Hello, and welcome to the show. This is Martin Willish, your host.
We seem to have had an issue with the recording this evening for this
show with Rob Scholtzky. Everything seemed to be fine on my end through Skype
and all that, but somehow the software seemed to be corrupt. So we
are going to be working with KGr A Radio to get the original file from
them and hopefully I'll be able to clean that up and send out a podcast.
But for now, this podcast is something I recorded at the UFO Congress
in Australian group. Anyway, it's a great show. That's a great group
of people and enjoy this podcast. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much.
We have Australia being represented the Victoria and well you explained where you to
heck you from and how you got here. Hell ya, thanks Martin.
Monime's Ben Hill. I'm the director of Victorian UFO Action and we are the
primary group in Victoria that investigates UFO sightings in our state. We've decided that
we'd like to get out there and see the world, I suppose to a
certain extent, and what better way to start than by coming to the International
UFO Congress here in Phoenix. So we've decided that we'd do a bit of
a road trip and we landed in Las Vegas, and we've been all through
northern Nevada and northern Arizona and we're now here in Phoenix for the week,
and we're really having a great time meeting all these different people that are around
the UFO phenomenon, and people doing all sorts of different work in the phenomenon,
coming from different perspectives, and really there's there's just so many conversations you
can have with anyone standing in the corner or talk to a major presenter.
It really is a great opportunity. Now, just a while you're speaking,
going how am I did this? Who's bring child? First of all was
just to come over here, and how did this tech to get the whole
thing together and plan? Well, it's really I think Jim and Chris that
was where the genesis of the idea started. And you think about what it
takes to get six people to get time off work and have the money and
all those type of things to pull it off. So it certainly had been
in the pipeline for might say well over six months or so for us to
all agree that we could go ask our bosses for time off, et cetera,
et cetera. So it's sort of is really quite special that we're able
to get you six people from our small group, which is practically half the
group, to be able to travel to the United States. Yeah, well,
I'm glad you're Verry h. I will talk a little bit about it.
Australia is actually one of the top listeners to this show. You're a
country of twenty six million or so people, and your number three usually when
I check it too, sometimes even two. So let's start change. We'll
started to send read here and a little bit about equ and what got you
interested in the subject? Thanks Martin. I came kind of I'm an architect
by profession, coming out of the design in design industry. I kind of
came through the aerospace as an enthusiast in that field. UM largely drawn by
the writings and work of doctor edgar Mitchell UM. And one goes, as
I say, down the rabbit hole, and I just kept going and made
a trip to the US, and made another trip to the US and met
a few people, and it just it just keeps going. Basically, early
on I came to the conclusion that the at its core, the phenomena is
real, and I became fairly obsessed with finding out what's going on. Um.
So that's that's what got me into it. But of course once you
started, there's no way out, is it, as we all know.
Um. But yeah, so you know, to get into the action,
you've got to come to the US. Let's face it, that's grand zero
for pretty much everything that's going on. Absolutely, Australia is a small country
and really not a lot goes on there. You know, in the field
we have the same problems that you have here, and that in terms of
the media and the general public, basically the subject is just ridiculed. It
is changing, of course, But over here you have an industry, you
have a community. You know, you can do these kind of things.
And one thing I really believe is you need a tribe. You need to
get yourself around like minded people and whatever your take on the subject matter is,
you can find something in the US that will you know that you can
plug into. I suppose. So I've made a few trips over here,
and I've been to this this conference and others before, and I think that's
what kind of got you know, just through the idea out there and it
just kind of got leaks and here we are. So we're having a great
time. It's it's incredible the people you meet. Just on the way to
this interview. We stop for five minutes with James Fox, with Linkatar,
you know, you know what it's like, Paul Heinick. It just goes
on. So you know, for us from the other side of the planet,
you know, we just don't get access to these this these kind of
people, this kind of information and the opportunity. And it's not just the
celebrities, it's the just the people you meet just anywhere. You know,
everyone's got a story, yeah, you know, and it's just incredible.
So I think we're all having a really good time and we're just excited.
It's just you never and like I said before, you never know what's going
to happen next. It's just you know, it's just it's just incredible.
