UFO OVER UPPER LANSDOWNE
Absolutely. The year would have been in the 1949-1950 range, just after my mum and dad sold our farm at the end of Drury’s Lane at Upper Lansdowne, and were going to build a new house in River St Cundletown, on the corner of King St where some of the palms that mum planted have now grown to a gigantic size.
While the new house was being organised, we rented a little old cottage on the property owned by Tom Fahey at the end of Unger’s Lane, before crossing the creek, Tom being the father of the famous Johnny Fahey, who at that stage was keen to demonstrate to anyone who would watch how he could put his horses over the jumps which were nearby to the old cottage. Johnny was only a very young fellow at the time. Johnny used to say to my dad, “Watch me Mr. Bennett”, and over the jumps he would go. The rest is history.
While we were living in the old cottage, my sister, Melva and her husband Neville Barlin, were on a dairy farm at the end of Payne’s Lane, with their house perhaps only a few hundred yards distant from the cottage, so we would occasionally take a walk across a couple of paddocks and a partly cleared track across the corner of a patch of bush.
This particular day, mum and I were heading home fairly late, and darkness was approaching fast. We would have been within a hundred yards of our place when a light up to our right caught my eye. I said to mum, “What is that?” We both stopped and watched this ‘thing’ silently gliding along with a circular soft pale blue light occupying the entire nose area, the rest of the dull silvery grey body of the cigar shaped object disappeared into the gloom at the tail end. We were only able to watch it for no more than about five seconds before it was lost from sight when it was obscured by a large very bushy gum tree.
I ran towards the tree fully expecting it to appear again, but no, there was no sign of it after that, assuming it had turned away or had the nose light turned off.
We soon arrived home and told dad what we had just seen. What to do now? We didn’t have a phone, the manual exchange at the local Upper Lansdowne store would be all closed. The Taree Police were up to twenty miles away, the air force base at Williamtown was out of the question. So it was decided to do nothing as back in those days any reports like this would only be scoffed at anyway. “You were seeing things,” would be the usual reply.
But there is more! Next day on the ABC news was a report of two fishermen on the Peel River at Tamworth who had sighted an object with the very same description as we had seen, just a bit later in the same evening! So there you are, proof enough. We did see a ‘thing’. Both of us saw the same thing at the same time. It was not a weather balloon, a reflection of Venus, or some other made up excuse from any of the Authorities. It was very real.
I have an open mind about these sightings. When one sees a photo of the night sky and the millions and billions of other stars/suns like ours just in our own Milky Way Galaxy alone, not to mention the extensive numbers of other Galaxies in the Universe, there would have to be other life on at least some of them with the distinct possibility of them being millions of years ahead of our technology. Compared to the age of the Universe, I think we are, “Just beginning to crawl” in our stage of evolution.
Being possibly eons ahead of us on this world, any problems with time and distance may not even exist in their vocabulary. They could possibly say like we do here, “Let’s just pop over there and see what is happening in the other parts of the neighbourhood, see if those warmongering nations have destroyed each other, or has peace broken out.”
We are being observed from time to time.
I am sure that the massive Universe isn’t just out there for we humans to gaze at.
This civilisation may discover one day just what is out there and why!
What do you think?
P.S. After putting this story to paper, I have been advised of at least three other people who tell of sightings in the past.
One of my next door neighbours who was also living not far from the Upper Lansdowne Village at the time, described what she saw as identical to my description. Same thing, same time.
Another man who was a resident of the Lansdowne Village in his younger days, was travelling home from Taree one evening, said that after he crossed the rail line at Kundle Kundle and came to the top of the next rise, an object out to the North West was hovering there with a blue/green beam aimed downwards toward the ground. I have read that UFO’s are able to transfer water up to their craft this way, presumably to somehow be used in their propulsion system. Also there is a large dam in that area for the cattle on that property.
He also reminded me of a story that was in the local paper years ago which I had almost forgotten about. A Taree local at the time described what he saw one evening. An object about the size of a small bus was silently rising from an area of Brown’s Creek.
We are not alone!