While looking for UFO sightings in the time-frame of the 1966 Ann Arbor/Dexter/Hillsdale “swamp gas” sightings, I came across the Burkes Flat (Australia) sighting of April 4th, 1966, which was featured as part of The Science Channel’s “Close Encounter” series [May 15/16, 2014].
Here is the full story as found on a Facebook page about Australian UFO sightings:
Date: April 4th, 1966
Location: Burkes Flat, Victoria, Australia
At about 8:00 p.m., Ron Sullivan, was travelling on a straight sealed section of the Dunolly-St.Arnaud road, near Bourkes Flat, in central country Victoria. Ahead in a pasture off to his right, Sullivan observed an unusual light. He first took it to be a tractor, engaged in night plowing, but as he drew closer, Sullivan began to see a most unusual light display, located at ground level. The following things happened quickly as he drew closer to the scene, and then passed it. He was paying attention to both the light display in the pasture on his right and the road when he observed the following sequence of light display in the strange phenomenon in the pasture.
Initially, as he approached, Sullivan saw a white phosphorous type of light on the ground that appeared to be about 15' in diameter. It opened up and there was another white oval on top of it, about 30' in height, coming down making the shape of a cone, with a 15' bottom diameter and 20' top diameter. And in that cone were tubes of colored lights, all the lights as you see as you look through the spectrum, all the colors of the rainbow red, blue, indigo & purple. Travelling up and down, or they seem to be, from the small oval to the bigger oval at the top. They were going up and down in shafts. Then gradually the top seemed to come to meet the bottom, They seemed to close in, making a transition of one light oval, similar to first view, everything then just disappeared. The last thing Sullivan saw of the light display was just a spot on the ground, a light spot, become smaller and smaller, to nothing. Meanwhile, as he was driving, he observed that his car headlight beams suddenly appeared to be pointing in a direction off to the right in the direction of the strange light display and also seemed to be, bending back on an axis with the object in the pasture. As he got closer, the angle of bending of his cars headlight beams became more acute.
Location: Burkes Flat, Victoria, Australia
At about 8:00 p.m., Ron Sullivan, was travelling on a straight sealed section of the Dunolly-St.Arnaud road, near Bourkes Flat, in central country Victoria. Ahead in a pasture off to his right, Sullivan observed an unusual light. He first took it to be a tractor, engaged in night plowing, but as he drew closer, Sullivan began to see a most unusual light display, located at ground level. The following things happened quickly as he drew closer to the scene, and then passed it. He was paying attention to both the light display in the pasture on his right and the road when he observed the following sequence of light display in the strange phenomenon in the pasture.
Initially, as he approached, Sullivan saw a white phosphorous type of light on the ground that appeared to be about 15' in diameter. It opened up and there was another white oval on top of it, about 30' in height, coming down making the shape of a cone, with a 15' bottom diameter and 20' top diameter. And in that cone were tubes of colored lights, all the lights as you see as you look through the spectrum, all the colors of the rainbow red, blue, indigo & purple. Travelling up and down, or they seem to be, from the small oval to the bigger oval at the top. They were going up and down in shafts. Then gradually the top seemed to come to meet the bottom, They seemed to close in, making a transition of one light oval, similar to first view, everything then just disappeared. The last thing Sullivan saw of the light display was just a spot on the ground, a light spot, become smaller and smaller, to nothing. Meanwhile, as he was driving, he observed that his car headlight beams suddenly appeared to be pointing in a direction off to the right in the direction of the strange light display and also seemed to be, bending back on an axis with the object in the pasture. As he got closer, the angle of bending of his cars headlight beams became more acute.
He thought his car must have been heading off the road to the right, and immediately compensated by turning it to the left. He found he was now heading directly towards a tree on the left hand side of the road. He turned the car to the right to regain the direction of travel along the straight section of road, thoroughly confused and leaving behind the display in the pasture.
He had his car lights checked and found them to be working properly. Later in Maryborough he found that a young man from Carnegie, Gary Taylor, was killed in a car accident at Burkes Flat on the night of April 6th, two nights later. Sullivan reported his experience to police. At the accident site, it was determined that Taylors car had collided with the same tree that Sullivan almost collided with 2 nights earlier. Directly opposite the tree in the pasture, about 70 yards from the roadway, coincident with where Sullivan saw the strange light display, a shallow depression was found in the plowed earth. It was a little over 3' in diameter and only a few inches in depth. The depression was cleanly scooped out of the sandy soil with no apparent debris around it. There were no human or animal tracks around the area. The property owner indicated the depression had not been there when he had finished plowing. There appeared to be no explanation for the depression or the light display.
He had his car lights checked and found them to be working properly. Later in Maryborough he found that a young man from Carnegie, Gary Taylor, was killed in a car accident at Burkes Flat on the night of April 6th, two nights later. Sullivan reported his experience to police. At the accident site, it was determined that Taylors car had collided with the same tree that Sullivan almost collided with 2 nights earlier. Directly opposite the tree in the pasture, about 70 yards from the roadway, coincident with where Sullivan saw the strange light display, a shallow depression was found in the plowed earth. It was a little over 3' in diameter and only a few inches in depth. The depression was cleanly scooped out of the sandy soil with no apparent debris around it. There were no human or animal tracks around the area. The property owner indicated the depression had not been there when he had finished plowing. There appeared to be no explanation for the depression or the light display.
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A few things struck me about this story…
First a personal note: We had a Gary Taylor working with us from (about 1966) to 1987. He’s still alive and kicking, but not his doppelganger, as noted in the account above.
And in looking at my notes about the Dexter/Frank Mannor 1966 Ann Arbor/Dexter sighting that shoved Allen Hynek into buffoonery with his “swamp gas” explanation, Mr. Mannor said the object he saw, “had a light coming out of the bottom” -- a light that looked like milk being “spilt” into the ground, except that it was a light, that reflected off the surrounding trees.
Light acting like a solid has been the topic of conjecture in some science circles:
One of the 1966 Wanaque photos, which I’ve always considered a fake, but Anthony Bragalia insists is authentic, shows a light, emanating from a “craft” that has a solid demeanor about it:
There are a plethora of UFO sightings with light beams, none bending as that at Burkes Flat, but seemingly solid, not the wave/particle light that Einstein dealt with.
RR
This would seem to be a topic for scrutiny by ufologists of a serious kind, those who seek a clue or explanation explaining the UFO phenomenon.
(I’ll present more, and have passed my interest on to The Einstein Fellowship, an adjunct group of ours.)
For more on Burkes Flat, you might Google Bill Chalker and Burkes Flat. Mr. Chalker is a bona fide UFO researcher, whose analyses and research is above reproach.
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