Introduction: As far as UFO reports were concerned, the 1970s followed much the same pattern as the 1960s. There were years of many reports, and years of hardly any. The amount of sightings wasn’t much changed from year to year, but no doubt UFO Research Queensland was still struggling to increase public awareness of the UFO phenomenon – or the desperate lack thereof.

The pattern of sightings for the decade ran as follows: 1970 – 3 sightings received; 1971 – 11; 1972 – 7; 1973 – 11; 1974 –15; 1975 – 20; 1976 – 13; 1977 – 37; 1978 – 17; 1979 – 19. 1977 was the standout year in this decade, and probably it was no coincidence that this was the year that the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released. Not that this would have incited people to suddenly see things that weren’t there, but given the more serious tone of the movie as it presented the possibility of ET contact – contact that was based on a clever amalgamation of real-life events – it’s likely that witnesses were now more willing (or less afraid) to come forward, knowing that their experiences did indeed have a precedent and that somebody, hopefully, might take them seriously.

A large majority of the reports received in 1977 came from country Queensland.
Of interest is the report from Grafton in 1974, which is accompanied by a detailed drawing. The witness had some time to observe this object, and the sighting from the archives may or may not have been associated with an earlier car accident on the same spot in the road. The object was close enough for the witness to experience physical effects, in this case burns, that later required medical attention. The report is brief but the sketches are detailed, and it’s the first report in the UFORQ archives to describe detrimental physical effects on a human – effects (burns) that were echoed three years after this event in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

---

Conondale Valley, Queensland. late 1970s
In the late 1970s, my wife and myself were living in a concrete block shed at the end of a road in the Conondale Valley. Our nearest neighbour was about three kilometres away. We were woken in the early hours of the morning by a blinding white light filling the inside of the building. The stable doors were closed at the time and the shed only had small windows. We were very frightened but we went out to investigate. About 30 metres uphill from the shed and about 15 metres above the ground were two lights about three metres high pulsing from orange to green. I asked my wife to hand me the binoculars, which she did. I could make out the underside of a craft. The craft moved off slowly up the valley. My neighbours on the other side of the valley had also experienced the white lights inside their building about 12 months prior to this.

Roma, April 3 1971, 3.00am
At 3.00am on April 3 1971, a woman had stopped her car in an unmade section of the Injune-Rolleston road while searching for a property gate. She had her two children with her, and as the car was running low on fuel she began flashing her lights on and off and sounding the horn hoping to attract the attention of her husband, who was somewhere on the property. After 15-20 minutes of this she decided to lock the car doors and sleep in the car with her children. After another five minutes, the daughter noticed a bright white light approaching from the mountains. The woman got out of the car and could hear a noise that was not that of an approaching car. Then she saw that the light was now above the trees.

In her report she said ‘I’m thinking to myself I’m mad, I might be tired, I’m seeing things.’ Jumping back in the car the woman headed back towards Injune at high speed with the object following close behind. There seemed to be a strong wind affecting the grass and trees, and what sounded like ‘a loud electric drill’ accompanied by a loud drumming noise. ‘We had the windows up in the car, but it was drumming and pressing into our ears.’ The whole area was lit up as brightly as daylight by the brilliant white light from the craft. ‘It was not like our light. It was terrific,’ she said.

Coomera, Queensland.   September, 1971. 10pm The witness was having difficulty sleeping so went to the bedroom window to get a breath of fresh air. She was amazed to see a disc-shaped object about 8 metres in diameter, above trees some 400 metres distance. The disc was tilted at a 25 degrees angle from the horizontal. It consisted of a lower section, an iridescent bright orange colour, topped with a silvery-grey dome. Initially stationery, the object moved slowly to the left, paused and then “took off at an incredible speed”. The witness was so stunned that she failed to wake her husband until the object had disappeared into the distance. Duration of the sighting was 2 minutes. Since the sighting the witness claims to have had premonitions and dreams which come true.  

Kenmore, October 7 1971, 8.00pm
A saucer-shaped object that had a dark body with revolving yellow lights was observed in a mostly clear sky. It travelled silently north-west at a ‘terrifically fast’ speed before heading straight up. A yellow glow was observed on the underside of the UFO.

