by John Pinkney
The ‘picture-stick’ – and the mark that appeared on the witness’s skin.
LIGHTS IN THE LAKE In 1979, while flying at night over Lake Eyre, pilot Lewis Brice noticed an immense pattern of lights glittering in the dark water below. His photograph of the majestic display prompted suppositions that advanced craft – terrestrial or otherwise – were using the lake as a base. But 22 years later, in 2001, a photograph taken in Britain inspired an even stranger theory. Adelaide Advertiser
‘The after-effects of being probed in the side didn’t show up till two weeks later. I was getting into a friend’s car when I felt a sharp stabbing pain where the stick had been shoved in. It was so agonising I undid the seatbelt and opened the door. I fell out onto the pavement and just lay there while my friend tried to get sense out of me.
‘I’ve since found a small mark on my skin at that spot. It’s a three millimetre circle with a pyramid-shaped bump in the middle. [see Andrew’s illustration]
‘I’m pretty sure it was seeing that mark that aroused some buried memories for me. I began to think that this kind of thing had happened to me before. I can now remember someone I thought was my dead grandfather visiting my room on the night of my 13th birthday – and lots of other people I didn’t know coming to my bedside over the years.
‘I also vaguely recall going to the local park when I was six or seven, and having a long conversation with someone I couldn’t fix my eyes on. I think they had the same haze around them as The Nurse.
‘When I was 20 and all the weird things started happening at home I had the powerful feeling that 1 was the focus of it all – and I wished desperately that my mother and sister could be spared. I’m angry enough about what the things are doing to me. But I feel furious when they attack Sue and Mum – shoving them and staring at them and generally treating them like cattle.’
[Pseudonyms used at Adelaide witnesses’ request.]
This is by no means an isolated account. In 1992, Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a conference of psychiatrists who had rigorously examined people making claims of alien contact. The doctors had found the overwhelming majority of these people to be sane – and simply to be seeking explanations rather than publicity.
One visitor to MIT was the social scientist Keith Basterfield, a working member of UFO Research Australia. Before reviewing the conference evidence he had tended to be sceptical of contactees’ and abductees’ reports. But on returning to Adelaide he established a telephone hotline to help people who believed they had been victims. He and the psychologists working with him were overwhelmed by the number of Australians anxious to describe their experiences. ‘Some victims fear for their sanity,’ Basterfield said. ‘But psychologists working with UFO researchers are helping these people come to terms with whatever it might be that has happened to them.’
In studying house-invasion cases it can be fascinating to compare specific points in the victims’ testimonies.
Andrew speaks of ‘Grey Thing, a humanoid male that repeatedly bolted through the house in a blur of speed’. Farmer Bronte Lloyd of Spalding, South Australia, describes ‘two small dark creatures hurtling through the house.’
Andrew displays a ‘pyramid-shaped bump’ on his skin. As described in the first volume of Great Australian Mysteries, the model Jillian Kass Ross of Mitchell Park, SA, attends a doctor’s surgery with three bright triangular wounds on her forehead.
Andrew recalls: ‘The room suddenly went cold...[and] we both started weeping.’ In what I regard as possibly the most significant testimony I have received (published in my book Unexplained) two recently married academics describe how they woke in ‘freezing’ cold to find themselves crouching on the floor: ‘We were crying and saying goodbye to each other...’ Under questioning the young woman remembers that as a teenager, at a school camp, she and a companion saw ‘two suns... two distinct suns in the sky’.
By comparing testimonies in this way, investigators remind themselves that no UFO event is necessarily isolated. Each can be likened to a part of a continent whose outer reaches are slowly becoming familiar – but whose centre remains swathed in mystery.
‘The Night I Stopped Shooting Kangaroos’
Contact can take numerous forms. For Dave Shannon of Perth, it was a transforming experience. He wrote: ‘I had an encounter with a UFO in the remote outback – and it made deep changes to the way I feel and think.
‘I saw the object on May 22 1988 when I was working on Mt Clere station in northwest WA. I was out looking for kangaroos with two co-workers, David Thompson of Northam and Henry, a Mt Clere stationhand.
‘About 10.15 pm David and I came to a claypan about one kilometre across. Henry was well behind us, using his spotlight. We hadn’t seen many ‘roos that night, which seemed unusual as it was windless with no sign of rain.
‘Suddenly we caught sight of four burning amber lights in the sky, silently rising above the horizon. They resembled the rear of a jet taking off – but they were obviously part of something far bigger than a plane. We just stood there scared and shaking. Then Henry ran up and said he’d shot at the thing with his high-powered rifle. We told him that had been a crazy thing to do, then started flashing signals to the UFO with a spotlight, hoping it would show we were friendly.
‘The craft seemed to ignore us, but standing there I had the intense sensation that something was trying to reach inside my head. Eventually the thing banked right at about 60 degrees, then moved away, still noiseless, toward Mt James. Next day we heard that seven mineworkers had seen an object of the same description near Lander.
‘That sighting had an extraordinary effect on Henry, David and me. One result is that we’ve all given up ‘roo shooting. We want no part of that any more. Another is that I seem able to predict certain future events and sometimes see into people’s minds.
