Strange UFO Encounters

Treat us with respect, say several Northern Rivers residents who reckon they have had very real alien abduction experiences. Australian Close Encounter Research Network principal Mary Rodwell said her recent experience with network Ten's The Project, on December 4, had left victims of claimed experiences reluctant to talk to the media.

A qualified nurse and counsellor, Mrs Rodwell said after almost 20 years researching UFO encounters she could recall countless times that the stories of people's encounters were misrepresented in the media.

"To be quite honest some of the articles that I have read ... I have looked at my interview and I can't even see any similarity to what I actually said," she said.

"When you have had an experience that is quite profound for you and you find comments in the media that are really dismissive or making fun of it, that makes people very reluctant to talk."

Mrs Rodwell said the realisation that unidentified flying objects have been visiting Earth for at least 50 years had gained more mainstream acceptance since people like astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spoke publicly about their experiences.

"Buzz Aldrin has talked about evidence they saw on the moon and Neil Armstrong talked about actually taking film of two huge UFOs watching them when they first landed on the moon."

Beyond sightings, Mrs Rodwell said she spoke to people who recalled abduction experiences and families who told about aliens interacting with their children in their homes.

"I have had little kids, five-year-olds, talk to me about going through walls and they tell me they like going up on the craft because they learn more (there) than they do going to school.

"People of all ages have told me they have had the experience of being taken through solid walls on the way to the craft and it's like their molecules changed.

"A little kid of four told me he didn't mind little black aliens coming to play with him because they were quite friendly and their skin felt like 'dolphin skin'.

"This little eight-year-old told me that once a year he goes up with a couple of his school friends to a craft and they have their annual medical exam by aliens."

Mrs Rodwell said she had heard many people recount the notorious "probing experience" by aliens on UFOs.

"People have said a range of things happen on the craft from having DNA samples taken to having genetic samples taken including ova and sperm.

"People who have had serious illnesses have also reported healing experiences and found after an encounter their condition has disappeared."

After hearing of sightings or encounters from police, doctors, solicitors, psychologists, pilots and psychiatrists, Mrs Rodwell said this credible evidence, plus the fact 12 countries world-wide had released their UFO files, amounted to a mountain of evidence.

"Quite often the witnesses are highly credible and they inform people not because they want the exposure, they just want to say isn't this incredible."

Based on her research and counselling, Mrs Rodwell said sightings and abduction experiences were linked in a lot of cases. 

"Sometimes with a sighting may come a missing time episode or a feeling that something may have happened that they cannot recall."

She said it was impossible to discredit all these claims.

Source:  http://tinyurl.com/coxf763

Secret UFO files Released

It is probably the closest Australia has come to scrambling fighter jets to intercept a UFO. Documents that have just become available under the 30-year rule at the National Archives of Australia reveal how two RAAF Mirage jets were placed on the second highest level of alert to determine the cause of unidentified radar contacts seen on screens at Mascot.

The ''X Files'' viewed in Canberra also give details of other unexplained sightings, some of which are supported by witness statements to police. One caller dismissed it as a rock band's laser show.

In the Sydney alert, the papers stamped ''restricted'' tell how operation ''Close Encounter'' was launched by No.3 Control and Reporting Unit at RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle on June 30, 1983, after the phenomenon was first noticed earlier in the month.

Senior air controllers at Mascot said the contacts were mostly located between 70 and 150 nautical miles north of Sydney at ''alleged speeds of 1100-6500 km/h that suggested high altitude''. The papers state that no scramble was to occur in the round-the-clock operation unless confirmation of any reported tracks was made on the radar screens at RAAF Williamtown or any radar other than Sydney.

At the same time, three senior air defence controllers were dispatched to Sydney to investigate and plot every contact and ''control interceptors against these contacts if a reasonable chance of interception presented itself''. But then one of the defence controllers, a squadron leader, asked whether a comparison had been made of the contacts on the screens of Mascot's Area Approach Radar Centre and those in a ''workshop across the corridor''. Soon after, tests showed that the ''unidentified objects reported by Sydney were generated entirely by radar interference known colloquially as 'running rabbits' ''.