Seven Hills, October 9 1971, 11.45pm
Myself and four friends were travelling east on Stanley street when a strange object was pointed out. The object appeared to be high over the Seven Hills area. The object had a soft red glow and was shaped something like a zeppelin. We turned into Milsom street, glimpsing the object all the way. As we moved further along Milsom street the object seemed to be moving away. I lost sight of it as we turned into Bennett’s road and it was hidden from view by houses.

Gladstone, January 15 1972, 9.30pm
A bright amber object was seen by a husband and wife and some of their relatives. It was travelling from the horizon in the north and in a westerly direction. It made a curve to the right and in approximately half a second had gained altitude and disappeared.

Brighton, May 4 1972, 6.30pm
At 6.30pm Mr H went to his back door and saw a red light out over the sea. It was steady and pulsating. Thinking it was an aircraft he went back into the house. Fifteen minutes later the object was still there, only brighter. He discerned it to be a definite saucer, traveling south-southwest at terrific speed. It was about the size of a shirt button at arm’s length and left a white trail as it went. Mr H and his friend went out onto the road where another object was observed ascending very slowly. Below this, and almost on the water, the first object was hovering. Looking around the witnesses observed a third object hovering over the Brisbane river. This object disappeared without movement, as did the object observed hovering over the sea, about two minutes later. The only object remaining was the one at great height, which vanished about an hour later. All objects had a red pulsating light that was very strong and bright and went from the left to the right of the object. A greenish-blue strip of light was visible around the edge of all the objects.

Richlands/Inala, October 16 1973, 8.57pm
On leaving my mother’s house by car my wife and I saw what we thought was a plane in trouble. We followed in case it was, but in driving into the bush at Richlands we realised it was not a plane but an unidentified object which was now hovering above us. It had a very warm and bright glow about it. We decided not to continue our pursuit and did a U-turn, and as we did so the object appeared to do likewise. We proceeded to my mother-in-law’s house in Inala, and when we stopped our car this object stopped also and seemed to just hover. My mother-in-law also observed this object. We returned to my mother’s house, and as we stopped the car the object seemed to hover over the house next door. My mother also came out to view this object, which seemed to rise straight up into the air. We then left, and my mother informed me this object remained there for 20-30 minutes after we left the area.

Brownsleigh, October 20 1973, 8.45pm
On the night of October 20 1973 my wife and myself were reading magazines when we heard what sounded like several trucks in the distance. This noise enticed me to look out the window. Approximately 25 degrees from the horizon west/south-west a bright star object was observed moving south, stopping and starting, climbing and descending, the object extinguishing approximately three times during the sighting which lasted one minute.

Miami, April 4 1974
A black object shaped like two plates stuck together was observed travelling from the horizon towards the Gold Coast airport.

Parkes (NSW), April 16 1974, 7.00pm
I was driving between Melbourne and Brisbane. As I approached a rise in the road outside Parks, I noticed a bright light appearing on the top of the rise. The light seemed to get stronger and soon it had illuminated the whole sky. I could even see some clouds in the otherwise starry and black sky. Suddenly in the north-east a greeny-blue thing appeared. The exact colour is very hard to describe as I have never seen it before. The thing made no noise that I could hear and it did not interfere with the radio in the car. I couldn’t take my eyes off the road for too long, and when I glanced back to have
another look it was gone, and so was the bright light that had lit up the whole sky. The thing was oval or football shaped, and it was definitely not the moon or Jupiter or Venus. Nor was it a plane or a balloon and I was not drunk or hallucinating

Grafton, June 14 1974
About three or four hours after a fatal accident involving a VW on the coast road from Grafton, a spinning top-shaped UFO was observed hovering over a paddock off the road adjacent to the accident site. The object had a rotating cylinder that spun opposite to the direction of the spin on the outer rim, and it made a series of electronic ‘clicks, beeps, squeaks’ and ‘oscillating sounds, like a broken-down ambulance sound (whirring and whooping).’ The object was described as hot on the witness’s face, burning their eyes and hair, which required medical treatment after. The witness felt the object was remote controlled and not manned, and did not link it to the accident that had happened some hours earlier (though in hindsight it possibly was a related event – Ed).

