UPS - The Rev. Gill Encounter & More Interesting Encounters

Join Ben on this episode as he examines the 1959 Reverend Gill encounter, the Francis Chichester UFO seen on the first Tasman Sea Crossing from New Zealand to Australia in the 1930s. The mystery of spinning sea lights!
And some strange UFO events in Queensland!!

Episode Transcript

(00:35):
Australia, the sixth largest country onEarth. An ancient, rugged and unforgiving
land with abundant animal life, bothbeautiful and deadly found within its awe inspiring

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landscapes and natural beauty. Exists adeep history of unexplained mysteries for anyone with
the courage to investigate them. Tonightwe joined Ben on a journey across this

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vast island continent in search of answersto events that have reshaped the lives of
so many that have been exposed toUnexplained Phenomena Australia with your host Ben Hurled.

(01:53):
Get everyone, and welcome to anotherepisode of Unexplained Phenomena Australia. It's
amazing how much stuff I can justkeep on digging up each week, and
being a weekly show. I havethe ultimate fear that one day I'm going
to run out of material, butthere doesn't seem to be any sign of

(02:14):
that coming in the near future.And as I've been researching and looking through
all sorts of different things, I'vedecided for this week's show, I'll actually
focus on back onto UFOs again andI've found some really interesting things to talk
about. Some of them are wellknown and others are not so well known,

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which is the stuff I really liketo bring up and talk about.
But the first one we're going totalk about tonight is probably a fairly well
known case actually, and it occurredin nineteen fifty nine, so it's a
long time ago, and it actuallydidn't even occur in Australia, but it

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occurred in Papua New Guinea, whichis just directly above us. And it
is perhaps one of the most intriguingUFO cases that I think that I've ever
really heard about, and it's verywell known. It is very well known.
If you've been around UFOs for awhile, you will definitely have heard

(03:21):
of this case. But if not, then sit back and relax as we
have a look at the very wellknown Reverend Gill UFO encounter of nineteen fifty
nine. Really is incredible. Sowho was William Gill. He was an
Anglican priest with a mission in Boynaniin Papia New Guinea and he observed craft

(03:50):
like UFOs. And the most intriguingpart about this particular case is that there
were humanoid figures on top. That'sright, humanoid figures on top on two
consecutive evenings on June the twenty sixthand the twenty seventh of nineteen fifty nine,
and about twenty five natives, includingteachers and medical technicians, also observed

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the strange phenomena. And most intriguinglyof all with this particular case is that
they signaled to the humanoids and apparentlyreceived a response. So very interesting going
right back in the early days,a case that's always been extremely fascinating to

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me. And according to doctor AlanHeineck, during the years nineteen fifty eight
to nine and fifty nine there wereover sixty UFO sightings reported in the Papia
New Guinea area sixty with many ofthese sightings occurring in the area of Mount
Puti, which was near the missionof Boinani and New Guinea at that time

(05:02):
was part of Australia right up untilnineteen seventy five, so there's almost into
really modern times it was still consideredto be a part of Australia. Hence
that's why I can talk about itbecause at that time it was an Australian
territory and the Australian Anglan Church sentmany missionaries to the people of that island

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nation up there in New Guinea andReverend Father Gil or William booth Gill was
his name was his full name.He was one of these, one of
these missionaries, and he began theyear nineteen fifty nine as a complete skeptic,
but that was soon to change.And prior to the major events,
the knockout events, on April thefifth, nineteen fifty nine, Father Gil

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saw a light on the uninhabited MountPooty that moved faster than any human could
move. And then on June twentyfirst, a gentleman called Stephen moy who
was Father Gill's assistant, he sawwhat he described as an inverted sorcer in

(06:12):
the sky above the mission. Nowit's interesting to look at how Father Gil
interpreted this even back on his veryfirst sighting, and in a letter to
a friend he wrote that he hadno doubt the existence of these things,
and indeed he cannot now that hehad seen one himself. But for my
simple mind, he still requires scientificevidence before he can accept it from being

(06:36):
an out of space theory. Soeven then he was still very skeptical about
it, and he was inclined tobelieve that probably many UFOs are more likely
some form of electrical phenomena, orperhaps something brought about by the atomic bomb
explosion, something like that. Andthen he said that the fact that his
assistant Stephen should actually make out asaucer could be the work of the unconscious

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mind, as it's very likely thatat some time Stephen had seen illustrations of
some kind in a magazine, orit's very possible that sources do exist,
but it's only a fifty fifty chancethat they are not earth made, still
less that they should carry men,and it's still unproven that they are solids.
It's all too difficult to understand forme, and I prefer to wait

(07:23):
for some bright boy to catch oneexhibited in Martin Square. So he was
very skeptical, although he was reluctantlyacknowledging the fact that yes, perhaps these
things do exist. So with FatherGill having his own encounter and his assistant,