Squadron leader K. Keenan, in his six-page report, said operation Close Encounter cost 66½ days of overtime, 1000 kilometres was travelled by a staff car and a C130 Hercules transport aircraft ''may have been diverted to Sydney airport'' to deliver one of the defence controllers.

He wrote: ''The lines of communication, extending as they did across the width of an entire corridor, seem to have been insufficient for the purpose.''

He added rather dryly: ''Fortunately there was no temptation  to launch aircraft and add to the fuel bill occasioned by use of the RAAF Datsun.'' A cautiously worded statement was released as a result ''in a manner that would not embarrass departmental personnel'' which blamed ''random atmospheric conditions''.

Other reports in the X Files give details of an ''unidentified physical feature'' of circles on Milo Station at Adavale, Queensland, in 1982. The file refers to photographs that apparently were taken, but they were not among the papers. Constable Geoffrey Russell, from the local police station, visited the site and wrote a report for RAAF Base Amberley near Ipswich. The officer saw depressions in the ground and thought they were caused by a motorcyclist doing donuts but then dismissed the idea.

He wrote: ''I strongly feel this [is] no hoax even though I do not know the cause of this 'feature'.''He described a large circle of 2330mm in diameter with one inner circle of 2010mm which were 160mm in width and about 15-20 mm deep. The soil around the outer circle appeared to have been ''blown away'', he said.

Elsewhere in Queensland, dairy farmer Robin Priebe phoned Imbil police at 5.30am in July 1983 to report seeing a strange object in the sky to the north of the town. The papers state that a Sergeant Waterson then went to his back verandah and saw ''a large white light with several flashing lights around it'' which did not appear to be a normal aircraft.

A similar sighting was made by Constable R. Keys from a separate position. He was also of the opinion that it wasn't a normal aircraft.

Mr Priebe said both he and his wife saw a bright red glow gradually change to a white light which then started to move slowly east. Through binoculars, ''the light was disc shaped with a very bright light around the perimeter of the disc with two flashing lights in the front and one to the side'', he said.

The only photographs in the X Files were of unusual lights over Bendigo, witnessed by hundreds in May 1983. An interim report by the RAAF stated that Mike Evans, a 17-year-old disc jockey with the Bendigo radio station 3BO, received calls from listeners, then saw the lights himself and took photos. One anonymous caller to the RAAF said the lights were caused by a rock group experimenting with laser lighting. The report said they were probably caused by train headlights or lasers or from planets or stars. There had been unusual weather atmospherics on the night.

Zoe¨ D'Arcy, director of digital and online access at the National Archives, said: ''Where you and I might think UFO - a spaceship - the RAAF and other agencies were probably wondering if there was a security threat. ''Most of the files you read and you think that most probably was a meteorite, but there are ones that you read and you think - well, what could that have been? ''I can't explain that from my knowledge. ''So what was it that these people have experienced? It has that open-ended question to it that I find really intriguing.'' http://tinyurl.com/dyom5jt

'UFO' spotted over Childers

Childers woman Diane Styles has taken a series of photographs of a mysterious object she spotted in the sky near her home early one morning last month.

Mrs Styles said she went outside about 5.40am to light her incinerator. "I could see two stars, one of which was extremely bright, in a place where I hadn't seen one before," she said.

Mrs Styles said she thought at first the bright star was the light of an aircraft, but then she noticed it wasn't moving. "I went inside and got my camera and took a series of standard shots of it," she said.

"Then I zoomed in as close as I could and took some more pictures." Mrs Styles said she downloaded the photos to her computer and took a closer look at the objects.

She said over the sequence of 12 photos she could see the two stars merged into one and changed shape.

"It looks like it's got little lights all around it," she said. "Then it looks like it's opening up into a dome on a round bottom." Mrs Styles said somebody she knew suggested the object could be a comet or meteor, but it had no tail.

"I told my friend about it and she said she'd seen it early in the morning on the day before," she said.

Agnes Water UFO researcher Mary Rodwell said what Mrs Styles had described was consistent with other sightings around the world. Alloway Observatory director Mac Jonsen examined the photos yesterday

and said they looked like the camera had moved while someone was trying to take a picture of a star.

"It certainly doesn't look like an object to me," Mr Jonsen said. He said he had been in astronomy for 60 years and had never seen anything that looked like a UFO, and nor had any other astronomer he knew.