Jindalee, 1974
A silvery-blue triangular light was observed from Jindalee. The light was very blue and bright and lit up the ground. ‘An Italian girl also saw it and was quite disturbed by it.’ The sighting was reported to the RAAF who called back and said they had a number of other reports from the same area.

Margate, November 29 1974, 11.30pm
Arriving home late from work a man noticed a lot of dogs barking and howling in the neighbourhood. ‘When I reached for the rope to pull the Tilt-a-Door down from the inside, I noticed three illuminated lights across the street at tree-top level, and travelling from west to east and evenly spaced from each other.’ At the same time all three lights changed to a soft white colour to a soft pink to a soft blue.

Annerley, January 19 1975, 7.55pm
My father and myself were walking to the milkshed when something incredible attracted my attention. It was unbelievably large and we watched with amazement. It only lasted about 2 seconds, but then came the incredible part. The object ‘started up’ again, but only this time sparks and flames appeared to come out of it. this lasted about 3-4 seconds.

Warwick, May 20 1975, 6.30am
A disc-shaped object with a tail was seen at around 6.30am from Warwick, just after sunrise. It appeared to be a shining white object, and through binoculars it appeared
as a fuselage of a plane with some sort of indistinct tail section and made of an aluminium-like metal. There was no indication of wings or windows.

Gold Coast, November 1975, 6.30am
A former London police officer living at the Gold Coast observed a small star-like object streaking across the sky at tremendous speed and in an easterly direction. It covered 45 degrees of sky in under 2 minutes and gave the impression it was under its own power. Ten minutes after the sighting, the witness was overcome with the feeling he had seen something he shouldn’t have, and became quite disturbed by it.

Inala, 1976 (report received April 2019)
In April 2019 UFORQ received a brief message about someone’s experience in 1976 while attending the Service Town School at Inala saying they had been “followed by a visitor for two days.” We are still awaiting more information about this but it might be related to a report received during the 1990s from a woman who lived near a school at Inala around that time. As a child when walking through a field on her way to school with other children, they came upon a large flattened circle in a paddock with small dead animals lying within it. These animals consisted of possums, birds, lizards etc, but it was the grisly nature of them that captured her attention. She described them as looking like they had been put through a grinder and spat out so she could barely recognise what they were. At the time there was still a lot of bushland in the area so local residents kept cattle, horses, chickens etc. That night all the animals in the area were very disturbed and the children discussed their experiences with their own animals the next day, and that was how she discovered that the animal disturbances were quite far reaching in the local area.

Everton Park, March 28 1976, 11.20pm
The occupant of a house was awakened at 11.20pm by a loud ‘whoosh’ sound with associated lights. She jumped to the window but could see nothing. About 25-20 minutes later the witness was lying awake in bed when another ‘whoosh’ sounded, as though a highly powered engine was directly over the house. The room was lit by a reddish glow and a hot dry wind rushed in through all the windows. There was also a momentary vibration in the house. With ‘great fright’ the witness jumped again to the window, but again could see nothing.

Mt Gravatt, June 14 1976, 10.30pm
The witness was observing lightning during a storm when they noticed a large bright light come down from the mountain (Mt Gravatt). They at first thought it was a plane that had been struck by lightning and was crashing, but then it stopped and headed back up the mountain. It passed close to the TV tower on the mountain, close enough for its light to illuminate the left half of the aerial. It passed the mountain and continued heading west, moving at a faster pace than when first observed. The witness noticed the lightning was much reduced in the object’s presence.

Cunnamulla, February 1976, 4.30am
This sighting by my wife and myself occurred while driving on a lonely strip of dirt road in the early hours of the morning. At first sight I thought it was a semitrailer parked on the side of the road with its red and green side lights on. As we got closer it seemed to rise into the sky, changing into an orange glow with a sort of vapour trail for a short period. It then moved away from us but kept pace with us, and we could see its light was more reddish in colour at tree-top level. It kept us fascinated until Ballan, a distance of about 12 miles. Upon going through the town the object changed direction
and became a brilliant white ball. It was most terrifying as it is lonely out there, and at one stage the light seemed to be directly above us and a little to the front. I did at one stage turn off the headlights to see if it was a reflection, but the light did not alter. When we were near St George the light rose slowly into the sky and eventually vanished.

