Tania Vassie was playing on the school oval when she looked up into the clear autumn sky to see a “strange, rounded, two-storey disc floating up above”.
The 13-year-old watched, transfixed, as the object moved through the sky erratically, dashing at speed from one direction to another.
Then she ran, yelling, into the school.
Tania Vassie says she saw a disc “zigzagging” in the sky above the school oval. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
“I remember rushing down the corridor, screaming: ‘Flying saucer, flying saucer,’” Tania tells Australian Story.
“Children came from everywhere; teachers came from everywhere.”
So began one of Australia’s most intriguing mysteries — an event so unusual and surrounded by conspiracy theories that it’s only been in recent years Tania has felt comfortable talking about what she swears she saw 60 years ago.
Tania Vassie pictured as a child. (Supplied: Tania Vassie)
Tania wasn’t the only one to see it. Scores of people watched from the school oval — some in amazement, some in terror — as an unidentified flying object swept across the skies above Westall High School and the adjacent primary school in Melbourne’s south-east on April 6, 1966. Some saw up to three objects.
It remains the biggest mass sighting of a UFO in Australian history.
Some of the many witnesses to the “Westall incident” draw what they remember seeing in broad daylight. (Australian Story)
A case of mass hysteria?
Many UFO enthusiasts are convinced it was an extra-terrestrial visitation. Others believe the answer to the mystery lies in a more earth-bound explanation.
Ken Stallard, a former Westall student and retired school principal, believes the object was likely part of a secret military program but argues that, by definition, it was a UFO.
“I saw what I saw and so did all my school friends, hundreds of us,” he says. “It was unidentified, it was flying and it was clearly an object.”
Richard Saunders questions the reliability of human memory. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Richard Saunders of Australian Skeptics Inc does not doubt something happened that day.
“It’s just trying to find the most reasonable explanation without jumping to fantasy … or the very unlikely event of an alien in a spacecraft,” Mr Saunders says.
“People would rather jump to a conclusion which is quite far-fetched, and be satisfied, than simply say: ‘We just don’t know.’”
Westall researcher Grant Lavac points out some sceptics suggest mass hysteria could be at play.
“I don’t think it’s something that can be completely discounted,” he says. “But in the absence of documentary evidence, I can only go off what the witnesses recall and testify to. And so, it’s clear they saw something.”
A mural at Westall Secondary College in Melbourne. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
The Dandenong Journal covered the mysterious 1966 sighting. (Supplied: Dandenong Journal)
James Fox, a US filmmaker who directed the 2020 documentary The Phenomenon that focused on UFOs in the US but included Westall, says most sightings can be explained in “conventional, prosaic terms”.
But, he argues, about 10 or 15 per cent remain confounding. Westall is one of them.
“The significance of the Westall case is the fact that there were so many people, the sheer volume of firsthand eyewitnesses saying the same thing 60 years ago as they are today,” Mr Fox says.
Not only did so many see the objects but multiple witnesses report that within 30 minutes, men in uniform arrived at a spot close to the school where some say they saw the craft descend.
And then, the shutters came down. The school principal assembled the students and told them it was a weather balloon and not to talk about it. Some were ushered into a room where unidentified men told them to not to discuss what they’d seen.
Eyewitnesses like Joy Clarke and Terry Peck wonder if they saw something out of this world 60 years ago. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Today, on the 60th anniversary, witnesses are demanding answers. Many are retired and no longer worried about being ridiculed or jeopardising their jobs by speaking out.
What were the objects? Were they top-secret military prototypes? And why aren’t there any government records documenting these events?
“What frustrates me and I think all the other pupils,” says Tania, who became a marketing and business manager, “is the attempt of having it buried.
“If it really was nothing of significance, well, let’s explain it. I think that’s all that everybody wants to know. Please, tell us what it was.”
Watch The Westall UFO Mystery on Australian Story tonight at 8 (AEST) on ABCTV and ABC iview.
‘Saucer-shaped’ object ‘the size of cars’: Vivid witness accounts
What a scene it must have been: scores of kids and teachers, standing in the school grounds, all peering skywards, pointing, slack-jawed, marvelling.
Even today, the witness accounts from former students are strikingly consistent. Ken Stallard remembers a flying object that was “large, easily visible, circular, silver”.
Ken Stallard was playing footy on the school oval when he saw something moving slowly across the sky. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Former nurse Marilyn Smith says, “there were no windows … it was an oval shape about the size of two or three cars”. Joy Clarke says it moved at incredible speed and was “shiny, metallic [with a] dome in the middle”.
Self-confessed “naughty” student Terry Peck recalls how she and others vaulted the school fence to race after the “saucer-shaped” craft as it moved to a nearby area of bush known as the Grange.
Terry Peck says she saw a swirly pattern of yellowed grass at the Grange. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
“There was this strange thing just sitting there, hovering above the ground, quite big, about one-and-a-half times the size of a large sedan,” Terry says.
