The mystery surrounding the famous Westall UFO incident of 1966 has been put up in lights with a documentary exploring the event set to air on Foxtel's Sci Fi channel next month.
The event, broken by The Journal in 1966, involved 200 Westall High School and Westall State School students, staff and local residents watching as a strange object hovered overhead for several minutes, landing briefly at Grange Reserve, before lifting off and vanishing.
Witnesses described it as a low-flying, silver-grey and shiny craft, shaped like a cup turned upside down on a saucer, accompanied by five light aircraft.
The new film focuses on former Mulgrave resident Shane Ryan tracking down former students and staff and searching for authorities who presided over the day.
"We hope the airing of the documentary will help us flush out the people who were in uniform from some sort of government authority and who so many remember investigating the scene and coming to the school to talk to kids," Mr Ryan said.
"Many witnesses remember police officers and soldiers being involved in the examining of the site and that's been an important focus for me to try and make contact with those people.
"It would seem that whatever they were doing, they would have a great knowledge of what happened."
Mr Ryan said he had contacted about 265 people who were connected with the story in one way or another.
"The stories were remarkably similar and every witness was extremely happy to talk to me. They were gobsmacked someone was showing an interest after all these years.
"They were still passionate about what they had experienced and that no one really believed them at the time - for some of them there was a deliberate and obvious push from certain people not to talk about what they had seen."
Westall ' 66: A Suburban UFO Mystery will screen on Australia's Foxtel Sci Fi Channel at 8.30pm on Friday, June 4.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/2cxu9lu
The event, broken by The Journal in 1966, involved 200 Westall High School and Westall State School students, staff and local residents watching as a strange object hovered overhead for several minutes, landing briefly at Grange Reserve, before lifting off and vanishing.
Witnesses described it as a low-flying, silver-grey and shiny craft, shaped like a cup turned upside down on a saucer, accompanied by five light aircraft.
The new film focuses on former Mulgrave resident Shane Ryan tracking down former students and staff and searching for authorities who presided over the day.
"We hope the airing of the documentary will help us flush out the people who were in uniform from some sort of government authority and who so many remember investigating the scene and coming to the school to talk to kids," Mr Ryan said.
"Many witnesses remember police officers and soldiers being involved in the examining of the site and that's been an important focus for me to try and make contact with those people.
"It would seem that whatever they were doing, they would have a great knowledge of what happened."
Mr Ryan said he had contacted about 265 people who were connected with the story in one way or another.
"The stories were remarkably similar and every witness was extremely happy to talk to me. They were gobsmacked someone was showing an interest after all these years.
"They were still passionate about what they had experienced and that no one really believed them at the time - for some of them there was a deliberate and obvious push from certain people not to talk about what they had seen."
Westall ' 66: A Suburban UFO Mystery will screen on Australia's Foxtel Sci Fi Channel at 8.30pm on Friday, June 4.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/2cxu9lu
