Nexus - 0302 - New Times Magazine-pages

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(with the notable exception of the Blue Mountains, west of and, after hovering above him, headed away in another direction. Sydney). Major parts of Queensland for UFO activity include About the same period in that district, another farmer, also dri- Cairns, Tully, Rockhampton and Gympie, where numerous sight- ving a tractor on his property late at night, saw the same object ings have been reported frequently. descend from the sky toward him. In the course of an expedition to far north Queensland during As the bright starlike object approached his tractor, the farmer, May-June 1978, my wife Heather and I interviewed many people _ sensing danger, left the tractor and ran across the field in the direc- who had reported seeing UFOs. And, as a surprise finale to our __ tion of his house. The object was seen to hover over his tractor trip, our homeward journey followed hot on the heels of a UFO __ before rising high into the air and flying off at a phenomenal speed ‘fly-past' which commenced around Caims and did not abate until _to the west. after our return home to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. That year, 1966, a considerable number of ‘saucer rings’ were Here, then, are some of the many reports I have gathered in the discovered in the Tully, Caims and Innisfail districts, prompting course of my Queensland investigations. the Department of Primary Industries to send an official to inspect Around May 1957, Mr Tom Robinson, a Cairns sugar cane __ these circular arrangements. farmer, had an experience which he ,, recalls vividly. The time was about | 7.30 pm on a Sunday night. He was : Despite traces of radioactivity standing outside on the verandah enjoying the cool air after a very hot around some of the sites, and day. other mysterious ‘calling cards' of Tom was then called to the tele- phone. As he lifted the receiver, his the ‘visitors’, the official father suddenly called out to say he | explanation released to the media was watching a brilliant starlike light moving across the sky from the south. was that the circular formations Tom's father lined up the strange had been made by hordes of light with a verandah post and realised ‘ ¢ that it was moving toward him. There migrating ducks! was no sound coming from the object, The time was around 7 pm on a but it became larger as it approached dark night when their farm hand, a the farm and was seen to emit a flame. The object began to pick man named “Rolley", had been costeening ground with a bulldoz- up speed and then turned at a 90-degree angle and floated east- _ er for mineral traces on their property. As he was some distance ward across the farm. from the farmhouse, he had a motorbike nearby the tractor. He Tom was still using the telephone when his father called out _ finished his work and then rode his bike back toward the farm- again, "Come quickly, there's a plane on fire," which was what house. Tom's father at first believed it was. On the way he passed thick scrub, and there he caught sight of a The mysterious object had by now landed behind a canefield on _ strange object amid the trees. In the darkness he could only dis- the east side of the Robinson property, between cane anda stand cern that it was a dark object emitting flashing red and blue lights. of timber on a headland (i.e., the cleared area around the outside —_He started off again on his bike, leaving the area in haste to tell the Despite traces of radioactivity around some of the sites, and other mysterious ‘calling cards’ of the 'vis- itors', the official explanation released to the media was that the circular formations had been made by hordes of migrating ducks! Where have we heard that one before? While in Caims J interviewed Mrs D. Teluk who related to me the fol- lowing story which took place about mid-1977 on her husband's cattle station near Charters Towers. of a canefield). There was still no sound. Teluks what he had seen. As Tom and his father waited speechlessly outside their house "He looked white as a sheet," Mrs Teluk said of Rolley relating to see what the object would do next, it suddenly rose like "a big _his sighting to her husband Jerry. flickering full Moon. It rose to about 20 feet above the cane, start- Jerry then returned with Rolley in the family Toyota to the spot ed to move in a north-west direction and dropped again. It rose | where Rolley had been, but found nothing. However, over the again and dropped a second time. Each time it had risen up, it next few days they learnt that other farmers in the region had also appeared to be a little bit smaller," Tom observed. reported seeing the same object flying over the countryside. The entire area seemed to have been set alight by the strange Did a UFO land in a scrub-surrounded farming property outside object casting a glow over the canefield and the Robinson house. Mount Gravatt, south of Brisbane, in 1970? That is the question Tom's two dogs appeared and, thinking that the object was a car —_ which still puzzles Mr and Mrs R. Gordon, the property's owners. coming toward the house, they ran outside, barking. One moming, Mr Gordon went to inspect cattle in a corner pad- By now the object was 80 metres away. Then the object sud- dock of his three-acre property when he discovered three strange denly dropped once more into the canefield and rose again. By circular markings in the ground, each six feet apart from the others this time it had become very small. It drifted up like a balloon in a triangular formation. The circles were two feet wide, and the toward the north-west and disappeared. ground around the outside of each circle was bumt. Tom later investigated the whole area but could find no trace of Mr Gordon called his wife to have a look, and both agreed that the object's landing. the marks had not been there when they were rounding up stock at Mysterious lights and objects in the sky have been repeatedly the same spot the afternoon before. Neighbours later reported sighted in recent years throughout the Cairns-Atherton- having seen a strange glowing object in the night sky moving over Gordonvale districts. In fact, those areas have a history of UFO _ the Mount Gravatt area. activity stretching back many years. In 1961, one night around 9 pm, Mrs Gay Stewart was standing Mr R. G. Smith of Longreach, near Winton in western _ outside her house, situated on a farming property at Cunnamulla in Queensland, was driving a tractor on his farm one midnight in south-west Queensland, when she saw a red-coloured glowing 1966. He was in the process of excavating a dam for his cattle object the size of a star coming from the south. It seemed to when above, in the clear starry sky, he saw a bright starlike light "shoot across the sky northward at a phenomenal speed”, as she descend toward him. The object came down very close to him said later. NEXUS ¢ 45 FEBRUARY-MARCH 1996