All right, so Matt, I gotta tell you about a dream I had last night.
I had this dream that I was running behind this truck that was going through the forest,
and I don't know why, but it was driving through the forest and I'm running right behind it the
whole night. I woke up exhausted.
I should've seen that one coming up.
Good evening everybody and welcome to the Graveyard. Thank you for joining us tonight.
My name is Adam and my name's Matt.
Now, we'll have a tombstone or settle into your casket and get comfortable because this
is Graveyard Tales.
All right, everybody here we are again Matt. How you doing tonight, brother?
Man, I'm doing all right. Excellent. Excellent. So before we get into it, I just say,
I apologize. I will cut it out if I burp, but I just had a foretaste and I shoved it down
before we started recording. So I may be a smidge gassy, but I'll try to cut it out.
Maybe I'll leave it in for the patrons. I don't know. But we want to say, go check out
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going to be recording some cool bonus episodes tonight. In fact, once we get done with the main
episode here. Yeah. We got a couple of really cool ones too. Yep. And we've done, I mean, it runs
the gamut of stuff. We talk about everything. Some show related stuff, some non-show related stuff,
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graveyard tales. You know, Adam, one of the things that I absolutely cannot stand is having to go
to the grocery store so many times a week just to pick up stuff for supper. Okay. It happens every
week. You know, we we've been to the grocery store. We bought everything we thought we needed.
And inevitably we're going back. Right. But there are times when I know 100% that that's going to
happen and it's when the hello fresh box shows up on our front porch. Right. I mean, we know not
not only do we not have to go to the grocery store. We don't have to decide what's for dinner
because whatever we make is going to be delicious. Absolutely. Amanda and I are probably not going
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have exactly what we need. We're going to have the pre-measured ingredients. They're going to be
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I mean, they do. I mean, they get so excited. And you know, my kids don't get excited about
a home cooking meal. You know, we are we are chicken nuggets and pizza. You know, and until they
yeah, but it doesn't matter what we make with hello fresh, they love it like
um like the broad worst bar with caramelized onions. Oh yeah. I mean, it's fantastic. I love
braille. Decent a slaw and pineapple relish. Ah, it's out of this world. And you know,
everybody in the house just they can't get enough. And right, this summer hello fresh is here to
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And we've done that, Matt. We like the little tequito things that they I don't know. Oh yeah.
You know, they're like a tequito, but normally I think they come with pork. Well, we swapped it
out for beef. And I mean, that it's our palate better. And since they let you do it, we took advantage
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All right, Matt. So that's all the housekeeping I've got. Why don't you tell us what are we talking
about tonight, brother? Okay, so if I told you that there was a potential UFO sighting
where an estimated 300 some odd people witnessed it. You're a liar. But the media never really covered
it. All the people were instructed to not discuss it. And it was pretty much just erased
from, you know, recent history. What would you say? Would you believe that?
You know, I think most of our listeners probably would because we've talked about the government
cover up so much. Yeah. But it's so hard to believe though. But if I said where do you think
that occurred, what would you say? Not where this occurred? Exactly. Exactly. Tonight,
we're going to talk about the West all school UFO incident in Australia. It's right outside
of Melbourne in a little town called Clayton South. And this occurred back in the 60s. And
pretty much it just kind of was like it never happened. Yeah. But yet, even in the last few years,
some of the witnesses have come forward and said, hey, this really did happen. And we were
instructed not to talk about it. Right. All right. So we're going to get into this. And I'm
telling you, it's legit here because normally if Adam and I go into researching a UFO incident,
it's just pages and pages and articles one after the other. It's just not there. Yeah. It is just not
there. I mean, everything you find is within the last few years where these people have started
coming forward and saying, I need to tell this story. It's amazing how, how good governments can
be at scrubbing information. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's incredible. When we get into what these
people saw, I think I think if you've never heard of this before, you're going to be shot. Yeah.
Not granted. You know, this happened prior to the internet, which I know for some of our listeners,
our younger listeners, there's like, they're like, there was a pre-internet days. You mean,
there hadn't always been an internet. But right. Yeah. I mean, the internet came around in my lifetime.
So I remember a pre-internet and a post-internet. So yes, this was pre-internet days. So
that's probably why it was easier for them to scrub some information. Oh, yeah. But still, I mean,
it's they had to do some work for the amount of witnesses to keep their mouth shut.
That's that's it. It's the that that number of people that were present to try to get that many
people to zip it. That's pretty tough. Yep. So as we always say, go check our sources. They're
down on the bottom of the show notes. You can find where we found the information you can keep going.