So and I mean, you'll be next to I just want to say one
thing that kind of astounded me and when I started to look into this is
how many highly intelligent people are interested in the topic. And you know,
because on the outside, you know, growing up on the ridicule and stuff
like that. You know, you hear is just you know these you know
cooks and um, you know farmers and whatever, and you know, those
are the only people that that's kind of like the the misconception of was actually
interested in absolutely, And you know outside is looking in thinks we're all we're
all crazy and all this. You know, but you talk to people like
the Danny Sheens and the James Foxes and the Richard Dolans and yourself, your
reputation is is incredible, you know it. You can attack this subject matter
very credibly and very intelligently. Um. And that's what I think a group
we are very we're all very skeptical. We're all like to think we attacked
this very very intelligently. But you're right, I mean, yeah, yeah,
and it is changing before I our eyes. The subject matter is unfolding
before our eyes. People starting to take this seriously, the news media starting
to take this seriously. So it's it's incredible times we're going through. Okay,
oh him, I come from a very skeptical and debunking background, and
my belief was that anybody who saw a UFO was on some sort of mind
altering drug and not right in the head until I moved from South Australia to
Melbourne and through a series of events through my workplace, was presented with the
Westall case. I'd never heard of a mass sighting and to me, I
stood up and took that quite seriously that there was such a thing. There
was a researcher, serious research church, Shane Ryan, that was involved in
looking into the case. He and Rosie Jones had made a documentary on it
and interviewed the witnesses who saw the case. And I guess anybody watching this
can just go and google Westall if they haven't already. Prior to that,
just out of curiosity, I had wondered if there were anybody seriously researching your
foes, and after doing a lot of digging on the Internet, I discovered
Keith Basterfield and he's from my home state of South Australia, and I was
amazed to see his methodical and thorough research and compiling of cases for many years.
One of the cases I noticed was in the next street from where I
grew up back in the sixties early seventies. I think it was don't cut
quite remember the year, and that really sent a chill down my spine,
and then you know, I left that alone, and then once again came
across through my work about the west Or incident, and when the fiftieth anniversary
came up, I thought it would be nice to have a little picnic and
meet the witnesses. So I put a notice out on Facebook and invited anybody
to come and have a moment silent remembering the incident April six, nineteen sixty
six, and we met at the grange and I had the pleasure of meeting
some of the witnesses. One case in particular that impressed me was the case
of Paul Smith, who wasn't a school child at the time. He was
a market gardener working and he saw the craft quite close up, and he
and his boss looked up from pulling up carrots. And you'll probably see this
on the video as well, but he explained to me how the craft was
hovering there in front of him, and he wasn't sure whether it was a
trick or an illusion or some sort of projection. And he and the boss
were staring at this thing and it changed colors and it became semi transparent,
and it drifted through the trees, and I actually went to the very spot
with him and he explained to me and showed me where it was, and
he said, and I said, well, what do you mean it drifted
through the trees? Did it go in and around the trees at the grange?
And he said no, it drifted through the trees. And I said,
what do you mean, like a ghost or like smoke? And he
said yes, it became the consistency of smoke. And I thought, I've
never heard of anything like this. And this prompted me to keep looking into
this phenomena. I've discovered Jacques Valet. I've been reading all of his diaries.
I really tried to focus on the scientific aspect of this phenomena. And
that's it pretty much. Ben. I know you were on the show,
my show in twenty seventeen, but go ahead for the person who's never heard
your story, and just, you know, quickly go into you know,
I actually interested in it in the beginning. Yeah, well, going into
the beginning. I was into UFOs as a child. The first books I
bought were books on UFOs, and I was familiar with the Travis Walton case
and Betty and Barney Hill cases of that stature right back in the nineteen seventies,
not long after the Walton incident, and it really captured my imagination as
a child that there the possibility of there being other intelligences out there that would
be visiting us for whatever reason. And to me it seemed quite a natural
thing, even at a young age. It was just seemed very intuitive that
it was actually a fact that there really used no question to it. So
that was my own personal belief, but it wasn't And I had the interest
all through my life, you know, so I'd always read UFO books and
stuff like that, but it had drift in and out, you know,
with life busy, busy. And then when I turned about forty, I
thought, I really want to get back into UFOs and I thought, I
want to investigate UFOs. I want to get out there and I want to
actually be a part of something that's that's actively exploring this. And I lived
three hours from Melbourne, so I don't live anywhere near the city. And
unfortunately in Australia really at that time, there wasn't really much going on,
particularly in our state. View Force had closed down, they'd peat it out
by the early two thousands, so there was nothing really active from a really
active group point of view. George Simpson was having some meetings down in Chelsea,
dragging along some of the old view Force members, and that was the
first, my first introduction to sitting around with people discussing UFOs. At that
meeting, I met another man called Andrew Arnold who was trying to get a
UFO group up and running, which was Victorian UFO Action, and he and
I hit it off pretty well straight away. He saw something in me.
