Westall '66: A Suburban UFO Mystery

Westall '66: A Suburban UFO Mystery

2010, Mystery  -   86 Comments
8.41
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Ratings: 8.41/10 from 296 users.

Westall '66: A Suburban UFO Mystery, directed and edited by Rosie Jones, is a riveting and unique look at what happened in the Westall suburb of Melbourne in 1966. Westall High School was the center of the biggest mass UFO sighting in Australia, yet the event was deliberately suppressed. Jones and her team try to find out why.

At the mention of UFO's, you may be bracing yourself for a film peppered with tin-hat wearing conspiracy theorists, but you may have to revise your opinion.

Candid eyewitness accounts reveal active, attentive people who have lived with a memory that brought them ridicule, and censure, but the stories they tell and the pictures they draw show that they have not forgotten what happened.

As the film progresses, a variety of techniques maintain the delicate and deliberate balance of fact and opinion. Jones marries the austerity and somberness of statistics, recordings, and interviews with playful sketches, poignant clips, and animated narration. This approach underscores a commitment to present an objective, transparent film that is visually diverse.

Jones' commitment to neutrality has a similar effect on the participants and overall tenor of the film. Consequently, we hear students, laborers, community members, researchers, and others talk about what occurred on that fateful April day, and the curious happenings that followed.

They all report seeing something above the paddock that did not look like anything they had ever seen. Some saw it land; some saw it fly away. However, they were all told by school authorities, or police, or other officials in uniform to keep quiet. Many of them were punished and ridiculed if they tried to talk about it, and so they kept silent. Still, they remember what they saw, and thus, the mystery persists.

In the end, Jones successfully delivers a film that may fascinate you, intrigue you, or simply encourage you to keep listening.

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Swisstoons
Swisstoons
6 months ago

Interesting. But why the ever-shifting VOLUME? One participant speaks in a whisper...so you turn the volume up. And THE NEXT SPEAKER BLASTS YOU OUT! When I watch a documentary, I don't want to have to fiddle with the volume control for over an hour.

ohkissoff
ohkissoff
2 years ago

Likely a malfunctioning extraterrestrial probe built by the lowest bidder

Lady Shepherd
Lady Shepherd
2 years ago

I saw one UFO hovering in the sky above me at Salisbury North SA in 1966. That evening three were photographed flying over an Adelaide beach by a News photographer. I don't know the date and I haven't been able to track down the photos that were in The News newspaper but I will keep trying. The object I saw was metal and the sun was glinting off it which is why I noticed it. It was in the same place for the five minutes or so I looked up at it before I went on to the shops. It had gone when I returned about 15 minutes later.

joslyn moses
joslyn moses
2 years ago

The same in the USA, they take away cameras, camcorders, any evidence and never return any item taken. We know what we saw...…….

ben
ben
2 years ago

both sources and videos mentioned two sauces put together.

ben
ben
2 years ago

In 1966 - 11 days later, multiple police officers from Ohio chased an unidentified flying object into Pennsylvania. Their chase stopped in Conway, Pa. It wasn't long before an Air Force official interviewed them and easily explained away the sighting.

April 6, 1966 (this video) vs April 17, 1966 (same size shape, teasing / playing with the public, slow and fast maneuvers - sounds like the same ufo).

Not sure of anymore ufo sightings around the world at this time.

Leo
Leo
2 years ago

The correct name of the Universe is The Universal Dimensions , there are many forms of Human Life in different Dimensions .To understand how the Universal Dimensions works is more than the human mind can possibly ever grasp, your world is one of the least advanced worlds . The Universal Dimensions has no beginning no end it is eternal, If you could travel as far as can be seen upon reaching you would see that there is no end , and so on and so on...

peruda hudson
peruda hudson
3 years ago

mass hysteria? mass hallucinations? absolute garbage. they said the same about the ariel school incident in s africa.

DD
DD
4 years ago

wish we knew more about the girl Tanya who seemed to be the one who got closest to the extraterrestrial craft. She came back hysterical was taken away in an ambulance and never returned too school. her friend went to her house the next day and an English woman answered the door and said that she never lived there. apparently someone did get in touch with her as an adult and she says she has no memory of the event nor does she ever wish to talk about it. something happened to her for sure! Tragic I believe she suffered from the experience although I hope she is doing ok.

albert miller
albert miller
4 years ago

The one thing wrong with this (and many other) presentations on you tube, is the loud background music , which prevented me from understanding the conversation. It doesn't happen in nature....we don't need dramatic music.