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Perth saw a UFO, but will anybody believe them?

Is it Perth Paranoia or an earnest quest for the truth? Videographers are denying everything in an effort to get to the bottom of the eternal question - are we alone?

The X-Filers are posting several videos on YouTube of recent UFOs in Perth's skies.

But is this reality or just a bunch of Fox Mulders munching on too many sunflower seeds?

One at 5am is shot from a busy freeway and shows a dark shadow hovering before scattering across the sky. Another during sunset seems to be a bird flying - before it inexplicably drops and darts across the sky at superman-like speed. http://tinyurl.com/7wejx33

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Sydney- Is it a UFO? Flying objects spotted hovering over

http://tinyurl.com/7r6gorb

Sydney's reputation for being a great place to visit has clearly spread to the stars, with four unidentified flying objects spotted hovering over the city's suburbs on Monday afternoon.

A photograph capturing the four UFO's - which witnesses said hovered in the same spot for more than 10 minutes before simply disappearing - was snapped from Tom Ugly's Bridge Marina just before 5pm.

Photographer Ivan Mikkelsen, from nearby Sylvania Waters, said he first noticed the objects through a window on his boat before stepping outside to confirm the unusual objects weren't simply a reflection or a trick of the light.

"We just looked up and they were there. They were just sort of hovering there,'' Mr Mikkelsen said.

"They were quite high in the air, which is why I thought they might be aeroplanes at first, but they weren't, they didn't move.''

He said about five people at the marina paused to watch the stationary objects as they glowed over the city's west before they simply disappeared as quickly as they came.

"They just blinked and disappeared, whooshka, they were gone,'' Mr Mikkelsen said.

"I'm a bit sceptical, but it wasn't a reflection, it wasn't laser beams, it wasn't anything else.''

A spokesman for Airservices Australia, which managed aviation traffic, said they had not had any reports of unusual objects on Monday afternoon.

"We have had no reports of any unidentified flying object activity over the greater Sydney area on Monday evening,'' he said.

"However, at just before 5pm on Monday, there were a number of commercial aircraft operating.''

New Zealand - Interview with Suzanne Hansen (UFOCUS)

http://tinyurl.com/7v69r6x

UFO Sightings Increase

Radio interview (5.32)

UFOcus New Zealand's director Suzanne Hansen talks to

Larry Williams about an increase in UFO sightings in New Zealand.

New Zealand - UFO Alarm Sounds Around North Island

There have been an "unprecedented" number of UFO sightings reported in the North Island over the past two months, UFO watchers say.

And aliens may even have visited Northland in the past five weeks, with one man reporting seeing a UFO land in the region, Suzanne Hansen, director from Ufocus NZ research network said.

She said: "He's a very credible source. He saw an object that had landed and said it was definitely not an aircraft or like anything else he had seen.

"I've got 30 (UFO/UAP) reports on my desk at the moment from the upper North Island and Northland from the past couple of weeks that we're yet to process [on top of the many others] ... It's unprecedented."

Maungakaramea resident Charles Gillard reported seeing strange lights hovering above the Tangihua ranges just after 4am yesterday.

Mr Gillard said the white and blueish lights were definitely not a helicopter or plane and darted about at speed for several minutes before simply vanishing.

"I've never seen anything like it before, but it definitely wasn't somebody with a torch or vehicles as it was above the skyline, not on the hills," he said.

Inquiries could not find any helicopters or planes operating in the area at that time yesterday morning.

Ms Hansen said Mr Gillard's sighting was similar to others reported recently in Northland and Ufocus would be looking into all such reports made to its website http://www.ufocusnz.org.nz/

"Researchers we work with in Australia have reported the same things happening there with what we call a "UFO Flap" [an outbreak of UFO sightings] there as well," Ms Hansen said.

However, the NZ Skeptics (New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) says UFO sightings can be easily explained, usually by natural phenomena.

NZ Skeptics spokeswoman Vicki Hyde said despite the "unprecedented" number of UFO sightings recently this was the first the public had heard of the situation.

"The problem with UFO sightings is that there are a such a huge number of possible explanations for them. "Something like 80-90 per cent are people mistaking things like Venus for UFOs."