What that was, I don't know, but we got together and one with
a couple of other people, we started to reconstruct a group again in our
state. So view Force had been there for over fifty years. They'd had
a huge backlog of cases they investigated, They did all the big cases from
our state, and here we were in the new millennium trying to recruit to
recreate what they had been doing for the previous fifty years, with very little
other than ourselves and a camera popping out to locations, talking to witnesses,
swatting flies and the sun, all that sort of stuff. We made,
We made videos, We created a website and Facebook pages, and then gradually
we had we had more people start to join us, start to get interested,
and it was a bit of a revolving door. At the start,
we had people coming through the group, you know, deciding it's not for
them for whatever reason. You have this sort of turnover of people. But
after a while it started to stick and we started to get some really good
people coming along, and we were just pinching ourselves at the quality of the
people that were coming to our meetings and not just coming to the meetings,
actually wanted to come back, so that was really good too. We had
a couple of conferences that we did that was a good start, and that's
where the likes of Jim came along, and you know, Lana popped up
and all the other guys here at the table popped up, and I was
so glad they did, but very grateful for their for their input. So
for me, it was about getting out there and talking to the witnesses.
I had a great passion for UFO cases. I believe the witnesses. I
believe their stories, and we wanted to get out to the locations and preserve
the history, the UFO history, and also at the same time offer new
current people the opportunity to report UFOs as well, so the whole thing grew
out of grew out of really just just good old fashioned keenness and a desire
to do it. And I drove to Melbourne for a month after month,
six hour return trips um, you know, trying to get this group up
and running. So I was just going to ask you your location basically,
to describe where are your location. Yeah, well, if you look at
a map of Australia and a map of Victoria, I'm up in the pointy
end of the state, which is in the east. It is three hours
from the Wilderness area. Keipps Land is a fantastic UFO location. The UFO,
the UFO history and Victoria is very rich. Every region of our states
has a quite an extensive UFO history. It is worth preserving so that we
know what's happened in the past, so we can see what's happening in the
future. Maybe we can make some connections between past and future and present.
So it was it was a big job. You know, It's a big
job getting anything going, you know, whether it's a Scout group or anything,
basketball club, whatever it is, it takes a lot of a lot
of work and a lot of effort and particularly with a topic like UFOs where
there's not a lot of support for that in the community. Really, it
really is a niche type of an interest, which fortunately in this day and
age, is becoming a lot more widespread. And I'm not talking just the
pop culture stuff. The pop culture stuff is out there and everybody loves all
that and it's a lot of fun. But the research side of things is
really what we really need to get going. We really need the research.
We need the scientists to be involved. There's a whole host of the biologists
as a whole host of people that really need to take it, take it
seriously, you know. And since the Air Force, you know, lost
interest back in the in the sixties and they said, look, just just
go to the civilian clubs. If you've got if you've got a UFO report,
go to view Force, go to UFO Research. Queensland, New South
Wales, don't bother us. Go to those groups. But the groups don't
have any support. They've got to really self generate their own their own income,
and there's only one way you can do that, and that's by hosting
speakers. Maybe you can get some government grants if you're savvy enough with operating
through that system and paperwork. But for UFO groups it's kind of I don't
think we'd be at the top of the list for issuing funds. Is probably
probably give it to a pony club over us, so you know, and
unfortunately that's the way it is, right right. And this next gentleman here
recognized me in the whole, and yes I did. Yes, A bit
of a fan of your show. It's a good show. My name is
Chris. I'm from Victoria's trailer as well. I also live in Gippsland,
not far from ben in a place called Golden Beach. I've been probably taken
the subject more serious in the past five years. Prior to that, I
would watch the subject but not really investigate it too much or read much of
the books. But I did have a sighting in ninety one where I saw
a disc. I thought I was crazy for about six years until I spoke
to her mum and she had similar experience. So I guess that's where I
sort of come at it. So can you describe your saying a little bit?