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that was all just a prelude towhat was going to happen later on
in June. So so from Junetwenty six through to June twenty eight.
At about six forty five on Junetwenty sixth, the Gill he saw a
bright white light to the northwest,and as thirty eight people at the mission

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watched a four legged, disc shapedobject that was approximately the size of five
full moons, that's how they describedit, lined up end to end,
hovering over the mission, and ontop of the object, they saw four
humanlike figures that appeared to be formingsome sort of task on top of the

(08:31):
object. Very intriguing, and attimes one or more of these figures would
vanish from sight, only to reappeara few minutes later, and at regular
intervals. A beam of blue lightshone upwards from the center of the craft
into the sky, and the objectwas visible until about seven thirty when it

(08:52):
ascended or went up into the cloudsand it vanished. And at about eight
thirty on that night, several smallerobjects appeared in the sky, and at
about eight fifty the first object cameback, and the four hour sighting lasted
until ten fifty that night, whenclouds moved in and blocked the view.

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So six forty five would have beenprobably a dark or approaching It's definitely dark
here at that time of the yearand New Guinea. I'm not one hundred
percent sure if it would have beendark or around dusk, but certainly heading
into the into the evening hours,and Father Gil prepared a written report of
the sightings and twenty five witnesses actuallysigned it. He imagined twenty five of

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them all sitting there signing off onthis. And the next day the large
object with people on board and twoof the smaller objects returned at about six
pm. So this is on thetwenty seventh, and Father Gil described it
like this. On the large one, two of the figures seemed to be

(09:58):
doing something near the center of thedeck. They were occasionally bending over and
raising their arms as though are adjustingor setting up something, and one figure
seemed to be standing looking down atus. So there's a couple of them
on top of this object working onsomething, and another one who is apparently

(10:18):
looking down at the people looking up, and Father Gill raised his arm to
actually wave at the figure, andto their surprise, the figure returned the
wave, and another gentleman who wasstanding next to him, by the name
of Anenas, began waving his armswith Reverend Gil, and all four of

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the beings seemed to wave back,and there seemed in the mind of the
witnesses there was no doubt that theirmovements were being answered. There was more
waving and signaling with torches with responsesfrom the UFO, and we'll talk about
that in a bit more detail alittle bit later. And at sixty that
night, father Gill went into dinner. If you can imagine that he leaves

(11:05):
this site that's before him of anobject in the sky with the guys on
top, and he goes inside fordinner. I suppose that's what you did
back in nine and fifty nine.But at seven o'clock the objects were still
there, only smaller as if ithad moved further away. And when father
Gill checked again after church at sevenforty five, the sky was cloudy and

(11:30):
they were gone. And the followingevening, going into the third day,
the UFOs made their final appearance orthe objects. Father Gill counted eight of
them at six forty five, andoddly, at eleven twenty that night,
it was a quiet night, itwas shattered by a loud bang on the

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roof, and Father Gill rushed outsideto check what was going on and saw
four UFOs in a sort of acircle around the building. But they were
at a very great height, andthey were still there when he returned to
bed and when the roof was checkedthe next morning, no evidence of an

(12:11):
impact was actually found, but eventhough there was this sound of something hitting
the roof. In a science statement, all the witnesses agreed that the object
was circular at a wide base anda narrower upper deck, and had something
like legs sticking out beneath it,and at times it produced a shaft of
blue light which shone upwards into thesky at an angle of about forty five

(12:35):
degrees, and that four humanoid figuresappeared on top. Some of the witnesses
described seeing four portholes or windows onthe side of the craft, and Father
Gill saw what he appeared to bebright panels on the side, but he
did not interpret them as being portholes. So it's just a little bit a

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little bit interesting, isn't it.That's the key sort of elements of this
case. You know, this objectof a particular shape, with these distinct
leg like objects protruding underneath, thebright light at forty five degree angle,
and humanoids on top doing various activitiesand perhaps also signaling back down to the
people on the ground. Now,the Boy and Ie sighting was analyzed by

(13:24):
noted debunker doctor Donald Menzel, andhe explained the sightings as being the planet
Venus being viewed myopically by Father Gil. Venis, he said, was very
conspicuous in the west, setting aboutthree hours after the sun and Menzel Menzel

(13:46):
noted that he thought it significant that, despite the brilliance of Venus, none
of the sightings by Father Gil andthe mission group referred to that planet.
And Menzel based his conclusions on severalspeculative assumptions that Father Gil was near sighted
and without glasses at the time,that he probably had a stigmatism and that

(14:07):
caused him to see a distorted imageof Venus, plus additionally, blood cells
on the retina of his eye producingan illusion of motion. And Menzel seemed
to have believed that the Papulans wereignorant natives who worshiped Father Gil and merely
went along with everything that he said, and that because a real simple way

(14:28):
to get rid of the other twentyfour witnesses in the eyes of a debunker.
But Fred Beckman, who was acolleague of doctor Allan Heineck, went
to Papua New Guinea and traveled withFather Gil to the mission and noted that
Father Gil was wearing properly corrected glassesat the time, and that Venus was