You, you know, do a deeper dive in the rabbit hole than we're going to do if you would like. And
you can found it. You can found. Yeah. Yeah. I can found a lot of things. I mean, it's going
to be a great night for pronouncing stuff. Oh, yeah, because it's a lot of Australian stuff. And
we're wonderful at that. Oh, yeah. You know how good we are. But you can find the original
information where we got it. So now the West all high school, which is what it was called at the
time of the incident. It's now called West all secondary college was the site of a mass UFO
siding like Matt said. And these always fascinate me due to how many people are there to corroborate
the encounter. So when Matt gets into it, I'm going to be glued to the edge of my seat because
I love these mass sightings like this. But it's located at 88 Rosebank Avenue in Clayton,
South Victoria, Australia. And West all is a suburb located in the southeastern part of Melbourne
Victoria, Australia. So let's look at a little history. Now William West all he was born in
Hartford, England and he grew up in London. Now he was taught to draw by his half-brother Richard
West all who achieved some distinction as a watercolor painter. Now West all was admitted to the
Royal Academy School in 1799. The same year as John Constable. Now in the following year,
he was appointed the landscape artist on the HMS investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders.
Now during the circumnavigation of Australia, he made many pencil and wash landscapes as well as
a series of coastal profiles in pencil. Some of the sketches were lost or damaged when the HMS
purpose ran a ground on a reef in August of 1803. Now West all in his drawings were marooned
on Recre for eight weeks. The surviving works were subsequently shipped to England and given to
Richard West all to be restored. Now he was one of the first professional artists to visit Australia
and his paintings and drawings have enormous documentary value. So interesting that
last name West all and he was the first professional artist to do that for Australia.
Now prior to European settlement, the land on which West all now stands was inhabited by the
War of Jerry people who are part of the Kulin nation. So it was a, it was land that was
inhabited by First Nations people like our previous episode was. So the Europeans came in and
kind of took that land for themselves. But the European settlement of the area began in the 19th
century. Farming and agriculture in the area became some of the most significant industries after
they settled it. Now the major crops that were there that were being cultivated at the time were
Wheaton Barley. Now in 1856 a railway station named West all was established in the area.
The railway played a crucial role in the development of the local community and provided transportation
links to Melbourne and other parts of Victoria. A West all experienced significant residential
development following World War II. During the post war period there was a housing boom in Melbourne
and many new suburbs including West all were developed to accommodate the growing population.
Housing estates were established and the suburb grew with the construction of new homes.
West all is known for its educational institutions and West all primary school was established
in 1958 and has been serving the community since then West all secondary college which is where
this happened is a co-educational government school and it was established in 1960.
So keep 1960 in mind because it wasn't long after the school was established that this
siding happened. Yeah. So West all secondary college like I said was established in 1960 but I've
seen several dates for this like different dates and I think there's a problem going from Australian
internet information to US internet information because the last I thought you were going to say
like the Australian calendar is different. What? Yeah they you know Australians and they're wacky
calendar. They've got they've got 13 months. I mean smart is not a month. I'm sorry.
Lousey smart weather. It was the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month.
So but like I said I've seen several dates. Some said it started in 1964 and opened for class in 1965
which would push it real close to the incident. Yeah. So what we'll say it was established as a school
in 1960 and then somewhere between 1960 and 1965 it opened for class. Yeah. I'm thinking 1965 is
accurate but and and when you when you hear the accounts especially the way they reacted
it makes a little bit of sense that this was a young institution right with new or newer people
that were you know running the show there and I think when you hear the reactions
that's key you know this isn't like you know this happened at Harvard you know somewhere that has
been around for hundreds of years you know it was very young and and I think that that contributed to
you know how how everybody reacted. Yeah and it that building it was initially just a single
building it's grown a lot since then but it was initially just a single building and it was for
students in 7th through 10th grade so again yeah they were they were young a lot of them would be young.