Yeah, it was. I suppose I would describe it as an almost
a taped egg shape type disc. It was pro within a kilometer from where
I was standing. It came up from behind some trees and just flew up
through the clouds and off it went. It probably lasted maybe fifteen to twenty
seconds, but it was enough to just be a complete paradigm shift. Yeah,
yeah, I get it. Yeah, and Hi, I'm Joyce.
Ever since I was a child, I always looked up at the stars and
wondered or thinking, oh, wish I was I could go home, And
then I would pinch myself and think, oh, what do you mean you
know this is home. But when I was fifteen, I watched the documentary
on the Roswell crash and was fascinated by it. There were a few whistleblowers,
but back then their faces were blacked out and they as were disguised,
which is quite interesting because now you know it's not the case. Um,
they're quite visible. Uh. And and then I read Whitley Strieber's book Communion
around fifteen years old as well, and was fascinated and quite scared. But
I think from that book I really developed some empathy for people that have experiences
such as that and don't know where to go, and people just seeing that
they're crazy. And when I was about twenty five. I saw a craft
in perth Wau. It was round and it was it would it was luminous
and they're all dim and then it will glow again. And it was moving
really fast and then it would zigzact, disappear and reappear and then yeah,
move really fast again. And I had my boyfriend at the time saw it
as well, and then I saw it another time. I'm the same type
of type of craft about ten years later in New Zealand on top of a
mountain. Um. Still yeah, the same round. Um it would dim
and glow, dim and glow. And I work as a psychologist, so
I'm really interested in the types of entities that people encounter. And there's been
some consistent types, so I'm really interested in, um yeah, what the
culture is and um the different types that people are talking about. And I
think that there's enough people talking about it to move forward and really learn about
them. Yeah. Um. My interest started when I was a little little
girl. My brother was interested in space stuff, so I think I got
it from him to some degree. Um. I remember as a kid my
dad had Rea Tostiges books Into the Unknown had pictures of aliens and you were
fox Craft, and I just zoned into them all the time. I'd flip
back and keep looking at them and keep looking at them, and all throughout
my life I just wanted to see U Poe. Never saw anything up until
recently, never been abducted, never had anything weird happened, just always interested,
and of one thing led to another, and I ended up joining this
group and the rest is history. It's been mind blowing ever since then.
Yeah. I really like the connections that you can make. I mean,
this is so unriched my life and so many different ways. I never knew
it was something that was available, or I didn't even think that there was
any interest in the topic. I really have no clue. I would have
never dreamed that there was going to be a conference of any type on this
subject. Ever, you know, and come to find out what's going on
for many years. I just want to ask you a couple of different things.
First of all, may have asked you this, but I'm not sure.
I heard of a sighting in Australia that was really unusual along the highway
where people pulled over. Yes, yeah, that's the Mandrabilla case in in
Western Australia, which is there's a lot. There's a road that basically travels
from Adelaide to Perth, and it's called what's the nulla Ball Plane, and
it's it's flat, it's straight, it's desolate, there's nothing around. It
really is a classic desert area. And on this particular night, the Knowles
family were traveling from Perth across to Melbourne and they were traveling across the Nullaball
Plane and at a place near Maundrabilla, this object came out of the heavens
and it landed on top of their car and it basically attached itself to the
car and it lifted the car off the road as they were driving along,
and it filled the car with a with a sort of a smoke, and
they were all disorientated and it dropped the car and they all ran out of
the car and they were terrified. And apparently a truck driver also who was
driving on the same road also saw it. That's the basics of the case.
It got a huge amount of media coverage at the time, huge amount
the media were all over it. They leaped all over this case of this
family and it was a classic example of you if I witnesses being treated rather
poorly for the magnitude of the case, like it really was a well,
it was a very very traumatic case for those involved in the media at the
time in the late eighties took it as a as a bit of a joke
and they treated the family pretty poorly. The family was more of a working
class family as well, which perhaps they didn't present that brilliantly on TV,
and they really sort of the media sort of turned into a bit of a
bit of a circus around that time, and the witnesses came very um you
know, they were very bitter about that and they won't talk about it now
and they're very hard to contact. The mothers passed away and there was about
four boys that are scattered around Australia. I don't even think one of the
one of the sons has died too. So it really ufo history all us,
certainly in Australia, that they sit in the background for so long and
then periodically a case comes up that goes bang and all of a sudden,
it's got a lot of attention. That was one the Kelly Khole incident in
the early nineties. That was also another one that that really captured the public's
attention again for a while, and the media jumped onto that case as well.