UFOs On The Today Show

http://tinyurl.com/7c89ytk
Tino Pezzimenti on the Today Show reporting on recent UFO reports from the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

Have You Ever Seen A UFO? ABC Radio Interview

Whenever the subject of UFO's comes up, people always ask "Why don't they ever appear in front of scientists or the military?".
Well they do - and according to a report in the Huffington Post, Retired Army Colonel John Alexander, a former military insider with top secret clearance who created Advanced Theoretical Physics ( a group of top-level government officials and scientists brought together to study UFO reports) wants Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus and National Intelligence Director Gen. James Clapper to offer amnesty to anyone in the military who has been previously sworn to secrecy about UFOs.

It seems those in the military have been either sworn to secrecy about what they have seen or fear being ridiculed and damaging their careers. Have you ever seen anything you can't explain?
Afternoons presenter Kelly Higgins-Devine (who keeps an open mind on these things) spoke with Les Saunders from ACRUFO - "Australian Combined Research in UFOs", and heard some great stories from listeners. http://tinyurl.com/cxyfbhu

UFO Amnesty to be Considered by Pentagon?

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981335897Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General David Petraeus are being asked to grant UFO amnesty to servicemen who want to speak publicly about alien visitations.

 

Retired Army Col. John Alexander is behind the effort for more UFO disclosure in the military. He is asking the Department of Defense to allow service men and women to share their paranormal experiences with the American people.

 

Transparency is always the best option. What is the government afraid of? The average person already believes in intelligent life in other places in the universe, so why all the secrecy?

 

In fact, if the Pentagon does grant UFO amnesty, it would quell some of the conspiracy theories out there. The government only creates more suspicion by hiding information.

 

Alexander may just be trying to promote his new book, but he makes some great points.

 

Many very intelligent people believe in UFOs. Gen. Douglas MacArthur warned of a future in which humans would fight a war against alien invaders. What's more, ex-NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell has said the government is actively covering up proof of extraterrestrials.

 

It's time for the government to come clean, and approve UFO Amnesty for military members seeking to share their experiences with the people they protect. http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981335897

Amamoor Sighting on the Sunrise TV Show

http://tinyurl.com/777w8qv

Gold Coast Sun article March 14, 2012

Coast UFO Account Baffles Experts

IT'S light Jim, but not as we know it. The Gold Coast Hinterland this month was the setting for what the state's premier alien hunters are calling one of the strangest UFO sightings on record.

Queensland's UFO Research Centre is investigating an anonymous report from a local resident about a three-hour close encounter of the "first'' kind in the skies above the city on November 18.


The Friday night started out like any other when the Varsity Lakes woman went outside for a cigarette and observed the Leonid meteor shower.



After counting more than 18 of the celestial objects she noted a "large light'' in the northern sky which she says was "strobing and flashing''. Just moments later the object was joined by two other lights to create a triangular formation which, she says, was both red and silver in colour. The report shows the objects performed "impossible'' manoeuvres in the sky and would "sparkle'' as they moved through the clouds, creating an "atmospheric phenomenon''. The woman finally went into her house after being bitten by mosquitoes. It is understood she was not probed by or had any contact with the object.



The Research Centre's Dr Martin Gottschall said typical UFO encounters lasted mere seconds.  "Colour changes are normal, especially when UFOs use clouds as cover while they conduct surveillance,'' he said.



Dr Gottschall said people should keep a camera with them at all times. "If they film something unusual it could be a rewarding experience,'' he said. Report sightings to 07 33761780 or info@uforq.asn.au



http://tinyurl.com/87owjg6

UFO Sightings To 'Soar' As Weather Warms

EAGLE-eyed UFO hunters are expecting a surge in sightings as the weather starts to warm.

The state's premier alien hunter, UFOs Queensland's Martin Gottschall said there had been an increase in Gold Coast sightings since the Sun first reported a sharp drop two months ago.

He said this trend would continue as people now started to spend more time outside at night.

"UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, are often unusual lights in the night sky and really informed observers will recognise the shimmering heat-like effect they give off, similar to jet exhaust," he said.

"However, this effect is because the craft is manipulating space-time rather than burning fuel."

"We would love people to get involved if we can get a good signal of activity."