All right so so let's get into exactly what happened. Now at approximately 11 a.m. on Wednesday
April 6th 1966 students and a teacher from West all high school reported seeing a flying object
described as a gray or silvery green saucer shaped craft with a slight purple hue and about twice
the size of a family car okay so that that green silver to purple does that sounds like the that
iridescent color shift paint that you see on some sports cars and stuff and and it's those colors
it's like silver to green to purple okay okay according to the students the object was descending
over flew the high school and disappeared behind a stand of trees about 20 minutes later
the object reportedly reappeared climbed at speed and departed towards the northwest
and some accounts describe the object is being pursued by five unidentified aircraft okay
real quick I'm gonna jump in and say remember what Matt just said that it moved away with speed
right it sped away so keep that amount now over 300 children and staff reportedly witnessed
this UFO or at the time UFOs because they didn't know about the other planes right essentially silently
fly through the sky before landing in the nearby field and that was critical too is it
the the some of the witnesses will say it made no sound that it was you would expect it to be
you know at least here engine roar but they didn't hear any of that
this is the largest mass UFO sighting in australian history but barely anything was reported on it at
the time now over the years there have been differing reports about the exact details of what
happened on April 6 such as people claiming that there were three saucer-like objects
while some say there was just one but in the years since the incident occurred there has been
worldwide speculation about what people actually saw with some believing that it was absolutely
an alien encounter and others pointing the finger at the government testing new technology that
they didn't want to reveal now throughout all the years there has been one particularly
interesting piece of audio that has really been overlooked again this was
that that was hardly any media coverage at all this would have been a huge story and this many
kids to have seen this and gone home and told their parents and this word would have spread of
this fairly quickly even in 1966 yeah there shouldn't have been news agencies that evening
on the lawn of this school that's right that's right I mean they would have been able to tune in on
the television on the radio and get information about what happened look I mean if if somebody
if somebody forgets to flush a toilet in any of my kids schools yeah it's like they're calling all
the parents sending out info okay I'm like you know that you know a potential UFO siding that
almost the entire school witnessed nothing yeah this happened at Michael school like you said
you better believe they would be letting us know but also if they didn't I Michael would tell us
but we'd be having words with the school why didn't you tell us right yeah yeah I mean you
can you imagine all the angry parents what what yeah there was a UFO at school today you mean my
kid called us abducted and you didn't say anything yeah yeah Michael said a spoiled milk jug was
stepped on in his school the other day and everybody knew about it everybody knew yeah knew about it
it had gotten out and you knew about it before he got home I did yeah yeah now Dr. James Mcdonald
who's an American physicist known for researching UFOs conducted an interview with a science teacher
from the West all school Andrew Greenwood now Mr. Greenwood witnessed the event when it happened
Mcdonald recorded himself during their meeting and the details Greenwood gave about his experience
and Mcdonald says Greenwood told me the UFO was first brought to his attention by a hysterical child
who ran into his classroom and told him there's a flying saucer outside he thought this child had
become deranged or something so he didn't take any notice but when the child insisted that the
object was in the sky he decided to go out and take a look for himself now when Greenwood went outside
he says he noticed a group of children looking towards the northeast area of the school grounds
and as he approached them he claims he saw a UFO hovering close to the power lines
Greenwood described it as a round silver object about the size of a car with a metal rod sticking up in
the air according to Mcdonald Greenwood then told him that five planes came and surrounded the
object as more people began gathering to watch the scene and Mcdonald goes on to describe that
Greenwood said it was the most amazing flying he had ever seen in his life
I don't know how much flying Andrew Greenwood had seen that's a good point but
I mean look I haven't seen a lot of flying either but I can be impressed when it looks like
but man that looks really difficult to do you know yeah when the blue angels come across you
you know that's impressive yeah I'm impressed you know I'm not a pilot you know but I'm impressed with
what they can do the planes were doing everything possible to approach the object and he said
how they all avoided collision he said it baffled him that they weren't crashing into one another
but he says every time they got too close to the object it would slowly accelerate then it would
rapidly accelerate and move away from them and stop say this is critical I'm gonna say it again
keep this in mind Matt is telling you that as the planes approach it if it gets too close it moves
away at speed intelligently and then it stops and hovers right and I'm I keep bringing this up
because I've got something to talk about here at the end and I want you to remember all these
details that Matt is telling you right so he said once they would reach it again then it would
take off again you know and the same thing would happen he said this little game of cat and mouse
went on for about 20 minutes wow and by this time Greenwood said about 350 children and staff were
watching so suddenly the UFO shot away and vanished within seconds and it was at this point
that the headmaster came out and ordered everyone to go back to class now over the years there were
reports that the government tried to cover up the incident and stop witnesses from talking but
Greenwood claimed initially that it was the headmaster that first tried to squash the discussion
of the incident he probably got a phone call it's exactly what I thought
he gave the school a lecture and told the children they would be severely punished if they
talked about this matter and told the staff that they could lose their jobs if they mentioned it
at all that's ridiculous yeah ridiculous now Greenwood claimed the headmaster was so quote scared