(14:48):
pointed out separately by Gil. Sohe was he was an educated man.
I mean, he's a man ofthe cloth, and he would have had
a general, had a good education, and presumably new something about stars and
planets and things in the sky atthe same time. And you've got your

(15:09):
father Gil, plus all the othernatives, and some of them held held
fairly responsible positions, all testifying thatthis is what they actually saw. But
don't forget this is nineteen fifty nine. It is the UFO Dark Ages back
then. So we'll just sort ofstep through it a little bit closer and

(15:31):
have a look at you, stepby step what actually happened. And before
I do that, I'm going togive you some give you some vision as
well, just a point where thingsare. So this is where it is,
so you can see Australia, anddirectly above Australia is New Guinea and

(15:54):
down on the eastern side is themission and that's marked in purple, right
down on the tail literally of NewGuinea. And this is a closer up
thing, so it's the mountain thatthey're talking about is just down to the
south of the mission, quite closeby, and as doctor Heineck said,

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it was a very very busy yearfor UFO reports and a lot of them
coming out from around that around thatarea. So that gives you a bit
of an idea. So on thefirst day, the first major day,
sixty five, large sparkling light seenby Father Gill in the western skies,

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a large sparkling light, and hecalled the natives who also saw it.
And on the first night he steppedout of the front door of the mission
house after dinner sixty five glanced atthe western sky looking for Venus, which
was conspicuous at the time, whichalso eliminates Menzel's theories, and he said,
I saw Venus, but I alsosaw this sparkling object, which to

(16:57):
me was peculiar because it sparkled,and because it was very very bright,
and it was above Venus, andso that caused me to watch it for
a while, and then I sawit descend towards Us. That's his words,
and Father Gill estimated the object's angulardiameter is about five inches at arm's
length. Stephen Moy, his teacherand assistant, who joined Father Gil a

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few minutes later, said that ifhe put his hand out handout closed,
it would cover about half the object, so it was a fairly big object
at six to fifty five to sevenout of four PM, So the next
ten minutes up to four illuminated humanoidfigures a scene on top of the object,
on and off, coming in andout of view. The next ten

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minutes seven ten to seven twenty pm, the sky is now overcast at about
two thousand feet and humanoid figures areseen again and a thin electric blue spotlight
you're rising upward from the object hoveringbelow the overcast and the UFO disappears into

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the clouds. A little bit laterat eight thirty to eight thirty five the
sky the sky is clear again andthe UFO is visible, appearing to descend
an increase in size. Second objectis seen oversea, hovering at times,
and another over the village, sothis is round about eight thirty eight fifty

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to nine thirty pm. The cloudsstart forming again, large stationary UFOs and
others about three like discs coming andgoing through the clouds. So they're moving
through the clouds casting a light haloon the clouds. A large UFO moves
away rapidly across the sea. Thisis around this is from eight fifty to

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nine thirty nine forty six to tenthirty pm, the UFO reappears overhead,
hovering ten fifty Another twenty minutes later, heavy overcast, no sign of the
UFO, and by eleven o'clock thatnight it was really pissing down rain,
heavy rain. The June twenty sevenso the next day, six to seven

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pm, large UFOs seen again,first sighted by a medical technician at the
hospital before dark, and it's theclosest sighting yet seen. Very clearly,
bright and sparkling. Humanoid figures seenon top. Father Gill and about twelve
others in a group waved at thehumanoids. One of the figures appeared to

(19:38):
wave back. One member of thegroup wave both arms and the figures responded,
waving both arms in kind. Twosmaller objects remained visible, but stationary
at a higher altitude. As wewatched it, Father Gill said, men
came out of this object and appearedon top of it, on what seemed
to be a deck on top ofthe huge disc. There were four men

(20:02):
in all. Occasionally two then one, then three, then four were noted,
and we noted the various times themen appeared, and another peculiar thing
that he noted was that shaft bluelight emanating from what appeared to be the
center of the deck. The menappeared to be illuminated not only by this
light reflected on them, but alsoby a sort of glow which completely surrounded

(20:25):
them as well as the craft,so they were illuminated as well. The
glow did not touch them, butthere appeared to be a little space between
their outlines and the light. Interesting. Father gil described the movements of the
object, especially the smaller discs,as being very erratic. They sometimes moved

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rapidly, sometimes slow, approaching,receding, changing direction, and then swinging
back and forth like a pendulum.Crazy stuff. And one object moved away
and appeared to descend towards a nearbyvillage, and everybody thought that the object
was going to land, and theyall ran down to the beach, but

(21:08):
the objects swooped up in a wayover the mountains, turning red as it
disappeared. And when the large objectdisappeared, Father Gill said, it made
a slight wavering motion, then suddenlyshot away at tremendous speed, so a
bit of a wavering motion perhaps somethinglike that, and then bang off it
went, changing color to red andblue green, disappearing across the bay,