‘In October last year, for example, a hit-run driver knocked me off my motorbike, leaving me lying helpless on the road. Two young blokes drove past and I could sense they thought I was an injured animal. But I also knew they’d eventually be compelled to turn around, come back and help me – which is exactly what they did.
‘Since seeing the UFO I’ve had many weird dreams, some of which have accurately foretold future events...’
Greg Sheehan of Morpeth, NSW, has never met Dave Shannon. But in the letter he wrote to me in February 2006, and in a subsequent conversation, he described events whose outcome was remarkably similar.
‘I was travelling with my brother and some friends to Cooma to join in some ‘roo shooting, which was something we did regularly. We spent the first night, a Saturday, shooting rabbits. But we couldn’t find any kangaroos – and at about 11 pm decided to call it a night.
‘That’s when the first incident occurred.
‘We were driving along a dirt road about 25 kilometres south of Cooma when my brother noticed a red light keeping pace with us.
‘It was travelling through the air several paddocks away. I didn’t give it a second thought – but then the car stopped dead and the headlights dimmed – and the radio began to play, even though it was switched off.
‘We all sat in the car, not particularly keen to get out. Then, after a few minutes everything returned to normal, with the radio off and the engine and lights OK again. We were shaken – and returned to Cooma as fast as we could.
‘The following night we went back to the same general area, but again we had no luck with the shooting, so we decided to return to Cooma again, by the sealed Dalgety Road. About five minutes into the run, we became aware of what we first thought was an ambulance travelling behind us. I decided to accelerate and it did the same, seeming to come ever-closer to us.
‘We didn’t know what was going on, so while I kept increasing speed my brother shone our spotlight on the thing. As soon as the beam hit the object we could see it was a huge yellow orb, flying above the road behind us. After a few seconds it turned totally red, just like the light above the paddock.
‘We were all pretty alarmed by that – but then a car suddenly appeared from the opposite direction, and the red thing disappeared.
‘Back at the Cooma motel, my girlfriend grabbed a boltaction rifle from the back, then yelled out in pain, “This is HOT!” We then found that the temperature of every one of the guns was high – and the bolts were jammed, making them useless until they cooled. It took a lot of force for us to expel the rounds – even the bullets were painfully hot to the touch.
‘That night we sat down in the motel and tried to make sense of what had hit us. At the end of a lot of argument we had to agree that, somehow, we’d been disarmed. That someone, or something, hadn’t wanted us to shoot – and had made sure we’d lack the ability.
After that incident we went back to Sydney, all of us thoughtful and quiet. From that weekend on, neither my brother nor I have had the slightest wish to kill kangaroos ever again.
‘We still don’t understand what happened to us that night, but it turned us into greenies. And we know, on a deep level, that that’s the right thing for us to be.’
* * *
The Lights that Swarmed in Isla Gorge
Before he retired, Queenslander Bob Terkelsen worked for many years as an ambulance officer. But in his spare time he found it hard to stay away from the wild deep bushland he had loved all his life. In March 2006 Bob wrote to me from his home in Bundaberg: ‘The following are true incidents which a friend, Allan, and I experienced in the Isla Gorge region, about four hours’ drive west from Bundaberg.
Bushman Bob Terkelsen.
‘The gorge is located just north of the abandoned Golden Mile Mine near Cracow. The section we often visited is 300 feet deep and more than a mile wide. In dry times it’s a series of waterholes – and in the Wet, the Dawson River is a rushing torrent.
‘We often abseiled down the gorge’s sheer rockface to explore the dry river bed. Usually we found little of interest, other than ‘roo prints, pig wallows and other wild animal traces. But one night, things changed.
‘It was about nine o’clock. Allan and I had just crawled into our tents when he had the need to urinate. I was still twisting uncomfortably, trying to fit myself into a patch of ground without rocks when Allan suddenly let out a terrified scream: “Bob! Bob! Get out here, quick!”
‘Not having a clue what was wrong I grabbed my shotgun and ran outside. Allan was standing on the ravine’s edge and gesticulating toward the floor of the gorge.
‘There, 300 feet below us was a huge mass of coloured lights.
‘The mass was just that, with no defined shape – but this multicoloured conglomeration seemed to be alive. The lights were squirming and changing position with astonishing rapidity. There was no noise, no heat, just the lights, swarming in a manner I’d never seen before.
‘As we watched, the mass – which was as large as a suburban house – slowly moved across the sandy floor of the gorge, heading west and gradually picking up speed.
‘The thing’s pace increased and it began to rise into the air. Soon it was a receding blur in the western sky – and then it was gone. We didn’t sleep too well that night.’
As the men moved on through the bush the air of mystery intensified.
Further west...the old Cobb and Co coach road is overgrown by small timber and forest bushes. Some sections of the road are still evident, in the form of corrugations over swampy ground, where logs were laid down to create a firm footing for the horses and the coach wheels.