DEVON
DEVON
6 years ago

clearly gov technology not Aliens.

Why would an intelligent race come all this way just to hover about and hide from us. Picture the colonists from Spain and UK travelling the atlantic arriving in spain and creeping around hiding in the bushes! It wouldn't happen, they either trade with, teach and mingle with the less advanced natives (rare) or kill pillage and loot.

Jon
Jon
6 years ago

Contemt prior to investigation is evidence of indoctrination.

Courtlandt
Courtlandt
6 years ago

An interesting video.
As I was not present at the time of this alleged event, I thus have no way of knowing what actually did, or did not, happen that day. I have only the video doc. to rely upon for comment.

First: I suppose that is natural, even prudent, to take the extraordinary claims espoused by the children (at the time of the incident) of Westhall regarding the events of April 6th 1966 with a healthy measure of incredulity as to their actuality, much less their accuracy.
Indeed, one need not be a skeptic to realize there is no possibility of ever proving that what they say occurred actually did occur. And even if there were substantive and undisputed evidence supporting their claims, this would still not constitute absolute proof of UFO's having landed near their school. And while it appears that many of the former students have arrived at exactly this conclusion, this is simply a product of what they experienced that day, but is not proof.

Second: All of the evidence presented by the doc. is of an anecdotal nature, but it is NOT typical eyewitness evidence drawn from normal memory. There's a type of memory called a "flashbulb memory". This is an extremely accurate, indelible, Visual type of memory that is encoded in the brain when one is confronted with news of a powerful, emotionally charged event. A typical example of this might be the shocking and/or unexpected birth/death/return/betrayal of a person intimate to you, or any other circumstance, event, etc with which you identify closely. A flashbulb memory lets you remember in great detail exactly where you were, what you were doing, saying, thinking, and feeling at the moment you received the news. For me, one unforgettable flashbulb memory was when I and my entire 6th grade class watched the shuttle Challenger explode before our eyes. Such memories Never fade or even become fuzzy. There is no doubt that every child at Westhall has exactly this type of memory of what they saw that day.
This is telling evidence that SOMETHING extraordinary happened to ALL of them that day.

Third: I find it beyond extraordinary that the intelligence services of Australia, and likely the US as well (the only military in camouflage at that time in Aus. thus the soldiers who rapid responded to the grange landing site) would find it necessary to bully and intimidate school children into silence, and threaten the only adult witness with career ruin if they ever mentioned what they thought they saw that day to anyone, even each other. Clearly it must have been a matter of highest national security for them to do this to these implausible witnesses, else they wouldn't have run whatever super-secret operation they were running in broad daylight in the midst of a highly populated urban center. (It is also noteworthy that, 45 years later, the only witness wishing NOT to be interviewed on screen in the video was the science teacher. Careers are not the only that can be threatened with ruin, I suppose.)

Fourth: The fact that the Military did seriously investigate the Westhall incident and yet not even a trace of such an investigation can be found, even by civilian researchers trained to uncover such clandestine investigations, bespeaks of the importance of the event in terms of national security interests. (What happened to the channel 9 news reel reporting on the event??)

Fifth: To my mind.... there are still several other minor, yet puzzling, facts a concerning the authorities acid reaction to the alleged events at Westhall, no matter if it were a secret government project gone awry or extraterrestrial/extra-dimensional/etc. UFOs finding earth, or something else in-between. But this one stands out amongst them all.

What did happen to Tania???

postscript;
Here I will assume that most (if not all) of the facts presented are factual and accurate and I will speculate on Tania's possible fate and the reason for the Government smothering of any and all info regarding Westhall.

Remember..... Tania seems to be the only student likely to have come into some sort of actual contact with any of the craft. So maybe...... the reason why the military arrived so quickly is because they were told just before the crafts landed, exactly where to go by the pilots of the saucer-like craft themselves. The authorities were being taught the lesson of just how easy it is for the saucer pilots to go at anytime, anywhere they like, and do anything they wished. This includes landing at a children's school during recess in broad daylight and then luring the students to their landing site where they could then be mortally afflicted in either mind or body.... or both. And after making good in this demonstration, the authorities realized they must NEVER EVER allow the public at large to have the slightest inkling of just how powerless our governments and militaries are in protecting our children and planet.

