Evidence supports Westall UFO sightings

New evidence has emerged supporting claims of a government cover-up of what hundreds of people say they witnessed in 1966.

Science teacher, Andrew Greenwood, said he saw a ‘classic cigar-shaped object that looked like grey metal’ that he perceived was intelligently controlled.

Hundreds of school students, teachers and local Westall residents in southeast Melbourne in April 1966 witnessed three elliptical disk-shaped metallic objects – some described them as classic “flying saucers” or “craft” – hovering over the school sports field at what is now Westall Secondary College in Clayton South.

Now, in the wake of a US military intelligence taskforce report to Congress last month acknowledging that UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) are worthy of serious scientific investigation, new evidence has emerged supporting allegations of an Australian government cover-up of the Westall High School mass sightings.

The school’s then science teacher, Andrew Greenwood, said he saw a “classic cigar-shaped object that looked like grey metal” that he perceived was intelligently controlled. He and more than 160 children watched as it jumped from one part of the sky to another “in an instant” as it was pursued by slow-moving light aircraft.

“It was most certainly not a balloon,” he said. Asked if he could think of any known technology or mundane explanation for what he saw, the now-retired teacher said: “I’ve had 55 years to think about it, and I honestly can’t come up with anything.”

While no official government explanation or report into the incident has ever been released, witnesses have long maintained there was an official attempt to shut down media coverage and public discussion of the event.

Within hours of the sighting, as government officials watched, the principal addressed students in the school hall and told them to forget what they had seen and to not talk about it. During the following week, many of the then 11 or 12-year-old students, now in their 60s, also witnessed a heavy military and police contingent in the nearby bushland known as The Grange, where for days Geiger counters and other equipment was used in the area where one disk-shaped “craft” was seen to land.

A photo taken by a resident at Balwyn, Melbourne, shortly before the sighting of a UFO/UAP at Westall in Melbourne in 1966.

A sketch by researcher Bill Chalker based on a account from Victor Zakry, a witness to the sighting of a UFO/UAP at Westall in Melbourne in 1966. Picture: courtesy of Bill Chalker

Mr Greenwood also described how, two weeks after the sighting, he received a knock on his door at home from two government officials, one in plain clothes and the other in the uniform of a senior Royal Australian Air Force officer. He said the officials tried to intimidate him into saying he had not seen anything, and when he refused they threatened they could make him lose his teaching job. He said they told him “ … 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”.

The incident is one of numerous Australian UFO sightings never officially explained, many of which are recorded in official government archives.

For years, Canberra-based researcher Shane Ryan has investigated the “Westall Flying Saucer Incident”, interviewing more than 200 witnesses. He also chased stories that a secret report into the incident was written for the then department of supply, a now-defunct agency whose role was taken over by the Defence Department.

Fifty-five years on, many of the Westall witnesses who attended an anniversary reunion in April were adamant about what they saw. Ms Terry Peck said she saw the “craft” close-up in The Grange bushland.

“I know this sounds corny, but I know what I saw,” she said. “It was not a balloon. It was a machine, a craft.”

Ross Coulthart’s new book, In Plain Sight, is published by HarperCollins on July 28,
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