by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
As far as well-known Australian UFO cases go, a 1988 report of an encounter in a desolate area known as the Nullarbor by the Knowles family, a mother and her three adult sons, is on a lot of lists, including Wikipedia. According to the article headlined “UFO Encounter on Nullarbor Plain Reported” in the January 21, 1988, Canberra Times, the family told police in Ceduna that they were chased by a UFO after watching it chase a truck and a car going in the opposite direction. They reported that it picked up their car, shook it violently, and then put it back down facing the other way with such force that one of the tires was blown. Sergeant Fred Longley of the Ceduna Police is quoted as saying “We have to take it seriously, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t. There were too many witnesses, the car was damaged and was covered in ash from the object and they were clearly shaken up.” While there has been much speculation as to what might have happened (and some doubt as to the validity of the story) there was another instance in Australia in 1971, that not only involved a UFO reportedly picking up a car, but seemingly carrying it for long distances.
The case is one of five written about by Australian researcher Bill Chalker in an article (page 15 of the pdf) headlined “Australian ‘Interrupted Journeys’” published in the Vol. 5, No. 2 (March-April 1984) UFO Research Australia newsletter. The headline is a reference to the 1966 book The Interrupted Journey by John Fuller about the Betty and Barney Hill incident, and Chalker notes in his introduction, “While we lack contemporary cases which demonstratively show, among other things, the elements of abduction, contact and time lapse, Australia, unbeknown to most researchers, enjoyed a rich indigenous tradition of similar accounts.” Here, he is referring to accounts of initiation rituals of aboriginal shaman, “which bare amazing similarities to many modern-day UFO abduction and contact accounts.”
According to Chalker, in 1977, he heard about a “’Hill’ type case” reported in Gladstone-Rockhampton, Queensland, in 1971 and spent two years investigating it. He says his enquiries ranged from Queensland to Western Australia, to Finland and Sweden, and back to Queensland and that he managed to “catch up with the original witnesses.” He then presents an account he is “confident” is “an accurate representation of what happened.”
According to Chalker, on August 1, 1971, a couple from Finland he calls “Ben and Helen K.,” were headed for their home (area not identified) 300 miles past Rockhampton at around 11:30 p.m. after visiting friends in Gladstone. They were low on fuel, and with no gas stations open in Gladstone, they took a risk that they would find an open one on the way.
Chalker describes the night as “foggy and dark.” He says the couple passed over the Calliope River Bridge and just as they were on the other side at the beginning of a “straight stretch of road,” they realized they were seeing a Caltex gas station to the left that was “some 20 miles beyond the Calliope River Bridge!” The station was closed and after going 50 yards past it, Ben K. noticed a green light at treetop level in his rear-view mirror, which Helen K. confirmed.
Ben K. is quoted with commentary by Chalker in parentheses: “Suddenly we had a feeling that we had been driving straight forward all the time. The road seemed straight, foggy, and surrounded by trees (in this area the roads are usually winding) and we had a feeling that we were repeating the same words over and over again. We thought we should have been arriving at Mount Larcom”.
Chalker says the couple then saw a light on their left and a circle of lights above them “similar to the lights on a merry-go-round or carousel.” He then describes them seeing a sign for Port Alma 40 miles north of the river and then suddenly finding themselves outside of Rockhampton at a railroad crossing “20 miles from Mount Morgan.”
Ben K. is quoted:
“We wondered how we had managed to get so far and why we had not seen any villages along the way. We should have seen at least four of them. We felt that something strange had happened to us. We were afraid. I took a rifle out of the trunk and loaded it. We drove to Rockhampton with the rifle on my knees. Our dog, Candy, who usually sleeps in the back seat, was afraid and wanted to come to the front seat.”
According to Chalker, the couple found an open gas station in Rockhampton and when they pulled in, they were shocked to discover that the trip, which should have taken close to two hours, had only taken 40 minutes. They also had no recollection of passing through any villages. The gas station attendant is said to have been interested in the time disparity and “peculiar things” are said to have been noticed about the car, a 1971 Valiant sedan. It’s described as having been covered with a thin layer of oil that the attendant could only determine was some sort of fine machinery oil unknown to him. Chalker describes four identical round marks on the corners of the hood (from which oil ran in two stripes towards the front) that were “one eighth of an inch wide and nine inches in diameter” with a one inch diameter solid circle in the middle. He adds that there was a spot of burnt paint on the left-hand side of the hood that Finnish UFO researchers concluded “came in contact with extreme heat.”
Ben K. is quoted saying that a driver who had passed them before they got to the river pulled into the gas station and couldn’t understand how the couple had gotten to the gas station before him. He then says that they went to the police station to tell their story and quotes a young officer as saying “All I can say is that I have often fallen asleep at the steering wheel and woken up after a 200-300 mile.” Chalker advises the reader to “Beware of somnambulistic police officers in the Rockhamton area!
Ben K. is quoted saying that he and Helen concluded that in the midst of their concern about finding an open gas station, UFOs picked them up from near the river, took them to the Caltex station, and then lifted them up again and took them to the railway junction. He said they continued on and made the rest of the foggy 300-mile trip wishing that the UFOs would return and help out, “but that didn’t eventuate.”
According to Chalker, that night changed the couple’s lives and they saw more UFOs on later occasions. Helen is said to have had telepathic experiences, with one possibly UFO-related, as well as precognition. Chalker says there was an attempt at regressive hypnosis, but each time the couple started to recall the night in question, they shook violently and the hypnotist gave up.