and disturbed by the incident that he refused to come outside until the object was gone
so when he he's a sissy and because he's a sissy nobody can talk about it so yeah let's get a little
scared let's let's talk about that for just a minute um so 20 minutes they witnessed this going
and and maybe a little bit longer because we don't really know a time frame of how long it was
going on before the child got to mr. Greenwood and Greenwood decided that he needed to go investigate
right so I would say somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes this has been going on in that amount of
time that was at least in my opinion enough for those planes to reach this object and for the
headmaster to get a phone call and as things transpired this headmaster who wasn't out there watching
because he was on the phone with a government official telling him you need to get everybody back
inside and you need to tell them not not to talk about this at all yep um now I do I know that for
sure no I don't that speculation entirely on my part but the way Greenwood is talking about how
this played out it seems very plausible yep said when the Royal Australian Air Force contacted the
headmaster he told them to quote go jump in a lake hmm that that that sounds a little odd to me don't
that it to you yeah um it that sounds like an answer that he gave um yeah I told him to go jump
in a lake yeah right okay look I I'll be honest with you I don't care what's going on if the
Air Force contacts me for something I'm probably not going to tell them to go jump in a lake now I
think you should probably choose your words a little wiser but now if you're talking to your buddy
after the government talks to you like oh man I told him to stick it in their pants I wouldn't
I wasn't having any other mess right yeah the bravado comes out at that point yeah so they say
within about 40 minutes Air Force and Army personnel in their trucks poured into the area and
formed a security barrier around the reserve but knowing the area well Mr. Greenwood and others
were able to sneak in and see what was going on and Greenwood says we saw a circular area like
trampled grass and there were guards around it and there were people in there with equipment
now there have been claims from several witnesses that sharply dressed me in in black suits
visited them and warned them from speaking about the incident and that lines up with a few
experiences that Mr. Greenwood had when he tried to speak with other witnesses about what they
had seen so Mr. Greenwood spoke to local news reporters about the incident but became frightened
about speaking out when two weeks after the incident two men claiming to be government officials
knocked on the door of his home one in plain clothes and the other one senior Air Force Mr. Greenwood
the man told the teacher he was mistaken about what he saw and had he really even seen anything
and so Greenwood responds he says in this interview absolutely I was threatened I was told that I
should not say anything about it and when he tried to explain to them that they weren't there
I was I know what I saw the first suggestion was that quote you'd be ill advised to go on saying
that because clearly you were drunk on duty and we'll have to be reported to the education
department and of course you will lose your job so if if that's not a threat I don't know what is
yeah that that's straight up a if you say anything we're going to make sure that you get fired
will lie and make sure you get fired yeah drunk yeah oh he must have been drunk yeah he was drunk
around the kids we we knew he was we'd smelled it on his breath and they'll pay somebody or threaten
somebody to say they witnessed it as well right right so Mcdonald says in the from the interview
that at the time of seeing the UFO Greenwood was a skeptic and he had never really considered
the plausibility of UFOs existing but when he asked the teacher to describe when they asked
when Greenwood asked the physical education teacher to describe what she had seen herself
so that he can compare it with his own observation he said she wouldn't say anything
Greenwood also reportedly spoke to one of the older students who described the event in great detail
exactly as he had seen it but when he spoke to her again about half an hour later she wouldn't say a
word I think that's just that that's clear that people are getting to them and telling them to
they're intimidated now I will say this it's probably in 1966 it probably wasn't that difficult
for someone in a position of authority to threaten and subdue a bunch of kids sure no matter what age
you know if we're talking about 7th through 10th grade yeah what are what are we talking about like
12 to what maybe 15 16 okay kids you know and you've got the headmaster of your school talking about
you'll be severely punished you may even had some of these government officials coming in talking
to these kids going you don't need to say anything about this yeah and and I'm sure they were scared
oh yeah but field tyranny who was 15 at the time of the sighting
backs up what Greenwood describes and says she remembers seeing three silver disc dish-like
shaped objects with a dome at the top in the sky she claims none of them made a sound
we weren't allowed to talk to the media Mr. Ernie said they told us all to go to the quad wrangle
the headmaster was adamant that we had seen nothing so it's not it now it's going from
don't talk about it to you didn't see anything you didn't see what you think you saw that was
something else or it was nothing yeah you know you forget that this ever happened and move on
yep I mean that if that's strong armen right there I mean you know we're just we're gonna we're
gonna threaten we're gonna tell these but not only are we gonna tell him hey we need to keep this
quiet they're gonna tell him you didn't really see that at all yeah your gaslighting him
which is a kid you know isn't that one of the worst things you can do is is have an adult
not believe you or tell you straight out no that's not what you saw or that's not how it happened
oh yeah I mean that's one of the most frustrating things as a kid that I remember is having an
adult that just wouldn't listen but if that adult has been contacted by officials that says you're
gonna lose your job at this school you know you'll never be able to teach again you'll probably
have to leave Australia if you ever want to find an education job um don't talk about this and tell
your students not to talk about it then you know he's he's gonna put some you know gravitas behind
his words and really try to instill some fear in these students and you know Greenwood didn't think
that it had anything to do with the headmaster threats as he says nobody really took him all that