‘It was near one of these creek crossings that our next deeply puzzling experience occurred. We’d just pitched camp and were settling down to a hot meal when we heard the sound of an Aboriginal bull-roarer coming up the creek from our left. We looked at each other. As far as we knew there were no Aboriginal tribes in this area.
‘The haunting sounds grew louder and started giving us the shivers.
There was no wind at all. The trees were still and nothing was moving – so there was no chance that the noise was being created by wind whistling through the chasm.
‘I grabbed my shotgun and a spotlight and jumped into the sandy creekbed.
‘The moment I shone the light up the creek, the sound stopped.
‘I did this three times. When I lit the chasm the sound abruptly ceased. When I extinguished my light the noise immediately started up again. That was the end of our camping on the creek bank. We quickly packed our gear and went to a higher spot about a mile away.
‘Next morning, in bright sunlight, we were braver than the night before. We returned to our original camping place, and, fully armed this time, went upstream to what the sound’s source had been. We walked for two hours, checking the sand for footprints and other signs of habitation – but found nothing.
That evening we settled into another camping spot – a little way from the creek as storm clouds were gathering and we didn’t relish being washed away if the creek rose during the night...Before we started our evening meal we both saw a large boar ambling through the light forest. While Allan held the spotlight, I swung and fired – the shot echoing through the night.
‘The moment I pulled the trigger, the most bloodcurdling scream either of us had ever heard came from directly behind us. It was so shatteringly loud it seemed only feet away. Allan was the first to recover and spun the light around. Nothing was there. And now the night was still again. No movement. No breeze stirring the trees.
‘We spent a long time speculating about what possibly could have emitted that terrible scream. It was a high-pitched sound – like nothing I have ever heard in the bush before. I can still hear it now, years later. We spent hours the following day searching the surrounding forest for animal droppings or rubbings on trees where hair could be caught. We found nothing.
‘We formulated theories about what possibly could have happened to us on that camping trip.
‘But no theory fitted.’
* * *
I have seldom received a letter which more cogently demonstrates that Australia’s remote outback remains unknown, unexplored, and only marginally understood.
* * *
The Craft that Signalled Back
A witness at a Darwin airfield sent Morse code messages to a bizarrely configured craft and received signals in return.
In the Australian’s 6 March 2004 edition Melbourne financial executive Rodney Jarvis described to journalist Fiona Harari a series of events that had haunted him ever since. It was 1972. Rodney, then in his early 20s, was employed on an oil rig. He had been enjoying a few days’ leave in Darwin, but had to return to his job on a 6 am flight.
A heavy sleeper, he was fearful of missing the connection. A friend, Fred, offered to drive him to the airport the evening before the trip:
I slept uncomfortably that night in the car’s front seat, with Fred on the back seat. At about 4.45 I woke up with a sore neck. Looking out of the window I saw a very large, slow-moving orange light...about the size of half a house...skimming across the top of some nearby rooftops. It was like a squashed ball, grey on its upper side, the underside brilliantly glowing.
Rodney Jarvis woke his companion. They both left the car for a closer look.
Then we realised that it was zigzagging toward us. It was going about 200 m to the right and 200 m to the left. Wanting a better view I turned the car lights on, at which point the object stopped overhead. Fred was terrified. He ran and hid under the eaves of a nearby building... [But] I was thinking, this is not a chance in a lifetime, it’s a chance in 100 lifetimes. I decided to communicate with whoever was controlling this thing.
... Summoning my limited knowledge of Morse code (I knew only four letters) I flashed them using the headlights: G, S, F, O. Each sequence was flashed back at me a few seconds later. Fred was yelling at me to run, but I thought, no way, this is fantastic. So I decided to move communication on a bit further...I walked into the full glare of the headlights (and thought) maybe I can try and send an ESP message or something.
So I reac
hed up with my hands, indicating I was trying to communicate and, I don’t know why, said in my mind, ‘Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not afraid of you. Come down – I want to meet you.’
But the moment was spoiled when a car pulled up, bearing two airport officials.
They were angry, asking what was I doing, flashing my lights like that at an international airport. An incoming flight might think there’s an emergency. I replied by pointing up into the sky and saying, ‘Look at that!’ I then flashed two more Morse letters which in turn were reciprocated. And then it no longer responded... The object went straight up into the air, did a huge loop over the horizon and was gone. So were the airport officials, who drove away without another word.
Nothing has impacted on me like this. I’d have sacrificed my life to find out who was in that craft – and I’d probably do it again, just to find out.
* * *
__________
* In 1996 Nellie Britton of Longreach, Queensland, unwittingly took a picture of a metallically gleaming cone-shaped object hurtling over the Bunya mountains. She said, ‘My husband Steve and I were unaware of anything unusual in the sky, although I do remember a sudden distinct silence everywhere.’ Steve Britton added, ‘When we thought back to that day we remember remarking how silent the rainforest had suddenly become. We’d gone up to the Bunyas because the birds there usually fly down and feed from your hand. There’s a lot of noise as they compete for breadcrumbs. But when Nellie took that photo there wasn’t a creature in sight. The entire bushland had become as silent as a tomb.’
Mystery of the Man Who Never Was