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vanishing, and interestingly, no soundwas heard throughout. So that's amazing.
These craft have been entirely silent nineteenfifty nine. Don't forget that, nineteen
fifty nine. So it really wasan incredible, incredible event. You've just
got this amazing encounter that's occurred witha responsible missionary and the people of the

(22:02):
mission. There's really no reason foranyone to make any of this stuff up.
And at one point Father Gill sentone of the natives for a flashlight,
and they directed a series of signalsor long dashes towards the object,
and after a minute or two,the UFO wavered back and forth like a

(22:26):
pendulum, and they took that tobe in apparent acknowledgment of the torch.
They waved and flashed the signals again, and the UFO appeared to descend down
towards them, but stopped and cameno closer. And after two or three
more minutes the figures disappeared, andthey come back out again start resuming their

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activity, and the blue spotlight cameon for a few seconds twice in succession,
so extraordinary, well worth discussing onthis show because it's just the sort
of thing that we are very interestedin. Now. To fallout of all
of this was that most all theinvestigators, well all the civilian investigators,

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let's put it that way, allfound Reverend Guil to be very impressive,
a credible witness. And this ledone of the groups, which was the
Victorian Flying Source of Research Society,which was the original founding UFO group here
in Victoria where I am. Theyviewed the Guil report as constituting the most

(23:36):
remarkable testimony of intensive UFO activity everreported to civilian investigators at that time nineteen
fifty nine, and they were uniquebecause for the first time credible witnesses had
reported the presence of humanoid beings associatedwith UFOs, and the major civilian groups

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of the day, in a spiritof you found cooperation, inspired by the
significance of the observations, distributed copiesof Gil's sighting reports to all members of
the House of Representatives of Australia's federalparliament and a letter accompanied the report.
So the civilian groups took this veryvery seriously at the time, and the

(24:21):
letter accompanied the report signed by thepresidents of the participating our civilian groups,
urging members of the Parliament to pressthe Minister for Air for a statement about
the attitude the Australian Air Force Intelligencehad to the New Guinea reports. So
they tried to get a bit ofmotion around this experience, and on the

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twenty fourth of November, so we'vemoved from June from the time the siding
through to November nineteen fifty nine.In Federal Parliament, a mister Cash,
a Liberal member for Western Australia.He asked the Minister for Air, who
was osborne, whether his department,specifically Air Force Intelligence, had investigated the

(25:07):
reports, and the Minister's reply didnot address this question, but instead focused
on the general situation, indicating thatmost sightings of UFOs were explained and that
only a very small percentage something likethree of reported sightings could not be explained.
And the representative of one of theUFO groups was advised by the Directorate

(25:27):
of Air Force Intelligence that the departmentwas awaiting depth of evidence on the New
Guinea sightings, but the department hadnot even interviewed Reverend gil unbelievable. Finally,
the Minister for Defense requested a report, and the RAF interviewed Reverend Gil
the twenty ninth of December nineteen fiftynine, practically six months after the sighting,

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and Reverend Gil's recollection of the visitis that the two officers from Canberra
talked about stars and planets and thenleft and he heard no more from them.
This is very much the dogma ofthe day back in that time period.
It was to explain everything away atall costs, and as one might

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expect, Reverend skills account was dismissedby the Royal Australian Air Force despite its
extraordinary nature of what was reported andthe number of witnesses in an Australian territory
at that time, and the SeniorInterviewing Officers Squadron Leader FA Lane concluded that
although Reverend Gill could be regarded asa reliable observer, it's felt that the

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June July incidents could have been nothingmore than natural phenomena colored by past events
and subconscious influences of UFO enthusiasts.What the hell does that mean in nine
and fifty nine in Papua New Guinea, I don't think so. During the
period of the report, the weatherwas cloudy and unsettled, with light thunderstorms.
Although it's not possible to draw firmconclusions, an analysis of rough bearings

(27:06):
and angles above the horizon does suggestthat at least some of the lights observed
were the planet's Jupiter, Satin andMars, all of a sudden and light
refraction. The changing position of theplanet's relative to the observer and cloud movement
would give the impression and size ofrapid movement, and in addition to that,
the varying cloud densities could account forthe human shapes and their sudden appearance

(27:30):
and disappearance. Well, that's allvery convenient, isn't it That the Australian
Air Forces wrapped that one up intoa really explainable solution that basically puts that
aside. And we've explained that one, and this is an extraordinary sighting,
and you can imagine that happening nowanywhere in the world, or even in

(27:51):
New Guinea. Those mobile phones wouldbe out there snapping and taken lots of
video. But in nine fifty nine, New Guinea was a much more remote
place. It's still a remote placeto day in many ways, But in
nineteen fifty nine, it was somuch more. That was so much more
the case. So I did finda but before I do that, I'll

(28:15):
bring up a picture. This isReverend Kill, so that's him on the
right, and that's one of theone of the paintings or illustrations that was
done that represents that event. Sohe was a very very educated gentleman and
he had nothing to nothing to gainby reporting this in good faith. And