Margate, April 1976, 8.00pm
It was about 8pm on a Wednesday when my mother asked me to burn some rubbish in the paddock. After I had set fire to it, the dogs in the yards around the district began to bark. The next thing I did was look up and saw three luminous saucers slowly flying across in a northerly direction. They didn’t make any sound and were flying in a triangular formation. They were too low for aircraft and seemed to float across the sky.
They sped upwards at high speed and within three seconds they were out of sight.

Dalby, November 4 1976, 9.22pm
A private plane travelling from Dalby to Brisbane was followed by a large light until it landed at Eagle Farm.

Kingaroy 1977
I am not sure of the date now, but when I was 15 years old I was driving home from the town basketball court with my mum, when she saw a large glowing white ball come down from the left hand side of the windshield and pointed it out to me. The first thing she said was it was a star, but it was too big to be a star, and it was moving. I jumped out of the car and ran down the road to the school where I saw it had gone. When I got there, the object was stationary over the school basketball court and had changed its colour from a glowing white ball to orange and yellow. It was shaped like a top.

I stood there for three or four minutes just watching it. It was about 10 metres off the ground, and it was about 10 metres wide and 20 metres high and absolutely silent. I ran home to get a camera, but when I got there the Polaroid was out of film. I ran back to the school, which was 300 metres away, and the object was on the move. That’s when I realised that it had changed to a glowing white ball while it was on the move. It was orange to yellow when stationary, showing the full shape of it, with what I made out to be black lights around the centre bulge, and white when it was moving.

I ran back to tell Dad and get him to follow it in the car. We went down to the school oval and saw it heading out towards the dump road, so we followed it out for about 5 kilometres. It stopped out near a house and went down behind it. We waited for awhile, and when it came back up it seemed to be getting bigger, as if it was heading our way. At this point I got scared and got Dad to get out of there. He must have been scared too because I remember him doing 100 miles an hour back into town, I watched back a lot and the UFO seemed to be getting bigger and closer, but I lost sight of it when we arrived back into town.

Seven Hills, June 15 1977, 7.02pm
A woman waiting in her driveway observed a light in the north-east travelling at aircraft speed to the west. When the object passed the Story Bridge it stopped. After a pause of 30 seconds it accelerated at a terrific rate, leaving a ‘shower of sparks.’

Burpengary, July 5 1977, 6.05pm
My mother and I were driving from Burpengary to Brisbane when she suddenly called my attention to an object on the left hand side which was the size of a big star and was growing larger. In no time the object was the size of the full moon, but the light was white. The light was coming closer and bigger, but the light was shining nowhere. We could see a dark body behind the white light. The object had the length of an airliner, was just above the trees, and at close distance (about 200 meters) to us. I slowed the speed of the car down – it looked like the object kept speed with us, going up a little bit like avoiding the top of a tree, going a bit down again, always the same distance from us until we came to the small forest along the road. The object turned north-west and sped away, keeping the same distance from the ground as before. We could see enormous windows in the craft as it moved behind the trees.

Wynnum, October 2 1977, 11.30pm
I observed four bright golden lights arranged in a square. I stopped the car to have a look at what it could be. After about one or two minutes the lights became brighter (not unlike a nova) and moved off in a vertical direction, accelerating to a speed never observed by me before.

Mansfield, December 24 1977, 9.30pm
My wife and I went out on the patio for a cigarette. I saw a spinning blob of light and said ‘look, a flying saucer,’ and my wife replied ‘no, it’s the moon.’ Then we realised the moon was plainly visible – behind us. The ‘saucer’ got larger and appeared to approach us, surrounded by a greenish cloud. It seemed to tip up slightly, revealing a dark stripe through the middle. The it shot upwards, along with the cloud, at great speed. Upon later reflection, we thought that the only thing the object resembled was the head-on view of a drill-bit.

Murgon, April 19 1978, 5.30pm
My eleven-year old son and I were approaching our home by car when he drew my attention to an unusual light in the western sky. It was a thin strip of light which at times appeared to be stationary, would almost fade from sight, and then brighten again. The Sun had just disappeared over the horizon and the sky was cloudless.
We lost sight of it for some minutes but sighted it again some distance to the north. The object then began to manoeuvre and was at times vertical to the horizon. It then changed its direction to move south, seemed to speed up, and in a flash of brilliant orange-red light, including a short trail of light, disappeared completely.

