Witnesses recall 1966 Westall High School UFO sighting in new 7NEWS Spotlight documentary

Claims about an Australian UFO sighting and its alleged high-level cover up will air in a startling TV doco, with witnesses breaking a 55-year silence.

A former science teacher at Westall High School in southeast Melbourne was one of hundreds of witnesses to a so-called UFO landing on school grounds in 1966.

Breaking a forced 55-year-silence, Andrew Greenwood has revealed what he saw that day, and how he was later threatened by Australian military officials and even contacted by the US President at the time, Lyndon B. Johnson, who was looking into other UFO sightings.

In a 7NEWS Spotlight documentary to air tonight on Channel 7, Mr Greenwood says: “I was told that I should not say anything about it.”

Andrew Greenwood says the 1966 Westall UFO sighting was covered up, even though hundreds saw it. Picture: Supplied.

“They told me that I was wrong, that I hadn’t seen anything, and when I tried to explain to them that well, they weren’t there, I was, and I knew what I saw, the first suggestion was that you’d be ill-advised to go on saying that, because clearly you were drunk on duty, and that would have to be reported to the Education Department, and of course you’ll lose your job,” said Mr Greenwood.

The threats were allegedly made by a senior Australian Air Force officer in uniform and another in a civilian suit, who came to Mr Greenwood’s home after he spoke to a local paper, and forced him into his 55-year silence.

One of the few newspaper reports on the Westall sighting. Picture: Supplied

Mr Greenwood was teaching his Year 9 science class when a girl ran into the classroom shouting that there were “flying saucers” hovering over the football field.

The teacher and his students rushed outside where they joined around 500 students, teachers and locals.

What he saw was an unidentified aerial craft “the shape that you would see if you had a saucer, slightly tipped on its side, so that you saw the middle section as thicker than the ends.”

An illustration of a UFO. Picture: Supplied

He said the craft was hovering 50 metres above the crowd, about 100 to 200 metres away and clearly visible.

“It did several things,” said Mr Greenwood. “It did hover at different times. It seemed to be able to accelerate and disappear out of sight and then someone would see it over in another part of the sky. It moved a considerable distance directly and then would move back again.”

“It did one of these sudden accelerations and nobody could pick it up again. It was gone.”

Many of the Westall witnesses attested to seeing several metallic “discs” and “flying saucers” over the football field and nearby bush.

A shot from the 7NEWS Spotlight on UFO Sightings, showing Ross Coulthart with Terry Peck holding drawings from witnesses in Westall. Picture: Supplied

Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Ross Coulthart led the 7NEWS Spotlight team, gathering compelling evidence on UFOs from leading researchers, scientists and witnesses across the US and in Australia.

UFOs are once more in the news, with recent sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) in the US. The US director of national intelligence is expected to hand down an unclassified report next month that may have answers to the question: Are we alone?

The 7NEWS Spotlight unearths new evidence of Australian Government cover-ups and credible reports of UAP in Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland.

UFOs are real says award-winning journalist and author Ross Coulthart.

One Westall high school witness, Terry Peck, said she followed one of the three hovering objects as it landed in nearby bushland in an area they called The Grange.

Just 11 years old at the time, Peck arrived in a clearing to see two other young girls, one hysterical, the other fainted from shock.

Ms Peck describes seeing a “flying saucer craft” hovering just above the ground, so close she could feel its heat on her hand.

“I could feel heat and hear this buzzing sound. I could see purple lights all around it,” she said.

“I was quite stunned to see it because I didn’t know what it was. It was like … what you see in stories about flying saucers.”

Westall UFO sighting witness Terry Peck said she was told to keep quiet about what she saw. Picture: Supplied

Ms Peck said that later at a school assembly students were told to keep quiet about what they saw.

“We just got told not to talk about it, that it was rubbish, and we weren’t to talk about it,” she said.

Evidence – photos taken by a teacher, possible traces in bushland, and a top secret Government report on the incident – all disappeared. Australian authorities maintained that what people saw that day was a weather balloon.

But according to Ross Coulthart, it was nothing like a balloon.

“This is the largest group sighting of a UFO, this is the largest one in the southern hemisphere. And it’s got to hold credibility. It is not as if just one person saw it. Over 200 people saw it,” he said.

Coulthart believes UFOs are now traceable with military technology.

“The extraordinary sensor systems that the military now has to track these objects makes it impossible to dismiss the evidence. They’re real,” he said.

7NEWS Spotlight: The Phenomenon premieres 7pm this Sunday on Channel 7 and 7plus