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this was his assistant, mister Stephenmoy it's a photo of him, relatively
rare photo. And a couple ofother pictures I've got here of the two
the two women who also saw iton the second day, the hospital technician
who saw it, and that's that. And this is Reverend Gill's own sketch

(29:04):
of the object. And hopefully I'vebeen able to describe it to you,
but a picture is worth a thousandwords. So you can see the object
and the protrusion sticking underneath it,and the folded objects, and there's this
glow around the whole thing that youcan probably imagine. And then off to
that forty five degree is that electricblue shaft of light that was going up
into the sky. What were theydoing up there? Wouldn't it be great

(29:29):
to know what they were doing upthere? This is another image of the
natives at the time, waving atthe figures on top. And it's interested
to note that Reverend Gil himself stillregarded them as humans, still was still
wanting to believe that he was lookingat humans on top of this. He
didn't understand the technology, no idea, but his mindset was that he was

(29:52):
even though he could make it verylittle detail, no facial features or anything
like that, but in his mindthat these were still these were still humans.
And this is a really whiz bangimage of it that I was able
to find online that may or maynot be entirely accurate, but perhaps gives
it a bit more of a twentyfirst century feel to what the object may

(30:15):
have looked like. And you know, it's hard to you get to think
back in nineteen fifty nine, they'retrying to describe, you know, something
that's incredible, and they have gotno way of capturing it other than their
descriptions and a couple of basic drawings. But in the twenty first centuries,
you can see we can do somereally good renderings of what it might have

(30:36):
looked like. The figurines on thefigures, the figures on top of the
craft. So I'm just going toplay a little short interview that Reverend Gil
did, and you can listen tolisten to his take. Can you imagine
what it's like to look up inthe sky and see a totally foreign looking

(30:59):
object their status, just hovering notvery far high up, maybe two or
three hundred feet up in the air, and glowing, and two bipods jutting
out from behind it, from underneathit and sparkling. We're all around and

(31:23):
some figures up there, this solidlooking object and figures walking about on top,
and not the slightest noise whatsoever.And so we waved, wouldn't it
be wonderful if we could get thisobject down onto the playing field? And

(31:48):
as we waved, wondering whether we'dget some recognition and whether perhaps they would
understand what we wanted, they wavedback. So I asked a boy to
go quickly down brine torch, brinyour pencil, prini you paper, and
return as quickly as you can sothat I can get I or any other
events that occur in mintefy minute movements, so that at least we'd be able

(32:13):
to talk about it the next day, and as he did, very very
quickly, he brought it back.He brought to the torch and put the
torch on and shot it to thecraft, and as he did so,
he waved the moved the torch thisway, and we were dumbfounded when we

(32:37):
looked at the craft, and thecraft was as though it was responding to
the torch. It began to dothis too, you know, like a
disc shaped object just moving the sameway, responding to the movement to the
torch. Next day, just priorto the evening service, about seven o'clock,

(33:00):
thing was there again. It hadarrived about an hour earlier, and
we all decided to have the normaleven song that we do have on those
nights, because well, the thingwas out there outside the church anyway,
and we thought it wouldn't go awayduring the service, and it didn't.

(33:22):
When we came out there, itwas still up in the sky, and
so for another hour or two wewatched, and then suddenly it did go
and there was this amazingly incredible speedthat the whole craft disappeared to nothing across

(33:44):
the bay in the matter a secondor so. Well, now, what
are we to think of this kindof phenomenon, people claiming to see things
such as I did the thirty eightof us, and we all believe that
we saw it, but of coursewe don't expect other people to believe us
if we if they don't want to. So there you go. That's straight

(34:16):
from from Reverend Gill's mouth himself.So it's it's interesting to note even the
attitude at the end there that youknow, we know what we saw,
but we don't necessarily expect other peopleto believe what we experienced. So it
becomes a very personal thing to witnesseswhen they do that. In nine fifty

(34:39):
nine, there would have been afairly high rate of skeptics out there in
society in general, but that's stillwould people would have had their believers,
and at the end of the day, the truth is the truth. So
that's an interesting thing. So we'regoing to move along. Now. I'm
gonna talk about another interesting in andthis one probably is not so well known,

(35:04):
certainly a lot less well known thanthe Reverend Gill encounter, and I
myself had never even heard of ituntil recently. And it's it's it's really
going back into the nineteen thirties.So it's going back a little bit earlier
again, and again we're kind ofoff Australia a little bit in that this

(35:24):
was an encounter that occurred across theTasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia in
the nineteen thirties, and it occurredto a gentleman called Sir Francis Chichester.
And I'll put a picture up ofhim. What he looks like. This

(35:45):
is him here and he was quitean incredible man, and we'll have a
look at what made him so incredible. And so he was originally born in
Devon, England, the son ofa Church of England clergyman, and at
the age of six he was sentas a border to the Old Ride Preparatory

(36:08):
School for boys, and he thenattended Marlborough College and during World War One,
at the age of eighteen, heemigrated to New Zealand, where in
ten years he built up a prosperousbusiness in forestry, mining and property development.
Is at the age of eighteen,only to suffer severe losses in the

(36:30):
Great Depression, and after returning toEngland in nineteen twenty nine to visit his
family, Francis Chichester took flying lessonsat Brooklyn's Surrey and he qualified as a
pilot and he then took delivery ofa to Haveland Gypsy Moth aircraft which he
intended to fly to New Zealand.So this is real, big old stuff.