Wynnum, June 15 1978, 03.05am
I had been up feeding the baby and was walking past the window when I noticed a large yellow light hovering over the bay between Green Island and Darling Point. It was too large to be an aeroplane, and there were no port or starboard lights and no sound. It began moving across the bay towards St Helena Island, and as it did so the light changed to orange, and just as it was about to go behind the tree blocking my view
it became very red in colour and began pulsating. It was at this stage that I noticed a long vertical shaft of light coming from beneath it through the shaft of light. I woke my husband and he also saw the light, and we were able to see the rippling of the water through the shaft of light as it came out from behind the tree, at which time it changed back into its original yellow colour. It then travelled due north, seemingly following the
shore of the mainland and we lost sight of it behind another tree. It would have taken three or four minutes to travel from the south-east to the north.

Gayndah, September 4 1978, 8.20pm
My mother, myself and my seven-year old daughter saw an unidentified object as we walked around the side of my farm house. We all heard a humming sound and looked towards the small hill where the road runs and saw two red lights. At first we thought it was the tail-lights of a car, but you cannot see the road from the house. The humming stopped. The lights became a very slow-moving object coming down towards us with no noise at all. It had a row of red lights along it. Then I saw the whole complete shape of it. At the same time, my little girl hid her head in my mother’s dress and said ‘I don’t like flying saucers.’ We did not mention anything about a flying saucer at the time. The object moved to within fifty feet of us and then stopped. I yelled out ‘Oh my God, um!’ and it was as if it had heard me. It took off over the wheat field, just above the wheat, with a terrible loud noise like a big jet. At the same time a very bright red light came on at the side of it and it flew away with a speed I’ve never seen before. The object did not spin and none of the lights were flashing. It was a dull silver in colour. The next morning I looked to see if there were any marks in the wheat but there were none.

Rose Hill Station (St George), September 29 1978, 8.30pm
At around 2030 hours three boys (young men), Murray, Tony and William, were out shooting kangaroos. They did not have a fixed spotlight on their car, but a handheld light was used by Tony on the passenger side. Murray was driving, and William sat between them. The car was travelling north when Tony spotted a light directly
out of his side window, to the west. Murray immediately stopped the car, and they sat watching for a couple of seconds. The light appeared to be coming towards them at treetop level. Murray turned the car around and drove it slowly so they could observe the UFO. The UFO had stopped and was moving up and down with a 3-4 second cycle. Murray then sped up and the UFO moved to overtake the car. At the end of the road there was a gate and it was necessary for the car to stop for the gate to be opened. While the car was stationary, not only at this gate but at the other two gates further down the road, the UFO also stopped its motion, seemed to come closer, and then rose into the air.

A couple of hundred metres from the homestead the car passed over a cattle grid and immediately the engine died. Murray stated that the engine was not good and often gave trouble. Coming to a halt the boys decided to have a shot at the object with their guns. Tony and Murray got out – Tony had a 44 Magnum and Murray a 303 with a scope. Through the scope the object looked little different than it appeared to the naked eye. Murray fired a shot at it. The UFO moved sideways with what was apparently a spinning motion about its vertical axis. Tony fired a shot and the UFO responded by temporarily reversing its motion and then shooting upwards. The UFO was still moving upwards when Tony fired a second shot. No immediate response by the UFO occurred. A couple of seconds later the UFO stopped its rising and move away in a westerly direction. Upon reaching the house the boys beckoned the rest of the family outside (five people), who were all able to see the UFO heading into the south-west. John, the father, and the three boys got back into the ute and went to the road to follow it, observing it as a light in the south-east. Returning to the homestead the rest of the family then got into the family station wagon and drove 10 miles south to Boolba to have a look. Arriving at the main road they observed the light for about five minutes, during which time no movement occurred. They returned home and some of them maintained a vigil on the light, which they reported appeared to rise in a path curved to the left and covering a distance of 5-10 degrees in about one and half hours. The family went to bed about 11.00pm.