The sighting of a UFO is known as a close encounter of the first kind, while physical evidence is the second.

Actual contact with a UFO is a close encounter of the third kind.

Mr Gottschall said it was important for sightings of UFOs to be reported.

"The passion we have for this is different for everyone but is mostly about searching for the truth about visitations from other species," he said.

"We would certainly like to understand the good reason authorities have for holding information back. They do not want us to make too much progress too fast because it would leave a lot of people frustrated."

The latest reported sighting in the region occurred at Murwillumbah at the beginning of this month when nine residents saw between three and six objects perform manoeuvres while emitting pulsating lights.

UFO Watchers Are Not Alone

Karen Carruthers is convinced of the existence of UFOs and extra-terrestrial life. And she is not alone.
In May last year, she helped establish the Byron UFO Research Group, which attracts up to 50 people to its monthly meetings.

The gatherings feature guest speakers – many of whom claim to have had an alien contact – and allow people a “safe space” to discuss UFO and alien encounters.

“If you’ve never told anyone about your experience, it’s a lot to carry around. There is a fear of ridicule,” said Ms Carruthers, who is a former family therapist.
People at the meeting come from all walks of life, she said. Many have had a lifelong interest in UFOs or had “seen something” and had no outlet for it.

“We had a woman at our last meeting who had experienced a sighting 36 years ago.”

Mrs Carruthers started seeing UFOs in the 1990s and recollects being taken on a spacecraft in 2003.

She says her daughter, who lives in Sunrise, saw a UFO just last Sunday morning.

“There was no sound, it was a round object and it hovered over the house and didn’t move. She watched it for half an hour.”

Mrs Carruthers said there was a lot of fear surrounding alien life and UFOs, but the more you knew, the less scary it became.

She said aliens were a force for good: “To want to help us to help the planet and each other.”

As part of her work with the group, Ms Carruthers is compiling a database of UFO sightings from Byron and surrounding areas. She plans to conduct interviews, collating the information to create an historical record and to help demystify the subject.

“The more it gets out into the open, the more accepted it becomes,” she said.

“We want to give it some credibility and respectability.”

She said interest in UFOs was growing worldwide and becoming more accepted and mainstream.

'Flying Object' Followed Family

Nearly 30 years after a late-night encounter with a UFO, Temuka man Ken Thew remains convinced he saw something extraordinary on Waitohi Rd.

Yesterday, after authorisation from the Defence Force, more than 2000 pages of secret files held by Archives New Zealand were released. The files are said to include every witness account of unidentified flying objects reported to authorities since the 1950s and Mr Thew said he would be interested in reading the files.

The now-retired mechanic said he did not think about the encounter unless other people brought it up in conversation, but he had spoken to others who had seen UFOs.

"What they have seen is different compared to what we have seen but that's apparently the way it is."

The memory of the large, bright object which accompanied Mr Thew,his wife, and their three young daughters home from Pleasant Point to Temuka on July 12, 1981 was still vivid, Mr Thew said.

"My thoughts are the same: what you see is what you see. "It was a bit frightening for a start. We were just travelling home from a night at me cobber's place. The oldest girl said, `what's that over there?' and I said I had no idea."

The couple described to the Temuka Herald in 1981 how a multi-coloured flying object paced them along the road, approaching to within 110 metres of their car and changing colours as it went. They knew by the hour of the night, the manoeuvres and closeness of the object that it was not an aeroplane.

Yesterday, Mr Thew said the size and the brilliance of the object, which was shaped like a football, told him it was unusual. However, while the encounter was reported in media, they kept a second part of the story to themselves and close friends – several visits by a man to their home and workplace shortly after seeing the object.

Introducing himself as Mr Wright, an "investigator" from Christchurch and dressed in a musty suit, he warned them not to contact or approach the object, Mr Thew said.

The man's behaviour was peculiar: he drank a cup of boiling tea in one gulp, read a page by scanning from bottom to top and knew the name of their pet dog before it could be told to him. Before the encounter with the object, Mr Thew said he had a
divided opinion on UFOs.

"If somebody had told me what I had seen myself I would sort of look at them and think, `well, okay'."

The object was something he was not familiar with and had never seen the likes of before, he said. He did not rule out a natural explanation but said the speed at which it travelled and the intensity of its light were unusual.

