The Westall UFO Incident, Australia’s Most Baffling Extraterrestrial Mystery
World History Archive/Alamy Stock PhotoA photograph of the supposed Westall UFO encounter, 1966.
On April 6, 1966, more than 300 children and staff at Westall High School in Melbourne, Australia, witnessed a round, silver object about the size of a car hovering near the school.
Per a report from news.com.au, physicist James E. McDonald later interviewed Andrew Greenwood, a science teacher from the school, about the incident. Greenwood explained that five planes surrounded the object as onlookers watched from below.
“He called it the most amazing flying he had ever seen in his life,” McDonald recounted. “The planes were doing everything possible to approach the object and he said how they all avoided collision he will never know.”
As the aircraft tried to approach it, the UFO would accelerate at different rates — sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly — before coming to a complete stop, only to continue its erratic acceleration.
The cat-and-mouse game lasted nearly 20 minutes while around 350 students and staff watched. Then, the UFO suddenly flew off, and the school’s headmaster told everyone to return to class.
McDonald said the headmaster then informed the children they would be “severely punished” if they discussed what they saw. He also threatened the staff, saying they would “lose their jobs if they mentioned it at all.”
Later, several witnesses claimed that men in black suits visited them and warned them against speaking about the incident.
Despite this, Greenwood said he tried to talk to other staff about what they’d seen, but they refused to say anything. One student eventually spoke with Greenwood about it — but a half hour later, when he broached the subject again, she wouldn’t say a word.