(36:52):
This is boy's own back in thattime, and he was hoping to
break Bert Hinkler's record solo flight backto a on the way. Now.
While mechanical problems meant that the recordeluded him, he completed the trip in
forty one days. I think aboutforty one days and you can basically fly
to England in a day now,so we've come a long long way.

(37:14):
And the aircraft was then shipped toNew Zealand, and finding that he was
unable to carry enough fuel across theTasman Sea, he had his Gypsy Moth
fitted with floats borrowed from the NewZealand Permanent Air Force that was known at
that time, and he went onto make the first solo flight across the
Tasman Sea from east to west.Now that's from New Zealand to Australia.

(37:37):
The first man to fly solo acrossthe Tasman Sea. New Zealand to Australia.
He was also the first man toland an aircraft on Norfolk Island and
Lord Howe Island. So what's agypsy moth? I hear you ask.
This is a gypsy moth. That'swhat a gypsy moth looks like. So

(38:01):
if you can imagine flying from NewZealand to Australia in one of those,
you certainly are made of stern stuff. And his actual plane looked like this.
So he had the pontoons put on, which was probably a fairly sound
idea. So the trip was delayedafter his aircraft was damaged at Lord Howe

(38:27):
and he had to rebuild it himselfwith the help of islanders. So there
you go. This is still backin the day of DIY and probably some
wire and some wooden taping things backtogether for the flight across to Australia.
And his navigation back in those dayswas very very you know it. It
was a very almost hitten mistyal ofnavigation that they used. And I was

(38:53):
going to read about that, butit's relatively sort of lengthy, and perhaps
we won't bother with that reading throughyou know how how they actually navigated.
But he's he really had a strangeencounter when he was when he was out
there, so while he was midwayover the Tasman c he encountered a strange

(39:22):
aerial craft and he noticed and hecalled it an exceedingly curious aerial vehicle moving
towards him. This is in nineteenthirty one, and he assumed that he
had encountered a new type of airship. So again here he is assuming that
it's something that is man made,not something unusual. And he said that

(39:53):
it was puzzlingly, puzzlingly cocooned inwhite. It had this white sheen around
it, or white material that flashedin the sun. And three decades later,
in his book, which was calledThe Lonely Sea and Sky, he
confessed his naivety and he was convincedby then, three decades later that he

(40:15):
hadn't vaccine a UFO, long beforethe term was invented, and long before
flying saucer was even invented. Andin a violent overture to the drama,
Chichester's plane was pushed off course bybuffeting winds. Using the ocean surface and
crests of feathering waves as a guideto altitude, he wrestled the aircraft through

(40:39):
the isolated storms for more than anhour until he caught sight of clearer weather
ahead. And the welcome sight wasaccompanied by that awe inspiring spectacle, a
pattern of dazzling lights in the skythirty degrees west. And he said,
there were bright flashes like the glinpseof a heliograph. He saw a gray

(41:00):
white airship coming towards him, agray white ship coming towards him, like
an oblong pearl, like an oblongpearl. Now that's interesting, isn't it.
Like an oblong pearl. Made methink of this. That's the first

(41:20):
thing that came to mind for me, an oblong pearl. And then this
is another another image that I buckthat perhaps kind of reflects what he's talking
about, because there are no photosof this, so this oblong pearl,
and except for a cloud or two, there was nothing else in the sky.
He looked around, sometimes catching aflash or a glint, and he

(41:45):
twisted the plane to look at theairship more closely. But he found it.
It disappeared, and he screwed hiseyes up, unable to believe that.
And he twisted the seaplane and thisway and that way, thinking that
the airship might be hidden by linespot, but he still could not pick
out anything. And then out ofsome clouds in front, he saw another

(42:07):
or the same airship approaching, andhe watched it with great intensity and was
determined not to look away for evena second. And the airship grew even
closer until it was about a mileaway, and then it vanished, and
then it reappeared close to where ithad vanished, and it drew closer,

(42:27):
and he could see the dull gleamof light on its nose and back it
came towards him, but instead ofincreasing in size, the object diminished as
it approached, and when it camequite near, the airship became, in
his own words, its own ghosts. One second he could see through it,
and the next it had vanished intothe flashes, and then they the