Then, she watched as the craft rose slowly into the air. “It turned on its side and it just went straight up into the air, so fast it was almost instantaneous.”
Left behind, says Terry and multiple other students, was a swirly pattern of yellowed grass — and a lifetime of questions.
For Mr Saunders, the consistency of witness accounts should be treated with caution.
“The big misconception is that we have good memories. We don’t,” he says. “When people are on the same page, more or less, there’s a group reinforcement of the common story … This is perfectly natural but it can be misleading.”
Researcher Shane Ryan at the Flying Saucer playground near Westall Secondary College. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Curiosity led former teacher and public servant Shane Ryan to seek answers in 2005 — and he’s been researching ever since.
Mr Ryan learned that four days prior to the Westall sighting, engineer James Kibel was in the backyard of his home in the nearby suburb of Balwyn when he saw a flash of light in the sky.
James Kibel says he took this photo four days before the incident at the school. (Supplied: Courtesy James Fox)
Mr Kibel said he quickly snapped a Polaroid photo of a silver disc in the air. Mr Ryan acknowledges today that it could be a photo of something more mundane, like a bicycle bell or a hub cap.
“I know what James Kibel told me,” he says. “I’m just not in a position to know one way or another.”
Mr Ryan’s detailed research into the Westall sighting has led him to speak with 142 people from the school and surrounding properties who saw the object or objects in the sky and 197 people who saw the ground marks. Seventy-seven witnesses saw both.
“Every person has a slightly different perspective and a slightly different angle,” he says. “It’s amazing to me that there is so much commonality across the witness testimonies.”
Working nearby when the incident occurred, Paul Smith remembers an object changing colour and “becoming translucent at the same time”. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Paul Smith was 16 at the time, and working close by at a market garden, when he stood up to ease his sore back. That’s when he saw something in the sky.
“I didn’t believe it because it couldn’t be happening,” he says.
“And I thought: ‘No, it’s not an aeroplane … It’s just sitting above the power lines in the sky.’”
Shane Ryan says there are people who very clearly remember a military presence on the day of the sighting. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Many told Mr Ryan that over the years, they’d mentioned their close encounter to others and many times, they’d been ridiculed.
Witness Joy Clarke says people have criticised her. “I’ve had abuse over the years and people … calling me crazy. I have one question. Were you there? And they all say no. What have we got to lie about?”
Being able to tell their story to a non-judgemental listener was cathartic for them, Mr Ryan says, “like a relief valve being opened”.
One teacher reported seeing the objects flying at “unimaginable speeds vertically” over the oval, pictured here in 2026. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
One of the people he contacted was Claude Miller, one of the last surviving Westall teachers, who missed seeing the UFO because he was having a tea break before starting playground duty.
But he saw the aftermath: the frenzy of the kids and teachers, the chaos, the confusion.
Teacher Claude Miller (circled) remembers the chaos of the day. (Supplied)
Claude remembers bumping into his friend, science teacher Andrew Greenwood, as he walked back into the school, excited.
“The first words he said to me,” Claude recalls, “was something like: ‘Did you see it? Did you see it?’”
Andrew told Claude that he’d seen a flying craft that accelerated at “unimaginable speeds vertically, disappeared from one spot, turned up in another spot, changed direction, dropped and faded to nothing, then appeared somewhere else”.
Like others that day on the oval, Andrew also saw conventional light aircraft in the sky, seemingly interacting with the objects. The school was near Moorabbin airport.
Students were interviewed, then silenced
Later that day, a special assembly was called. School principal Frank Samblebe laid down the law. There were no such thing as flying saucers, he said. They were not to talk about what they saw to anyone. Get on with your studies and forget about it.
Some have interpreted this as an attempt to cover up the story. Others, like teacher Claude Miller, say the principal’s directive was understandable because: “No one would have wanted their school to be the centre of a UFO sighting.”
Then, some students were taken, separately, to meet with men they’d never seen before. Tania was one of them.
She recalls the men suggesting she had seen a weather balloon.
When she disagreed, they changed their approach, suggesting she should stay quiet. She did so for 50 years.
“I kept my word to the point where I did not discuss it with my mother,” she says. “I did not discuss it with anybody.”
Marilyn Smith was interviewed by The Dandenong Journal on the day of the sighting. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Other kids were bolder. Marilyn and Joy recall walking out of the school that day to see a Channel 9 news team waiting. The two girls and a few boys eagerly recounted the sighting, pointing to the sky in a re-enactment.
As the interviews were wrapping up, a policeman arrived to tell the journalists to leave. Both girls received detention.
A former student’s drawing of his memories of the day. (Supplied)
Teacher Andrew Greenwood also spoke with the local Dandenong Journal newspaper. It would bring him into the sights of government officials who he claimed threatened him with losing his job if he spoke further.
