Two people holidaying on the north coast of NSW experienced an intriguing UFO encounter on June 3rd, 1995. Christine and Darryl were staying at a caravan Park on Palmers Island. At about 8 pm they had gone fishing 400 metres away on the bank of the Clarence River. Across the river is Harwood Island -- which has extensive sugar cane planatations, scattered housing, and a sugar refinery. Darryl was using a new torch, which he waved up and down. A long, thin, white cigar shaped light was noticed in the sky. It remained in the sky for about 15 minutes, until for a 20 second period, the light started dimishing in size, and then zig-zagged up higher into an orange dot. For a further 5 minutes the couple were distracted by problems with snagged fishing lines. Then, emerging from an area on the other side of the river, a large oval object seemed to rise up from the ground and proceed towards the unnerved couple's position. It seemed to be huge, and was likened to the size of a caravan in close proximity. The earlier light now seemed to have increased in apparent size. The object approaching from Harwood Island seemed to tilt on its side as it reached the river.
It appeared to expose a large under section, which had 2 circles of "laser bright orange light -- one inside the other", according to the Independent Network of UFO Researchers (INUFOR) investigator, Moira McGhee. By then, the couple were terrified, but their dog seemed oblivious. They rapidly packed their gear into their car and frantically attempted to drive out of the area. At that point the object seemed to veer back over to the other side of the river and, as the couple left, moved smoothly and slowly towards the hills in the opposite direction. They got back to the park by 9.20 pm. Christine could not sleep until 4.30 am, and Darryl suffered from bad nightmares. Their dog began vomiting and had to be taken to the vet 4 days after the event.
Such effects could be of prosaic in origin, in the absence of clear correlations. Two weeks after the encounter, the couple returned to Harwood Island with Christine's father to search the area where the strange object appeared to rise from. In an area that appeared to be consistent with the possible locality of the object's initial presence, they found a large area of depressed sugar cane. The outer "walls" of the depressed are were intact all the way around. There did not seem to be any sign of footprints or tyre tracks. Because of the delay in reporting and the tenuous nature of the connection between the sighting and the possible "physical trace" INUFOR investigators did not directly examine the sight. They received copies of photographs of the damaged cane taken by the witnesses. While there is dubious benefit in delayed searches for possible physical trace evidence, the Harwood Island incident is intriguing.
You will recollect that the north coast is my home territory. The locality of Palmers Island and the landing on Harwood Island made me recall two events. One provides a startling coincidence.
Exactly 20 years to the day, on June 3rd, 1975, the same area was the scene of a dramatic UFO close encounter. At 7.30 pm two young men visiting 3 other men on the Yamba Road to Palmers Island noticed a bright red and green object approaching from the west. When it appeared to hover nearby, the group began it watch it closely. All 5 men followed it by car as the object began to move off in the direction of the road to Palmers Island. After travelling over a bridge, the UFO approached the car and hovered within 200 yards, at the beginning of a long straight stretch in the road. It appeared to be about 30 feet wide with a disc-shape apparent, when lights on it dimmed. As the car closed in, the object shot off down the straight at high speed and then appeared to hover at the end of it, as if waiting for the car. It then zig-zagged across the road, eventually moving across the Clarence River and hovering above trees in the sugar cane fields on Harwood Island. The object went down twice, dimming and revealing a definite disc shape. Then the object moved to the left "fading" or "landing" behind the sugar cane storage sheds. No landing "nests" were found in this area, however the farmers reported disturbances amongst the dogs and animals.
Fishermen at Yamba reported seeing a fast moving light travel from the ocean horizon to Yamba at about the beginning of the Palmers Island close encounter. I was able to interview 3 of the men on June 7th, on location. Other intriguing sightings also occurred on the north coast at that time, including a June 5th sighting of a ball of orange light, apparently flying parallel to power lines, near South Grafton. TV interference over a wide area was reported during the sighting.
I had been expecting activity like this on the North Coast, and had been on standby in Sydney ready to travel at a moments notice. This preparedness had developed out of studies of local waves of sightings, or "flaps". North Coast and New England area "flaps" had occurred in 1966, 1969 and 1972, and I was quitely "predicting" a flap on the north coast for the middle of 1975. Of course this remained in research circles so as not to "create" a flap through publicity. This pattern even continued into New England "predictions" for early 1978, which seemed verified with the Bakers Creek events and reports from Lismore and other areas. After that the element of a regular temporal and spatial pattern disappeared with the usual unpredictable nature of UFO sightings reasserting itself. It was an intriguing time for investigation and research, and reinforced my interest in the strange phenomenon of localised UFO flaps as being a possible context for worthwhile scientific study.
Credit: faces-on-mars.blogspot.com