(42:52):
flashes also, so it was flashing, these flashes were going, and it
disappeared into the flashes. And allof this was seen years before anyone spoke
of UFOs, And in nineteen thirtyone, it seemed to search Chester to
be very much like what people callflying sources. So that's an incredible,

(43:15):
incredible story. In the early thirties, on the first crossing from New Zealand
to Australia, he encounters and inflying around in one of these things,
like you know, that's bravery.That's one brave man, you know,
that's what he's That's what he's gotout there against something like that or maybe

(43:38):
even that, because the description doesnot vary that much. He described as
an oblong pearl shaped object. Sothat's just a fascinating encounter. And I've
never heard of it, and Idon't think many people would really know about
that case, um, you know, for for some one who is an

(44:00):
incredibly credible witness. So that's afascinating encounter. Now I also want to
talk about to close out this episode, the mystery of the spinning sea lights.
This is another really strange phenomena sealights, spinning sea lights. And

(44:23):
I've got an example of this particularphenomenon and it was the eeriest but most
beautiful spectacle that Queensland Master mariner NormanFraser had ever encountered. And the time
was three am on the morning ofthe fourth of November nineteen ninety seven's and
not that long ago, nineteen ninetyseven, and he was standing watch on

(44:49):
the supply ship ocean Worker in theBay of Bengal, and without warning,
the dark sea is at three amgan to pulsate. The sea began to
pulsate and then brilliantly shine as thoughthe sun was rising from the seabed.
And as he as Fraser and hisshipmates sam Apeya watched or bored, luminously,

(45:19):
green patches of light spun around thevessel at increasing speed, and before
long the patches had formed huge rotatingwands of green light in the water,
and Norman Fraser recalled that the curvedspokes turned from a central hub at more
than eighty rotations a minute. Eightyrotations a minute, and the spinning light

(45:46):
mass was visible as far beyond theship as the eye could see, so
it was its extended out to horizon. Now he took careful notes of what
he and sam Apulla had seen inthe stre Each evotion in which the display
occurred is known for bioluminescent organisms,but the organized immensity of the rotating pattern

(46:07):
posed a puzzle that science to thisday is still not begun to even remotely
solve, and light wheels like thisexample have also been seen off the coast
of western Australia, and we're recordedby mariners for years. And an author
called K. Kiltson observed one innineteen o nine, going back in time

(46:31):
aboard the ship called Bintang, notthe beer but the ships called Bintang in
the Indian Ocean, and he recalledwaves of light moving across the surface of
the sea from west to east,and gradually they took the shape of long
rays, again rotating clockwise, andthese rays were not straight, but concave.

(46:53):
In the previous year, the captainof a Russian trading vessel noted that
suddenly an unusual light, white andgreen in color, broke out underneath the
stern of the boat, and soonoccupied most of the ocean's surface. The
light pattern was oval in shape andmoved from some time with the ship,

(47:15):
and then gradually separated from the shipand flew ahead under water a great speed
and shining brightly. So it flewahead under the water a great speed,
shining brightly. On the twenty eighthof December, my birthday, twenty nine,
the British steamship Talma was off theeastern shore of the Bay of Bengal,

(47:38):
again en route from Calcutta to thefar east, and the weather was
calm and clear, and towards sevenin the evening, an extraordinary display of
luminosity. Luminosity was seen in thesurrounding sea. At first the captain's report,
what appeared like small globules of fluorescencerising from below and breaking like the

(48:00):
surface were observed, and later theseassumed. Later these assumed an appearance almost
like flashes of lightning under the water, which rapidly formed into regular beams,
curved as the curve spokes of awheel might be, and at a width
at the ship of about thirty feet. These revolved rapidly from right to left

(48:22):
at the rate of two a second, timed as the beams passed the bridge
around a distant center which could notactually be seen clearly, but appeared to
be about five miles off, andthis center passed ahead of the ship,
being first observed on the port beam, and from there drawing slowly ahead and

(48:42):
across the boughs of the ship,fading gradually till the starbo sorry, fading
gradually till on the starboard bow,when the whole phenomenon disappeared about fifteen minutes
after it had begun fascinating, andthese beams are generally described curved with their
concave sides in the direction which theymove. Most of the displays a report

(49:06):
of last for only a few minutes, so it really is a very very
unusual phenomenon. Indeed, and thisis the images that I've found that describe
what these water wheels actually look like. So these rotating spinning lights that appear
under the sea, that's one image. And this is another image that shows

(49:29):
a ship and with the waves ofthese lights going across them. So it's
it's definitely it's a really interesting phenomenathat's occurred here in Australian obviously up around
India there as well, and probablyin other parts of the world as well.
A really interesting phenomenon. And Idon't really know how to describe it.

(49:53):
Is it a UFO phenomenon? Whoknows? It may or may not
be. So that's I don't knowwhat more to say. It's really,
yeah, very very very interesting.So I'm sort of coming close to the
end of the end of the episode, but we've still got a few minutes
left to go, and I wantto talk about a crop circle encounter.

