Whether gullible, sceptical or somewhere in between, reported UFO sightings have long been a fascination. The well worn cliche ‘we are not alone’ still prompts the odd mention.

Much hysteria stems from HG Wells’ famous 1898 novel War Of the Worlds, adapted to script in Barrie Lyndon’s 1953 film, conceiving the idea of Martian invasions, to eradicate humans without discernible motives. Exacerbated by some low budget movies in the 1950s, alien invaders were depicted as aggressive and/ or speaking perfect English. Earlier, in 1938, at the Mercury Theatre Of The Air in New York, Orson Welles’ depiction was so convincingly produced, a false interpretation of its authenticity created public panic.

This genre was subsequently challenged for the first time in Hollywood history by Steven Spielberg’s movies Close Encounters and ET, both depicting aliens as friendly. As we’ve matured, we’ve become more intuitive to things that can rationally explain such phe­nomena observed in the skies or at the very least, encourage us to be objective. Remember what UFO actually stands for – Unidentified Flying Object – a flying object that initially, if ever, can be identified. Indeed, a significant departure from irrational conceptualisations of green Martians in flying saucers invading the earth.

In a recent Seven Network interview, UFO researcher, Ross Coulthart cited that converse to stories of men in black warning off witnesses in relation to the Roswell incident in New Mexico in 1947; today the Pentagon in Virginia, has, since 2017, operated a special unit devoted to this phenomenon and said to have video footage.

He also cited the Westall High School incident south east of Melbourne 1966, when some 200 teachers and students reportedly witnessed a disc like object hovering above the school oval and dis­appearing at a phenomenal speed which no earth based modern aircraft could ever achieve.

Closer to home, during an extended family party in the early hours of the morning in 1969, my cousins and I were stunned by a formation of lights with near perfect symmetry and a fiery tail, travelling north above the River Derwent at considerable altitude. Although subse­quently explained as a meteor shower, it proved the perfect catalyst for breaking up a party.

A recent consult with the Tasmanian UFO Investigation Centre (TUFOIC) clarified that largely, thanks to a range of airport navigational personnel and caretakers at remote weather stations; approximately 90% of reported sightings are ultimately explained, especially with a myriad of sat­ellites and space junk orbiting the earth.

The best account was shared with me by a former abalone diver and skipper of a fishing boat called the Glen-Eden, when on a still and clear night in 1994 near Maatsuyker Island off Tasmania’s South Coast, he and his deck hand both wit­nessed what started as a dim light about 10 kms away. Initially assumed to be a mast light of another vessel; on approach, though binoculars, it manifested as a 25 metre wide domed object that rose 200 metres and remained for some 20 minutes.

It made no noise but significantly it shot out a beam of light at a 45 degree angle downwards, so bright it could be likened to burning magnesium, creating an inten­sity of brightness much like that of an arc welder and illuminating the surrounding islands. He also reported, much like the students of Westall did 28 years before, that as the Glen-Eden got within one kilometre, it instantaneously shot away in a south westerly direction at a 75 degree angle, with a constant speed, until it became a point of light among the stars over the course of 6-7 seconds. The beam of light sustained the same intensity of brightness over this period. What a night!

I would like to acknowledge the assis­tance of Rhys Escort in researching the account of the Glen-Eden incident.