And then you go through these long periods where there's not much sort of
happening. Well, these things are always happening. But but but these giant
cases that jump out might happen once every decade or you know, even every
two decades, you know, and certainly in the modern era, we haven't
really had a Maundrabilla case. We haven't had a West Stall, we haven't
had a Kelly Kahill encounter. Um that's popped up anywhere in the country.
What wouldn't do anyone of you can answer this, But what would you consider
like the rise well of Australia that was really you know, an amazing probably
Australia's two best known and gaining recognition internationally. Two cases very close to where
we live in Melbourne. One is the Westall School incident and one is the
Frederick Valincich pilot incident. Now both of those were very we're as a group,
we're very close to both of those cases. We have as a team
arranged. In fact, only last year was the anniversary of the what was
that the fortieth anniversary of the Frederick Valinich now, just briefly, he was
a pilot twenty one year old who went it's pretty well known actually, but
it was flying out of our local airport. Was going on a short flight
over Bass straight, followed the coastline for one hundred miles or so, and
then flying over water. Reported back to the control tower that asking if there
was any aircraft in the area. The answer was no. Is there any
military aircraft in the end area? The answer was no. He was reporting
that he was being followed by something that wasn't a plane. There was conversation
for six or seven minutes back between he and the control tower. He was
saying, it's following me, it's above me, it's gone, it's back
again. One of his final comments was it's I can see it again and
it's not an aircraft. There was then that was followed by some static on
the radio and he was never seen again. Now we as you know,
his mechanic is a member of our team. His fiance at the time is
someone who's very well known to us. We recently put together a conference and
we had the fellow who was in communication with him from air traffic gentleman by
the name of Steve Roby, and Steve Roby said he believes it was a
you know, you have used the world UFO UM, so we put together
a conference only are you pretty much a year ago around that. So that's
one of the world's most important cases. And of course we had the Westall
case, which someone else can talk about perhaps, and that's you know,
James, We've just come out of a prison chation from James Fox. He
went to Australia two years ago now and he has a lot of content about
the west All case in his upcoming film. That's a that's a very big
story to Daylight saying siding with two hundred people, well documented, including a
school teacher. So someone else if you like, and talk about that one.
But yeah, that's yes, we are working class. Were you are
aware of that one? Oh? Absolutely? And one of the things I've
seen like a re enactment ideal of what was happening. But I'm just wondering,
does the original idea exists from that? The answer is yes, And
is it available? The answer is no, any idea. What what I've
been told is that because someone die allegedly died went missing in that incident,
the investigation people don't release the details of the case. That's what I've been
told is that forever. I don't know, Ben, do you know about
that? Probably is the So at the time when when Fred disappeared, the
Department of Transport were extremely transparent, extremely transparent. They released the entire transcript
of Fred and Steve Raby's conversation to the public. It was printed in the
newspapers the very next day and you could read it and they didn't edit that
in any way, shape or form. They put down the entire conversation.
So and an investigation was done. Then, over the years with with government
departments, records get moved, they get shipped, the locations change, they
destroy records. And if you approached the Department of Transport now and ask them
for a copy of that particular tape, it just doesn't exist. You can't
you can't order that tape. You can't order that tape because it's not there.
