A703 580/1/1 Part 2 — RAAF Department of Air HQ UFO Reports

Brief

Part 2 of the RAAF Department of Air 580/1/1 series covers multiple Tasmanian UAP sightings between October 1960 and January 1961. The anchor case is the 4 October 1960 Cressy sighting by Reverend Lionel Browning and his wife: a dull grey cigar-shaped object roughly 100 feet long at 400 feet altitude, traveling at 60–70 mph, that stopped mid-flight, was joined by five or six small saucer-like objects from low cloud, and then reversed back into a rain squall — all within about two minutes, with no sound. A structurally similar object was reported weeks later near Delmont by the Webster family. Wing Commander G.L. Waller assessed the Brownings as credible witnesses while attributing the wave of subsequent community reports to mass hysteria; all folios were reclassified UNCLASSIFIED on 7 May 1982.

Metadata

Agency

Royal Australian Air Force / National Archives of Australia

Release

1959-01-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

218 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED (reclassified from prior classification 7 May 1982)

Tags

cigar-shaped craft, multi-object formation, saucer-shaped craft, hovering, no propulsion, dull grey metallic, silent, Tasmania, Cressy 1960, daylight sighting

Key points

• Reverend Browning's 4 October 1960 Cressy sighting: a dull grey cigar-shaped object approximately 100 feet long, traveling at 60–70 mph at 400 feet altitude, stopped mid-flight and was joined by five or six small saucer-like objects that emerged from low cloud at high speed.p.21
• The smaller objects positioned themselves at roughly half-mile radius around the cigar-shaped craft; both sets of objects then reversed back into the rain squall. Total observed duration: cigar approximately 2 minutes, smaller objects approximately 1 minute. No sound was heard by either witness.p.21
• Wing Commander G.L. Waller assessed the Brownings as stable, responsible individuals who would not perpetrate a hoax, but attributed the wave of subsequent Cressy-area sightings to mild mass hysteria, declining to investigate them further.p.19
• The Webster mother-daughter sighting near Delmont (approximately 14 October 1960) described a 30-foot cigar-shaped craft, dull grey with an orange rear section, hovering below 1,000 feet at an estimated 50 mph before stopping — no visible means of propulsion and no sound confirmed by a second observer.p.15
• RAAF HQ Tasmanian Squadron report noted structural parallels between the Browning and Webster objects: both dull metallic, cigar-shaped, with upward-projecting appendages, slow-moving, and capable of hovering — observed by witnesses with no known contact with each other.p.12
• H.L. Paxton, Senior Engineer at the Hydro Electric Commission, reported a daylight sighting on 5 January 1961 near Oatlands: a stationary point of light lasting approximately three seconds with apparent intensity on the order of the sun, visible despite strong daylight and dark glasses.p.9
• All folios in the 580/1/1 file series were reclassified UNCLASSIFIED effective 7 May 1982, per DI(AF) 810 para 326, signed by Captain A. Perske, AFIS.p.1
• A Department of Civil Aviation officer annotated the blinking light reported over Poatina on 27 November 1960 by E.D. Mills as likely the planet Venus, with cloud movement accounting for the blinking and fadeout.p.7

Verbatim

• In all, the cigar shaped object had been visible for approximately two (2) minutes and the small objects for approximately one (1) minute.

  p.21

Most interesting

• Reverend Browning had been openly sceptical of UFO reports before the Cressy sighting; afterward he accepted an invitation to address the Melbourne Unidentified Flying Objects Society on 16 November 1960.
• The two primary independent witness groups — the Brownings at Cressy and the Websters near Delmont — described structurally near-identical objects (dull grey, cigar-shaped, no apparent propulsion, hovering) with no known prior contact between them.
• Wing Commander Waller specifically individuated the two Browning witnesses, noting Mrs. Browning is not a woman who would be influenced by her husband to believe she saw something which in fact she had not seen.
• Mr. Browning disputed the RAAF's explanation that post-sighting explosions in the Cressy area came from Hydro Electric Commission rock blasting at Poatina ten miles distant, believing the detonations were too close and loud for that source.
• Mrs. H.P. Hall (Campbell Town) was identified as an experienced satellite-transit observer and former WAAF member, lending particular weight to her estimate that the white spherical object moved faster than a Viscount aircraft.
• An 11-year-old witness, Miss S. Webster, was assessed by the reporting Flying Officer as particularly mature for her age and reliable in the main, with exception made only for her judgements of distance and size.