seriously um and he knew for a fact that the student that he spoke with didn't go to the meeting
where he made the threat so that one student that talked about it in detail and then wouldn't
say anything about it 30 minutes later um obviously somebody else had gotten to her right so
somebody else had told her don't talk about it don't say it worked maybe talk about it you're
gonna be in trouble right now Shane Ryan has investigated the West all incident for more than 15
years and Ryan says another piece of information has come through that somebody who lived
locally to West all at the time said he knows personally one of the seven pilots who was up in the
air from Moribon Airport and were witnesses to what happened that day and that's it
there is there is no further information from Shane Ryan about what this potential pilot had to say
um what he was doing what his instructions were um but you know he this person obviously
claimed that they were one of the pilots that was flying around this thing but you know this
this came out I think in 2021 you know so just not even two years ago so there's a really good
chance that it hasn't been published yet but as I said at the beginning of the show there was
some difficulty finding information on this at all other than just you know even the Wikipedia page
is remarkably bear um for a UFO incident like this um so there there's a really good chance that
that this article did come out and I couldn't obtain access to it but you know I tried because I
thought okay here we go I'm gonna find out what this pilot say it's there's nothing there yeah I
couldn't find it either I was curious myself and I looked and I didn't see it so I mean what what
could this have been like I mean outside of the realm that it is a true UFO from wherever
what else could it possibly have been um that these people would have mistaken for a UFO what
would have prompted a response from the government like that huh I know what atoms gonna say
yeah so let's look at some of the theories atom people have told us I got some I got some
pretty dumb ones um then I want your thoughts on map so the one of the main reasons that I was
telling you to pay attention to some parts of what Matt was saying was for this first theory
that is put forth um it's from an article um from the herald son out of Melbourne
so this says quote West all UFO incident was actually government radiation testing reports reveal
radiation testing radiation testing it says although federal and state government agencies
refused to comment about the 1966 West all incident at the time it is now believed that
rather than a UFO what landed was an errant an errant high altitude balloon used to monitor
radiation levels after the controversial Marlinga nuclear tests the Hibble program was a joint
US Australian initiative to monitor atmospheric radiation levels using large silver balloons
equipped with sensors between 1960 and 1969 documents held by the national archives and
former department of supply indicate one test balloon launched from mildura may have been blown
off course and came down in Clayton South in a paddock near West all high school alarming and
baffling hundreds of eyewitnesses including teachers and students says after hovering over the
area it landed at an area known as the grain behind the grove of pine trees before taking off
again and being pursued by several light aircraft in a siding which lasted 20 minutes from 11am
on April 6 1966 so I just at Matt okay now when have we heard before
that it was just a balloon a weather balloon a high at altitude balloon yeah well many times almost
every time yeah it's a a go to excuse and they must have learned from the
uh
Roswell crash that the balloon theory will work but what they're saying is that
the the weather balloon was to test this radiation and it landed
and then took off again and landed again and it was followed by light aircraft
the problem is the witnesses say that there was intelligent control of the craft
that it did not let the planes get too close to it they didn't call them light aircraft
they were uh air force they said yeah it says planes everything I saw said planes
right so it wasn't like hang gliders or whatever you know or by wings or
that some they're out there with like a a parachute and a big fan strapped on their back flying around
those little uh bicycles that they before they invented their plane where they would run and
rotate like the propellers above them they're out there chasing it down and one of those
uh
maybe they work maybe those things worked in Australia I don't know but
hell I got choked when you said
um but the way this article puts it is that it was just a balloon that landed near them
and they mistook this balloon for a UFO and there are pictures of a similar to what they're
talking about balloon that they're showing and I mean the the Hibble thing yeah that was a deal
they were testing they I mean but it makes for a good excuse to brush this off right right
I mean you know and and sure I'm sure a lot of UFO reports could directly be related to
weather balloons sure if you just see it off in the distance yeah right I mean you don't know
what it is it's moving kind of weird um but you know they're not all weather balloons
and weather balloons don't typically move with any kind of control other than the wind right
I was gonna say they follow the direction of the wind they won't go against the wind right
they don't I mean they don't turn they just go straight with the wind and yes I can see it
touching down and coming back up that's possible we've seen I mean hot air balloons can do it I've
seen helium balloons do it they float down to the bottom you know hit the ground and then they
kind of float back up a little bit but they don't usually take off at an accelerated rate
right and yeah dodge airplanes yeah to move away from something that's observing them
mm-hmm and then as they catch up to it it moves away again right so that's the thing it was it
would stop after it got a certain distance away it would stop and basically wait on them to get
close to it yeah it wasn't a steady pace of a balloon it's just I don't I don't know it doesn't
it doesn't really make sense based on the the mobility of what the witnesses saw
that it could have been a weather balloon I mean the the look of it everything that yeah it
it probably did look similar to the to the hibble balloon but they didn't move like that
right so it just that that seems to rule it out right there mm-hmm
and I'll try to in patreon try to post a picture of that hibble high altitude balloon
and the picture that is going around that is supposedly the circular impression that was made
by the craft when it landed because there was a drawing that showed a large circular area with