Well, you can't run that tape because it's not there. And also
it's not it's classified as not being released. The family was given a copy
of Fred's voice, so they got a tape with one side of the conversation
that was everything that Fred said. So the family did get his final words
and you know how that went down. But there's lots of reenactments that have
been done. The reenactments are actually quite good there as far as the re
enactments, you know, he's like really really stressful. Yeah, do you
think No, not at all. Fred was a pilot and he was working
the problem. Fred Fred and Steve were working that problem together, and they
were working that problem in a rational and clear and coherent right through to the
absolute very end of the transmission. At no point in time is Fred in
a panic. That's that's a misrepresentation that might come through in some of the
some of the actual recreations because no one can really hear his voice to say
what, you know, how he actually was. But now they were working
that problem in a very real way. And if you watch on our YouTube
channel on the vfil TV, you can watch the anniversary day that we had
and Steve Robe really goes over that in a very very thorough way and he
gives a really good breakdown of that event. Was there at any point where
there was any like movement caused by the crowd, like, for instance,
there's a coin helicopter case that happened here in the stage where it actually was
pulled, lifting the elevation of the helicopter. Did he mention anything He said
too, he said, well, he said one thing. He said,
my engine is, my engine is coughing. And when it was in proximity
to the craft, and he described the craft as orbiting above him so and
was having an effect on his engine that the engine started coughing. He did
an adjustment and him and Steve were working working that issue through at the end
of the tape. Perhaps interestingly, and maybe closer to what you're sort of
talking about, is there's an unknown sound that comes on for about seventeen seconds,
and it sounds like a scraping sound, a rotating scraping sound. And
there's been a lot of conjecture over the years as to what that scraping sound
is. Is it simply him dropping the mic? Is it Is it metal
rubbing on metal. No one really knows. But his plane was reacting to
the to the object being in the vicinity, and there was definitely some type
of a sound as a result of that contact. What did the skeptics see
about that? Well, once the skeptics say he was flying upside down,
that's the obvious one, and you can't fly sessens up down for much longer
than about twenty seconds because I actually run out a few because the fuels in
the wings. They said he went into a graveyard spiral where he gradually and
unknowingly just descends and basically ends up in the ocean. So they're the two
main theories. In the water, he's seeing a reflection on the moon in
the water. Yes, this is his nightfline dusk. Yeah. When we
had our fortieth an anniversary event, we had it at the airport that he
left from, and we had it. Our events spanned into the time that
he left. We actually stopped. I think Steve Roby mentioned he said,
look up, everyone, this is the conditions that he had left the airport
in. This is exactly the light. And it was just dusk. It
was still quite light. It wasn't peach black or dark or confusing. It
was still a reasonable amount. Yeah. There's also been hypotheses that he's committed
suicide or that he's faked his own disappear. But at the time he was
engaged, he was saying he was happy. He was a happy guy.
Apparently we know people who knew him, we know his field, say very
well. So you know, none of us believe that there's any that has
any credibility this for sure, we don't know what happened. We have no
opinion, but certainly I for one don't believe that was even remotely possible.
Yeah, I mean, we'll never something tragic like back from side to the
poor traders together and it's not always pretty. It actually is one of the
world's greatest aviation mysteries, and certainly Australia's greatest aviation mystery, that a pilot
can interact with some unknown craft literally just outside of Melbourne metropolitan area, basically
still within the control of the Tulemarine Airport, and disappear off the face of
the earth. And you could say that well, logically he ended up in
the water. While they searched for two weeks and they didn't find any wreckage.
They didn't find anything. They found an all slick, but the was
a marine diesel, so there was literally no sign of that plane. An
assessin on impact that floating pieces of assessiner on the ocean, you'd have to
say, no problem at all. They'd find pieces of wing, they'd find
life jackets, they'd find anything like that that was that was in the plane,
he would have thought quite easily, and they basically started searching for him
pretty much straight away. So what happened to him, no one can say,
but it certainly is one of the world's most most compelling UFO cases.
Yeah, I mean, if he would have to salve gracefully getge, yeah,
I mean, that would be pretty rare. That'd be pretty rare.
And we asked lots of questions about Fred's competence as a pilot to Steve Roby
and also his girlfriend Ronda, who went flying with him at every opportunity,
and the fact was meant to be on that flight with him, but due
to twists of fate, she didn't actually end up on the plane. And
he was he was, He was a competent pilot and he knew what he
was doing him that was his first night flight, and you can always say
pilot in experience, and logically he must be. He must have ditched into
the water. But the conversations very strange. It's a very strange conversation to
be having with a flight services officer when you're basically a pilot. He's trying
to create a career for yourself and and talking about UFOs doesn't help your career
nine seventy eight. It wouldn't have been a good idea to be talking about
UFOs. Can I just add to that. I just add to that.