(50:19):
So on the twenty fifth of Februarynine, sixty six, there was an
article in the Brisbane Telegraph and somethingstrange had occurred. Now. A woman's
school teacher who would not give aname, said that something that was pear
shaped with a beam of light extendingfrom the blunt end, and was traveling

(50:40):
low and fast. A constable onhis way home from police headquarters said an
oval shaped machine sped from the skyand hovered low about sixty feet above the
ground, with red flames shooting fromit. Shadows of some people, he
said, could be seen for severalseconds in this object. And a Missus

(51:02):
Maureen Kloone of Punch Bowl said thatshe and her neighbors had seen the mysterious
white lights each night near the BankstownAirport, and she was quoted as saying,
last night I saw a single,very bright light hovering in the sky
about nine pm, And when theposition of the nest was described to her,

(51:27):
Missus Clune said, the light shesaw was very close to it.
So there was a circle on theground and the nest looked as if it
had been flattened by a huge disc. The tall reeds had been depressed into
the mud, as if by sometremendous force. And we're in a perfect
clockwise position. And Robert Dennis saidthat he and Larry Stewart first noticed the

(51:52):
nest on February the fourteenth, Soremember this article appeared on the twenty fifth,
so quite a few days later.And these were these were two boys,
and they we always take the sametrack home from school, and we
assure that the nest was not therethe previous friday. And when we found

(52:13):
it, we noticed a particular pungentchemical smell which seemed to hang in the
air. The reds also were bentat the base and not broken. And
we had noticed ourselves that if youtry to flatten the reeds they break off
at the stem. And he saidthe nest seemed to have been forced by
some huge downward draft of air movingin a circular motion. And this is

(52:37):
the picture of that particular impression,and that's the boys in the center.
There. So a really really interestingand classical, absolutely classical crop circle that
you could say swirled, swirled,swirled wheat on the ground or grass reeds.

(53:02):
And but I found interesting about thisone was the fact that they reported
that there was a pungent smell associatedwith it, which I've not heard that
commonly before. So I thought Iwould would share that with you as well.
And I've got quite a few here, but the time is ticking down.

(53:28):
We'll talk about this one here soagain April twelfth, nineteen seventy three.
So we moved through the years abit in this episode. In the
Brisbane Courier mail, a mister andmissus David Hebron said they were returning home
to their hometown of Proston, aboutone hundred and twenty five miles northwest of

(53:51):
Brisbane, when a large bright discappeared beside their vehicle. A large bright
disc, and mister Hebron said hewas driving passed the Wandall Cemetery when he
heard a noise like a jet passingoverhead, and then he saw the object,
which gave off a reddish yellow light, and he said the object chase

(54:12):
the car for eight to nine milesfair way, and after it became obvious
it was chasing us, there wasno way that we were going to pull
up, he said, And justbefore it disappeared, it seemed to come
very close and bright, and hefelt like he could have reached out and
actually touched it. But then thecar gave a shudder, as if hit

(54:35):
by a strong gust of wind andthe object disappeared. Mister Herbron, who
was a truck driver. So theincident occurred at about nine thirty pm on
the Sunday in April nine and seventythree, and his wife said that we
were terribly scared. The thing flewalongside us for miles. It wasn't an

(54:57):
aircraft, that's for sure, shesaid, the objec it was shaped like
the bottom crescent of the moon,bottom crescent of the moon, and traveling
about three hundred yards from their vehicleuntil it came in close shortly before it
disappeared at high speed, and theythought it was the moon at first,
but then it started to follow them, and she said, I had never

(55:20):
believed in flying sources before, andI'm so mixed up now and i don't
know what to think. I'm sofrightened. I won't stay at home by
myself at night now. And misterHebron said they did not report the incident
to the local police because they wereafraid that they would start laughing at us.
And the military aviation authorities were ata loss to explain the episode,

(55:44):
and they said there was no militaryaircraft or helicopters in the area at that
time. Now there's the third siding. The siding is the third of an
unidentified flying objects in the Poston areathe previous two months the third siding.
In February, the Wandall newsagent misterArthur Martin saw two mysterious objects on the

(56:09):
outskirts of the town, and aweek later several people at Wandall Hospital reported
a UFO and a missus. RondaBraithwaite of moon Bindari Station, which is
a big ranch one hundred and fiftythree miles southwest of Kannamulla in Queensland,

(56:29):
said yesterday that she saw three largelights with trails like masses of little stars
streaking across the sky at six amon Tuesday. And also on Tuesday,
two station hands at a central Westernproperty found a piece of metal that was
believed to be from a Russian satellite. So it was a very active time

(56:51):
in that nineteen seventy two nine seventythree period. So thank you for joining
me for another episode of Explain PhenomenaAustralia. I've really enjoyed digging up those
reports and investigating them for you andbringing them out for you to listen to
and hopefully you've learned something interesting.So until next time, I look forward

(57:16):
to seeing you. Then good night, m