three points in the center of it in kind of a triangle pattern where it touched down but then
there's also a photograph of a circular depression and tall grass that is claimed to be from the
west all you have both sides where it landed and I'll post both of those in patreon and you tell me
if you think that balloon could create a circular depression like what is in the ground but then
also take off again because if this balloon landed and created a circular depression the balloon
would have deflated and laid on the ground it would not have been able to get back up and fly off
again right yeah exactly and when you see those pictures of the depression and that kind of stuff
it makes you think yeah something something touched down and was there long enough to create a
depression and then took off again something heavy yeah yeah something heavy all right so the next
next one I've got it kind of it ties into that that first thing it says
the theory is misidentification and that this one theory suggests that the witnesses may have
misidentified conventional objects or phenomena such as weather balloons aircraft or natural
atmospheric phenomena according to this theory the witnesses perception and interpretation of
the events could have been influenced by various factors leading to a mistaken belief in the
presence of a UFO I don't think and and I see this a lot I'm sure you do too Matt that during
UFO encounters one of the major debunking arguments and what I've got is basically the same
debunking arguments that we see in every UFO incident but it's atmospheric phenomena
now granted there are some crazy atmospheric phenomena that happens some of it that you
wouldn't think would happen like the sprites that happen from lightning they flicker up you know
above the clouds in the atmosphere the ground to cloud lightning uh uh ball lightning all kinds
of stuff it's all weird atmospheric phenomena however I don't think you can say atmospheric
phenomena would make 300 plus witnesses describe the same type of craft doing the same thing
hmm right because yeah okay atmospheric phenomena all right I don't even know what atmospheric
phenomena would resemble a UFO shaped like that and if it was atmospheric phenomena why would
there be jets following it yeah right what would they following you know are they are they storm
chasers or something yeah exactly I think if it was something like this and it was an atmospheric
phenomenon it would it would be dangerous to some degree yeah yeah you certainly wouldn't have
planes um chasing after it and it moving away from them right and then having all these it's
right there by a school you know you're not somebody's not contacting school going get the kids
inside it's a you know there's something dangerous outside what yeah ball lightning they could die
get them inside yeah none of that was happening right at least right there were no reports of that
happening right all right so this next one is it's it's my hands down favorite and my favorite I mean
least favorite the the one that my favorite I hate it yeah basically yeah and you'll know it
when I say it because I have expressed my opinions on this before but mass hysteria or hoax
oh yeah says another theory uh reports that the incident was a result of mass hysteria or a
deliberate hoax it suggests that the witnesses may have been influenced by each other's beliefs
or that a small group orchestrated the event to gain attention or create a sensation skeptics
argue that the lack of concrete physical evidence and a limited official investigation supports
this theory now you know how I feel about mass hysteria in order for something to be hysteria
for your brain to play a trick on you like you get so scared you know let's say you're being robbed
and you've got a gun pointed at your face you are going to be hysterical
and that gun is going to seem like it's 45 feet long yeah it's the biggest thing that you've
ever seen this is a monster of a person they're ginormous they're mean they're angry they probably
got smoke billowing out of their beard like black beard the pirate something okay what that is
is your brain coping with something and your internal thoughts feelings memories and everything
playing into and creating a narrative yeah right in order for 300 plus people
to have the same mass hysteria event their memories their feelings their imagination everything
would have to be the same and that's mine and yours are not right mine and Ashley's are not
now you and your sons are not but the mass hysteria theory makes that
necessary for it to be true and I that can't happen that I'm sorry but you can't have a group of
300 people imagine the exact same thing because you get a lot of eyewitnesses in a crime that will
describe different things though they were both witness to the same vehicle driving away some
of them will say was blue some of them say it's red so I hate the mass hysteria argument
and that one needs to be scrubbed from the bush yeah just take it out debunkers think of something
else mass hysteria is not a valid argument I'm sorry it's not so find another low hanging fruit
if you're going to try to debunk something don't go with mass hysteria and the hoax thing
if it were a hoax why are there planes chasing a hoax yeah exactly and even if it was a good enough
hoax that it would have prompted this kind of response how how did they make it move away
who's who's got the balls to you know to go up air forces here we're done we're done
geek is up whatever no to keep toying with it and then be able to get it away
okay I had a drone in 1960 true absolutely I mean where was the technology for
somebody that would be willing to to do some kind of hoax like this where where did they get
this from you know what what what kind of support I'll tell you this it wasn't one person
if it was it was a group of people and what do we know about a group of people in something like
this somebody will talk yeah in in the 50 some odd years since this happened somebody was gonna talk
sure if it was a hoax at least said they did it for the recognition they'd say yeah I was
part of that hoax look what we did we got the government to chase us you know so I know you
know nobody wants to go to jail no you know so yeah they were all scared but somebody somebody if
they were involved in in a group of people that were perpetrating a hoax I think in this
amount of time somebody would have finally come forward or somebody on their deathbed would have
said hey we were we were responsible for the West Hall UFO thing and then you know pass on
yep what's like that saying the only way for two people to keep a secret is for one of them to be
dead right so you can't have two three four five people however many it would have taken to pull