There's no record off him actually mention mentioning the word UFO. Doesn't in that
transcript, he never mentioned the word UFO. He just asked about an object
or a craft. But yeah, yeah, He basically says, is there
any any known aircraft in the vicinity? And they're talking about military, they're
talking about civilian, and Steve Rabe is going, no, no, there's
nothing, there's nothing. There's nothing up there with you. There's nothing up
there that should be with you. But but they couldn't see him on radar.
He was he was he was not high enough to be on the radar.
He was below that level, so they couldn't actually see him. They
could only talk to him, so they couldn't get a visual of what was
update with him at that time. The transcript he also he loses side of
it several times, and he says it's it's moving around me, and then
he says it's gone. Then he says it's on top of me, you
know. So it was quite whatever it was doing, it was highly unusual.
So all right, so at last just December twenty seventeen the New York
Times it was out of the article of Pentagon researching UFOs. Kind of changed
everything here. Um, the media started looking at more seriously the topic.
Um there was the ridicule back it went down all of a sudden, there's
a time of more people assume to Mark Charles and interested. Um what change?
Did anything change in Australia? Did you get this in the media?
We get was one hundred and twenty six news stories. Yeah, yeah,
definitely the Australian news media jumped onto it as much as anyone else in the
world did. Oh yeah, for sure. In your head the morning shows
and various programs doing UFO pieces. It becomes something they want to talk about
again and on Facebook, it's viral around the world. So I think it
definitely has gained a lot of a lot of traction, um, you know,
since since coming out, and that's a good thing for all of us,
I think, you know, for all the work that we're doing,
everyone here at the conference, all the researchers around the world, for the
witnesses around the world, this is all steps in the right direction, a
lot of a lot of what we have here. You know, I'm true
seen engineer Liens or you know of it. Yes. Is there any aspect
of indigenous people that talked about like you know, the star child and you
know or anything like that, any any says that came down as law to
them? Where Oh, absolutely, the Aboriginals. I think you've had a
strong connection through the millennia with let's call them sky people for the sake of
for the sake of the exercise, when you go up to Northern Australia,
up in the Northern Territory, there are lots of cave paintings and the aboragine
is up there were a lot more they went as nomadic as other areas.
They could live in areas for longer periods of time with billabongs that are full
of water and fish, plenty of fish, so they kind of did live
in the one area. So they sort of did create a lot of a
lot of record of what was happening in the last twenty thirty forty thousand years.
And like with the American Indians of the Southwest United States, there's there's
a lot of interesting paintings that are on these walls oka paintings with different symbols
and symbology. And even if you are looking at it from a twenty first
century perspective and you look at some of those some of those images, it's
hard not to see astronauts. It's hard not to see spaceships. It's hard
not to see some type of entity depiction that they've put down into the into
their record, into their onto the walls of their caves. So, but
it's a whole other topic on its own. Yes, So there's UM the
Aboriginal community. I don't know whether it's all of them, but at least
some of them do say that they come from the Ple eighties. That's part
of their folklore or there you know, the story that they passed down to
their children from generations. That's interesting. Yeah, And there's UM. There's
there's stories of them landing on the ground and interacting with with Aboriginals. They're
out there in the Northern Territory, Western Australia. There's various but they're always
vague reports, they're not they're not well documented. They're they're almost urban legends
in many ways, and and really someone needs to take to take the time
and effort to go out to those communities and and earn their trust and and
you know, try and get these stories perhaps with a little bit more detail,
if that's even possible. So, but at the end of the day,
Yeah, the UFO phenomenon has been around our country for for a very
long time, and you know, right from ancient millennia right through to now.
How did your government react to the type? Well, nor Jim probably
could have a little bit to say on this too, but basically they followed
the American line pretty much through through you know, modern time. That's that's
all I have to say. Jim can probably had a bit more. Yeah,
I kind of follow Of all the people in the group, I'm probably
closest to the hold the cover up and disclosure side of things. The short
answer is they don't. There's been there's been just radio silence, an air
endum. Personally, I don't think they know a thing. If whatever your
government knows, I don't think we copied in um. If I could rewind
though to your question about the media coverage and stuff before, only a week
before he came here, there's a TV show called The Project and it's it's
it's a news show with a comedy bent and we couldn't believe it. They
ran a story that started with is this something? Could there be something to
this UFO thing after all? And they round the NIMI story, they round
the NIMID story, David Fraber the whole thing, and you know, and
okay, there was a few jokes towards the end, but that's that's a
big step forward. We were none of us were getting this stuff a year
ago, you know, and look what you've look what's been happening here.