This fanciful deduction unfortunately does seem to fit the observed facts........ and I sincerely hope absolutely none of it is right.

Mary Anne
Mary Anne
6 years ago

What happened to Tania?

Alison Ellis
Alison Ellis
6 years ago

The teacher committed suicide - Mmmmm, I just bet he did.

Allan
Allan
7 years ago

I had a daylight sighting. It was a perfect sphere, no seams, no wings, no sign of propulsion. Completely silent. Color of polished lead. I looked up metals later and found that beryllium was the closest visual match. Ever since that day in Florida I have been fascinated with finding others who might have had a similar experience. I found the interviews in this film to have a strong sense of truth to them. Also, thru the years I have grown to have a distaste for skeptics. They always hide behind their smarty pants comments. They truly have no idea how completely stupid they are.

TB
TB
7 years ago

Having been there at that time I can tell you all this was no balloon or man-made device. Nothing...not even today...moves that fast and in silence

Fred
Fred
8 years ago

Another famous case, at least in Australia, is the "Disappearance of Frederick Valentich" (see Wikipedia page). Interesting.

Remsey
Remsey
8 years ago

I have seen a so called UFO in 1994 the Netherlands. It was an experience that made a lot of impact. It flew low and made a full stop from I guess 300km/hr to 0. It then made a cross shaped sign horizontally (left/middle/right/middle and continued its journey. My mother said...do you see it! Do you see it! I said yes yes and by then it was gone. It changed my view of life and I am 100% convinced we are not alone in this universe. My opinion: They only show themselves to individuals. They will not land on a square in a big city because they respect our lives. They do collect organic material and perhaps they terraform other planets with our life. Earth may even be terraformed in the past. After all life developed on earth with an enourmous speed. One earth layer it was not present, the next it was.

jimmy zhim
jimmy zhim
8 years ago

excellent although it's no longer available?

Tarek
Tarek
8 years ago

Its a real flying object, but its highly likely from the evidence in this film, that this was a secret black project, and not an alien craft. The fact that military type people were on the scene in minutes is significant, they were on standby.
The governments lie to us in clever ways, just enough spin and staged acting to put us off the scent into thinking its aliens.
I am not ruling out possibility that alien / interdimensional beings and craft could exist, but dont choose the choices presented to you, make your own informed choice.

agent_788
agent_788
8 years ago

I think the people who are living with the blinkers on and believe everything they are told and follow all the rules are usually the skeptics - the more open minded individual is usually the non skeptic when it comes to the subject of alien life - but the fact remains we are not alone - whether you like it or not

Jason13
Jason13
8 years ago

I wish everybody would learn a bit about how eyewitness testimony is incredibly unreliable. We like to think "we know what we saw," but we really don't. I know that can be unsettling, but it's true.

If you're looking to kill 45 minutes watching a fun documentary, just watch some TED talks about eyewitness testimony or watch any brain-centric programs about perception. (Just consider the sources, beware of neuro-bunk!)

Those sorts of programs may help you consider these types of cases in a new and interesting light :-)

Carl Hendershot
Carl Hendershot
8 years ago

Different from the norm and I found it very interesting.

anon
anon
8 years ago

if i could only have one question answered with a full explanation id accept theres no such thing as a ufo...so heres my question what do we have that can travel from one end off the horizon to the other in a click off a finger...still waiting ...guess ill be waiting as long as the dead people in this video ...

jessij
jessij
8 years ago

I want to know what happened to Tania!!

Joe Schmoe
Joe Schmoe
9 years ago

I am always cautious and skeptical regarding this topic. However, I do believe there is something to these types of encounters, as a whole. To those immediately dismissive of the subject, I suggest a couple of points to consider relative to "evidence":
1) Relative to first-hand accounts: When it comes to eye-witness accounts, many of us in the Western world live in society, with systems of justice, wherein people are convicted by their peers and punished based solely on the first-hand testimony of others.
2) Relative to lack of photo/video proof: how many photos/videos exist of automobile accidents taken right as they occur? Probably as many as there are of anomalous objects available on social media currently.
3) Credibility of witnesses: Certainly there are those out there that are eccentric, simply seeking attention or straight mentally ill that report these types of encounters. However, the scope and scale of the population involved, across every geographical boundary and culture, there have been reported encounters and/or sightings.
Just 20-30 years ago, study of black holes was border-line pseudo-science, extremely controversial and considered detrimental to careers of those in scientific community. Theoretically, it was likely, but no one had first-hand account. Conversely, with respect to the phenomena here, there are plenty of former military officials, pilots, and even astronauts that have provided their own encounters. Statistically, can we rule them all as insane, delusional, mistaken or suffering from mass hysteria? What if just one is right?