this off never say anything since 1966 so I don't I mean could it have been a hoax maybe maybe
so what yeah seriously doubt it yeah I seriously doubt it because you're at this small school
outside Melbourne it's not like you're doing it in downtown Melbourne you know if you did that
okay maybe there'd be a little more notoriety and I would say maybe it was a hoax somebody was
screwing with the the people of the town but you're in West all well what's out there yeah it's not
a not a huge hub so and then the mass hysteria thing just I'm not even going to
entertain that anymore yeah I mean you know that to think of this as a hoax you would expect that
somebody would have been able to uncover it like those meddling teenagers and their lousy dog
I mean does that not sound like something like that I mean it's a Scooby-Doo episode for
crying out loud somebody has got some nefarious plan and they perpetrate this hoax
in order to draw attention away from whatever it was they were doing but the problem was is there's
there's no evidence that anything happened while this was going on and everybody's attention was
looking up it wasn't like the school guy robbed or taken over or anything right right so it just
doesn't it doesn't make sense that this much time has passed and like I said either somebody has
decided to come clean or there was some evidence that somebody was benefiting you know financially
or somehow to doing this and yeah we hadn't seen that right all right so I've got two more
each is ridiculous is the last but the first of the last two some theories explore the possibility
of psychological factors playing a role in the West all UFO they suggest that witnesses may
have experienced hallucinations illusions or altered states of consciousness leading to leading
them to perceive something extraordinary that wasn't objectively present
what did you pump in hallucinations into the school like somebody's out there smoking mushrooms
of the school that's what I was going to say I wish we had the menu for lunch that day
today's pizza is what it was I was very steak with mushrooms yeah wink wink everybody's hallucinating
all the brownies for dessert you get the maybe it was I was for brownies maybe that didn't everybody
trip the same way on I wasca you know that's kind of the story but they puked their guts out prior to
and I remember any any saying but yeah they I wasca actually we want to do an episode on the machine
elves from I was so if this was I wasca they would have all seen machine elves they wouldn't have
seen a UFO being chased by five yeah and they would have all puked yeah but what would cause 300 plus
people students and adults the kids adults ranging in age to all hallucinate or have an altered state
of consciousness for 20 to 30 minutes to experience a UFO incident I I don't even have a theory as
to what could have done that and oh yeah they're scared which can alter your state of consciousness
like I just said about the being robbed thing but 300 people exactly yeah the psychological
factor argument doesn't work for me so the last one I got is another explanation positive that
witnesses memories of the event may have become distorted over time memory can be subject to errors
this says inaccuracies and external influences which could have shaped the way witnesses recall
and interpret the incident okay except that what some said they saw initially is what they still say
they saw nothing's changed and according to Andrew Greenwood the other people that he has spoken to
that have relayed their story relay the exact same story exactly and and there are others
students now that have come forward you know they're all you know older adults now yeah you know
they were they were 10 years older or 13 14 years old back in 1966 they're all adults probably
have grandchildren and and they're coming forward and saying yeah this this it's this is real this
really happened and we were that's the other key is they all say we were told not to talk about it
right we were threatened not to talk about it and some will say we'll see that proves that it
was the radiation testing because they wanted to keep that a secret no but why would you allow it
to be a UFO sighting if it was actually balloon a you radiation testing and what why the hell would
you do radiation testing that close to a school right I mean that doesn't mean it blew off track but
how can something blow that far off track when you're going from the testing the Marlinga
um Adam bomb thing to now you're in West all I don't know but
that that's all the debunking theories I've got and all the crap I can talk about them so Matt
what what do you think happened what what do you think that this was I honestly think that this
was an unknown craft um whether it was alien or it was another country we don't know I'm not saying
100% that it was an alien craft um but it was definitely foreign of some ilk and the Air Force wanted
to check it out and they needed to check it out as soon as possible so it didn't want them to check
it out right it it wanted to kind of play games with them and back away from them and and keep
them at a distance um but what I I know a lot of people will will look at not just you and I but
other other people um that that talk about UAPs and UFOs and all this and you're going well
you debunk all these theories because you want it to be a UFO and in reality sure I do I'll be
honest I want it to be real I mean I think that would be so cool but I want it to be real enough
that I will absolutely entertain any plausible explanation to show that it's something else
because I don't want to believe in something that is a hoax or an experimental aircraft
or whatever weather balloons I don't care I I don't want to say look we have no idea what this is
and it legitimately be something else so the reason we debunk these theories is because
they're garbage I mean they are garbage come come to me with a solid theory as to what this
was and explain to me how it moved why did you ask all these students to not talk about it why did
you threaten teachers with their jobs um if it wasn't something else if it was a weather balloon
who cares who cares I mean nobody's going to care you certainly aren't going to go to a headmaster
of a school and go listen you could lose your job if you talk about this it's a weather balloon
why not just telling hey hey I bet you got students out there looking at this weather balloon
um it's it's blown off course we we've dispatched pilots to try to make sure that it doesn't land
in a residential area we're watching it keep your kids inside we don't want anything falling
off of this thing and the headmaster's like oh thank you so much for the call hey everybody let's