In an interview recorded before Andrew died, he said: “I was told that I would be prosecuted … and that I had to keep quiet about it. Why did I have to keep quiet?”
Loading…The theories: What was in the sky in 1966?
Government secrecy was part of the climate in 1966.
The Cold War was on, the space race was in full sprint, Pine Gap was being planned, and Australia was increasingly used as a staging point for military programs spearheaded by the US.
A boy watches an unmanned moon landing on television in 1965. The 1960s was the height of Space Race fascination. (Getty Images: Bettmann)
“The fact that the story seemed to have been shut down by somebody would make me think it’s more likely to have been military or government involvement,” says witness Ken Stallard.
It was also a time of burgeoning sightings of UFOs, a phenomenon that became part of popular culture when US pilots started reporting encounters after World War II.
The HIBAL balloon program in Mildura helped measure levels of radioactivity in the stratosphere. (Mildura Rural City Council)
One theory was that the object could be related to the HIBAL high-altitude balloon project which measured radioactivity levels in the stratosphere after nuclear tests. The balloons — enormous and silver in colour — launched from Mildura, hundreds of kilometres from Melbourne.
“Some of those balloons got away,” Mr Saunders says. “Did it happen that one of those balloons drifted down to Melbourne? It would explain possibly the appearance of government officials at the school.”
John Sutcliffe says there was no record of a balloon coming down at Westall the day of the incident. (Australian Story: Simon Winter)
Electronics specialist John Sutcliffe is one of the last remaining members of the Mildura HIBAL team working in 1966. He has no recollection of anything coming down unexpectedly in Melbourne on the day of the sightings.
“We went to great deal of trouble to make sure they didn’t land in a metropolitan area,” he says.
“As far as I’m aware, and I’m probably nearly 100 per cent, there was no HIBAL balloon involved in Westall. I would have certainly known about it if it had … and I wasn’t aware of anything like that ever happening.”
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The Jindivik radio-controlled target drone, developed by Australia for guided missile testing, was another suspect, as were the U-2 high-altitude plane flights.
But the Jindiviks and U-2s looked like aircraft — with wings and a fuselage.
A meteorological balloon. (ABC Archives)
Mr Ryan also chased down the weather balloon theory, following on from an article in The Age newspaper at the time, suggesting the object might have been a weather balloon.
“The weather bureau released a balloon at Laverton at 8:30am and the westerly wind blowing at the time could have moved it into the area where the sighting was reported,” the newspaper said.
Mr Ryan disagrees, maintaining the wind data from the day indicates it was blowing from the south-west — meaning that the weather balloon’s most likely track was in a more northerly direction after launching from Laverton in Melbourne’s west.
“There’s no mention of the weather balloon being collected and being identified. And when I looked into the weather data for that day it actually didn’t stack up at all,” he says.
Mr Saunders is less sure. “If we were to invoke the principle of Occam’s Razor, which basically says the simpler explanation is often the best one to choose, then the weather balloon is the likely candidate,” he says.
This April 21, 1966 newspaper article included a drawing of the craft by student Marilyn Smith (Eastwood). (Supplied)
Mr Ryan also scoured newspaper files to find local publication The Dandenong Journal did most of the coverage of the event, picking up on witness reports there were up to five planes flying near the UFOs. The reporters’ attempts to find pilots who could add anything to the mystery failed.
“So, the trail went cold and it went cold pretty quickly,” Mr Ryan says.
Retired Australian Army Lieutenant Colonel Neil Smith, who now works as a military historian, has studied the available evidence about Westall.
He believes the sightings over Westall could have been part of a secret research and development project, most likely run by the US.
And something went wrong.
The fact that other aircraft were sighted near the UFOs suggest to him that “these three UFOs, were off track or going off track”.
“That would account for the rapidity, incredible rapidity of the troops, if I can call them that, who responded within the hour on that day,” he says.
“I can well understand that the witnesses … would have been encouraged not to say anything about what they had seen.”
‘What have you got to hide?’ Witnesses want answers
Sixty years on, Joy Clarke and her former classmates believe it’s way past time for an official explanation of what happened that day.
“No harm done explaining it now,” says Ken Stallard, who argues technology would have moved on significantly. “What have you got to hide? Whoever you are.”
Joy Clarke says she was punished for talking to a news crew. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
Yesterday, to mark the 60th anniversary, witnesses and locals gathered at the Flying Saucer Playground at the Grange, built by the local council to commemorate the event.
“History is something that’s really fragile,” Mr Ryan says as he wanders through the grounds. “Having something physical here then creates an opportunity for people who have come afterwards to know something happened that day, something mysterious.”
For Tania Vassie, the anniversary is a reminder that it’s time for answers.
“It’s okay to talk about it now … at my age, it doesn’t matter if somebody thinks I’m a little bit loony,” she says. “I know what I saw.”
Watch Australian Story’s The Westall UFO Mystery, tonight at 8 (AEST) on ABCTV and ABC iview.
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