Bob
Bob
9 years ago

This offered One thing, the part about the headlights of the car. How when the object began to move(operate), the headlight beams at a point near the object, were curving towards the object. The only One who knew where the objects came from when speaking was the old lady in black and white:)

Independence Day
Independence Day
9 years ago

Oh dude, Bill Chalker! that's the ex Vietnam vet who got abducted by aliens who then did [sexual] tests on him and now he's an alcoholic who dusts crop fields for a living.

Think for Yourself
Think for Yourself
9 years ago

Great documentary, thoughtful and informative. I meant to give it 10 stars but accidentally hit the wrong spot, which lowered the scale. Sorry…

I agree with the author that it’s NOT likely this flying object was
a military test. As the author points out, if this was a test, surely decades later we would see the military openly operating a functioning version of the prototype. Hasn’t happened.

And why would the military conduct top secret tests next to a populated area? Doesn’t make sense. Furthermore, the docu points out that there were sightings in the area a couple of days prior to the sighting at the school. Those previous sightings might explain the military presence in the area by the time this object was seen at the school two days later.

Sad that the witnesses were bullied into silence… This documentary helps redress this wrong to some extent. Thank you!

Libbe Bouma
Libbe Bouma
9 years ago

Good documentary,I like the way you present to hole docu including the style of drawing. Nice background music plus Australian accent witch I like a lot.

Crab_Nebula
Crab_Nebula
9 years ago

I like how everyone always imagines that UFO space ships are about the same size as we 'think' they should be,
to house aliens roughly the same size as us...lol... they could be as tall as building's, or as tiny as microbes.

Msdcs
Msdcs
9 years ago

Good documentary, now we know how Kissinger got his orders.

a_no_n
a_no_n
9 years ago

An entire documentary of anecdotal evidence (read as not evidence.)

safe to say my skepticism hasn't been challenged...not even a little bit.

After watching a few minutes of this documentary, reading the blurb again made me laugh...talk about an oversell!

i think the quote that made me laugh the most was at 40:20.

"I believe truth can exist without proof of it."

sums up this documentary in a nutshell as well as the attitudes of the films makers.

FollowTheFacts
FollowTheFacts
9 years ago

....a fine documentary, I gave it 8, but hesitated between 7 and 8...
Complaints would be about sound...again...mixing, background music and dialog and so forth, plus Australian accent is not my favorite and would sometimes merit subtext...imo
But the case dealt with here is definitely compelling...
I knew a person who used to work at Area 51 and I just...wanted to "interrogate" him to no end! – ..but never did...he is gone now...when asked about something he would just smile and the only thing he would talk about was the incredible food they were served there...I have no doubt about that...

techcafe
techcafe
9 years ago

most UFO sightings are actually classified military projects—not extra-terrestrial beings visiting from another world. in fact, the military establishment even cooks up UFO conspiracy stories in order to confound a gullible public and divert scrutiny away from these secret military projects. it's a shame so many people are still being duped to this day.

Think for Yourself
Think for Yourself
9 years ago

When agencies conduct ruthless disinformation campaigns... threats made to silence the witnesses... it isn't to prevent panic, as no one was panicked. Most likely, the cover up was to prevent folks from realizing there was something much more evolved out there, and somebody's power base would be diminished by it.

Truth Seeker
Truth Seeker
9 years ago

Why is the government so afraid of the truth? It must give them a feeling of smug superiority to know something we don't.....and to keep it secret for many years is unbelievable! What power!! Hate them for it!!

dmxi
dmxi
9 years ago

good ol' pop-corn documentary!fascinating entertainment,if you will.
enjoy
with feet-up (anti-gravity-flying-position),aforementioned popcorn in
lap(space-pickles) & an open minded smirk (no galactic void blank
stare with gawking dropped jaw of disbelief!) on a rainy/snowy sunday!
-one space cadet-