By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
ON the face of it, a UFO-themed playground seems fertile ground for childrens’ rampant imaginations.
But it is also vindication for more than 100 people – many who were children when they purportedly saw flying silver objects hover and vanish in broad daylight in what became known as the ‘Westall 1966 incident’.
The playground, which opened at The Grange Reserve in Clayton South last month, pays homage to what is described as Australia’s most significant UFO sightings. Among the tanbarked landscaping, barbecues, play equipment and storyboards of the event is a large-scale flying saucer.
A dozen or so eyewitnesses attended the opening, each pledging they saw something extraordinary linger and then disappear behind pine trees on 6 April 1966.
At the time, they were told by teachers, the headmaster and “men from the government in uniform and plain-clothes” 47-years-ago, never to talk about it.
Even at the opening, a UFO-sceptic was willing to pick apart their anecdotes. The sceptic was told firmly by Joy Clarke, a former Westall High School student and eyewitness: “You weren’t there!”
Ms Clarke like all staff and students was forbidden from talking to the press. So reported the Journal at the time, under headlines “Flying Saucer Mystery: School Silent”.
Ms Clarke was led away by a police officer as she tried to answer questions from a TV news crew on the day of the event.
Many of the eyewitnesses were teachers and school children at Westall Primary School and Westall High School, practicing PE outside at the time. Some of them chased the objects into the reserve, which was then a mass of orchards and market gardens, pines, gums, heath and blackberries.
“The principal that afternoon told us to keep it quiet,” Ms Clarke said.
“We were told it wasn’t anything… it was a weather balloon.
“But it wasn’t a weather balloon. I saw three flying saucers – we compared it with the comic books and the science movies. My personal belief is they were extra… they were from somewhere else.”
“They were hovering over the school and we saw them hovering over the trees here (at the reserve). “Then they came down again.
“I never saw anything move so quickly, at huge speed up, down and side to side. When Cessnas came and chased them, they just played cat and mouse with them.”
She regards it as a privilege to have seen the objects.
Canberra-based researcher Shane Ryan has been instrumental in collaborating the sightings.
This playground means those eye-witnesses’ memories are “finally given the recognition they deserve”, he says.
He collected 145 testimonies, many long locked away inside people’s memories and hidden out of fear of ridicule, disbelief, reputation damage or out of fear itself.
Their stories are not for anyone to “prohibit, deny or take away”, Mr Ryan told gatherers at the launch.
He later told the Journal many of the eyewitnesses expressed “palpable relief” that he was willing to listen.
Some of the witnesses wore T-shirts ‘Westall 1966: The Truth is Here’; some were interviewed by a roving crew from UFO TV.
Andrew Arnold, of UFO TV, ranks the incident as among the top-10 UFO sightings in the world, because it was collaborated by so many and in broad daylight.
Paul Smith remembers the incident vividly. He was working in the market garden as a 16-year-old when he saw an elongated 10-metre object hover in the air metres away.
“It started to change from solid to light and a rainbow. It was shimmering and changing form,” he told the Journal as he pointed at the playground’s ether.
“It disappeared in a torch of light through the trees. The trees didn’t move.
“It wasn’t threatening. I was more afraid when the army came and interviewed my boss.”
Mr Smith spoke of the suppression at the time. After talking with authorities, his boss wouldn’t tell him what was going on.
“He saw it but wouldn’t have anything to do with it. He didn’t seem interested.”
His cousin was dis-enrolled from Westall High School because; “there was too much talk of flying saucers”.
“To me, it was something that happened. If something can change from a solid object to light rays, I believe anything can happen,” Mr Smith said.
“Nothing can shock me.”