The Thews' account garnered media attention in 1981 and they were visited unexpectedly by a television crew.

"They got the kids to draw pictures of what they saw," Mr Thew said.

Most of the responses they got were positive; people called them to ask them about the incident, and later a Polish professor visited them to learn more about their experience. Their story attracted a small negative response, with about five calls from people suggesting they were mad, he said. However, Mr Thew stands by what he saw. "I had my faculties; I know what I saw."

CENTRAL SOUTH ISLAND UFO REPORTS
Local sightings reported on ufoinfo.com:
September 26, 2009: Two Timaru witnesses report seeing about 10 bright orange, moving objects at 8.15pm, which suddenly veered sideways.

November 27, 2006: A witness reports seeing a silvery white and cylindrical object taking off from the Richard Pearse Airport about 7.30am.

June 30, 2006: A witness took two photos. One showed a mysterious object over Oamaru between 1pm and 3pm.

February, 2006: Two adults and a boy, 11, report seeing a slow-moving object in the sky between Pleasant Point and State Highway 1 about 4pm.

August 5, 2005: Two witnesses travelling between Kurow and Omarama between 8pm and 9pm report seeing a slow-moving, orange, pulsating object "far bigger than any stars".

July 20, 1996: Five people at Rosewell near Timaru report seeing a triangular shape, with three lights, in the night sky.

August 15, 1990: One witness reports seeing an orange glow appear in a rear-view mirror about 1am.

New Zealand Releases UFO Government Files

New Zealand's military has released hundreds of documents detailing claims of sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

The files, dating from 1954 to 2009, include drawings of flying saucers and alleged samples of alien writing.

The files include details of New Zealand's most famous UFO sighting when strange lights were filmed off the South Island town of Kaikoura in 1978.

An official report from the time said natural phenomenon could explain it.

Although the incident made international headlines at the time, the military report suggested it could be lights from boats reflected in clouds or an unusual view of the planet Venus.

Following the release of the files, New Zealand Air Force spokesman Kavae Tamariki said the military did not have the resources to investigate UFO sightings and would not be commenting on the documents' contents.

"We have just been a collection point for the information. We don't investigate or make reports, we haven't substantiated anything in them," he told the Dominion Post newspaper.

The reports have been released under freedom of information laws after officials removed names and other identifying material.

The files - which run to about 2,000 pages - include accounts by members of the public, military personnel and commercial airline pilots describing close encounters, mostly involving moving lights in the sky.

All the original documents on which the reports were based are to remain sealed in the national archive.

Bright Red UFO Spotted

GLADSTONE is being visited by UFOs, according to a Gladstone local.
The local listed sighting a strange, bright red object Monday morning on a UFO sighting website.

The website, The UFO Clearinghouse, accepts reports from people who have seen something they can’t explain, hence, an unidentified flying object (UFO).

“While at work in the state forest north of Gladstone, I noticed to my left a bright red light,” the local who remained anonymous said.

“Thinking I might have a car coming through the bush towards me, I moved out of the donga I was in and waited for the car to arrive.

“I went outside and noticed that the light was above the tree line above the north end of Mount Larcom.

However, the witness couldn’t work out if it was round or any other shape.

“There were times the light hurt my eyes but not enough for me to look away. I noted that it was slowly moving downwards on the other side of the Mount Larcom range

“There were no other light sources located outside the donga, and no other reason what this red light might have been caused from.”

UFO Research Queensland chair Sheryl Gottschall told The Observer this year alone they have had 123 reported sightings from the public.

“What we find is that the reports come from a broad cross section of society,” Ms Gottschall said.

“We have people from small business owners to professional people like lawyers, teachers and pilots. We get reports from basically everybody,” she said.

Close UFO Encounters On The Coast

They're perhaps not the kind of visitor tourism bodies are looking to attract to the region – they don’t come through customs, they arrive in non-regulation aircraft and never spend any money in the local economy. But if the many reported sightings of their visits are to be believed, UFOs are making regular visits to the Sunshine Coast.

UFO Research Queensland has been compiling data related to sightings throughout Queensland since 1956, and Lee Paqui from the organisation confirmed to Finda that the Sunshine Coast and Glasshouse Mountains area receives a lot of reports.