St George, October (date unknown) 1978
Mr GW was driving along the Mitchell Highway towards St George. Coming to an intersection he noticed what he thought to be a car driving from the Bollon direction. Mr W attempted to beat this car to the intersection but saw that he couldn’t and
so slowed down as he approached the intersection. It was night time and the approaching vehicle seemed to be a car with one headlight, but as it approached the intersection it veered off the road and travelled parallel to it. Mr W could now see that that it was not a car but a silver-coloured egg-shaped object flying very low. It was about 15 feet long and 6 feet high, and it followed W’s car for several miles until the
golf course turn-off, where the object moved off and became lost to sight.

On a separate occasion, Mr W’s daughter, V, claimed that the appearance of a UFO at Belingra Station coincided with a temporary improvement of television reception. At 7.30pm (date unknown), reception on the television (normally very snowy) improved remarkably. At this point V went outside and saw an object in the sky about half a mile away. No shape was visible, but V described the light as changing colour in the sequence green-red-silvery blue-orange, and she watched it for some time. At 8.30pm television reception returned to normal (ie, snowy). V checked outside again and the UFO had gone.

Daisy Hill, October 24 1978, 8.00pm
I left my house at approximately 7.45pm to walk to the Slacks Creek State School. Upon arrival some friends drew my attention to a large light in the sky in the vicinity of Mt Tambourine. The light appeared stationary and very bright. While we stood watching it we noticed three smaller lights appear near the main one. The lights seemed to join up and the main light became brighter. The light showed red then returned to white. This sequence kept on recurring. We watched the light for about half an hour.

10 January, 1979 O’Briens Creek near Mt Surprise, QLD. 1.20am During the early part of January, Mr D (ex Royal Navy) was camped in the Topax fields approximately 26 miles west of Mt Surprise.  The sighting occurred on one of the few nights it didn’t rain in the area (probably  January 10). Mr D had been asleep in his caravan under an open window. After waking and sitting up in his bed, Mr D saw a small light approaching outside from the Georgetown direction.  At first he construed this as some “tourists” in the area, but then realized that he was completely cut off by floods.

Mr D said he lit a cigarette and decided to go outside  as he had lost sight of the light. Stepping outside he walked around his jeep where he “almost had a heart attack”. At about 300 feet altitude and 300 to 400 yards distance was a huge, round, yellow-orange light. Mr D said he stood watching this object for a considerable time in which he smoked several cigarettes. He noted that no sound or beams of light emanated from it.   The object hovered stationery and during the entire sighting  Mr D’s three dogs just lay nearby, wide awake without moving.  He thought this was strange as they were usually always at his heels.

At one point Mr D thought of using his gun but decided that could prove a mistake. He said the object finally began moving and assumed a “saucer shape with a glowing orange dome on a thin, black base” which showed against the night sky. It moved away to the north-west disappearing behind some hills.  Mr D suggested the reason the “object” approached may have been because he had a “hurricane lamp” burning outside his van. It may have been the only light for 100 square miles. He estimated the size of the object as Moon size to approximately a 20 cent piece at arms length. The duration f the sighting was 1:15 hours.

Bramston Beach, Queensland. 16 January, 1979. 9.15pm A 26 year old lady was driving home from work when she noticed what she took to be the Moon behind some trees to her left. She then realized that the Moon was high up in the sky to her right and three quarters full.  The object she observed was perfectly round and golden in colour. Shortly thereafter the cars headlights began blinking on and off, then went off completely. It was not until the object was quite some distance away that the lights came on again. (Source UFOR Far North Queensland files)

Cowley, Queensland.  9 February, 1979.  9pm  

The night in question was clear with slight cloud. A man was driving home alone to Mission Beach after visiting his wife in the Innisfail Hospital. Driving his Ford station wagon, he had travelled south from Innisfail along the Bruce Highway. Rounding a corner about one kilometre north of the Liverpool Creek Bridge past Cowley, his attention was drawn to a “little white light” which appeared to be sitting on the edge of the bitumen to the left of the road ahead.

As he approached within 30metres of the “light” the witness began to notice a dark beehive-shaped object behind it. At this point the light began to rise vertically off the bitumen surface. When he was an estimated 9 metres from the object and the light had risen approximately one metre, the witness was momentarily blinded by a “flash of light” which apparently emanated from the small light.

The witness blinked a couple of times and regained his eyesight realizing that his car headlights, dash lights and engine had ceased to function. He then put the car into neutral and coasted to a stop in a truck pull over area near the Liverpool Creek Bridge. After about 30 seconds the car headlights and dash lights came on of their own accord. He then attempted to start the engine which responded immediately. The car seemed to be working perfectly so he drove on slowly to Mission Beach.

