was still running on the side of the road that he’d been on. That was … the actual motor was still going. There were no tracks, nothing, no tracks at all.”
According to current detective in charge of missing persons in WA, Detective Sergeant Jude Seivwright, referring to the Carr file, his day was normal. He was back at camp for lunch and chatted to colleagues and at 2pm told one colleague he would see him in two hours. He was seen by colleagues on his steam roller at 3pm but by the time the workers’ bus came back to collect him at 4pm he was gone.
Sgt Seivwright said the file revealed that two months earlier in June, Des was at a pub in Derby when there was a fight and he got hit on the head, possibly with a chair, bad enough to see him present at hospital. He was treated for a cut and just complained of a headache. A month later and he still had headaches and returned to hospital. An X-ray showed nothing but he had contracted an infection which gave him diarrhoea. The day before he vanished he didn’t go to work because he was sick so when he couldn’t be found, workers initially presumed he was off the track to relieve himself.
The officer said there was a search made immediately that day and the following day a more extensive search was done with 32 people. The following day, 57 searchers were deployed and extended several kilometres into the bush. Critically there were not tracks. An air search was made on August 6 but no trace found. Several theories emerged. The bump on the head and headaches had affected his thinking and he was disorientated or he became lost after looking to relieve himself in the outback bush and that he had missed his workers’ bus so had hitched back to Derby or Broome and would return to work when he was better or he was suffering some form of amnesia.
“If it is a simple memory loss condition, then there is a possibility that he could head for home at any time,” Des’ father Frank told media at the time as he theorised amnesia and that a passing motorist may have picked him up. “A knock on the head or some excitement might be enough to trigger his memory and then my boy will come home.”
As the days turned into weeks then months the theories were discounted. Blood traces were found on his camp pillow but that may have been left over from the fight night in June. Frank believed his son would come home all the way up until his death.
The UFO theory emerged after Des told his sister Gwen he had seen strange lights in the desert sky. He was adamant it was not a car but a great light which would follow him. Similar UFO and strange light sightings were reported at the time in that area; some were thought perhaps to have come from the falling NASA Skylab.
In 2014 a truck driver came forward and revealed he believed he saw Des in 1979 along the highway.
“He didn’t stop at the time, he drove past with his truck and then approximately 10 years later, while he was going past this same particular spot, so back in 1989, he stopped and he’s walked around the area and he’s found an old black and white sock,” Sgt Seivwright said.
“Then he, for some reason, did not report to the police at the time and then reported it in 2014, this information and he advised that it was due to his memory loss. And so he presented this map, he drew a map of the area and dropped it off to the police.”
The map matched the area where Des went missing but the finding has not led to anything and the Carr family continue to hold out hope, buoyed that even after so many years some clues can still emerge.
• The podcast The Disappearance of Des, produced by Nova, begins today.
Originally published as UFO sightings on outback highway as man disappears