“Balls of orange or white light are the most frequently reported UFO in the area. These balls of light usually appear singly, but also in triangular, boomerang or straight-line formations, and occasionally they’re seen travelling in clusters of up to 20 or more objects. But while glowing balls of light dominate, there have been a number of far more unusual objects and phenomena sighted as well,” Lee said.

Reported Sightings
According to UFO Research Queensland in 1999, campers on Bribie Island witnessed a glowing green object at midnight that “turned the night into day.” The object was circular, hovered just above the ocean and lit up the sea and the nearby town of Caloundra with a green light for about eight seconds.

In 2004, a group was out four-wheel-driving in the Glasshouse Mountains. They drove along a fire road when one of them screamed. Hovering just above the trees, was a capsule shaped object roughly the size of a petrol tanker truck's trailer. It was emitting a low humming noise and glowing like a dull fluorescent light just above the trees. It was “close enough to throw a rock and hit it”. After a few minutes it tilted forward and drifted west like a balloon down into a ridge. They followed in their car and got out to look for it but it was gone and so was the humming sound.

In 2001 a woman travelling at night towards Bli Bli pulled off the road to allow what she thought was a brightly lit car behind her to overtake. However, instead of overtaking, the lights behind her moved backwards and changed into a crescent shape before disappearing into the sky.

In early 2000 a Caloundra resident reported an object in the sky that looked like “castles joined together,” and estimated it to be about the size of four football fields.

In 2007 a couple witnessed an oval object the size of a football field hovering over Burpengary. It was brightly lit, red on the bottom and white on top, and tilted itself on an angle before disappearing.

(Reported sighting information provided by UFO Research Queensland).

Advice
We asked Lee at UFO Research Queensland what advice he would give to people if they spot something.

“The first thing is to not panic. Our experience has shown that people are not harmed by their encounters with UFOs, in fact, they can come away with a feeling of elation. So, don't panic, don't run, simply stand and watch and observe.

“Try and work out how large the object might be, and how far away it is from you. Hold your arm out and see how big it is compared to your thumb. Notice any discernible markings, what the shape is, if it is glowing or not, what colour it is, does it change colour or shape while you're watching.

“Try to time how long the object is visible for, and how does it disappear. Does it simply vanish like a light going off or does it take off in a particular direction? Try and see what is happening to the world around you - is the sky cloudy or clear, are dogs barking, or have the birds stopped singing? Is there anybody nearby that you could point the object out to? And, most importantly, does anybody have a camera?”

"Of course, expecting people to do all this when they have only a few seconds to think about it could be asking a bit much, but if they can let us know as much as they can about their experience that’s the main thing,” Lee said.

My Mum Talks To Aliens

Later this month SBS screens a documentary that follows the work and personal life of one of the world’s leading authorities on extraterrestrial life, Mary Rodwell (not to be confused with Roswell!).

This Australian woman works in this field all over the world, counselling people who have experience an alien encounter. She has worked in the US, Canada, Asian, European, Russia and other countries but her son is a sceptic. A mother and son Scully and Mulder?

My Mum Talks to Aliens is an intriguing documentary that follows a mother and son on a journey of discovery, as they travel the country in pursuit of solid evidence of an alien presence here on Earth.

There is one issue that is driving a wedge between mother and son – Mary and Chris Rodwell – the existence of extraterrestrial life. Chris is a self-confessed alien sceptic, whilst his mum Mary is a leading global authority on the subject. But her beliefs have come at a cost, her husband left and it is now impacting on her relationship with Chris.

Mary attempts to convince and educate her son, and thus the world about aliens. She introduces her son to her clients who have had first-hand alien abduction experiences, as well as revealing clear, never before- seen footage of UFO’s.

She also visits acclaimed Astrophysicist, Ragbir Bhatal from the University of Western Sydney. Bhatal is one of only three people in the world whose job it is to scan the skies for alien communications.

Mary may be one of the world’s leading alien abduction councillors, and she may be in demand all over the world for her expert extraterrestrial advice, but can she convince her own son about her out-of-this-world beliefs, and save her most precious relationship of all?

My Mum Talks to Aliens airs 8:30pm Tuesday November 30th on SBS ONE.