So there's definitely a shift in culture. I think, uh, you know,
there's there's always the disclaimers. They're not they're not giving it good coverage,
but we're definitely seeing a shift. But from the government, no,
nothing that anyone else has seen anything that nothing at all. No, the
government's very yeah. Yeah, I think Jim's right. I think they think
Australian government knows anything at all. Really, you know, and any of
our any evidence from our case cases, footage, that sort of stuff,
it all goes straight to you know, sort of military sightings and there's an
awful lot of them, and there is just very dry to read like this
person, this personnel noticed this, this object or this craft that was behaving
unusually and you know, just a very dry record, but there is quite
a volume of them, obviously not the volume that is had in the United
States because of the comparison of population, but it is there, but it
is not known by the general public. I think my experience in talking to
people about my interest. If somebody asks me, there's a certain age cut
off where people who are over a certain age are still smirking and ridiculing this.
Yet the younger generation are very much more accepting because they seem to be
much more informed because they have grown up with the Internet and they can source
information. If they're curious about something, they will look it up. Whereas
I guess people above fifty fifty five sixty there's still a proportion that saying,
oh, you don't believe in you reversed you as though it's a belief.
And my response is, I don't believe in anything. I'm an atheist.
I don't see it as a religion or a spiritual pursuit for me. I
see it as a point of scientific interest that needs more study. And then
when it is explained that the military all over the world are encountering so trained
observers are encountering these objects in these craft and sometimes entities, then it's quite
sobering for the person who is ready to ridicule the topic. Chris over there
actually has an Air Force background. I'm wondering if Chris has sensed any any
change in perception or No, not that I've noticed at the moment. I'm
a contract at the moment to the Air Force, so not actually you know
and Fox personnel. But even while I was in I hadn't really seen anything
like that, so I would wholly doubt it. But anything, um,
yeah, Well, i'd definitely talk about UFOs at work, that's for sure.
Like I don't. It's just one of those things. What about when
recently when the US Navy is saying that they're going to arrange reporting of UFOs,
saying that must have made some type of group. I would think so
maybe at a higher level, but at the lower levels where I would operate.
No, I haven't seen any of that, No, but I would
hope. So I would definitely hope. So you want if a pilot or
Navy personnel to have a signing, you'd want the appropriate way to report it.
Well, I think this is going to do it for sure. You
guys seem to get along pretty well. Do you ever argue? Sometimes they
were pretty good? Yeah, sometimes, but yeah, we really want.
Yeah, we've we've we've we've got a really good group of people about each
other. But we all come from different backgrounds, completely different backgrounds, completely
different points of view on the topic. But the topic itself draws us together.
We look, we're all interested in different aspects of the topic, and
of course we have healthy disagreements where I think this is the theory and this
is my theory on what it is, and then one of us will disagree
and we'll have a healthy discussion and we'll both learn or each of us will
learn from the other person's point of view. But that's the done thing in
the scientific community, the mainstream scientific community too, where scientists will put out
a theory and someone who also will come along and disprove it. And yeah,
so it's no different. But yes, we do get on. We
love each other, Yeah we do, that's right. We do all have
different perspectives on it, and you know, and sometimes we can we can
flare up with vigorous and healthy discussion about that. But crucially, like on
these road trips when you've all got to be in cars on certain times and
meet at certain locations and things like that. That puts us all under pressure
too. And so far the CHIP has been going really really well, and
I think it's going to be a great memory for all of us. Synchronicity,
we have a weird synchronicity. It's going on. Well, we don't
have to call each other. We just sort of like think about, well
we have to meet and then we end up meeting with that. Yeah,
we all just kind of arrive at the from different directions. It's keep happening.
Can After the conference, we're heading down to Sokara and New Mexico.
We're doing a bit of work there. We're getting onto the debris field down
at Roswell a few other things. Yeah, we do. We're doing a
real UFO wrote trip very good. Well, thank you all very much.
It's been a real pleasure and I'm really lad pore willing to do this and
thank you all for thank you every Australiannalysis the shop for me which thank you