get these students in you don't threaten them right right you know you don't threaten somebody
you tell them hey this is what this is and for our safety we need to be inside
and then you allow them to talk about it and say this is what happened because if you then
keep it a secret then the theories start that's right the wild the wild theories start when you
try to silence something so I mean like I said yeah I want it to be something you know unusual
and explained I do but even more than that I want an explanation as to what it really was
and then I'll be like hey it sounds good to me I mean Lord knows on this show enough we have gone
and said yeah this don't sound real you know this sounds made up this sounds like a hoax this sounds
like somebody attention seeking this doesn't really sound like any of that no and I was going to say
the same thing I'm like if you have a valid theory that debunks it being a UFO I'm more than happy
to have that because I would rather have an explanation than not have an explanation for this but
you can't just throw word salad out there and expect that to be okay with us you know if you
start saying mass hysteria or that all of these kids were tripping and having hallucinations
once I'm not going to just gobble that up because you said it and I don't want to believe in UFOs
so I'm gonna say that's the thing and I think that's the big deal is the argument that you and I
and people like us would debunk the debunking is because we want to believe but we can say that
about the other thing too you're throwing these invalid wild-ass theories out here because you
don't want there to be UFOs yeah you absolutely do not want there to be anything unexplained so you
will try to explain it with craziness mm-hmm rather than have a mystery and I'm okay with a mystery
I think you know you you can take out a step further if you're a military and you're charged with
protecting your country what you don't want is for your countrymen to believe that you're inept
at being able to do this and that something just flew over a school that could have could have had
explosives could have been loaded down with weapons you know you you want everybody to feel like
hey our military can protect us I mean we had something similar to this earlier this year in the
US and we've done a show about all of these balloons these spy balloons that were shot down over
the period of about a week um you know the the US military wanted to show hey we're we're handling
this we're on top of it we're watching it you know we're making sure it's not dangerous we're
going to take it down okay but we're also going to give you a bunch of crap about what it really
like leave the crap part out of it you know just tell me what you think it was even if you don't
really know just give me give me your best guess you know if you just if you just flat out don't know
then just say we don't know we don't really know what this is where it came from nobody's
owning up to it um that's why we were flying planes at it we don't know what it is either that's
right um you know I I hate that that governments don't give their people enough credit um that you
know you you can't reason with population but you know to be honest if we look at the last 20
years especially in the United States you know reason went out the window a long time ago
but nonetheless you know I really think at the time in 1966 um for the Australian military to
respond to this the way they did and yet nobody was supposed to talk about it or discuss it
it just it's too much of a mystery and now with people coming forward alien not alien
whatever something happened that day um people witnessed this people were threatened and it's only
now years later that information is beginning to trickle out and and trickle is the optimum word here
I mean it is you are not getting a day loose of info I mean it is you know it is it is dribbling
off the chin that is it yeah but you know we we always do this we always say tell us what you
think but I'm gonna take it a step further well I know we have a lot of listeners in Australia um you
guys have access to news outlets and information that Adam and I do not if you know something about
this if you have seen something about it um if if you have anything else um let us know and of
course if it's something you even though our Facebook group is private if it's something you don't
feel comfortable sharing even in a semi public forum you know shoot shoot graveyard tells a message
um you know we we will keep it private if you tell us hey don't mention this on the show or on the
air anything we will absolutely abide by that um but I would have no idea how how good Matt and I
all right keep in secrets that's right like that time you and that oh yeah exactly
never mind you didn't hear anything but do reach out to us and let us know um hopefully we get
some more information we can do a follow up down the line to see what the latest um what the latest
theories or ideas are if any new witnesses have come forward uh to share what they saw hey and I
mean good or bad if you if you if you've got an explanation that says this is exactly what it was
and here's the evidence great I'd love to see it because we couldn't find it um but as I said
I mentioned our Facebook group um it it is a private group and it is there for people to share
those kind of stories and not worry about being ridiculed or called a nut job or anything like that
we just love to hear these kind of stories and personal experiences are the absolute best
um and when you're done with that you can go check out our website which is graveyardpodcast.com
and there you can find links to purchase graveyard tells merchandise you can listen to the show
and you can become a patron and as Adam mentioned earlier uh we're we're recording bonus episodes
tonight after we do this show we've got some really cool ones and we've got some amazing ones
in our catalog um you know you you got that summer road trip that you're going to take this year
hey listen to some extra graveyard tales along the way that you hadn't heard before
hey it's a great way to pass those uh those long car rides so and patron allows you to
add an rss link into your pod catcher so you can listen to all of our bonus episodes
same way the same way it would a regular main episode it's like it's like some kind of magic
voodoo just it's all of a sudden you've got extra graveyard tale that's crazy I don't know how
they do it it's magic I know I know um but man this I tell you what I had I had only heard
mention of this maybe a time or two um but this this was this was extraordinary
interesting I hope we get some more information from our Australian listeners but until next time
we'll save you a seat in the graveyard see you soon
you