INVESTIGATION:   The witness did not see what happened to the “light” or the object after the “flash”, and after arriving home he checked the car battery and found no faults. He described the object behind the light was dark in colour, about 1.2 metres in height by one metre at the base and had a “ragged outline”. The light was approximately 24 milimetres in diameter and described as “dull”. The witness thought the flash was five times brighter than a camera flashcube flash. He described being “very unsettled” after he had pulled off the road. His eyes suffered no after affects following the sighting.

Due to the circumstances in which the car was affected, a Magnetic Signature test was carried out upon the witness vehicle. This involved taking readings of the magnetic signature on various points over the witness vehicle and a “control vehicle” of the same make, with results to show if a strong electromagnetic field was present. Points showing POSITIVE changes were 1) top front corner of the left door, 2) centre of bonnet, 3) top left corner of the roof.  

Ipswich, February 24 1979, 9.15pm
J and M were driving from Lowood to Ipswich. Just after passing through Fernvale the road swung to the right and up a hill. As J and M were going up the hill they could see a bright white light high in the sky and directly in front of them. As they were watching it, it flashed, and everything for about half a mile was lit up, similar to the effect of lightning. The sky was clear and all stars could be seen.

Caboolture, April 13 1979, 2.00am
The night was fine and we were driving at approximately 40 miles per hour. Ahead the road turned right, and as we cut the corner we noticed a light which we thought was a car with only one headlight. I expected the vehicle to turn the corner any minute, when much to our amazement the light appeared over the cane field on our right. We then saw it was a bright, orange-coloured dome. It came down towards us in the road, hovered for a few seconds, then took off at great speed to the left, just clearing the cane. We slowed the truck down and looked around, but could see no lights at all. There was no traffic on the road, no houses nearby, and not a sign of light.

Bribie Island Road, May 6 1979, 12.30am
Two couples were driving from Bribie Island to Brisbane. The wives were asleep in the back seat. The two men in the front seat could see a group bright orange lights ahead of them in the road, and the surrounding area was brightly lit. The air itself appeared to be luminous, and the inside of the car was lit up. The bonnet of the car also seemed to be a different colour. At this same moment the car’s alternator light went on, the dash lights dimmed, and and the motor started chugging as if it were only firing on two pistons. Almost immediately the group of lights left the ground, flying directly upwards at great velocity. The lights were not seen again.

Eudlo, July 20 1979, 6.30pm
A 31-year old farmer reported that he was coming home on his tractor when he looked up and saw a flashing light. He kept watching it until he reached home, then called his wife outside to see it. He described the object as a small flashing light with a large flash underneath. The object came over towards the house, reasonably close, before moving off in a northwest direction. While the object was now much clearer to the naked eye, the large bright flash was no longer visible as it moved away. Up close the object appeared to be rotating, and the top section was described as looking like a ‘lighthouse.’

17 December 1979  Mareeba, QLD. 3.50am Witnesses W and D were driving from Dimbulah to Mareeba, after the Walsh River crossing. W noticed a bright light at about 15 degrees elevation, so he stopped the truck and woke D who had been asleep. They both watched the object which moved at great speed back and forth towards them at a distance.  It seemed to do this when ever another car approached along the roa, carrying out the maneuver about three times. W and D waved other cars down and approximately nine other witnesses saw the object before it departed from view.

All witnesses then drove on towards Mareeba, but after travelling further down the road,  W and D saw the object once more and watched it for another ten minutes before it again departed. When the object was at its closest (estimates were well over one mile) the witnesses described it as roundish in shape and white with a red glow beneath at times.  AS they drove through Mareenba, W and D saw what they considered to be the same “light” again. It was stationery in the sky and now higher in elevation than before.

When they arrived at their destination another two witnesses joined them to observe the light through a small telescope. Looking through this, a well defined “bright, white saucer-shaped object” could be seen with a blurred underside.  After some cloud passed in front of the object, it reappeared as a “banana- shaped white light” blurred underneath.  Shortly after this the object moved away into the distance fast. The duration of the sighting in total was 1.5 hours.